I tug at my ponytail. “Was it love? Between us?”

Her eyes widen. “Love? Don’t be ridiculous. No Evermore uses that word.”

“He did before I left school, when he told me who I really was.”

She arches a dubious silver eyebrow. “If he did, it’s because he knew using it would make you understand, but don’t kid yourself. What you and the prince had then was powerful, but only because the bond between you is so strong. That’s magic, not love.”

“That seems . . . I don’t know. Like I’m being tricked into the relationship.”

She snorts. “Tricked? What your kind calls love is really just a pretty word for a rush of chemicals to your brain. Love is a drug. An elixir that makes normally rational people do really stupid things. And in the Everwilde, people who do stupid things don’t live long.”

“Wow,” I quip, trying to hide my disappointment. “That’s touching. You should put that on a Hallmark card.”

But Eclipsa isn’t fooled, and her expression softens. “Summer, I understand why you want to believe in love. Despite everything I know about my kind, everything I know about how our world works, I came close to believing it was real once, too.”

Hellebore. Just thinking his name feels wrong, as if somehow it’s a betrayal of Valerian. Whenever I see Hellebore in class or across campus, or even outside school events, the secret, gloating look he gives me feels like a blunt dagger being slowly driven into my heart.

One only I can see. Which is the point, of course.

I convinced Valerian and the others that the Spring Court heir teased me for a while, but after he grew bored, all it took was reminding him of my brand, and he let me go. Valerian suspects the Winter Evermore that came forward to take the blame for the ice magic did so to gain favor in the Winter Court by protecting its heir.

I thought about telling them the truth a thousand times. I’ve typed the words in a text message to Valerian every night since, only to delete it before I hit send.

I just can’t overlook what happens if I tell them. Valerian would kill Hellebore. And the bargain I made to keep Valerian from doing just that would be for nothing.

It’s scary just how much I’m starting to think like a Fae, weighing the truth like something that can be bartered with and manipulated.

I refocus on Eclipsa, determined to discover as much about the Spring Court heir as possible. If I understand him, maybe I can use that to my advantage. “I know you said you don’t want to talk about it, but since you brought it up . . .” I scan her face for anger before continuing. “What happened between you two?”

She goes still; the small silver hairs the wind blows around her face are the only part of her that moves. “We met here, actually,” she finally says, her gaze roaming the garden until she finds a spot beneath a copse of enormous yew trees. “He was to the right of that tree collecting the buds of a rare night-blooming foxglove flower for his renowned collection of poisons.”

Of course Hellebore collects rare poisons instead of doing what normal rich people do and hoarding overpriced wine or vintage cars. I bet he keeps them in his red room of pain. “And then what?” I prod carefully. “And don’t say you two did it over there because, vomit.”

She laughs. “Summer, males like him don’t just ‘do it.’ Not immediately. Sometimes not for years, centuries. They live for the chase beforehand. They only want what they can’t have, and once they have you, they’ve won and the game is over.”

“And he couldn’t have you?”

My question is supposed to be teasing, but I catch the way her mouth tightens. “I belong to the Winter Court. No one can have me—not unless they buy my contract.”

The air seems to thin around us. I imagine the pain I feel wearing Valerian’s brand and being treated like property is nothing to what she’s endured for years.

“I knew the moment I saw him that he was his own type of poison, just like the foxglove blossoms he was so lovingly collecting. I knew he would try to break me, that he would destroy me if he could, but I didn’t care.”

“Why?”

“Because a part of me wanted him to do it. To break me into a thousand pieces so that no one could own me, not him, not the Winter King, not anyone.” She blinks as if coming out of a trance. “I suspected he was only interested in me to hurt the Winter Prince, but when he told me he would buy my freedom . . .” She stands suddenly, wiping at the corners of her eyes. “It’s late. Are you ready?”

As I slide to my feet, I ask, “Why does he hate the prince?”

She cuts her eyes at me, any emotion I thought I saw in her face gone. “You mean, besides the prince’s arrogance and penchant for pissing off other courts?” Her hand waves over the silvery air, her fingers tracing the pale blue outline of a portal. “Hellebore blames the prince for his parents’ death.”

And . . . now it all makes sense. Why Hellebore wants to publicly take me from the prince and then humiliate me. Some Evermore vendetta. I’m not even surprised.

“Is the prince to blame?” I prod.

