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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Hangover aside, I wake up feeling kind of shitty because, to some degree, a very small degree, I’m bribing Zander to help Liv.

But honestly, there’s a big part of me that genuinely wants to go to the Mardi Gras ball with him.

I don’t know if I should trust that part of myself, but I can’t deny it’s there. And hey, at least it assuages my guilt.

That is, until Mom calls and compounds it. Liv and I have just gotten back to our room, still warm and damp from our showers. I let Mom rattle on about Jamie as I unwrap and comb my hair. Funny, I haven’t spoken to her in a month and all she can talk about is my brother.

I’m hoping this means she won’t bring up sororities, but she does. After her lengthy lecture on continuous recruitment, I say, “I’ll keep my options open.” It’s my new motto. Open to anything, closed to nothing. Except lying faeries.

Satisfied, Mom asks, “And how’s my Zander?”

Shit. I never told her we broke up. But right now I don’t need the drama. “Good,” I reply. I saw him last night and he looked just fine to me. Perfectly healthy .

“And he’s not doing anything about this whole sorority fiasco?”

My back and shoulders tense up. “What can he do?”

“He’s president of O-Chi. No one has more clout than he does.”

I speak through gritted teeth, “He knows I don’t want him to interfere.”

“But why not? If he talked…”

I create a diversion. “The Mardi Gras ball is this weekend.”

“Oh, that’s right!” she gushes. “How exciting. Where is it again?”

“The Hilton in Asheville.”

“Are you sure you have the right shoes for that dress? Is there someone you can borrow from if the silver pumps don’t look right? Oh damn, I meant to order you that necklace I saw on Etsy. Well, it’s too late now. How about your pearl satellite choker? Or you could…”

I tune her out as I search my wardrobe for something soft, cozy, and self-care-ish to wear today.

Now, where are my pink fleece socks? I thought I washed them the last time I did the laundry.

Mom’s still rambling, reminding me to take pictures at the ball and asking me to tell Zander she and Dad say hello.

“Will do, Mom. Gotta get some studying done. Gonna be a busy weekend.”

After we say goodbye, I toss my phone onto my bed like it’s contaminated. I’m deceiving my family, deceiving Liv, deceiving Zander.

I’m no better than Leo.

Even though I can never forgive him.

After an hour of distracted, unproductive studying, I finally decide to sneak off to a study lounge and call Avery. My anger with her and Aaron has mellowed over the week, and now all I want to do is commiserate. After all, for a long time, Leo lied to them too.

As I hoped, Avery is sympathetic. “He kept insisting he was going to tell you.”

“When did he tell you ?” If her answer is “months ago” then she’s back on my shit list.

“He didn’t. I saw him. You know, saw him, saw him.”

“Saw him?” So he didn’t voluntarily confess? “When? ”

“Like two weeks ago. It was the day after we did the ancestor ritual.” She describes how she was pruning the plant Leo had revived and had a vision of him healing it—in his fae form.

Not sure if she should trust what she saw, she confronted him, forcing him to come clean.

But unlike me, she wasn’t all that shocked.

“I already had some suspicions,” she admits. “And getting a good look at his ring that night, I dunno, I think it totally opened me up to the truth.”

I guess after years of being a witch and honing her psychic ability, she’s much better equipped than I am to embrace the supernatural.

“Does Aaron know?”

“Yeah, I told him.”

Hurt pitches in my stomach. “But not me?”

“Leo asked us not to tell you. He said he wanted to do it himself.”

But he never did.

I’m a coward. I was afraid of losing you.

Dammit, my eyes are stinging.

There’s a frown in Avery’s voice. “He made a big mistake, and he knows it.”

I wish that was all it was: a lapse in judgment, a simple matter of waiting too long to tell me. But when I think of the layers and layers of small lies he told, of how hard he had to work to maintain the deception, his behavior seems far too calculating to be a mere mistake.

Throat tight, I croak, “So you weren’t pissed off at him for lying to you?”

