I swear to God, the entire assembly goes dead quiet. The Lunar Court girl starts to grin, but then thinks better of it and slaps a hand over her mouth. Rhaegar’s green eyes are twice their normal size, his pretty mouth gaping open.

My tormentor’s nostrils flare, a muscle twitching beneath his clenched jaw.

Take that truth bomb and shove it where the sun don’t shine.

With one last icy glance my direction, he turns to Rhaegar. “She’s mine, and that’s final.”

Mine? Rhaegar turns to face the Winter Evermore, his jaw set. “I invoke the right of Nocturus.”

A collective gasp from the crowd stirs the air.

“What’s Nocturus?” I whisper to Cronus, who’s too busy conferring with the sprites to hear me.

A moment later, he turns to the three Fae vying for me. “Nocturus has been invoked. Because Rhaegar was the first to claim this mortal, he keeps her as his shadow until Samhain, when the battle will be held under the full moon.” Keep me? Battle? He turns to the Lunar Court Fae. “Eclipsa Skywell, do you claim Nocturus as well?”

My heartbeat jackhammers against my skull. What’s happening? What’s Nocturus? It sounds horrible, if I’m being honest with myself.

Eclipsa shakes her head, a sly look on her face. “It wouldn’t be fair to either of them if they had to fight me.”

Despite my panic, her bravado makes me smile.

A sudden blizzard begins to rage, giant snowflakes dumping from the sky and pummeling the bubble of warmth that’s been basically keeping me alive. I watch in horror as one snowflake pierces the shell, then another, until a bitter cold forces itself into my wet clothes and penetrates my bones.

Rhaegar rushes me off stage and hands me off to Mack, with a quick warning to go straight to our dorms.

“I’d go to hell right now if it was warm,” I mutter, conjuring a tight smile from Rhaegar. Rhaegar does another warmth spell on me, but the weather is so bad that it has little effect this time.

“What’s Nocturus?” I ask Mack, desperate for someone to tell me what the heck is happening.

Apparently still in shock, Mack takes a few seconds to compose herself enough to answer. “It’s a magical battle held during Samhain.”

By brain is reeling. Do I dare ask what Samhain is?

She must read my confusion because she says, “The holiday celebrating the start of winter? No? Not ringing a bell?”

I shrug hopelessly, and then a thought occurs to me. “How do they decide a winner?”

“No, they . . .” She brushes a hot pink strand of hair behind her ear. “They fight until one of the combatants yields . . . or dies.”

“Do the Fae ever choose the death option?” I ask, glancing over at Rhaegar.

“They do if they want to keep their honor.”

My heart sinks. The last thing I want, the last thing I need, is some Evermore dying for me in a stupid magical battle.

This is decidedly not a good start to my first day.

“What about the other girl?” I ask. “From the Lunar Court?”

A wry smile tugs on Mack’s lips. “You mean the renowned Lunar Court assassin, Eclipsa Skywell?”

I swallow. “Assassin?”

“Yep. I heard every half-moon jewel on her body stands for a kill. You should probably be glad she’s no longer in the running to be your keeper.”

I groan. Today is quickly becoming the worst day ever. And I say that as someone who’s been kidnapped, caged, and nearly sold.

With my sprite guide in tow, shrieking every Fae curse word in the book, we follow the rest of the group around the academy and to our dorms.

When we’re far enough away from the Fae students that their supernatural hearing won’t pick up our conversation, I say, “Guess the Winter Prince, wherever he’s hiding, is having a bad day. Can someone please go cheer him up so we can have some sun?”

Mack halts.

“Do you really not know who the Winter Prince is?” she asks, concern etched across her face.

Dickwad supreme? But the serious tone of her voice makes me swallow the sarcastic retort on my tongue.

“The Evermore you were taunting back there isn’t the Winter Prince’s bitch,” she continues, exasperation making her voice raise an octave. “He is the Winter Prince, the most powerful and wicked Evermore in this school, and you just publicly insulted him.”

No, no, no. This can’t be happening. “But . . . he talked about himself in third person, for Fae’s sake! Who does that?”

“The Winter Prince and heir to the Winter Court,” she replies. “He does that.”

As we trudge after the group, our boots crunching the snow, one thought echoes through my mind.

Worst. Day. Ever.

16

By the time we make it to the mortal dormitory, the blizzard has made visibility less than two feet. Thanks moody Winter Prince. I’m still having trouble believing the Fae I met in the forest is the Winter Prince, but it makes sense.

