Page 10 of Prince of the Sun

His eyes flare, burning for a moment with the anger I first expected. I step back, alarmed. But, as with all elves—the even-keeled, secret-keeping creatures that they are—the emotion quickly vanishes, replaced by a familiar unreadable veneer.

“Fine,” he says tersely. “Message received.”

He turns to leave.

“Wait.” The word comes out of my mouth before I can stop it.

Daerios turns around, eyebrows lifted.Oh?

I pause, chewing my bottom lip. On the one hand, this could be a trap. An obvious ploy to sucker a hapless human to their festivities, get her blind drunk, and then laugh as she does a strip tease to Elvish music. Whatever that sounds like; I’m picturing flutes.

On the other hand…

I think of my plan. The one I started dreaming up at just twelve years old, still deep in the suffocating fog of grief and guilt. The plan that, in the end, was the lifeline that pulled me out.

For years, I’ve been searching for a discrete avenue into the notoriously secretive world of the elves. Daerios doesn’t know it, but he’s just dropped it right into my lap.

“Fine,” I say, voice cracking. Then, more clearly: “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Daerios’s eyebrows leap up his forehead. He corrals them quickly, pulling at the sleeve of his cloak, all business. “Good, then.” He starts to turn, then hesitates, casting one last look over his shoulder. “And Quinn?”

I say nothing, which, for some reason, makes his lips curl into a smile.

He winks once. “I’ll be in touch.”

This is a bad idea.

That’s what I was thinking as I watched Daerios vanish down the main staircase of Sever Hall. That’s what I was thinking as I went through the motions of the rest of my day: class, homework in Lamont Library, dinner in Quincy dining hall, and now, lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling and questioning every decision I’ve ever made.

This is a really, really, really bad idea.

The whole point of me coming to Harvard was to investigate the elvessubtly. To make myself small, draw as little attention as possible while slowly digging into their secrets.

Not to go to a ball with the fucking Prince of Darkness.

My problem is that I was born with my foot on the gas. It’s what my dad always used to say, and he was right. I was. I am naturally inclined to push myself harder, faster, too hard, too fast. To crave perfection. To be willing to bend myself into impossible positions to get there. It’s what made me a great linguist. It’s the reason I was able to get into Harvard.

Now, it’s going to get me killed.

On my bedside table, my phone buzzes. I roll over and pick it up, checking the notification on the screen.

UNKNOWN: Hi, QUINN! Congratulations! You won our GRAND PRIZE for…

I stop reading. Spam. Of course. The only people who text me are Cara, my mother, and bots trying to steal my personal information. No, thank you.

I’m about to click off my phone when I notice the time: 10:27 p.m.

I smile.

Time for my favorite part of the week.

Harvard University smells like piss.

That’s what I’m thinking as I slip down Mt. Auburn Street, clad in black leggings and a black long-sleeved shirt, hair folded up into a black beanie: how, when I arrived here my freshman year, I expected to be overwhelmed by the perfume of old books, cigar smoke, fine scotch, and history.

Instead, I smelled garbage and human urine, just like I would in any other major metropolitan area.

You’d think that with the elves running the show now, everything would smell like parchment and wisdom and freshly turned earth.