Evermore Academy (Evermore Academy #3) - Audrey Grey Page 0,24

for me. It wants to be used. Aches for it.

But when I try to grasp hold of the tendrils of magic, it’s slippery, dancing away from my grasp. Trapped behind layers of my panic and fear. It’s right there and yet completely out of my reach.

Sweat rolls over my forehead as I arch my back, growling low in my throat. I’m powerless, caught in a trap before my first day can even start.

A soft chuckle makes me freeze. My body goes rigid against the mushy ground. The menacing laugh seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. White snakes of mist gather in my periphery, coiling and rising as they begin to slither closer.

This is so not good.

I whip my head left to right, searching for something—anything—to help break free. Desperation makes me see features in the coalescing fog. Menacing, distorted faces sneer at me from above. The smells of decaying leaves and wet, damp earth turn foul. Putrid rot wafts over me as the visages converge into one evil, strangely familiar face.

I know two things for sure.

First, I’m not hallucinating. Something very real and very sentient watches behind that shifting specter of mist and magic. My terror might be able to scramble mist into faces, but there’s no way I could ever create the evil I feel lurking in the foggy air.

Second, this isn’t Hellebore. He might be behind the attack, but this thing staring down at me has power. Ancient, untapped, scary as frack power.

Talons of dark energy drag against my skin, ridging every inch of my flesh with goose bumps, making my belly tighten with dread. A gasp punches up my throat. I buck, my wild gaze flying to my arms and legs, surprised but thankful the skin isn’t cut open.

My body instinctively recoils from the rancid darkness sickening the air. Horrible slithering noises fill the forest as gnarled roots and vines come from seemingly everywhere.

I can do nothing—nothing—as they snake over my legs, my waist. A vine glides over my throat. It feels eerily like a fingertip as it tap tap taps.

It’s toying with me. Is there not one thing in the Everwilde that isn’t sadistic?

The pale specter hovers inches from my face. This close I can make out the terrible features. Whoever this is was once handsome, and Fae by the long angled slope of his ears. There’s a familiarity about him that tugs in the recesses of my brain. A pattern to his features that feels like home—but not.

Because everything that’s familiar has been twisted and wrenched. The skin stretched over ragged cheekbones. The full lips wrenched into a perpetual sneer. Eyes hooded so deep only shadows remain. Fiery red orbs glint from the recesses of the eye sockets, flickering back and forth like guttering flames.

That horrible gaze scrapes over me, leaving scorched trails over my shivering flesh. “You are Faerie, but not. Immortal yet sheathed in the decaying flesh and brittle bones of our slaves.”

Slaves . . . he means humans. This thing really has a way with words.

“Release me,” I snarl, jerking my head up as I strain against my binds, “and you can see firsthand how much of a slave I am.”

Wow, even I’m impressed with myself right now. If bravado was a weapon, this thing would already be dead.

If only.

Another wicked laugh.

“These walls cannot protect you from me,” the specter promises. “Once I have the final pieces of my weapon back, I will be unstoppable.”

Realization makes my heart feel as if it hurtles from my chest and flops on the forest floor like a fish.

Titania above, this is . . .

Summer, meet the evil tyrant Fae who broke the world.

“Darken.”

Even the trees seem to shiver as the dark, forbidden name seeps from my lips, breathing life into my fear, fueling the inferno of terror blazing through every inch of my being. My horror feeds his power, and his form solidifies as the embers inside his skull flare to life.

This is so not how I envisioned my first day.

“A bargain for you,” the Darken offers in that rasping, otherworldly voice that slices down my spine. “Come willingly and I will spare them.”

“Them?” I breathe, but I already know.

I know.

Shimmer help me, the knowledge sends rancid, toxic fear spearing through my bones. Every muscle reacts, clenching until I fear my limbs will lock up.

I understand now why people say they’re paralyzed by fear. The idea of the cruel, depraved magic I feel being unleashed on those I love is