Winter

Mack must read my upset expression because she frowns. Then her face brightens. “When I visit my parents in a few months I can ask them if there’s a way to hide the prince’s brand. You won’t be able to erase it, but you shouldn’t have to see it all the time.”

“Wait? We can go home?” Hope makes my voice squeaky.

She bites her lip. “Some of us can leave Everwilde. But most . . .” Her gaze darts to my marked arm. “I have a pass because my parents are legacies, and they’re still in touch with their Evermore benefactors. But a pass home is rare.”

I pretend to rearrange my burrito blanket to hide my disappointment. “That’s okay. I’m not sure what I would say to my family if I could go back.”

She squeezes my hand. “I’ll have my parents talk to their benefactors and see if they might be able to secure you a pass home.”

For some reason, her kindness tightens my throat until I realize I’m one more hand squeeze away from crying.

Before I can embarrass myself, she marches across the floor, hands on her hips.

“On to the important stuff.” She drags a Louis Vuitton suitcase across the hardwood floor and flops it open. “We need to educate you on everything Evermore over the weekend.”

I’d nearly forgotten it was Friday. Usually I spent the weekends hunting, watching the kids, or occasionally working at the feed store with Vi. “Educate me?”

“Yep. Our sole purpose, aside from learning to protect the Evermore, is to shadow the students and make sure all their wants are taken care of. And since you somehow landed the two most sought after Evermore in school, your life here depends on being helpful. Next Friday is the first academic test.”

Test? I release a long, ragged sigh. Friday is supposed to be a happy day. “You said the first. Does that mean there are more?”

“Yep. The first one is basically like an entrance exam to make sure we know the fundamental stuff. But we attend classes like regular school in the morning, and then shadow our keepers in the afternoon classes. And we’re tested just like regular school.”

Splendid.

As if Mack can sense my panic, she adds, “Not to put the fear of Oberon in you, but you need to take this first test seriously. The rest are for a grade, but this one is pass or fail. Meaning you’re one slip-up away from being sent to the scourge. And kids that go there . . . they never return.”

“I did okay in high school,” I point out, purposefully omitting that one ridiculous algebra test . . .

“Know what the darkening ceremony is? How about the difference between a fiddler mushroom and a fennick mushroom? Because they sound similar, but one will enhance a potion, and the other releases spores that poison everyone within thirty feet.”

I shake my head. Way out of my element here.

She pats the floor next to where she sits, a MacBook with pink and teal leopard skin open on her lap. “Then come. Time to cram a year’s worth of studies into your brain. All of the other students attended a ‘Summer camp’ every year run by the Evermore where we learned most of the basic stuff. But I brought along some materials as a refresher. We can use those until your books show up.”

I grin; I can already tell Mack is a great student. I’d bet anything she was top of her class in high school.

My heart clenches as I remember how much I used to love school. I wasn’t a next-level-overachiever like Mack, but I liked learning about worlds outside our small little town.

“I can help you study this weekend and then in the off hours this week,” she continues, all business. “We shadow our keepers from after lunch to sundown, then an hour of fight training. After that, the rest of the time is ours.”

“How generous,” I mutter. “Wait, back up. Fight training?”

“Yeah. That’s what we do as shadows. Protect our charge.”

“But, they’re Fae, basically gods. Why do they need us to protect them?”

“Obviously you’ve never seen darklings around Fae,” she says. “Something about the Fae’s magic makes the darklings go into a feeding frenzy.”

“Yeah, but the Fae have magic, and they’re infinitely stronger than us.”

“True, but darklings are incredibly hard to kill, and only one thing can finish them off. Know what that is?”

I shrug.

“Here’s a hint: it kills Fae too.”

“Iron?” I offer.

“Exactly. A Fae can’t get within ten feet of the stuff. But guess who can?”

“Us.”

She nods. “And infused with oils from rowan berries and the ash tree? Absolutely lethal. So . . .” She stretches her arms as a proud smile splits her lips. “In short, they may be gods, but they need us.”

“Could have fooled me.” Resigned to enduring a weekend of studying, I sit cross-legged beside her on the floor and eye the clothes inside her suitcase. “Wait, I thought we couldn’t bring anything but the clothes on our backs?”

