Page 32

Summer

L andolin grips my chin and tugs my face back to the scene in the kitchen. “Take a look, human. And find out.”

In the mirror, something clatters to the kitchen floor, and vision-me swears, stares down at the knife, then looks out through the open back door.

Over the hum of cicadas, an owl hoots in the distance. Then a horn blows—long and low—the tone bone-wrenching. Haunting.

I remember the first part of this night like it was yesterday, hot and sweaty, my hair had stuck to my neck, and the breeze blowing in from the woods was a cool relief on my skin.

But that’s about the last thing I recall, dropping the knife and staring at a slash of silver moonlight on the kitchen floor.

Then… nothing.

Absolutely zilch until about a year later when I turned up in the parking lot behind Zylah’s work, scratched up and dehydrated .

My fingers twist into the bark-soft cloak Wyn made me, while in the vision, shadows peel off the yellow-and-black wall tiles, and my parents pad down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“Summer?” barks Dad. “Do you realize it’s a fucking school night? What are you doing bashing and clanging and making pizza at this hour?”

“You know I have an early conference tomorrow morning,” says Mom, filling a glass with water at the sink.

It’s strange to see her alive. Pink cheeks and soft curls tumbled and glossy under the glow of the hanging light shade. The slight slump in her posture, the tiredness behind her eyes. She looks so ordinary. So human. So unlike the sour-faced ghost who haunts my bathroom day and night.

The girl in the mirror doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even glance at them.

Dad is wrapped in a brown silk robe, carrying a half-empty tumbler of the greatest love of his life—whatever brand of bourbon he could afford that week.

His silver hair is coiffured to perfection, even though he has probably spent the last couple of hours lounging in bed, distracting Mom from her work.

Mom tugs at the cashmere wrap thrown over her indigo pajama set.

“I finished translating an eleventh-century poem before bed, and what have you done, Summer? Spent the evening on your phone, contemplating stuffing your face? I hope you realize you take after your father’s side of the family.

So if you insist on eating cheese-loaded carbs at this time of night, before long, you won’t fit through the front door.

Summer? Stop pretending I’m not here and answer me. ”

Always ready to defend the woman who pays his bills, Dad puffs his chest out and shoves a hand on his hip at the exact moment three tall shadows swoop upon the knife I’d dropped.

The blade swings in an upward arc, then slashes down and across his throat.

Dad’s eyes flare wide. A dining chair smashes to the ground as he stumbles backward, blood spurting between his fingers clutching his neck.

Someone screams and screams and screams.

Dad collapses near the back door, and Mom runs toward him. Shadow fingers spin the knife through the air again, this time slashing across her throat from behind. She turns and looks back at me, tries to speak, but only a bubbling gasp escapes, a sheet of crimson spilling down her chest.

The Shade Prince leans casually against the door frame of the stairwell, his face impassive as Mom’s bloodied hands slide along the wall and a death rattle leaves my father’s mouth. Dad goes limp, half-laying over his wife. Another choking gasp from Mom, and then they’re both silent and unmoving.

Dead.

As though in a trance, the version of me in the mirror pads barefoot and silent to my parents’ bodies and curls into a ball beside them, tucking my long T-shirt over my knees.

I stare at the bloody knife discarded on the floor about three feet away.

I don’t scream. I don’t cry. Don’t move. Don’t even glance at the shadow-wrapped fae standing in the corner of the kitchen and studying me with a fierce intensity.

A loud bang sounds, perhaps the front door being kicked open, then Sergeant Brantson barrels into the scene followed by his partner, a youngish female with braided brown hair who looks like she might throw up at the sight of all the blood .

Sirens scream in the distance, getting closer.

Brantson helps me off the floor and says the ambulance will transport me to the hospital under police guard, and that I’ll be questioned when I’m well enough.

They freeze, and neither of them notice the shadows spiraling out the back door or Landolin stalking toward me, his closed-mouth grin poisonous.

But I see them all too clearly.

My eyes are on Landolin as he lifts his hand and scatters something over the doorstep, black soot or ash. Then he throws me over his shoulder and leaps across the threshold, disappearing in a cloud of smoky shadows.

The police snap out of their daze—or spell—the female officer running into the hallway toward the front door, and Brantson into the yard, searching for me.

Neither of them could possibly realize they’ve just witnessed a mystery that, despite their reams of case notes, photos, and surveillance footage, they’ll never have the satisfaction of solving.

Behind me, the flesh-and-blood version of Landolin snaps his fingers.

The blood-smeared kitchen and my parents’ bodies are instantly swallowed by shadow magic, which coils across the surface of the mirror before dispersing, leaving me staring at my shaking reflection.

The prince’s arm is still banded around my waist.

