Winter

The portal shoots us out onto pavement next to buildings—tall, modern skyscrapers, I discover. The snowfall here is less and I can actually see the stars.

Steam curls up from iced-over sidewalks and over our boots.

“Where are we?” I ask, following Mack and Evelyn around the corner.

Mack smiles. “Welcome to Evernell, capital city of the new Everwilde. This is where all the students go to relax.” She nods her head to the sleek high-rises. “Many of the Evermore students have weekend homes here. Your boy the Winter Prince has the penthouse to that monstrosity ahead. It belongs to his dad, but only the prince uses it.”

I follow her nod to the tallest building in the city, a metallic all-glass building two blocks down. The top floor is huge, and I study the tinted windows as if I can see the Winter Prince from here.

“I’m guessing by the weather he’s not here?” I say.

“Or,” she offers, cutting her dark eyes at me. “You bring out the worst in him. I mean, I may be wrong, but calling him a bitch in public was probably a little triggering. You should probably stop doing that if you want nicer weather.”

“Well, the truth hurts.”

Laughing, we follow a group of students across the street as I stare around in wonder. For some reason, I thought all of Everwilde would be forest and meadows . . . not this.

Bright neon signs glow from tall buildings, and in the distance, a fountain shoots water into the air to a strange Fae song. Something about this place seems so familiar.

“Wait . . . is this . . . ?”

“The City of Lights?” she finishes. “Yeah. Welcome to the old Las Vegas, baby.”

That’s right. When the Lightmare happened, I assumed all the cities had been destroyed. But I guess they were just repurposed. It was the human beings living here that got the short end of that stick.

Mack doesn't notice my anger as she grabs her phone and begins texting. “I’ll shoot Callum a message to have an emotion potion ready for us.”

“A what?” I ask.

She grins. “Just wait.”

Callum is the third year mentor our hall is assigned to. Any questions, Mack said, and we ask Callum. I haven’t met him yet, but the third and fourth year trials are supposedly almost impossible to pass, and he’s been crazy busy.

I can barely keep from gawking at everything as we exit an alleyway into a side street. A row of bars with names like The Black Cauldron and The Iron Centaur spill patrons into the street. I gawk at them, too, overwhelmed by their strangeness.

A swarm of sprites flutter out from a door to our left below a sign that reads, The Pink Pixie.

Mack guides me away. “Don’t ever go in that bar unless you want to end up drugged and wake up somewhere deep in Everwilde, enslaved to a woodland nymph or worse, a troll. The sprites think selling us into a thousand years of slavery is an entertaining sport.”

That sounds exactly like something Ruby would do.

When we near the end of the street, Mack leads me down crumbling stairs to a black steel door. There’s no sign other than a symbol with rounded ears inside a circle that Mack explains means ‘human friendly.’

The second we enter we’re enveloped in bass-thumping music and strobe lights. My focus immediately goes to a row of cages near the stage. Half-naked girls dance inside the cages, and I’m shocked to see they’re human. Fae males clamor around their cages, slipping money into the shreds of clothing they do wear.

But the dancers’ unfocused eyes stare off into the distance, and they hardly seem aware of the customers.

Glamoured. A surge of anger washes over me, and I have to look away.

I duck out of my coat and tie it around my waist as Mack leads us past a packed dance floor, up a flight of stairs, and into a VIP lounge area bespeckled in mirrors and red leather.

The bouncer, a warty, green-skinned orc, tries to stop us, but Mack holds out her wrist, showing off her new cuff mark: ram’s horns inside a circle for Magus’s Mythological Creatures Court.

We don’t get tattooed with our keeper’s mark until next year, but Basil must have given her that to use for occasions such as this.

When the bouncer’s tiny flashlight beam rolls over my tattoo, he frowns, showing off a mean underbite and bottom fangs that stick out. But he moves to let us pass quickly.

At least this dumb mark comes with perks.

We settle onto a gold couch with cigarette holes and questionable sticky stains. From here, we have an unhindered view of the dance floor and stage.

“Do you see those slave-girls dancing near the stage?” Evelyn says, peering over the edge of the bannister.

“They’re slaves?” I say, clenching my fists as another surge of rage barrels through me.

“Yep,” Evelyn answers, oblivious to my anger. She points. “See that one there?”

I follow her gesture to a petite brunette to the far right. Her mind might be glamoured into oblivion, but her mascara smudges around red, swollen eyes. She’s been crying.

