The Summer King Bundle 3 Stories - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,16

about twelve inches tall, had a major addiction to sugar, TV and film, and Amazon Prime. He’d gotten trapped in this world several years ago while trying to close one of the doorways to the Otherworld. Ivy had found him in St. Louis Cemetery with a broken leg and wing. Instead of putting him down, like all members of the Order were required to do at the time, she’d felt bad for the little guy and taken him home, helping him recover.

What Ivy hadn’t known was how crazy powerful Tink was, and that his current state, when he was about the size of a Ken doll, was a size he chose to be. Tink was what I liked to call giant-sized when he wanted to be. Ever since he’d come to stay with me, he’d been this size. Why, I had no idea.

Tink used to freak me out. I like to think a flying brownie would freak any normal person out, especially because he was the only brownie ever to be seen in our world. But not only had he grown on me, he was the reason I hadn’t bled out on the sidewalk alongside my mom the night I was attacked.

It had been Tink—full-sized Tink—who had found us.

And since then, since I returned home from the hospital, it was like I suddenly had joint custody of Tink. Not that Ivy or I really had custody of him, but he spent the same amount of time with me as he did with her nowadays.

“What are you doing, Tink?” I asked.

The brownie was still flat on his stomach, mid-military crawl. One gossamer wing twitched. Vibrant blue eyes were wide and blond hair a spiky mess. “Hi?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Tink.”

He sighed heavily, as if I was the one who had disturbed him, and pushed up on his small arms. He rose onto his knees. “I woke up.”

“Okay.”

“And I was bored.”

“All right.”

“Then I went downstairs to finish watching Stranger Things, but someone turned the TV off. Not going to name names or anything—”

“You know it was me, and you could’ve turned the TV back on.” I didn’t even bother pointing out that I knew he’d watched both seasons at least eight times. If I did, it would’ve started a conversation about how he was comparing the upside down to the Otherworld, and I really wasn’t in the mood for that conversation at the moment.

“I could’ve, but then I was like, that requires effort. You have no idea how long it takes these little legs to get down all those steps.”

“Couldn’t you just fly?”

“That’s a lot of work.”

“Couldn’t you just become people-sized?”

He cocked his head to the side. “But I’m cuter like this.”

All I could do was stare at him.

Tink stood and started stomping up the bed, toward Dixon. “So, anyway, then I was like, I wonder what Brighton is doing.”

I didn’t even want to know what time it was, but I figured it was either really late or really early. “Sleeping, Tink. That’s what I was doing.”

“But your light was on.” He lifted his hand, and Dixon reached out with a paw the size of his head. “So, I thought you were up. Dixon and I decided to visit you, because we’re good friends like that.”

Sighing, I lay back down.

“Guess what?”

“What?” I asked, scrubbing my hands over my eyes.

“I rode Dixon in here, like I would ride a mighty steer charging into battle.”

Lifting my hands, I looked over at him. I really had nothing to say to that.

Tink flashed straight, sharp teeth. “Ivy always gets mad at me when I do that, but Dixon likes it and I like it.”

“The world is your oyster, Tink.”

“Any-who-boo, we waited up for you.” He caught Dixon’s paw with both hands and shook it. “You were late. Super late. So, we went to bed.”

“You don’t have to wait up for me. I told you that.” I rolled onto my side, facing him. Tink was still shaking Dixon’s paw. For the hundredth time since he showed up at my doorstep a week ago with Dixon in tow, I wondered why he was still here and not in Florida. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything, Light-Bright.”

I grinned at the ridiculous name. “Why didn’t you go to Florida with Ivy?”

“Because she was with Ren.” He rolled his eyes.

“You like Ren. Don’t play.”

“He’s tolerable.”

I searched his face. “And Fabian went down to Florida. Wouldn’t you want to be with him?”

“I went down to Florida with him last

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