We invited them over earlier but . . . “I thought they weren’t getting here until later tonight?”
“Obviously this lady’s pad made them change their mind.”
“Wait,” I call, rushing to catch up as a flicker of warning squeezes my chest.
But she’s already skidding across the tasseled rug and reaching for the door.
My Fae senses roar to life, and I know without an ounce of doubt that something bad is about to happen. Every bone aches with that knowing—a knowing so real, so insistent that I would stake my life on it.
Ignoring the rational part of my brain that says I’m about to do something highly illogical and embarrassing, I launch myself at Mack. My hands clamp down on her shoulders, and I use my momentum to catapult us both past the opening door. She tumbles into the far wall, and I can do nothing but brace myself as I follow.
My head collides with hers. Pain ricochets inside my skull before moving to my ribs where her elbow digs.
Groaning, I glare at the doorway, ready for anything.
Inara and the Six. Hellebore. A darkling invasion.
Instead, all I make out through my spinning vision is . . . a puff of hazy black? I blink, unsure if what I’m seeing is real or from my very probable concussion.
The dark cloud dissipates within seconds. Did I make that up?
“Why so violent?” Mack breathes.
I slide off my friend and lean against the wall. The feeling of foreboding is gone, replaced by total embarrassment.
“I don’t know—I felt something was wrong.”
Like a giant, disappearing cloud. Not.
Mack gingerly touches a growing red lump on her temple. “Your head is harder than Zinnia’s cornbread.”
“If she ever hears you say that you’ll have another lump to match that one.”
The soft flutter of wings draws my attention to Ruby. She’s zigzagging down the stairs, either half-asleep or drunk, her arms stretched wide around a bundle of Twizzlers from Mack’s care package. Her iridescent wings shimmer like sparkles around her.
She hovers in front of the air, sniffs, and then lets out the world’s most adorable sneeze. “Why are there cute little black death fungi on the porch?”
I massage my neck. “What’s black death?”
Mack’s gasp draws my attention. Her bronzed skin has blanched to match the eggshell color of the wall. “Are you sure, Ruby?”
“Pfft.” Ruby somehow folds an entire Twizzler into her mouth and swallows it whole. “Of course I am. Do you know how many Evermore students have gotten high off these babies? Once, an Autumn Court first year Evermore inhaled too many spores and thought one of the selkies was his girlfriend. They found pieces of him the next day floating in the pond.”
Mack’s eyes are huge as they slide to me. “You saved my life.”
I climb to my feet and then help her up. She lifts her silk pajama shirt up to cover her nose and mouth. A talon of dread taps my sternum as I do the same.
The mushrooms sit on the gold and purple doormat that says, Welcome. The slender bell-shaped fungi are a deep charcoal color, their tops open like hungry mouths.
Mack drops her face covering. “It should be safe. They already released their toxins.” Her mouth tightens and then she exhales. “The spores make Faerie-kind hallucinate, but mortals . . . it’s deadly. Even a single spore could have stopped my heart in less than a minute.”
A hot, roiling anger rushes through my veins. If I had hesitated, if I had acted a second later, my best friend in the entire world would be dead.
Dead.
“Why would someone do that?” I say stupidly, even though I already know the answer.
In case I didn’t, though, someone left nice little notes scrawled all over the porch in massive red paint.
Go home, fake Fae wannabe loser.
Mortals suck.
You will never be one of us.
And my personal favorite, Die, bitch, die.
I try to think of something humorous to say, but my heart is racing out of control. A sudden, paralyzing panic crashes over me like a tsunami.
It’s not even the first day and I almost lost Mack. All because she’s friends with me.
I stumble backward a step. “They’ll never stop until they kill someone.”
Someone I love.
A gentle squeeze of my hand drags me back to the surface. Cornflower blue eyes hold mine. “This is not your fault,” Mack declares, her face screwed into that stubborn look I know so well. “Summer, did you hear me?”
“You almost died.” The words break open the wounds from last year. My fears and guilt.
“But I didn’t, and guess what? Anything here can kill me. I’m just as likely to accidentally mix the wrong herbs together or get mauled in Mythological Creatures class. Don’t you see? It’s not you that’s dangerous, Summer. It’s this place.”
“Sometimes I feel like this entire land is toxic to us.”
Mack jerks me toward the door. “Not us. You’re Fae, bitch. How can you expect them to accept you when you can’t accept yourself?”
“The annoying one does have a point,” Ruby cackles from somewhere near my feet. I follow her squeaky voice to see the deranged sprite curled inside one of the shrooms, her face pressed into the walls.
“Wait, is she . . .”
“Licking it?” Mack wrinkles her nose. “Have fun with that.”
Ugh. “How many licks does it take to get high?”
“Weeeeeee!” Ruby darts from her psychedelic drug den, slams into the side of my head, and burrows into my hair, where she begins petting and stroking my ear. “Good little furry tall goat. There there. I won’t let that angry troll eat you.”
Dammit.
“Troll?” Mack parks her hands on her curvaceous hips. “That pint-sized psycho better not be talking about me.”
“She’s not,” I lie just as the metal-on-metal scrape of a tiny sword unsheathing fills the air.
Ruby stabs the toothpick toward Mack. “Try it and die, troll scum!”
“Ruby, if you see the light, you should go to it. I hear that’s where they keep the eternal Sour Patch Kid supply.”
I shake my head. “That’s cruel.”
“No, that’s merciful.” Rolling her eyes, my best friend pivots to leave. “Keep the druggie away from me or I’m flushing her down the toilet.”
I don’t argue. That’s honestly more than fair at this point.
Disentangling Ruby from my hair, I hold her out away from my face before she blinds me with her blade. All black eyes the size of peas dance in their sockets as hysterical laughs bubble from her gaping lips.
“What am I going to do with you?” I scold as I march back inside, slamming the door behind me.
“Pretty, fluffy tall goat.” Ruby beams at me like I’m a piece of lemon cake. “Who’s the bestest goat in all of the world? You are.”
Tucking her under my armpit, I wearily climb the stairs. If this is any indication of what the rest of the school year will be like, I’m screwed.
9
I’m lying in my queen-sized bed wondering how I’ll ever sleep when Mack peeks her head in the door. “You awake?”
I kick my sheets off and sit up. “Yep.” I shoot an annoyed glance at Ruby. She’s inside the multi-tiered cat house I bought her this summer, hanging onto the neck of Tall Goat singing “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus at the top of her lungs. “Whoever introduced her to country music deserves to get shanked in the eyeball.”