to ignore me and believe that she knows best.
Someone you trust has already betrayed you.
I have trusted Vivi more than anyone else. I have trusted her with Oak, with the truth, with my plan. I have trusted her because she is my older sister, because she doesn’t care about Faerie. But it occurs to me that if she betrayed me, I would be undone.
I wish she wouldn’t keep reminding me she was talking to Madoc. “And you trust Dad? That’s a change.”
“He’s not good at a lot of things, but he knows about scheming,” Vivi says, which is not that reassuring. “Come on. Tell me about Taryn. Is she actually excited?”
How do I even answer? “Locke got himself made Master of Revels. She’s not exactly pleased about his new title or behavior. I think half the reason he likes to screw around is to get under her skin.”
“This is not boring,” Vivi says. “Go on.”
Heather comes into the room with two cups of coffee. We stop talking as she passes one to me and one to Vivi. “I didn’t know how you took it,” she says. “So I made it like Vee’s.”
I take a sip. It’s very sweet. I’ve already had plenty of coffee this morning, but I drink some more anyway.
Black as the eyes of the High King of Elfhame.
Heather leans against the door. “You done packing?”
“Almost.” Vivi eyes her suitcase and then throws in a pair of rain boots. Then she looks around the room, as though she’s wondering what other stuff she can cram in.
Heather frowns. “You’re bringing all that for a week?”
“It’s just the top layer that’s clothes,” Vivi says. “Underneath, it’s mostly stuff for Taryn that’s hard to get on the…island.”
“Do you think what I’m planning on wearing will be okay?” I can understand why Heather is worried, since she’s never met my family. She believes our dad is strict. She has no idea.
“Sure,” Vivi says, and then looks at me. “It’s a hot silver dress.”
“Wear anything you want. Really,” I tell Heather, thinking of how gowns and rags and nakedness are all acceptable in Faerie. She’s about to have much bigger problems.
“Hurry up. We don’t want to get stuck in traffic,” Heather says, and goes out again. In the other room, I hear her talking to Oak, asking him if he wants some milk.
“So,” Vivi says, “You were saying…”
I let out a long sigh and gesture with my coffee cup toward the door, bugging out my eyes.
Vivi shakes her head. “Come on. You won’t be able to tell me any of this once we’re there.”
“You know already,” I say. “Locke is going to make Taryn unhappy. But she doesn’t want to hear that, and she especially doesn’t want to hear it from me.”
“You did once have a sword fight over him,” Vivi points out.
“Exactly,” I say. “I’m not objective. Or I don’t seem objective.”
“You know what I wonder about, though,” she says, closing her suitcase and sitting on it to squish it down. She looks up at me with her cat eyes, twin to Madoc’s. “You’ve manipulated the High King of Faerie into obeying you, but you can’t find a way to manipulate one jerk into keeping our sister happy?”
Not fair, I want to say. Practically the last thing I did before I came here was threaten Locke, ordering him not to cheat on Taryn after they got married—or else. Still, her words rankle. “It’s not that simple.”
She sighs. “I guess nothing ever is.”
O ak holds my hand, and I carry his small suitcase down the steps toward the empty parking lot.
I look back up at Heather. She’s dragging a bag behind her and some bungee cords she says we can use if we have to put one of the suitcases on the roof rack. I haven’t told her there isn’t even a car.
“So,” I say, looking at Vivi.
Vivi smiles, reaching out her hand toward me. I take the ragwort stalks out of my pocket and hand them over.
I can’t look at Heather’s face. I turn back to Oak. He’s picking four-leaf clovers from the grass, finding them effortlessly, making a bouquet.
“What are you doing?” Heather asks, puzzled.
“We’re not going to take a car. We’re going to fly instead,” says Vivi.
“We’re going to the airport?”
Vivi laughs. “You’ll love this. Steed, rise and bear us where I command.”
A choked gasp behind me. Then Heather screams. I turn despite myself.
The ragwort steeds are there in front of the apartment complex—starved-looking yellow ponies with lacy manes and