Chapter 2

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Ding dong.

I pace in front of my bed, which is the only floor space available in the small back bedroom of my parents' house. The walls are still the faded blue they were when this was my nursery. Every time my parents asked if I wanted to repaint them, I said no.

I didn't care that they were pale blue because they thought I was going to be boy.

I didn't like change.

I still don't like change.

Even though I know it's inevitable. Even though I know it's life. At some point, you move out to a college dorm, attain the right to become an educator, move back home, and face life as an adult. Certain change is unavoidable. Becoming an adult was unavoidable. That didn't mean I had to get rid of my childhood stuffed animals, the desk perpetually full of my sewing projects, or the closet without a door because the track broke when I was thirteen.

Some things are uncontrollable.

And I know that.

I know that intimately because it feels like I have spent my life chasing after the things I can control only to discover that the extent of my control ends with blue walls, stuffed animals, and sewing projects.

In the living room, my father laughs at the Hallmark Christmas movie he's watching. I swear they come earlier and earlier each year. And Dad loves them more than Mom, who is probably in their bedroom reading inside a bubble created by the noise-canceling headphones I got her for her birthday last year.

Neither of them know what's going on with Andromeda.

Dad gets too upset when I suggest that any of my littles aren't living perfectly happy lives, and I can't exactly have him hunting down the parents himself.

My realm of control is so limited. Sometimes, the only thing I can do is keep a secret stash of extra lunch foods, or offer to wash clothes while my kids wear something I picked up at the local church thrift store in the meantime. Sometimes, I have to sit and watch and know…it's all out of my control.

Zahra knows that the system isn't built to help kids. If it were, the kids who need help would be too much of a burden on the government. Even parents like hers could pull themselves together long enough to avoid failing grades when CPS appeared on her doorstep. Even parents like hers, who blamed and beat their kids after the doors closed behind the authorities, knew how to pretend well enough to avoid penalty.

The systems are broken, and we can only do so much the right way if they fail us.

I sit on the foot of my peach-colored comforter, complete with a hundred peaches I embroidered myself all over the fabric. In another second, I'm on my feet again. Pacing some more.

Logic demands I recognize my own helplessness.

Logic demands I paint a smile on and do the feeble amount I can—legally and safely—because there will be another Andromeda in my future. And I can only offer that little girl extra food or a change of clothes if I'm not brutally murdered by a giant man who the authorities can't find.

I whisper a swear. Sit down again. Pop back up and pace some more.

My mind is racing.

I love Zahra, really. I adore her, actually. But the woman has a way about her that demands respect and attention. Maybe it's the hair. Or the bold makeup. Or the leather. Or the sheer capable disposition that compels anyone she talks with to share their deepest, darkest secrets.

I…do not have any of that.

For starters, even though we're the same height, I am many pounds lighter, several tones brighter, and severely allergic to stepping on toes.

She'd stomp and grind if the situation called for it. Merciless.

Although I am certain we both would do anything for even the nastiest of our students, she would get away with murder.

I'd be caught before I so much as get over a state border with Andromeda squashed in my carry-on.

The reason I'm wrestling with myself right now is because Zahra sincerely believes what she told me earlier.

We've talked about her voices before. We've deep dived into the horrors she's heard.

Zahra is an enigma of brutal honesty and pathological lies.

She'll stare you dead in the eye and tell you the grass is hot pink just as easily as she looked me in the eye during her school board interview seven years ago and told us about her auditory hallucination condition.

She loves kids.

Because of some stuff that happened to her when she was a kid, she can't have children.

Zahra does not bend when it comes to child safety.

She thinks Andromeda is safe.

Because Andromeda is a faerie.

And her father is a faerie.

And—

"I'm going out!" I call through the small house as I grab my purse and march from my room. Mom doesn't hear me, because I got her the good noise-canceling headphones. Dad is too lost in his movie to bother with more than, "Stay safe, Kasserole! Message if you'll be out past midnight!"

I have Andromeda's address plugged into my phone GPS before I make it to my blue Kia Soul. She's minutes from me, minutes from the school. Which, somehow, makes the fact no one bothers to take her the short distance worse. Two minutes without an adult could be the end for a little girl, but four minutes isn't much time to spend on making sure it isn't.

Forcing myself to calm down, I put on some cheerful music and contemplate what excuses I can make for showing up this late at a parent's home.