“Pissed off?” She snorts right into the phone. “Try furious.”

“What about Aaron?” Surely he was shocked.

“He wasn’t as mad as I was. You know him, he’s so?—”

“Even-tempered?”

“I was gonna say Spock-like, but yeah. He thought Leo had good reasons for keeping it a secret.”

Good reasons? And what the hell would those be ?

“Have you been talking to him?” I ask.

“Yeah.” An awkward little laugh. She understands what I really want to know: have you forgiven him? “But I’m not in the same place you are.”

Place , huh? That’s a nice word for it. What she means is, she didn’t end up in his bed.

“He shouldn’t’ve lied,” she says. “Especially to you. But to be fair, he was in a tough spot. I mean, how do you come out and tell someone you’ve just met that you’re a faerie?”

Maybe the same way you don’t tell your best friend you fucked said faerie. Or that you’re psychic.

God, I’m such a hypocrite.

“Look,” Avery says. “I’m not trying to pressure you. I understand if you never want to see him again, but?—”

I wipe my forehead with the cuff of my sleeve. “But what?”

“They really need our help.”

Right, the mission. The whole reason the fae are here in the first place.

“Why do they need us?” I ask. “They’re faeries. Don’t they have their own powers or whatever?”

“They do, but not the right kind.”

The “right kind” being our clair-abilities.

“All these months, Leo’s been training us,” I say, although I’m sure Avery’s come to the same conclusion. Maybe Leo’s even admitted it to her.

“Yep.” Avery doesn’t sound humiliated about it. Not like I am. “And you wanna know how he found the three of us?”

I’m not sure I do.

She barrels on, “By making himself invisible. That way, only someone who has the Sight could see him.”

“The Sight?”

“Being psychic.”

“Oh.”

Wait a minute? —

I put it all together. Leo went to O-Chi, where he knew there’d be tons of people, and glamoured himself invisible. Then he watched and waited until someone saw him—the someone who turned out to be me. You’re exactly what I was looking for , he said. And I thought he was flirting with me.

Turns out I was selected at random.

Ignoring the anger gripping my chest, I ask Avery, “What do they need us to do?”

“I don’t know a whole lot yet, but they said some faeries hid something here in this area, like, centuries ago, and they’re trying to find it. They’re not sure exactly what it is, but they know it’s dangerous and they don’t want it getting into the wrong hands.”

As if Leo being a faerie isn’t preposterous enough, he actually is Nick Fury looking for a super-pretzel.

I ask, “And they can’t find it themselves?”

“No. They’ve hit a wall. Leo and Robin have been looking for months. They think maybe you, me, and Aaron might be able to sense it.”

So that’s what his and Robin’s supposed research is? Finding this dangerous thing?

Avery continues buttering me up. “They need you , witchling. You’re the most important person on the team. Remember when we were guessing the Tarot cards? Without you, Aaron and I were hitting the middle of the target. But with you? We got the arrow right in the bull’s-eye.”

I slump into my desk chair. It’s easier to accept the fact that faeries, realms, and dangerous supernatural objects exist than to believe that I can be of any use to the fae. Me. Arm-candy Betts Peterson. A newborn witchling who can’t meditate without getting lost between dimensions.

A clairsentient who couldn’t even sense that she was getting played.

Avery adds, “If you don’t want to talk to Leo about it, maybe you could talk to Rime? ”

“So you’ve met him?”

“Yeah. And Topaz. She’s, uh, interesting. I don’t know what to make of her yet, but you’d be safe with him.”

“Um—”

“Just think about it, okay? But not for too long. They’re on the clock.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

I open my mouth to say goodbye, but she cuts me off. “Oh, and Betts?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever you decide to do, I’m still your friend.”

The tightness in my chest releases enough that I can comfortably breathe.

Avery and I have come a long way since that first night when she sneered at me and called me a “sorority girl.” And from when I labeled her a goth and was afraid to introduce her to my parents.

I’ve lost a lot in the past half year—Zander and O-Chi, sorority hopes, Leo—and I almost lost Liv.

