Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies > Books: paranormal‎ (90)

Aren’t ghosts supposed to have some sort of agenda? I really hope mine isn’t to haunt my boyfriend’s bedroom. That is way too clichéd.

“Why didn’t y

Aren’t ghosts supposed to have some sort of agenda? I really hope mine isn’t to haunt my boyfriend’s bedroom. That is way too clichéd.

“Why didn’t you stay with your body?” he finally asks.
I meet his eyes and the only thing I want to say is I came back to be with you, I stayed for you.

I think I’m supposed to do something while I’m here. It doesn’t make any sense that I’d be given a free pass to haunt about and chill with my boyfriend.

“Well, I heard some guys saying she tried to go skinny-dipping in the river and froze, which is downright ignorant to suggest. Then Kristy London started telling everyone she saw Cassidy throw up at dance once because she was bulimic and that’s why she committed suicide.”

I was definitely drinking at the party, but was I drunk enough to forget everything that happened?

I cast away that dangerously hopeful thought and look up at Ethan, deciding to take advantage of what time I have left with him.

I’m momentarily distracted by Ethan’s navy blue boxer-briefs. They’re the only thing he’s wearing.

He exhales, long and loud. I lean forward, hoping for a whiff of his breath even if it’s sour, morning scented, but there’s nothing. I frown.

I’m sure my afterlife mission isn’t to hook up with my boyfriend—especially after what I just remembered about Caleb—but I can’t ignore the allure of his touches.

I bend down right in front of him, meaning to study his face for some proof of guilt, maybe attempt a ghostly trick to will a writing sample out of his obnoxious orange backpack, but the only thing I can think about is his mouth closed around mine. My eyes wander to his lips.

I squared my shoulders and inched up my chin as if I was above his affection. I wasn’t, but I was so mad I wanted him to think I was, to feel bad about it.

She sets a pad of monogrammed stationery on top of her notes from last week and adds Mica’s name to a short list of classmates, all of whom attended the party.
“This is your list of people you think might know something about my death, isn’t it?” I ask her.

Sadness rolls over me, knowing that I’ll never again be the person she turns to for comfort.

“Aimée,” I say very slowly as if overenunciating will allow her to hear me, “look under that binder.”

If I tell him I think I was with Caleb he’ll definitely ask why. I’m not ready to go there with him. It’ll ruin the small piece of us we’ve recaptured, and I can’t bear losing that again.

After he leaves, the cafeteria clears out, but conversations still echo off the walls. She was totally drunk … I heard she froze to death … Who kills herself over a breakup? I mean, really?

Aimée rolls her eyes. “I can’t believe he was high at eight-thirty in the morning. I’ll never get what Cassidy saw in him.”

He took my hand, and I was certain, in that moment, that I would never kiss anyone else for as long as I lived.

Caleb opens his eyes in a lazy, delayed reaction that tips me off that he’s high. Again.

"...you had changed when your parents split up and you started getting high all the time..."

“Speaking of, I made you a little somethin’ somethin’.” He reached into his bright orange backpack and pulled out a brownie wrapped in pink cellophane and about ten different colors of ribbon.
“Caleb, you didn’t have to do this.”
“I wanted to give you something special to celebrate your birth.”

“Kind of funny when you think about it, us believing we had to protect a dude from you,” Tall said. “In a fe

“Kind of funny when you think about it, us believing we had to protect a dude from you,” Tall said. “In a few weeks we can all grab a cheeseburger together and laugh about this. A hot chick like you couldn’t possibly be a vampire. Seriously, though, you might want to cut down on the black garb.”

“Not that you were in any way ‘asking for it,’” Tall said. “A woman can wear whatever she chooses without fear of being mistaken for a fiendish bloodsucking nightwalker. But have you thought green? Green would look great with your eyes.”

The unicorn stood between the dumpsters. He sparkled like a horse-shaped disco ball. His traditional spiral horn beamed like a toy light saber.

Pearl burst out laughing. “Seriously? A unicorn? Please.”

“Why are you here? Are you dumpster diving?” Pearl asked. “I can see how the horn would be useful in sorting through trash. But is that really appropriate behavior for a mythical creature? Shouldn’t you be eating honey and sunshine?”

“Shh,” she said. “Nearly dawn. No time for talking.” Snuggling against him, she continued to feed him ice cream. He swallowed mechanically, as if her proximity erased all brain function. Pearl pressed closer and pushed his straggly hair back away from his neck.
And then she extended her fangs and sank them into his jugular.

...his propensity to chew off birds’ heads was much more unsettling than the puckering on his cheeks.

I should release him, she thought. Let the puppy run free.
Pearl shook her head. Where on earth had that thought come from? He wasn’t a puppy; he was a walking Happy Meal. Had she really just worried about how her snack felt? Seriously?