I have nothing of importance that Andromeda has "forgotten" at school, because she doesn't forget things. Her desk is always clean. Her books are always tucked neatly in the cubby. Her homework is always done on school premises. Do I dare go with the classic, "I was in the neighborhood, and thought I'd stop by"?

What if they're already…working?

Swallowing rage, I decide I'm going with the classic I was in the neighborhood. As though this entire town isn't in the neighborhood. Mountain Vale, Virginia is a pretty small place tucked into a clearing surrounded by mountains and trees. On my half of the town, there's my school, a higher-class residential area, a sprinkling of woods, and the "big road" that leads out to the nearest city. On the other half, downtown, the library, and thicker patches of forests that get more dense the farther into them you go.

Technically, depending on how much you like to walk, I think you may be able to go from one side to the other by foot in a matter of hours.

As soon as my GPS alerts me that my destination is on the right, I snap out of my skull, look up, and feel my stomach drop.

I ease my car into park in front of the overgrown brick wall and broken wrought iron gate. Mouth agape, I stare at faded peeling black paint beyond a yard of thigh-high overgrown grass. Broken windows and shadows and cracked sidewalk greet me the longer I stare.

It's a manor.

A Victorian-style manor tucked onto the corner of an otherwise normal neighborhood.

With a waning gibbous moon hung in the cloudy sky behind it…it looks starkly haunted.

Thisis not where my little lives.

Thiscan not be where my little lives.

It's chilly tonight.

The windows of her house shouldn't be broken, but if they are, they should at least be covered.

You know.

With something more than spiderwebs.

Closing my eyes, I give myself half a moment to collect my nerves, stretch my fingers, catch my breath. Maybe I should call the cops right this second, wait for them to arrive, and shove their faces in the most obviously not child-friendly home I have ever seen…?

Opening and all but slamming my car door, I forfeit that idea in favor of strangling Mr. Strakh myself.

Wind whistles past me, rustling the four-foot-high grass on either side of the moss-eaten walkway. An eerie sensation drags a finger up my spine. I ignore it as I lift the antique knocker and let it pound three times.

Moments later, a butler opens the door, and my perfectly plastic smile falters.

The tall man's gray eyes take me in as he adjusts one sleeve of his black tailcoat. Complete with a small, wilting rose in the front pocket.

Dim light from a crystal chandelier illuminates the marble floor and the twin staircases leading up to a balcony on either side of him.

He smiles—pleasantly—and presents a graceful bow, one gloved hand splayed over his heart. "Welcome, miss. What brings you into my humble presence?"

"Yama-nii-nii." Andromeda's voice cuts the young man's smile off abruptly. Sliding down the railing of the staircase on the left, she jumps off and shoves him away from the front door. Stabbing her finger into his chest, she snaps, "No."

Wholly reserved, the man lets his gaze wander over the top of her curly head. "I was being polite."

"Do not make me bite you."

His smile broadens as he tucks his arms behind his back and leans down. "My. Aren't you a little old to be flirting with me, tiny monster?"

She clicks her teeth together.

He tsks and taps her nose with one gloved finger. "Point taken and understood. The pretty miss is your company, not mine. Shall I alert Pollux?"

Andromeda folds her arms. "I am certain he is already well aware and having an existential crisis right now."

"Ah, would that be why I heard a distinctly hushed—" He swears. "—a minute ago?"

"Yup."

"Charming." Turning sharply on his heel, the man starts down a hall beneath the two staircases, disappearing slowly into the shadows. "I'm going to go bully him. Also, your pie might be burning."

Andromeda's eyes widen before she can finish tugging me inside. "F…rickety."

She's kicking the front door closed and yanking me into a massive gothic kitchen before I know what's happening. Dumping me off at a bar stool by a wide black island counter, she marches to the stove beyond it.

I attempt to ignore a miniature guillotine in the corner by the large silver fridge, but it has beheaded a massive carrot bigger than any carrot I have ever seen before.

I cannot ignore it.

I'm staring dead at it while Andromeda opens the industrial-size oven and pulls a pie out to set on a cooling rack in front of me.

She follows my gaze toward the guillotine.

"My dryad friend, Pila, came by earlier. She gave me a pumpkin and some carrots. Said she was feeling orange today. So we played with the guillotine Daddy and I built, then had carrot soup with lunch." She beams at the slightly over-toasted pie between us. "Pumpkin pie for a pre-dinner snack later. It's plant-based, so I hope it sets up right in the fridge."

