AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Of course. I’m the only underclassmen to enter the final gauntlet. There are twenty passing spots and over forty fourth years.
The day I threw my name in the final gauntlet, I declared myself a threat.
I find the second year group near the courtyard fountain, in the shadow of the Magical Arts building that forms the east wing. Mack spots me immediately and runs to drag me over to where she sits beside her dads and . . .
“Holy orc balls,” I blurt as she grabs my hand. “Is that . . .?” My vision blurs with unshed tears as I stare at Aunt Zinnia, Aunt Vi, and Jane all sitting across from Mack’s dads. “How?”
I knew parents and family were allowed to attend the banquet, but I didn’t bother mentioning it to Aunt Zinnia. After she attended the first gauntlet, I was worried just coming to the Everwilde again would dredge up the old wounds from losing her family, and I didn’t want to be responsible for that.
But now, seeing them here . . . I realize just how much I’ve missed them. How much I’ve needed their presence, if only for a few hours, to remind me why I’m doing all of this.
“Zinnia was easy to convince,” Mack says. “But Vi?” She whistles. “My dads and I have been working on her since Christmas.”
“They don’t make ’em like Aunt Violet anymore,” I admit.
Mack loops her arm around my waist and drags me to my place at the table. “My dads might have sent her an expensive fruit basket and some insanely expensive Russian vodka to soften her up.”
I laugh, nodding to Jane. “And her?”
“She insisted on coming. Said she’d cross the Shimmer on her own if she wasn’t invited. She swears you’re in trouble. That the Fae have done something to you.”
Frick. The last few months have been so crazy that I haven’t always responded to Jane’s texts. In fairness, they’re mainly about ways to kill the Fae—she’s been busy researching, apparently—but still. I should have responded. My heart nearly bursts as I take the seat between Zinnia and Jane. After I let Zinnia bombard me with affection, and sit still for Nick and Sebastian’s pictures, I turn my attention to my younger sister. Her reddish-copper hair is pulled into a braid, the freckles on her nose just starting to darken under the summer sun.
Somehow my aunts managed to get her into a blue and green cotton dress.
She looks deceptively sweet and innocent.
“Hey,” I say. “I heard you were worried about me.”
“You didn’t answer. I thought . . .” Her eyes narrow as a sprite flits over carrying a basket of bread. “Doesn’t matter. I guess you’re fine.”
The bitterness in her voice surprises me, and I add her lost youth to the long list of reasons to despise the Fae. “What do you think? About the academy?”
She frowns. “I hate it. The tulips, the chirping birds and perfect weather. It’s all fake. To hide how horrible it is here.”
I cringe, but she’s not wrong.
Her cutting stare drops to my dress, the accusation in her face hard to ignore. “How do you stand being around them?”
“I don’t know. I guess you get used to it.”
“I wouldn’t.” She glares down at the linen tablecloth. “I would rather die than live with them—but not before taking a few of the pointy-eared assholes with me.”
“Jane!” Vi snaps, leveling her with a fiery look. “Language.”
Jane rolls her eyes where only I can see. “I can’t believe you left me with them, Summer. They’re the worst.”
I sigh. I’d forgotten how hormonal and annoying I was at fifteen too. “Don’t say that.” I squeeze her thin arm. “You don’t exactly make it easy on them. You’re lucky Vi hasn’t locked you away in the cellar like she did me.”
“She would if she could catch me.”
After promising Jane the food isn’t spelled or designed to enslave her, she turns her attention to a spring pie drizzled with honey and figs. The tension in her bony shoulders eases, but I make sure to watch her anytime she gets up for drinks or food.
The food offered to us might be perfectly safe, but I’m just beginning to grasp the complexity of Faerie law. She could steal a roll off an Evermore’s plate or thank someone the wrong way and owe them her firstborn.
The banquet drags on well past sunset. Because of where I’m seated, I can’t get a good view of the Unseelie royal tables. But I know Valerian is there, his father probably with him. Is he seated next to Inara?
A shock of jealous and rage fills me at the thought. Murder. I want to murder the ice bitch with my bare hands.