“That’s Ashley Hall, a second year student last year. Her parents live in the same building as mine. I heard the rumors, we all did . . .” She leans in close. “Supposedly Ashley slept with a third year Evermore. Why would she be so stupid? I mean, they’re attractive, sure. But there are other things you can do that don’t get you in trouble.”

I glare at Evelyn. “So, what? She slept with him, and then they expelled her for it? What happened to him?”

“Nothing,” Mack says, the low growl in her voice making it clear she doesn’t approve. “But that’s just the way it is.”

“That is so backwards,” I mutter. “But why not send her off to fight in the scourge?”

“Usually the students busted for hooking up with an Evermore get sold to the clubs as . . . dancers, or worse. Once we sleep with an Evermore, we’re marked forever as a Fae-whore.”

I roll my eyes. “Sounds like my high school.”

Evelyn tugs at her skirt, a mini leather thing that barely hides her goods. “I heard the Winter King himself bought her slave contract. I’d rather die than suffer that humiliation. Can you imagine belonging to the Winter Court? Being forced to work in their sleazy clubs and wear their brand?”

I don’t point out that we’re in one of those sleazy clubs, and I wear their brand. But her gaze flicks to my arm where the tattoo swirls over my flesh, and her eyes go wide as she realizes her mistake.

“Evelyn,” Mack says, rolling her eyes, “insert foot in mouth.”

Evelyn doesn’t know why I have the prince’s mark; only Mack knows that secret.

Before Evelyn can apologize, the door on the other side squeaks open and a boy around my age appears, carrying a metal tray that holds four flutes full of fizzing liquid.

“Finally,” Mack groans.

His back is to us as he sets the tray down on the desk. Wow. He’s a big one. I start to make a joke just as he turns around—

And then I gasp. My body physically recoiling from him. Without thinking, I leap to my feet, searching for a weapon as adrenaline floods my body.

33

“Summer!” Mack yells, her eyes wide. “What’s wrong?” She and Evelyn crowd around me, only adding to my discomfort.

I’m breathing hard as I look from them to our mentor, Callum. Or, as he’s called on the other side, Cal.

“I know him,” I growl, jerking my chin at Cal.

To his credit, he’s putting on a good show of being surprised. He’s pressed against the door, hands held high, a shocked look on his face.

“You know . . . Callum?” Mack asks, looking from me to him.

“Yeah, and I refuse to be anywhere near him.” I cross my arms over my chest to drive home the point.

Cal actually has the audacity to look hurt, his bushy eyebrows mashing together above a frown. If I didn’t know what sort of a-hole he was, I would have been convinced I truly hurt his feelings.

Mack’s eyes narrow, and I can see her brain whirring behind her dark hair. “How would you know . . .” Suddenly the wrinkle trenched across her forehead smooths out. “Oh.”

She marches over to where Cal presses into the wall and lifts his big hand up, exposing his wrist. The Winter Court mark, similar to the one inside my tattoo, flares against his flesh just below his palm. “Cal is a changeling,” Mack says as if I know what the hell she’s talking about.

“A change-what?” I say.

“Oh, right. We haven’t covered that yet.” She drops his wrist and then pats his arm. “It’s okay, she’ll calm down once I explain. Here”—she grabs the flute brimming with pink potion and offers it to me—“let’s down these, since you obviously need to chill, and then I’ll explain.”

Normally, I wouldn’t chug a mysterious, magical liquid, even if Mack promises I’ll adore it, but after the shock of seeing Cal in Everwilde, I desperately need something.

The liquid fizzes all the way down my throat and into my stomach. When every ounce of liquid has been drained from the flute, a pink wisp of smoke trickles from the rim and dances around my head in the shape of a dragon.

Mack’s becomes a smoky teal sprite that giggles before evanescing. Callum’s is a centaur that gallops around the room shooting arrows of smoke. Evelyn’s becomes a mermaid that circles her head, splashing smoke-water at her.

“Wow,” I say, clutching my belly. “That was . . . intense.”

For a moment, it feels as if a swarm of feathery butterflies have been let loose in my stomach. Then a wave of complete joy washes over me.

This is nice. So nice. Cal is nice. Everyone is nice.

“I love everyone,” I purr.

I sit on my butt beside Mack and Evelyn, both girls matching my silly grin with smiles of their own. I have no idea why we’re on the floor instead of the couch.

“See,” Mack says, petting my face. “Now, ready for more truth about Callum?”

I nod happily.

“So Callum is a changeling,” Mack begins. Callum plops his giant form beside us as he watches Mack explain. “He was taken as a baby and replaced by an other—a lookalike Fae child.”