My mouth is dry as I pull my attention off the sharp blade and find Andromeda's bare hands, a piping hot pie, and not a single oven mitt in sight. I can hardly breathe. Shaking, I reach for Andromeda's little palm. Her bare little palm. "Sweetheart…" I whisper. "Why are you using a gas oven all by yourself?"

She pulls her hands away and tucks them beneath the counter. "I don't understand the question."

"You…weren't wearing gloves."

She grimaces. "I never use them. Gloves are for the weak."

My brain turns to static in the same moment heavy footsteps draw my awareness to Pollux. He comes down the stairs beyond the kitchen archway, marches into the gaping space, fills it completely, and stops.

A swallow moves through his throat.

My vision bleeds redder than my hair as I picture stuffing his arm into the guillotine his seven-year-old daughter shouldn't be playing with.

Standing, I smile. Then I stalk.

Planting my hand in the center of his broad chest, I push him out of the kitchen, across the foyer, and behind the set of stairs nearest the kitchen entrance.

He swears when his back hits the wainscoting.

As bright as the blinding, burning, cancer-giving sun, I say, "Mr. Strakh." I clasp my hands daintily in front of my dress skirt and all the little veggies I embroidered onto the material. "Good evening."

Ever the articulate one, he grumbles, "H…hi."

My lashes flutter. "I was just in the neighborhood. I hope you don't mind my stopping by."

His chest trembles, just slightly. "You're…welcome here."

Innocent as a puppy, I tilt my head. "Great! I'm so glad I'm not intruding. Can we chat?"

"Sure…?"

"Awesome!" It takes everything in me not to listen, friend him as though he's a child throwing a tantrum. "Are you aware that your seven-year-old is taking pies out of the oven with her bare hands?"

Like a layer of sleet, the stiffness in his body drops out of him in a slushy mess. His eye twitches.

Then he picks me up by my shoulders and sets me aside.

"Meda," he roars, and the very chandelier above us rattles as he stomps back into the kitchen. "Why the—" He swears. "—are you still burning yourself?" Marching, he buries his fingers in Andromeda's hair, grabs her head, and shakes her while she squeaks.

Stumbling away from the staircase, I watch at the archway.

Horrified.

Frozen.

Shocked senseless.

"I've—" He swears. "—told you to stop this nonsense several times now."

"Daddy," she whines, grabs his wrist, and half-climbs, half-kicks at the mountain of her father. "It's fine."

"Watch your tongue with me, young lady. We've been over this."

She whimpers.

His fingers squeeze into her little skull. "Use the tools at your disposal to protect yourself, or else."

"But, Daddy—"

"No but." He crouches, blocking all of Andromeda from my view. "Focus on me," he growls. "Do you think your Uncle Cael would approve of you acting like this?"

Defeated, she whispers, "No."

"Correct. And if Uncle Cael wouldn't let you do something…"

"I absolutely shouldn't do it."

"Correct again." He lets her head go, rises, and folds his arms. "So what are you not going to do anymore?"

Andromeda's shoulders sag. "Take hot things out of the oven with my bare hands."

He grunts something akin to acceptance.

What can I do?

What can I do? What can I do? What Can I Do?

Before I can even remember how to breathe, Andromeda bounces back, like what just happened is…perfectly normal… Grinning, she jumps on her father's arm and says, "Look at my pie! It's one of Pila's plant-based recipes."

He glances toward the carrot by the guillotine. "I had thought she came by earlier."

"You were busy in the lab."

He grunts. "Alana needs more drugs, and I'm in the process of slightly adjusting the dose."

"Ooh. Can I try one when you're done?"

Pollux shrugs. "If you care to."

"Can Ms. Role try one, too?"

Pollux goes tense. Slowly, ever so, he turns and finds me. As though he entirely forgot I was here.

My eyes sting.

My brain is choking on everything I've just seen and heard.

Whois Uncle Cael, and why does he determine what is or isn't appropriate for Andromeda? Why does Pollux have a drug lab? And why, why, why is Andromeda allowed to try the drugs?

The large man's chest deflates as he lets a swear hiss past his lips. Covering his eyes with a hand, he rubs his temple a moment, then drops his arm. "Dear one…I need a moment. Take care of your teacher." With that, he turns on his heel and marches through another archway on the other side of the kitchen.

He's gone before I can blink.

Andromeda juts a lip and stares after her father. "Huh." Looking at me, she smiles. "He's still shy. The pie needs to cool a bit before I put it in the fridge to set. Would you like some ice cream while we wait? I like vanilla." She opens the bottom freezer and pulls out a tub. After setting it on the counter, she looks my way again. "Are you well?"

