Briar Queen_ A Night and Nothing Novel - Katherine Harbour Page 0,1
room she’d made hers, with its cluttered bookshelves, her mom’s watercolors, antique furniture she’d scavenged from other rooms in the house. No books flew across the room. Nothing shattered. She still wasn’t sure if the occasional poltergeist in the house actually was her sister who had killed herself a year ago. “Lily?”
There was no answer.
“DOES HE HAVE TO BE THERE EVERY MORNING?”
“Yes, Da, he does.” Finn had dressed quickly and applied a little of the dessert-themed makeup she’d taken a liking to, the chocolate eye shadow and strawberry-cupcake lip gloss. “He walks me to classes. He’s a gentleman.”
Her father looked annoyed. When they’d moved here a few months ago, they’d only had each other. Those few months in Fair Hollow had changed everything. Finn ventured, “So . . . are you going out with Miss Emory tonight?”
“It’s not odd for you, is it? Me and Jane?”
“Well, she’s my botany professor.” Jane Emory was also part of a secret society who knew about Fair Hollow’s supernatural residents, the Fatas—Finn hadn’t told her father about the Fatas. She could never tell him about the Fatas.
Her father, who hadn’t shaved or even combed his blond hair, glanced out the window again. He was always disorganized on Monday mornings. She’d set his thermos of coffee, his laptop, and his coat and car keys near the door.
“I’ve put all your stuff there.” She shoved her unruly brown hair into a wool hat and, grabbing her scarf, nearly knocked down a random pile of books on the counter. That even the kitchen was cluttered with books was a testament to her and her father’s reluctance to let go of anything they’d read and loved. “See you.”
“You need to carry all those textbooks?”
“Ironic, that you should ask—don’t we have shelves for these?” She poked at the pile of paperbacks on the counter. “I’ve got a lot to catch up on.” She was, in fact, dangerously close to sending her approaching exams into a tailspin.
“Tell him—”
“His name’s Jack.”
“Tell Jack he’s welcome to spend Christmas with us.” Her da grimaced as if it hurt to say it. “If he’d like.”
“Da . . . I’m so proud of you right now.”
“Get out.”
She grinned and stepped outside. The sunlight was already turning the snow to slush, but it was still sharply cold and her breath misted as it left her. She liked the cold. It cleared her head.
Jack Hawthorn stood at the bottom of the steps, waiting. In the day, he was a sight—dark hair falling around a regal, sharply boned face that belonged to another era. There always seemed to be a secret in his eyes. His anorak was lined with fake fur. He wore jeans and work boots. The tiny ruby glittering on one side of his aquiline nose had become a symbol of the blood that now ran through him where, before, his insides had been an alchemy of rose petals and Fata magic. She looked him over, skeptically. “You’re not going to pass for ordinary, no matter how much you try.”
“I’m used to attention.” He smiled and crooked his arm. She slid hers through. As they began walking, her breath hitched.
His shadow was missing.
When they emerged from the darkness cast by a maple tree, his shadow had returned—maybe it had only been a trick of the light?
He caught one of her hands, drew off the glove, and kissed her cold fingers. His lips were warm and she felt as if a thread of electricity went straight from her fingers to her midriff. She didn’t like displaying affection in front of other people, but, with him, she didn’t mind. So she circled her arms around his neck while he held her as if afraid he might break her and kissed her with fierce caution. She always experienced a luscious peril when they kissed, as if she was practicing magic.
“We’ve got to get you to class.” His voice was hoarse.
Reluctantly, she stepped back from him and pressed one hand over his heart. “Did it hurt?”
“Did what hurt? And if you say ‘When you fell from heaven?’ I’m going to be very disappointed in you.”
“When your heart grew back?”
“Life was less complicated without it. But it wasn’t really life.”
“You look as if you haven’t been getting a lot of sleep.” She glanced at him as they began walking again. “You’ve been trying to find Nathan.”
“One of Reiko’s allies still hasn’t been accounted for.”
“You mean Caliban.” She hated speaking the name of the killer whose true soul was that of a