It’s good to know that, at the end of the day, I’ll still have at least one friend.

Unlike me, Avery Bauer isn’t a sucker. There’s not a people-pleasing, peace-at-any-price bone in her body.

She’d never let herself get talked into doing something she didn’t believe in, and she believes we should help the fae.

Whatever is going on in their realm must be pretty dire, because she’s completely on board.

And even though she knows what it would cost me, she wants me on board, too.

For three days, her words have haunted me. They need us.

So that’s why, on Tuesday afternoon, I go to the Bobcat for my usual meeting with the Clairs.

Except I’m not here on the usual business; I’m here on a reconnaissance mission.

It’s a no-commitment venture. I’ve already given myself permission not to engage.

The goal? Find out how it feels to see Leo again.

I sneak into the student center via the front doors and blend into the crowd flowing past the computer lab, past the study rooms, past the bookstore.

Finally, I position myself just inside the hallway to the advising offices.

I’m a good distance away from our favorite meeting spot, but there’s nowhere closer to hide.

Yes, hide.

I peek around the puce-colored cinderblock wall and, sure enough, I spot Avery’s unmistakable red hair. And there’s Aaron, laughing and pushing his glasses up his nose with his thumb.

My breath catches when I see Rime. I didn’t expect him to be here.

He’s leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, talking to Avery and Aaron like he’s known them for years.

I can’t see the face of the person behind him, but there’s no mistaking the jeans and Doc Martens.

Those stupid shoes alone are a knife piercing my chest. And when Rime sits back and Leo comes into full view, that knife plunges right into my heart.

He’s less animated than Rime. In fact, he seems somewhat deflated.

But he’s taking part in the conversation.

Both faeries are fully glamoured, of course, yet they’re still beautiful.

Girls do double takes as they pass by, but only Rime notices and smiles.

According to the novels, fae males like human women.

I wouldn’t put it past Rime to enjoy dallying with a few. Why not? Leo did.

You’re incredible .

Lie.

You’re everything I ever wanted.

Lie.

I’d never let anything happen to you.

Big lie.

I shudder and adjust my backpack on my shoulder.

When Aaron stands up and stretches, Leo also gets to his feet.

I can see him perfectly, his dark eyes and broad chest, and my stupid mind takes me right back to his bed.

I can’t do it. I can’t look at that body, that smile, those hands, and not think about our night together.

Or the disastrous, heartbreaking morning after.

I swallow the lump in my throat and will away the brewing tears .

Aaron passes by Rime, bidding him farewell and sending Rime’s gaze in my direction.

Like a dumbass deer in headlights, I freeze.

Rime flashes his baby blues at me, letting me know I’ve been spotted.

My first impulse is to run right out the front doors, or better yet, to the ladies’ room, but I’m sickened by the idea of being such a coward.

He doesn’t draw anyone else’s attention to me, and only when no one’s looking does he hold up a finger, signaling for me to wait.

There’s no backing out now.

As Leo and Avery exit through the back doors, Rime turns on his heel and heads this way. Once I’m convinced Leo’s gone, I come out of hiding and greet Rime with a shaky smile.

“Well, hello there, little psychic. Where did you come from?” His grin suggests he knows exactly what I’ve been up to.

“Thank you for not telling him you saw me.”

“Thank you for not running out the door.”

These god-damned fae. How do they always know what I’m thinking?

He props a shoulder against the wall. “Are you considering helping us?”

“Um—maybe?” Avery said Rime is the one to talk to, the one to trust. “I have class in a few minutes, but, uh, could you meet me sometime this week?”

“Just me?”

“Yes, please.”

He straightens, his smile gentle. “Alright. We’ll talk, just you and me.”

“I have lots of questions.”

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

Unlike Leo.

After Rime and I make a date, I watch him walk away, even though I’m already late for class. Dozens of pairs of eyes follow as he makes his way to the doors. I smile at the dramatic irony.

You really want to turn heads, Rime? Take off your glamour .