No, but I pretend that it doesn't feel like hundreds of bugs are crawling beneath my skin. "I… Of course. Ice cream. Vanilla is perfect, thank—"

"Ms. Role. Please stop thanking people. I'm monitored, so I can't take your soul without Daddy's permission, but Alexios isn't. He'd try to take your soul just so he could bargain with Daddy." Pouting, she shakes her head and serves up some scoops. "He's gotten very mischievous the more he grows into himself."

"Alexios…" The other man she lives with. The one I'm told she considers a brother. He couldn't be the butler I met earlier, right? The butler who, on all accounts, seemed to be…flirting…with her.

"He greeted you at the door," Andromeda confirms my worries. "Daddy says he's at that age where he can only think about one thing."

I don't want to know what she's been told in that regard, but I plaster practiced calm into every inch of myself, return to the bar stool, and ask anyway, "What is that?"

"World domination."

I choke on my first bite of ice cream. "World domination?"

Andromeda's big blue eyes stare at me, curious. "It's common enough. Uncle Cael and Daddy went through the same phase when they were younger. Uncle Cael came close enough to succeeding that Daddy learned world domination involved too much paperwork. He prefers a more active role in his experiments and to record the results on his own terms with fewer redundant forms. Many fae have pretty nasty control issues, so the desire to own things runs deep." Her laughter is much too bright. "Naturally, even I consider world domination once in a while, but I trust Daddy when he says the paperwork is stupid. Uncle Cael would visit more if it weren't for all the stupid paperwork."

Managing to get another bite of ice cream and compose myself, I ask, "Sweetheart, what does Uncle Cael do?"

"Oh, he's our prince. I've mentioned him before in class. I just haven't named him because I don't want the other kids to be jealous that he's my uncle."

"He's the faerie prince?"

"Mhm. The good one. Not the bad one who recently stopped by to make dire promises. I wasn't supposed to overhear, but I'm excellent at eavesdropping. He wanted to meet me, probably take me away to his castle beyond the Desolate Caverns, but Daddy reminded him I'm not old enough for the kinds of things he was suggesting."

My ice cream curdles as Andromeda tells me more than I want to hear about faerie princes who seem to think they have a claim to her. By the time the pie has cooled enough to go into the fridge, I've stress-eaten nearly the entire carton of vanilla ice cream and am seriously considering whether or not I can get away with kidnapping her myself.

A grandfather clock chimes from somewhere deep on the other side of the manor while I'm mind-mapping a forty-seven step plan that may or may not involve changing my name roughly five times. The ten heavy bongs summon Pollux back to the kitchen—which puts an immediate damper on my schemes.

Holding his gaze firmly off me, he says, "It's time."

"Time for work?" Andromeda asks as she collects our dishes and places them in the sink.

Pollux arches a brow, glances my way, then turns his face roughly toward the corner without replying.

Work.

At this hour? Why is Andromeda even still up? Seven-year-olds need ten to thirteen hours of sleep. Her father should have come to tell her it was time for bed ages ago.

But.

No.

Instead she's been left to talk about how an "evil faerie prince" wants to take her away while she eats as much ice cream as she wants.

I smile as vibrantly as I can while hands constrict themselves around my heart. "Meda, sweetie, I've been meaning to ask. What exactly is work?"

She giggles, running to Pollux and jumping on him. Somehow, she scales his body, twists a fist in his hair, and perches on his shoulders like a frog. "Work is horrors beyond your feeble comprehension!"

"Meda…" Pollux murmurs.

"We're being very nice and keeping our human forms in place because you've been raised human, but we're actually quite spooky." She fumbles, crushing Pollux's head at an odd angle.

Deeply sighing, he says, "Okay, that's enough," then he shakes her off him, catches her ankle before her head smashes into the floor, and tosses her over his shoulder like a sack of beans. He turns on his heel so she's facing me and grumbles, "Say goodbye to your teacher and stop being an imp."

Waving both hands, she beams. "Bye bye, Ms. Role!" Her expression darkens. "Do not let Alexios steal your soul while we're gone. But stay as long as you like!" She shrieks when her father lets go of her ankle, and she barely catches herself on his shirt. "Daddy!"

Something almost akin to laughter rumbles in his chest as he glances over his shoulder at me. "Make yourself at home, Kassandra. We'll be back in about five or six hours, so let yourself out if you don't want to stay that long."

Five or six hours?

"Wait…" My voice cracks, but it's too late.

They're already gone.