Chapter 17

Seventeen

I wake to the warmth of sunlight on my skin and the prickle of dry grass beneath me.

It takes my brain several seconds to catch up and realize that this is wrong.

When did I fall asleep? And better yet, where?

Then I remember the fairy grotto, the sharp, bright taste of fairy wine, the orgy…

Bran .

I lurch upright, head foggy, my vision swimming.

Through squinted eyes, I make out a meadow in front of me and rolling hills that eventually meet a line of hardwood trees where a clear path disappears into the forest.

I’ve been here before, but only once.

Every human kid in Midnight Harbor grows up hearing the warnings about the fairy glen and the sealed gateway to the fae realm.

You never know when it may open again and the faeries will steal you away.

You get too close, the door may crack open and a monster may come through.

I came to the fairy glen with Sam when we were twelve years old. Like most kids, we were equal parts terrified and curious about it. There were no photographs of it, no paintings or sketches. It was as if Midnight Harbor wanted to forget it existed, like a skeleton tucked behind shoe boxes in the far corner of a closet. The fae were stuck in Midnight Harbor as reluctant refugees, and there was nothing any of us could do about it, so there was no sense talking about it either.

When Sam and I snuck into the glen, it was late and the moon was new and it was so terrifying, we barely lasted a full minute before we ran back down the dirt path.

Still, I’d remember this glen. It’s not just the circular meadow or the blooming flowers that somehow seem more vibrant than anywhere else. It’s the energy too. Like the pulsing, electric feel of a storm just minutes before it lands.

It’s an energy that whispers down your spine.

I feel that energy now.

I look over my shoulder at the gate and am not surprised to see Arion there, draped over a large boulder at the foot of the archway. His back is leaning against the gate’s thick wall, one knee up. His eyes are closed, head lolled back, basking in the sunlight.

“Why are we here?” I ask him.

Is this a dream?

The light is hazy and golden enough to almost be fake. I fell asleep practically naked and now I’m wearing a thin, gauzy tunic with golden embroidery along the sleeves and hem.

It does not escape me that the color of the material is the same shade of thick ice in the middle of winter.

Without opening his eyes, Arion says, “It was a mistake, wearing that dress.”

I climb to my feet. A singing robin flutters past and lands in a nearby tree.

The gate is a freestanding stone feature with an archway made of thin, rectangular stones, and the base of thick boulders. There’s a door embedded in the archway, the rivets, straps, and handles made of bronze that’s long since turned green from weather and age.

Moss and vines climb up the archway with bright yellow and pink flowers blooming between the crevices.

I lean against one of the boulders on the opposite side of the gate, facing Arion.

I’m not sure if I’m in danger yet, but there’s now full sun in the sky, which means no vampire is going to swoop in and save me.

I have to solve this one on my own.

It’s not time to panic yet .

“You know the story of the dress?” I ask, even though I think that’s been made clear.

He opens one eye and glances over at me. “I was there when it happened.”

“It” being the violent stabbing of my relative.

“Tell me.”

“I was the one with the blade.”

With both of his eyes open now, I’m rendered still by the intensity in his gaze.

Is this some kind of revenge? I threw his past in his face and now he’s kidnapped me from a fairy orgy?

I guess it could be worse.

I adjust on the boulder, positioning myself better so that I can run if I need to. “Who wore the dress?”

He stands and goes to a thick raspberry bush growing just down the wall of the gate. He plucks a ripe berry from the stem and pops it in his mouth. “Your mother.”

I take a deep breath.

Arion can’t lie. He’s not like me. And there’s no way to misinterpret that. Two words that can only mean one thing.

“You killed my mother?”

He plucks several more berries and piles them up in the cup of his hand. He’s changed clothing since last night and is now wearing leather armor on his shoulders and across his chest. A sword at his hip. The outfit of a warrior.

There’s a dull ache in my left arm that begins to throb, so I hold it against my torso.

“Why would you do that?” I ask him. “Because she was from the Winter Court?”

A berry disappears in his mouth, then another. He shakes his head. “She was Summer Court.”

“What?” I slip off the boulder. “But…I’m from the Winter Court. That’s what everyone said.”

“Your father was from the Winter Court. Your mother betrayed her people and joined your father in the revolt.”

I might still be hungover because it takes me several long seconds to digest his words and for them to make sense.

I’m not entirely Winter Court? I’m half Summer? I know any fae can leave their court of birth and join another, so there’s no such thing as purity in most of their blood lines. Except, usually , in the royal lines. I always assumed both my mother and father were from the Winter Court.

I look at Arion with new understanding. “If my mother was from the Summer Court, you must have known her?”

He tosses a berry into the air and catches it in his mouth. His teeth are stained bright red and a shiver rolls over my shoulders.

“She was my mother as well.”

The numbness that settles over me rolls in slowly, then all at once, until it seems like I’ve left my body entirely because I can’t feel a thing.

She was his mother?

Which would mean…

“You’re my family. You’re my…brother?”

He nods.

Heat flames across my face when I realize… “Oh god,” I squeak out. “The orgy. I was… you …” I look down at the new clothing that someone must have put me in.

“Have some decency,” he scolds. “I had another fae fetch you.”

I collapse back against the gate wall. “Thank fucking god.”

He clucks his tongue. “You always speak with such foul syllables?”

“Yes, when my modesty is on the line!”

“Modesty.” He bites into another berry. “As if you know what that is.”

“Hey, listen here?—"

“Shut up,” he says.

The shock of his words makes the argument dry up. I clamp my mouth closed.

It might be time to panic.

“I don’t want to be part of this fight,” I tell him.

“Then you shouldn’t have worn the dress. You made a move on the chessboard, and you didn’t even know the pieces.”

Goddammit, Bran.

I should have listened to my own gut. What was it trying to tell me? Not to ruffle feathers. I’m pretty sure that’s what it was saying, right? But I’m so damn obsessed with pleasing Bran that sometimes I don’t listen to my own instincts.

“A year ago, I had no idea I was even fae…” I tell Arion, trying to think on my feet. “I don’t want to make trouble. But I don’t want you all to think me weak either. I spent the first several decades of my life thinking I was mortal, destined to be a blood bag…”

He takes a step toward me.

A breeze shifts across the glen and some of his midnight black hair flutters across his face.

“Arion, please…I’m not my mother. Our mother. Or my father, for that matter. I’m not even very fae. I’m like dollar-store fae.” I laugh nervously at my own stupid joke. “Maybe if we talk about this, we can figure out how to open the gate for you so you can go home and?—”

The ground rumbles and I spread out my arms instinctively to catch my balance.

A loud clank sounds behind the gate.

My ears start ringing.

Oh shit.

“What’s happening?” I ask.

Arion goes still, his eyes trained on me, but his face blank.

The ground shakes again and dirt rains down from the archway, taking pieces of vine and flower petals with it.

A flock of birds lift from the nearby oak tree and fly away squawking.

“Arion?”

I look down at my arm again, at the blooming bruise in the crook of my elbow. The perfect spot to draw blood.

“Oh gods,” I breathe out. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“I can’t,” he answers.

A loud boom thunders across the glen, raising the hair along the nape of my neck.

More dirt falls from the stones.

Arion and I both turn to look at the fae gate…

…Just as it cracks open.