She shrugs, and I find her non-committal attitude over whether my possible future mate caused the death of two people rather alarming. “All I know is Hellebore blames the prince for something that happened that ended the alliance between his parents and the Summer King. Without the king’s support, his aunt, Queen Maub, could finally have them killed and take the Spring Court throne.”

After that, I don’t ask any questions, afraid my brain will explode if I learn one more thing about the horrible Evermore Courts. Eclipsa portals me straight to my dorms, and I stumble to the room I share with Mack to find her curled up asleep on the ancient moth-eaten loveseat, surrounded by textbooks.

Cool night air blows in through the open window, stippling her bare arms and legs.

After helping her to her bed, I close the window.

Something catches my eye.

Frowning, I pluck the trinket from the windowsill and hold it up to the moonlight, taking in the rounded shape and smooth petals. The rose is carved from amber, the golden material translucent. Half asleep, I look inside . . .

As soon as I make out the long, thin legs and hourglass marking on the spider suspended in the amber, a chill runs through me.

It’s a black widow, perfectly preserved and so lifelike I nearly throw the stupid thing.

You don’t even know you’re trapped in my web yet.

Prince Hellebore’s words reverberate inside my skull, and I know—I just know, this is from him. He’s watching me to see how I respond. Hardly daring to breathe as he waits for me to realize it was him, for me to become afraid.

“Get off on this, you sick pervert!” I hiss, throwing up my middle finger.

Grunting, I yank back open the window and toss the gift to the ground below. Then I slam the window down again, the force rattling the glass, and march to bed.

I have to keep this deranged foreplay going just long enough to get through school. By the time he asks for me to perform my part of the bargain and realizes I’ve tricked him, it will be too late. School will be almost over. Then he’ll go back to his inbred academy and I’ll never have to see him again.

I tell myself this over and over until I fall into a restless sleep.

26

“Why did you never tell me the city in the fall is this beautiful?” I ask Mack as we stroll down Fulton Street in Brooklyn, past rows of orange and gold trees. Valerian and Asher walk beside us, their heads on a swivel as they take it all in.

We’re on a field trip for our Modern Mortal World class. Professor Lochlan set us free in Manhattan this morning, and we’ve spent the day traversing the city. The point is to immerse our Keepers in human culture while teaching how to do human things like buy something with a credit card, follow the pedestrian crossing signs, and flag a taxi.

When it came to using the subway line, which we took after visiting the Museum of Modern Art, Mack had to teach all of us, including me.

I sneak a glance at Valerian. He’s dressed in a long sleeved gray Beastie Boy’s shirt we found at a flea market earlier, dark skinny jeans, and a navy blazer. His mess of similarly colored wavy blue hair is tousled artfully to the side. If not for the sharp prick of his ears jutting from his hair, or his inhumanly gorgeous features, he looks just like all the other hipsters milling around Brooklyn.

A pigeon flutters near his feet, pecking at a piece of trash, and Valerian looks ready to slay the poor creature. The pigeon hops away as Phalanx streaks overhead—as if being tailed by a giant owl in Manhattan isn’t conspicuous in the least.

I’ve already warned Valerian twice that Phalanx can’t eat the tiny dogs New Yorkers seem to all own.

Valerian agreed, but begrudgingly. He’s been on high alert after an adorable golden retriever tried to bite him.

Apparently, dogs can sense the Fae, something I didn’t know.

Asher is similarly shell-shocked. He was doing fine until he entered the crosswalk too soon and was nearly flattened by a red Miata. Valerian, used to negotiating for every service in the Everwilde, offended a cab driver when he claimed the driver’s rate was tantamount to thievery and got us thrown out.

All in all, it’s been an eye-opening experience. Especially learning how much Valerian and Asher don’t know about our world. The Seelie Courts have been acclimating their Evermore since they were children, but the Unseelie have done the opposite.

Which is how two of the most powerful Evermore in existence got trapped inside a revolving door for three whole minutes. When Asher freaked out on the escalator, we decided it was best to stay outdoors for a while.

As we moved away from the traffic and stores, both Evermore chilled a bit. Mack insists our final spot should be Owl’s Head Park, so she grabs us four salty hotdogs from a food truck, and we find a grassy spot near the water to eat.

Despite it being nearly October, the weather is unseasonably warm, and the park is crowded.

Asher downs his hotdog, and Mack graciously offers him hers. He’s interested in the ships gliding along the New York Harbor, so she takes the dragon shifter to see them.