I am a mortal. They will despise me because they are cruel, merciless, beautiful things and I am weak and plain in comparison.
Oh, God, Summer. What have you gotten yourself into?
For a moment, fear roots me to my bedroom floor. I haven’t had time to mourn the loss of my future properly. Haven’t had time to mentally prepare.
I’m not ready.
The tattoo on my arm begins to burn, and I drag my gaze to the window. The moon is halfway over the rise.
I need to go, but I’m frozen with fear.
Nerves in a jumble, I collapse to my knees and drag a shoebox out from beneath my bed. My small ruby necklace sits on the top. The silver charm is shaped like a wolf’s head holding a pea-sized ruby inside its fangs.
The details are painstakingly etched to perfection, right down to the gleam of the beast’s large nose and his thick, shaggy fur. There’s no denying this was made by the best silversmiths in Everwilde.
The second the cold pendant slips over my head and rests against my breastbone, I breathe a sigh of relief. Before taking a few choice items off Cal’s hands earlier, I’d removed my pendant—just in case.
But I never feel right without it. It holds the memory of my parents, and is the only thing connecting me to them besides their picture.
That’s harder to find. It sits at the very bottom, beneath my adoption paperwork.
I rub a thumb over the faces in the photo; a man dressed smartly in a brown corduroy jacket next to a Christmas tree, his arm around a pretty woman with dark hair pulled into a bun and an easy smile. Their happy eyes fill me with courage.
“I can’t leave you guys,” I say to my parents.
With the photo stored safely in my jean pocket, and the pendant around my neck, a hidden well of strength bubbles to the surface. My boots clop softly over the wood floor as I tiptoe to my open window, carefully push the screen out, and duck through.
Chatty Cat tries to follow, but I shake my head. “Stay. Watch over Jane and the others.”
As if he understands, Chatty Cat jumps down to the floor and sits on his haunches, watching me with those too-bright lime-green eyes.
From the roof to the ground is a ten-foot drop. I manage to lower myself and then jump, landing hard on the scratchy rose bushes near the front porch.
An army of stars march across the indigo sky. I make sure to leave no tracks as I slip across the prairie toward the Shimmer. When I’m close enough to see the spot from yesterday where I entered, a distant voice calls my name.
Jane. Somehow she suspected. But she’s too late.
“See you in four years,” I promise, ignoring the throb of my heart.
Then, for the second time in twenty-four hours, I pass into Everwilde.
8
The first thing I notice when I cross the Shimmer to Everwilde is that I didn’t dress warmly enough. At all. Somehow it’s even colder than before. A blizzard rages. The icy breeze piercing my flimsy clothes and taking up permanent residence in my bones.
And where the heck is the sun? Night still clings to everything, the moon in exactly the same spot as before. As if time is frozen here like everything else.
I’m not meant for wintry, dark worlds. I need sunlight on my face and a warm summer breeze. I need flowers and sunburns and the clink of ice cubes against a sweating glass of iced tea so sweet it’ll rot your teeth right out of your head.
By my admittedly limited experience, the Everwilde is the opposite of that.
As if taunting me, a snowflake lands on the tip of my nose. I sigh, my annoyance growing. My tormentor demanded I be here at exactly midnight, yet now he’s the late one and I’m freezing my lady balls off.
The second that thought hits me, something moves between the trees.
I peer through the flurry of snow and make out a man on a moon-white horse lurking near the base of the closest tree. Actually, not a man—I need to remember that—and he’s not on a horse.
He is a horse, sort of.
“Centaur,” I breathe, sure I’m still dreaming as I watch my breath crystallize in front of me.
The Evermore glares. I stare up at him, too enamored to care that he obviously finds retrieving me an insult. From the waist up, he appears completely normal. Or as normal as a Fae can look.