Evermore Academy (Evermore Academy #3) - Audrey Grey Page 0,131

in my direction.

I close my fingers around the handle, hardly daring to breathe, but he’s looking past me. I follow his gaze to the Spring Queen. She must have left her throne to ensure the contract was signed, and she’s leaned forward, eyes greedily scanning the contract.

“Sign, nephew,” she orders, with the confidence of someone who is always obeyed.

Hellebore’s lips wrench into a cruel smile, his eyes filled with venom. He doesn’t say a word as his hatred spills into the air. His anger has always been calculated, controlled, a weapon crafted to hurt.

But the unfathomable hurt and rage pouring from him now is different, and I recognize the pain of a child who lost his parents.

“I loved them,” he murmurs, so low that I hardly hear him.

But the Spring Queen hears him perfectly. Her eyes widen as realization takes hold. “Guards!”

But her soldiers remain where they are.

The clever queen doesn’t call for them twice. A shrewd look narrows her eyes as she studies her nephew. “The other courts will never back you.”

Hellebore just smiles and smiles and smiles that awful grin.

“Nephew—”

A sharp gasp of pain parts her lips. She claws at her blood-red dress, shrieking and twirling in some macabre jig like a marionette. Spinning and spinning until she jerks to a stop. In the span of a breath, she goes from twitching and flailing, to still.

Completely, unnaturally still.

Silence—as if the entire world has frozen as the Spring Queen crumples soundlessly to the grass. The poor dragonflies attached to the gossamer folds of her dress try to escape, their delicate wings fluttering soundlessly, making the dress appear to writhe and undulate in the air above her.

Tiny, black creatures scuttle across her milk-white chest and up her neck, funneling into her mouth, her ears, her open eyes.

Spiders, centipedes, and scorpions. Each horrifying creature embodies Hellebore’s pent-up rage, centuries’ worth of bottled-up betrayal let loose.

With steps too calm for the horror that just transpired, Hellebore strolls to his aunt and kneels over her lifeless body. He rips her necklace from her chest, and I suddenly know what hangs from that sturdy chain.

The last piece of the axe.

Then he takes her crown and settles it atop his head.

Just like that, Hellebore is King.

55

The new Spring Court King turns to me. In the surreal chaos, I’d forgotten about my plan to kill him.

Now, it returns with a vengeance.

The switchblade flicks open with a soft, damning click.

His gaze drifts to the blade, back to me. “What are you going to do with that, pet?”

The click-click of a shotgun being racked draws my eye to Aunt Vi. Grinning, she points the sawed-off metal barrel of Betsy, her double-pump shotgun, directly at Hellebore. “I’ve always wanted to shoot Satan in the face.”

Zinnia squares up behind her sister, ready to fight, along with Mack’s dads. Shock hits as I see guests rush to join us. Students from the academy I barely know. Evermore I don’t recognize.

When Inara rushes over, I lift my iron switchblade, expecting her to take Hellebore’s side. Instead, she stands next to me, her cold magic dancing over her fingertips.

“What are you doing?” I blurt. This has to be a trick, right?

She cuts her eyes sideways at me. “I’m tired of my actions being ruled by males. Plus, this is going to fucking infuriate my dad.”

“Sounds like a good enough reason to me,” Eclipsa calls, as she bounds over with Mack and Ruby in tow. Their shackles have been removed by someone.

Ruby lands on my shoulder, her tiny dagger slashing the air.

“How did you get free?” I ask.

“I helped,” a female on my left side says.

Something about the voice, the familiarity, makes me turn. I’m met with big, ice-blue eyes, full lips, and wavy, midnight-blue hair, all of it just like . . .

“Summer,” Eclipsa growls, facing off with Hellebore, “meet Wynter Sylverfrost, long-lost Winter Court Princess. She froze off our bindings.”

“Thanks, by the way,” Wynter says to me. “I saw your note on the nightstand.”

It had been a wild hope born from desperation that they were hiding there. “Where’s the Winter Prince and Asher?”

“I didn’t see either of them,” Wynter says, frowning.

I face off with Hellebore again, surprised to see Rhaegar beside him. And when I see what he’s doing—

I barely manage to force the scream back down my throat. Rhaegar has Valerian on his knees, a huge iron longsword angled down so that one thrust will sever his spine. Valerian isn’t moving, his hands still bound behind him, body frozen, somehow, by