Evermore Academy (Evermore Academy #3) - Audrey Grey Page 0,119

Being around the cutthroat courtiers responsible for my mate’s pain. The ones who used his love for me against him. But I can’t. My unbridled anger seeps from my pores, growing stronger with every second I have to watch them laugh and toast and stuff themselves while Valerian suffers.

My hands clench the table, the wood groaning. Before my magic can lash out, I jerk to my feet, my chair tumbling backward and clattering on the cobblestones. My mother whips her head to me.

Her eyes order me to calm down.

I will do no such thing.

“Where are you going, dear?” the Spring Queen asks, her tone warning that I’m not actually going anywhere. Behind us, two Spring Court guards appear from seemingly thin air, ready to force me back into my broken chair.

Or ready to try, at least.

“To see my friends.” I lob a feral scowl at the guards before meeting the queen’s furious gaze. “You can try to stop me and see how well that turns out for you. Or, you can avoid a scandal and return to drinking your wine.” I wave my arm in the air, showing off the brand. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

She releases me with a flippant gesture, but the poisonous loathing behind her tight smile says I’ll pay for that insolence later.

Stares follow me as I rush to my friends’ table. The ocean crashes violently below. Mack is the first one up. She runs across the courtyard and throws her arms around me so hard the breath knocks from my lungs. “Summer, oh God.” Her body shakes as we both sob. “I’m so sorry. I tried to call, but your mom—she said you needed time.”

“It’s okay.” I brush her hair like I would a sister. “We’re together now.”

She reluctantly pulls away, her mascara leaking around her eyes. “One thing’s for sure. You don’t look defeated. If anything, you look . . .”

“Fucking hot?” Eclipsa offers, squeezing past Mack for a quick hug. “Fae females have suffered a lot over the centuries. We’ve learned to harness that suffering. To use it. No one does vengeance like us, right, Summer?”

“Damn right.” That’s why I let them dress me and feed me like a pet. Why I’m going through the motions, instead of what I want to do—rip them all to shreds.

Valerian gave up everything for me. Now it’s my turn to do the same for him. “Where is he?”

“Do you have a plan?” Asher asks, his voice unusually soft. I imagine this has been hell for him. Knowing Valerian is locked away somewhere, but being unable to do anything about it.

“Yeah. Sort of.”

The plan came the night after I lost the bond. It’s not elaborate. It’s not even clever. But I’m going to do what I should have done that night in the hedge maze.

Eclipsa looks out into the ocean. “There are spells and wards all around his cage.”

Cage? Molten rage slams through me, hardening my resolve.

“We’ve tried to break him ou—”

“Where. Is. He?”

“Summer, I need to tell you something.” Eclipsa guides me toward the cliff’s edge, away from listening ears. “My spies heard rumors.”

“About what?”

“They’re not going to execute him.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

In the soft light of the moon, the deep hollows of her cheekbones and sunken eye sockets mirror my own face. She has gone through hell in the last few months, the same as me. “The Darken’s soul will soon need a body, Summer.”

What does that have to do with—

Oh, no. No. No. No.

Terror takes hold, a deep, insidious type of fear that seeds in my marrow. They’re going to put the Darken’s demented soul in my mate’s body.

51

My terror gives way to a calm fury. “Take me to him.”

Eclipsa grins, obviously happy about the turn of events, but Asher’s brow furrows as he glances at the party in the distance. The wine has done its job and guests are dancing, having the time of their life, while my mate rots. “Not to point out the obvious, but . . . we need a distraction.”

“Got it covered.”

My friends gape, but after I felt the bond disappear, something inside me snapped. Every second after that night, while I pretended to care about trivialities such as whether my hair should be worn in a bun or down for the ceremony, I was focused on one thing—saving my mate.

They thought I was broken. A mess unable to dress herself or remember to eat, much less check her email or formulate a plot. No one noticed