She snorts. “We were allowed to send our bags months ago to be inspected and approved. You didn’t . . .” The truth dawns in her eyes, and she bites her lip. “Of course you didn’t have time. So that means you have . . . nothing?”

I sweep a hand over my outfit. “Just my lucky hoody, my ass-kicking boots, and my awesome self.”

Her gaze slides to the mound of clothes in her suitcase. “I would let you borrow an outfit, but I don’t think it would fit.”

She’s right. She’s short and curvy; I’m tall and one lost meal away from withering into full-blown starvation.

“Anyway,” she continues. “That’s at the bottom of our priorities. First thing we need to do is give you the rundown on this place and the rules.”

I watch as she pulls out a manila envelope with glossy 8x10 photos from the nearby desk. When she hands me the first picture and I spy the face of Inara grinning menacingly at me, I nearly recoil, fighting the urge to rip the picture into tiny shreds.

It doesn’t help that the pictures are imbued with some sort of magic so that Inara’s face actually changes from a smile to a sneer inside my hands.

“Be gone, Satan,” I whisper, flipping Inara’s face onto the ground.

“Here.” Mack slides an entire stack of portraits toward me. “Memorize these. They have every Evermore student in the school, along with their court, ranking, and powers on the back.”

“This will take years,” I grumble.

“You don’t have years. You have ten minutes.”

I glare at my bossy new roommate overlord as she hops up, rifles through her clothes, and then pulls out a Nespresso coffee maker. “Technically we’re not supposed to bring any modern technology that isn’t school related to the academy, but everyone does it. Memorize those bios and you get one of these bad boys.”

She waggles a shiny orange espresso pod in my face.

Hell. Yes. I haven’t had coffee in years, and the chance of a fresh cup fills me with motivation. After making her show me how it works—to make sure it indeed can make coffee—I blow through the photos, carefully repeating details in my head until I’m pretty sure I know them by heart.

When I set the stack down, Mack flicks up her eyebrows. “You still have a minute.”

“I don’t need a minute. I need some of that bean juice you’re hoarding. So test me and then let’s get over-caffeinated in this beotch.”

“Okay, hot shot. Give me Rhaegar Moorland’s story.”

“Pointy ears, super gorgeous, enjoys strutting around being ogled and saving damsels in distress?” Her eyes narrow and I laugh, adding, “Member of the Summer Court, his father is hand of the Summer King, who has no heirs, by the way, making Rhaegar presumptive heir to the Summer Throne.”

Her nose crinkles. “Anything else?”

“His elemental powers include fire and earth magic, his shifter form is a hawk, his best friend is your keeper, Basil, his mortal enemy is the Winter Prince . . . and you can bounce a coin off his ass.”

Mack laughs, a deep, beautiful belly laugh that solidifies my adoration for her. Then she takes a pink sharpie from a ziplock baggie of pens and actually writes that on the back of Rhaegar’s photo.

How in the world I landed one of the coolest humans in Everwilde as a roommate and friend is beyond me. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For her to yell surprise and then dump sheep’s blood or something on me.

Girls like Mack don’t befriend people like me. It just doesn’t happen. Except, apparently, in Everwilde.

I slay the rest of the quiz, impressing even myself. When we get to the Winter Prince, I hesitate. My anger messes with my memory as I try to recall the details listed on the back of his picture.

Then something occurs to me. “Wait. His last name is listed—Sylverfrost. But there’s no first name.”

“In Everwilde, names have immense power. No one knows the prince’s true first name. And he’s never told anyone.” She’s whispering as if he can hear us. “Now—” She snaps her fingers. “Stop stalling and give me his deets.”

“Heir to the Winter Throne, and leader of the Elite Unseelie Six,” I begin, wracking my brain for the rest. His list of magical skills was longer than most. “Powers include turning me into a popsicle and shifting into winter animals, elemental powers include ice, storms, and wind. Best friend is Asher Grayscale, a dragon shifter, and his familiar is a snowy owl. It’s rumored the prince can fly, has healing powers, and he’s mated to the daughter of the Winter Court’s general, Inara Winterspell. What am I missing?”

I pretend to think for a moment. “Oh, right. Total douche canoe.”

Mack picks up his photo and shivers, making a face. “I am not going to write that on the back, in case he’s watching. I’ve heard his powers are so strong and volatile that even his father is scared of him.”

Rolling my eyes, I snatch his picture away.