Page 15

Wynter

W e arrive at a flashing sign that says Neon Velvet, and Summer reaches out to open the large, pressed-metal door beneath it.

I gently push in front of her and hold the door open. Her cheeks glow dark red, catching the flicker of pink light like warpaint as she enters the building, and I follow close behind.

The stench of cheap ale, sweat, and some overly floral incense hits me hard, a poor attempt to disguise the sour damp of spilled drinks and mildew baked into the walls and floor of the establishment.

Darkness cut by bursts of red and blue light, sweltering heat, and noise that rivals a fae revel assault my senses as I push through way-too-many humans shouting over each other. Their cheeks are flushed, and sweat slicks their temples as they press shoulder to shoulder in the long, narrow tavern.

I elbow Summer. “The minstrels are very loud in here.”

She frowns. “Minstrels?”

“The musical performers. ”

“That’s not a live band. The music is coming from those speakers. See?”

She points at thin rectangular boxes anchored on the walls, and a memory of Max’s diner strikes me—myself as a child, dancing with my mother, while she laughed because I refused to believe the music wasn’t played by invisible musicians.

She’d explained how the sound was recorded, but even that process seemed like magic.

Summer waves toward one of the round tables that run the length of the room, where humans lean in close over tall glasses of ale, whispering secrets or laughing too loudly.

“Let’s do this,” says Summer, threading her arm through mine and tugging me along behind her.

She looks ridiculously hot tonight, and more than a few heads follow her progress.

If anyone in here so much as looks at her the wrong way, I’ll bury them under the floorboards.

Quietly, of course. I’m supposed to be blending in.

Laying low. Not mentally mauling possible suitors or mapping out which wall I’d press her up against first.

“Hello, basement-boy,” greets Summer’s housemate, Zylah, who I’ve obediently done my best to avoid over the past couple of days. “It’s nice to see you out of your lair.”

“Likewise,” I say, making her mouth twist from a smile into a grimace.

As I take a seat next to a thin male with long wheat-colored hair, she says, “Wyn, this is my brother, Kurt. He thought he was a werewolf once, too. But that was after a bad mushroom trip. What’s your excuse?”

Summer, who’s sitting on my other side, gives me a meaningful look .

I shrug. “Guess I’m a… m-m-magical being and can’t help it.”

Fuck. I tried to say I’d “gone off my meds” as Summer taught me, but the words just wouldn’t leave my lips.

Kurt throws his head back and laughs like I’m a court jester. “I’ll get a round of drinks,” he says. “What’s everyone having? Wyn?”

I open my mouth to suggest ale, but before I speak, Zylah says, “How about a cocktail? They make a fantastic sangria here.”

Cocks’ tails? Did I hear that correctly? How are we supposed to drink them? Human traditions are worse than the Unseelie fae’s. I glance at the drink menu, searching for rooster feathers. Nothing. Either I’m being lied to, or humans are even more perverse than I thought.

“Plum sangrias for everyone,” announces Summer, clapping her hands together, like she’s trying to redirect attention from me.

Kurt rises from the table and disappears into the crowd, returning ten minutes later with four long-stemmed glasses filled with fruit and a deep red liquid.

I fish out a slice of plum with the end of a narrow tube, wincing at the tartness that’s thankfully chased by a warm hit of cinnamon and rosemary. Not too bad.

Once I’ve eaten the fruit, I push my glass aside and focus on my companions’ baffling conversation about jobs—their term for the contracts where they labor in exchange for enough reward to live almost as well as bridge trolls.

“Not finishing your cocktail, Wyn?” Summer asks. “Don’t you like it? ”

They stare at me as they slurp liquid through the narrow metal tubes called straws. I remove mine from my glass and gulp down the rest of the drink, wiping my mouth with a sigh when I finish.

Within moments, my head spins. My tongue thickens in my mouth, and, too late, I remember my father’s warning. Human alcohol hits fae hard and fast, and he told me never to drink it.

I’ve fucked up badly, especially if I don’t want Zylah to throw me out of Gravenshade Hall, away from Summer. All I want is to keep her safe and figure out how to get her back to the Land of Five, my home, without breaking her traumatized mind.