With a strangled cry, I do the unthinkable… turn in Landolin’s arms and blubber against the soft leather covering his chest. “I didn’t fucking do it. I didn’t kill them. All this time I’ve thought—”

“Yes, yes,” he says, sweeping me off the floor and dumping me unceremoniously onto the sofa in the middle of the room.

“Poor little human thought she’d gone insane and murdered her own dear parents.

But, alas, you’re not half as interesting as that.

It was only the Wild Hunt collecting the dues of the Raven Realm. ”

My breath stutters. The room wavers. The world tilts, reality reshaped in a single breath. My parents—my cold-hearted, complicated parents—died at the hands of Landolin’s monsters. It wasn’t me. Not my madness. I’ve been torturing myself for years, hating myself… for nothing.

I wait for the relief to crash over me, but it creeps in slow, too tangled up in everything else. Pointless pity rises in my throat, burning like bile. They weren’t good people. They didn’t love me the way they should have, and yet they were all I had.

The Hunt killed them, and Landolin has known this all along.

My shame, my guilt—all of it, fed by his silence. He could’ve absolved me eight years ago, or like… wrote me a fucking letter or something.

I want to scream. I want to sob. I want to crawl out of my own skin. Instead, I sit there, shaking, rebuilding from the inside out.

I scrub a hand down my face, forcing a riot of emotions down deep. Later . I can fall apart later. Right now, I need answers.

“Tell me, what’s the grand plan this time? Am I dancing like a mindless puppet again? By the way, my moves haven’t improved much. Will I be thrown into your cells? Shoveling out the horse stalls? Something worse?”

“ Please . Don’t give me too many tempting ideas,” he says. “Now that you’ve come of age, we can test you.” He leans down and sniffs my hair. “Strange. You don’t smell the same outside the human realm. At Gravenshade, your house was choked with the scent I expected. ”

“Expected? What does that mean? And while you’re at it, tell me what sort of tests I’ll have to take.”

“Tests to confirm that you’re who I believe you are.”

“And if I am?”

“Then your fate is sealed—because you’ll be of use to me…. and the Hunt.”

“You knew where I lived. If I’m possibly so useful, why not retrieve me sooner?”

“The Merit Queen protected your whereabouts with a concealment spell. Old Druidic magic. Strong. We checked your home many times, but couldn’t see, hear, or smell you.

Merrin Fionbharr had forgotten about her brother’s obsession with you.

All I had to do was bide my time and wait for him to locate you in the Earth Realm.

His presence near yours broke the spell. ”

Oh, Wyn . I hope Landolin never tells him that. Right now, he must be frantic with worry. Zylah, too. And what about Ollie and the other cats? How are they coping without me? Hopefully Zy’s remembered to feed them—and open their favorite window—or I’ll never hear the end of it when I get home.

If I’m lucky enough to ever return.

“And what happens if you’ve made a mistake and I’m not the person you need?”

White teeth flash in a nasty grin as shadows peel from the mirrors and twine around Landolin’s boots like fawning cats.

“Don’t forget to drink something,” he instructs, ignoring my question as his dark head indicates a desk on one side of the window bearing a silver decanter and a goblet. “Food will be sent up shortly. Be sure to lick the plate clean. Your strength must be regained as soon as possible.”

Yes, I’ll be needing it to punch him square in the face and drop him to the ground in a puddle of leather-wrapped bullshit.

Landolin and his dark magic disappear behind the surface of the mirrored wall. Good riddance to the master of the Hunt. I hope he trips over his shadows and breaks his pompous, control-freak neck.

I check the door and find it locked. Fuck . What the hell am I meant to do with myself now?

Hurrying to the window, I peer through a veil of gray mist. There’s nothing beyond it. No ground below, no distant mountains. Just black spires, slick with rain, jutting from dark brickwork turrets beside my room, grim and depressing.

What an ugly, miserable place.

I collapse in the desk chair, guzzle three glasses of water, and contemplate my options, of which there are few.

The mist outside is too thick to see through, the room’s too high to jump from, and the castle’s probably crawling with more guards than I’ve had intrusive thoughts today. And that’s saying something.

So, great . I’m imprisoned in a gothic nightmare with not even a whisper of an escape plan. Love that for me.

I’m trying not to spiral, but to be honest, it’s going poorly. My palms are clammy, my jaw aches from stress clenching, and my head feels like it might explode with worry.

Mostly about Wyn.

I don’t know what to hope for. That he’s safe at home with his perfect fae family? Or that he’s on his way here, doing something reckless and heroic to get me out of this gloomy, grayscale prison ?

But if my own parents could barely tolerate me, what are the odds a fae prince would risk everything to save me?

Slim to none.

So he’s probably safe and cozy, wrapped up in bed—hopefully alone and not with a sexy fae beauty.

And there is one glaring bright side to this whole shitshow… apparently I’m not a murderer.

Yay!

Well, not yet, anyway.