will give up themselves entirely. Trick someone into falling in love with you and they are yours forever.
I pause for a moment, then scratch something below it so hard the chalkboard squeals and my chalk breaks twice.
Fuck love. And fuck the Evermore.
55
Two Months Later.
The sun shines down, scalding and angry, and I shield my eyes as I hang another shirt on the clothesline. It’s only May but my cheeks are on fire and the flesh of my arms are tinged bright red. Even after two months back in my world, I don’t take the sun for granted. Every morning when it lances through my window like the asshole it is, I feel thankful.
I still dream of the cold. I dream of snow that spears the air like shards of glass, of frost that invades my marrow, and a prince who weeps sleet and ice. Sometimes I dream he carves out my heart and packs the wound with snow, and I wake up screaming, my chest aching with cold.
Very rarely, I dream that he kisses me. Those mornings I wake up to a pillow soaked with tears.
I don’t care what he says. Our connection was real, just like I know Valerian is his true name. Whatever game he was playing, whatever cruel kick he got from making me fall for him, a part of him fell for me, too. And giving me his name raised the stakes for him somehow.
He knows I could crush him with that truth. And, deep down, I know he likes the power I still wield.
Mostly, though, I’ve managed to forget him and the dangerous, intoxicating world on the other side of the Shimmer. For a while, Mack would email me updates about school and our friends.
Evelyn is still missing. The Council for the Mistreatment of Humans has started a formal investigation into the school. Because of the inquest, the academy has doubled the training for the end of year Wild Hunt. Rhaegar grows darker by the day, and Basil traded Mack to Asher rather than face her glaring looks. She still hasn’t forgiven him for not stopping what happened to me.
Also, the prince is back with Inara.
Soon after that, I asked her to stop mentioning the prince at all.
A few weeks later a package arrived with a cell phone inside. Now we chat daily. Mostly she tells me she misses me and I say I miss her too. Sometimes we talk about Asher and their flirtatious—but platonic—relationship.
Between what happened to me and Evelyn, any potential romance between Mack and Dragon Boy is gone.
Occasionally we bring up Evelyn, but her disappearance is still too painful.
Currently, the conversation revolves around the Wild Hunt.
That’s today, by the way.
My stomach has been in knots all morning knowing how nervous Mack is. She and the other first year shadows will be dropped into the Forest of Eyes just outside the scourge lands with their keepers. They’ll be split into teams as they face off against trolls and other ancient monsters. Each team will be sent to find one hidden artifact.
“Summer, lunch is ready!” Aunt Zinnia calls. She stands on the back porch, wearing an apron that says, ‘It’s always five o’clock somewhere,’ over a pink robe and slippers. She watches me for a moment longer, shielding her eyes, before the porch screen slams shut behind her.
When I showed up on the front porch at the crack of dawn two months ago, wearing a Fae dress and a gold crown, my eyes rimmed from crying, Aunt Zinnia screamed. Then she wrapped me in a hug so warm it chased away any of the lingering cold from Everwilde.
She hugged me for a good five minutes. Then, like any good Southern woman who discovered a girl in tears on her porch, she fixed me grits and tea so sweet it made my teeth ache.
Aunt Vi’s icy demeanor has taken a bit more time to thaw. But I catch her checking on me late at night when she thinks I’m asleep. We don’t speak about what happened, but they’ve taken to running salt over the windowsills and doorways, and I’ve found extra rowan berry charms inside my clothes.
I don’t have the heart to tell them none of that matters. If the Fae want to come back for me, very few things can stop them. The mark on my arm ensures that.
It’s the only part of the prince I can’t erase.
I finish hanging up a pair of jeans and then grab the blue plastic laundry basket.