It also means I’ve not only pissed off the entire Unseelie side of the academy, but I’ve publicly humiliated their leader. And something tells me they won’t let that stand.

Way to kick off this dumpster fire properly, Summer. And on the very first day. I should win an award for self-sabotage.

The Seelie mortal dormitory sits just over a hill near the main academy building. A well-kept castle that looks like it was taken straight from the University of Oxford, the building is hedged in by forest on three sides and overlooks a frozen pond.

Despite the snow icing the roof and lining the windowsills, green ivy covers the stonework, and violets fill the gardens, a burst of purple and yellow color against the bleached world. Smoke curls from several chimneys and trickles lazily into the cloudy sky.

The plaque above the steel-gray painted door reads Hall of Shadows.

Quaint.

“There’s another Seelie mortal dorm close by,” Mack explains. “This one houses mainly shadows under the Summer and Mythological Creatures Courts’ protection.”

Inside, we’re handed stylish silver cuff bracelets with the Seelie sigil, a sun held by two harpies. Mack explains we don’t take the true sigil of the Evermore we shadow until second year, since we can be traded between Evermore in the same court. It’s less complicated this way.

“Being traded isn’t ideal, but it’s not that bad,” Mack adds as I follow her up a winding set of stairs and pretend not to be winded. “If it happens, it’s usually within the first month.”

She says that a lot. It’s not that bad. They’re not that bad. Meanwhile, I think the idea of being passed around like Pokémon cards is demeaning, but whatev.

“But,” she continues, her tone lowering as she grows serious. “Never, ever sleep with your Fae keeper, or any Fae, for that matter. Once you do, you’re expelled.”

“Why do they care?”

“I don’t know, but that’s been drilled into my head since the moment my parents gave me their awkward speech on sex. It was all, hey, Mack, here’s a packet of condoms and five different forms of birth control. Keep a harem of human men, or women, or both for all we care. But never, under any circumstances, let a Fae male seduce you.”

“Your parents sound . . . not like my aunts at all.”

“Yeah, they’re cool when it comes to that stuff.” She shrugs. “Just remember what I said. The Evermore males lay bets on all of us. Don’t fall for one no matter how charming.”

“That’s so not going to be a problem,” I promise. I don’t point out how unfair that rule is. A girl sleeps with a male and she’s the one who’s bad?

Then again, everything here is unfair to humans in some way.

“That’s why I’m glad my keeper is Basil,” Mack adds. “If the Winter Prince had chosen me, my panties would accidentally drop every time we were alone together.” A wicked grin brightens her face. “You know what they say about male Fae? The longer the ears . . .”

I snort, although I get the feeling she’ll do whatever it takes to keep her place here. Including resisting the prince’s magnetic good looks and long . . . ears.

Mack’s dorm room is on the third floor. Every tiny apartment has a fireplace with a magically fed fire that never dies—they don’t want their human slaves freezing to death—and delicious warmth assails me as soon as we enter Mack’s room.

“This cold is sapping away what’s left of my soul,” I groan, rubbing my frozen fingers together.

Mack glances sideways at me. “Just wait. Ever seen snow so thick it’s like an avalanche from the sky? I have.”

Fantastic.

Mack does a twirl around the room, showing off the tiny chamber. I wiggle my nose. It reeks of mothballs and magic—a metallic, cloying scent, like lilies and copper. Now that I’ve been around magic, I’m starting to recognize its smell.

A brass bunk bed presses against the far wall. Her previous roommate, a dour girl with both her ears surgically enhanced to look Fae, she explains, has already moved her stuff to one of the two Unseelie dorms on campus.

Twin cedar nightstands, a matching dresser, and a desk crowd the room. Aged, peeling wallpaper with a pattern of beautiful centaur females frolicking in a meadow covers the walls.

We take a moment to warm up. While I swaddle myself in every blanket available and then position myself close to the fire, she examines my tattoo. Apparently none of the other shadows have one, at least not a full sleeve marking. Her eyes grow wide as she points out the Winter Prince’s personal emblem—an owl with two daggers—swirled inside the intricate lines.

Another thing to make me stand out from the crowd. Yay.

Before, I couldn’t muster the courage to look at the tattoo. Now I take in the dark swirls running down my right arm. The moment my gaze slides over the gold and black lines, the Winter Prince’s words ring through my skull.

She’s mine.

A surge of bitterness blasts up my middle. I’ve been branded as his, and even if Rhaegar wins the Nocturus and I stay his shadow, this mark will claim me as property of the Winter Prince until I graduate.