I consider rushing outside and purging the drink from my stomach, but the time for that is long past. My limbs are weak, my thoughts swirling, as if I’m on the seventh night of a sleepless revel.

“I’ll go to the bar,” says Summer. “Want another round, Wyn?”

“A round what?”

She squints at me. “Huh?”

“What round thing will you retrieve from the bar?” I clarify.

“ Get up .” Tugging my arm, she rolls her eyes. “I think you’d better come with me.”

“Why?” I shout over the music as I follow her through the crowd of humans, stumbling more than once.

“To keep you out of trouble. Remember you promised to act like a sane person around my housemate?”

I nod as we join a three-human-deep line at the bar.

“Well you’re about to break your word if you’re not careful. Alcohol doesn’t seem to agree with you. Do you normally drink? ”

“Not human alcohol,” I reply. “It has an unusual effect on me.”

Her gaze tracks from my face to my chest and back up to dance over my lips, fire tingling over my skin in its wake. “There you go again,” she says, “talking like a crazy man.”

People turn away from the bar and push past us, carrying large glass goblets full of ale. We step forward, and Summer greets a serving girl with hair as green as a sea witch’s hanging down her back in thick ropes.

“Hey, Summer. Been to any cool new hauntings?” she asks before nodding at me. “Got a new friend?”

“Just the ones in my own house. But, yeah, this is—”

“Wynter Ashton Fionbharr,” I say, inclining my head. “Pleasure to meet you.”

Summer jabs me in the ribs as if I’ve just declared myself to be the Crown Prince of Stars, which, honestly, isn’t that far from the truth.

“That’s a rather large mouthful,” she says, “so we just call him Wyn. Wyn, meet Rose, the best slam poet in the state, and she even has a trophy to prove it.”

My interest piques. “I have a knack for poetry myself,” I admit.

“Is that so?” Rose purses her pierced lips. “Let’s hear something of yours then.”

Ignoring Summer’s glare, I spout the first rhyming lines I can think of—a little verse about the Shade Prince, my least favorite fae in the whole of Faery. In a loud voice, I begin my recital…

“By lemon twine and cursed-tusked swine, the Diamond Prince doth fucking whine. And whine and whine and whine. Like a baby troll. A shadow-wrapped doll. His blood shall weep, when I catch him asleep, and smash his brains out through his thick skull.”

A stunned silence falls among the humans close by. Perhaps they prefer poetry with less death threats and more heartbreak. Cowards.

Rose sets down her cleaning cloth. “Oh. Not what I was expecting. Very… visually graphic. Do you live around here?”

“No, I—”

Warm fingers slip under my T-shirt, cutting off my words, and Summer pinches my waist so hard that I yelp out, “ Draygonets ,” before I can stop myself.

Rose must never have heard of the dreaded winged beasts of my hometown and narrows her eyes in confusion. I summon my wits, preparing to lie and tell her I reside in Blackbrook, where Mother lived before she married fae royalty.

Concentrating, I take a deep breath and blurt out, “I come from the Faery city of Talamh Cúig.”

“Wyn!” Summer claps a hand over her mouth. “I give up,” she says, laughing. “You’re hopeless.”

Rose shakes her head. “Talamh Cúig, huh? Where you have no doubt brought peace and harmony to the land you’ve reigned over for centuries. Am I correct?”

“Almost. I’m a prince, not a king.”

For Dana’s sake, why can’t I lie anymore? Or at least keep my damn mouth shut?

When my father, a full-blooded fae, first followed my mother into the human realm, he found he could lie with ease, which wasn’t possible when he lived in Faery.

For me, it’s the opposite. This realm has stolen my halfling ability to deceive with words and the alcohol removed my skill in twisting them .

Mental note: never drink human ale again.

The effects of crossing realms upon magical powers is not only unpredictable, but extremely inconvenient.

“You’re a strange one,” says Rose. “And outrageously easy on the eyes.” Her dark gaze roves my face, then lingers on my mouth. “Would you like to have a drink later? I’m free all night after I close the bar.”

“Better not,” I reply. “I’ve had enough tails of the cock to last three lifetimes. They’re lethal and—”

“ Anyway ,” says Summer, interrupting me. “Can I get three plum sangrias and a soda water for this one?”

When the drinks are made, Summer hands me two, and we push back into the heaving crowd.