Colored light tinted her pale skin, and Pearl raised her arm and turned it over to watch the stained-glass light dance over her blue veins and bring hints of color into the whiteness, as if her skin were Formica.
Well, look at that, she thought. I’m a sparkly vampire.

“You want me to find the king’s dinner in daylight?” Pearl guessed.
“Precisely,” Mother said.
Daddy smiled. “We want you to attend high school.”

He’d chosen a chair by the window. Sunlight streamed in, illuminating the dust to create distinct rays so it appeared as if he were highlighted by a halo of angelic light. If he’d been trying to stage it to catch her eye, he couldn’t have planned it better.

She watched as Ashlyn strode across the cafetorium with all the confidence of a vampire...and Pearl wondered if that was it, if it was the confidence that she radiated that was the source of her power.
If that’s all it takes, Pearl thought, then I’m going to rule this place.

“Are you kidding?” Bethany said. “She’s, like, a hero!” With shining eyes, she turned to Pearl. “You are exactly what this school needs.”
“How convenient,” Pearl said, “since this school is exactly what I need.”

As the sun sank into the horizon, Pearl trudged home without having seen a single sparkly hoofprint or rainbowed poop pile. It wasn’t as if she’d expected unicorn wuz here graffiti...Okay, yes, that would have been nice.

Hating herself for what she was about to say, Pearl blurted out the words: “I need help.”
So softly that Pearl was certain she wasn’t meant to hear it, Evan whispered, “And lo, Hell freezes over.”

She swallowed hard and tried to force the achy feeling to stop. No matter how lovely the words were, these people didn’t understand, and she couldn’t stay.
Staying could destroy her more thoroughly than a stake through the heart ever could.

Upstairs was the perfect suburban home: couches and TV in the living room, marble counters and stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, and color-coordinated lacy bedrooms. Downstairs, hidden from human view, was a catacomb of tunnels and rooms that included sleeping chambers, training rooms, torture rooms, a few storage areas, and the treasury.

Their clan was rising in prominence. Daddy owned real estate throughout western Connecticut, including multiple businesses in Hartford, and Mother had a head for business that rivaled any CEO’s.

You didn’t sit down to tea with someone you were about to punish, but then she’d once seen Mother wait an entire week before slicing off the toe of a distant relative who had crossed into their territory without permission.

Their dinner had been presented on a bed of lettuce. Carrots had been stuck in candelabras on either side of the boy’s torso, and his hands had been positioned to hold a decorative cabbage as if it were a bride’s bouquet. He wore a bellhop uniform.

Pearl didn’t want to adjust. She wanted humans to revert to being merely meals again. She wanted to stop pretending to fit in. She wanted to return to being the ordinary child she was born to be, not a special miracle charged with this impossible task.

Others around her nodded wisely, and a few laughed outright. Pearl realized what she was seeing: a shift in power. Ashlyn had shown weakness, and others were jockeying for her position. She wondered how malleable the social hierarchy was and how far Ashlyn would tumble.

...She elected to simply wait the girl out.
It didn’t take long.
Every time Jadrien swung Laurie, his eyes sought out Pearl. Every time he nuzzled her hair, he looked at Pearl. Every time he curled his lips and pulled her close, he watched only Pearl. After a few minutes Laurie noticed that Jadrien’s attention was fixed elsewhere.

Pearl left the office feeling dazed. Mrs. Kerry at the front desk waved at her as she half walked and half stumbled back toward class. Glancing over her shoulder multiple times, she watched for an attack that never came.

“What’s wrong with me?” Pearl asked. How would she ever undo what she’d done?
Evan touched her shoulder. “Maybe it’s not that there’s something wrong with you,” he said. “Maybe there’s something finally right.”

“Surrender?” she said.
“To you,” he said, “I surrender my heart and soul.”
She rolled her eyes. “Very romantic, considering you have neither.”

“I’m tired of games, Jadrien,” she said. “I play them all night and now all day. But you know what?” She stepped closer to him. “If I have to play...I play to win. You should know that about me by now.”

“How about you?” she asked. “You seem to have everything under control. What are your issues?”
“At the moment just you.” His voice was serious. “I have a bit of a hero complex, you see, and you need saving.”

Mother didn’t trust Father to fight for us. Truth be told, she didn’

Mother didn’t trust Father to fight for us. Truth be told, she didn’t do a very good job of it herself. She left me with a diary full of cryptic warnings and a responsibility that should have been hers.
I will keep my sisters safe...while I have breath left in my body.

You must watch over your sisters for me. Keep them safe. There’s so much I wanted to tell you. And now I haven’t time.

The Brothers are afraid the witches will rise up again someday, Mother said, so they loathe the idea of powerful women. We are not permitted to study and go to university as men do, or to take up professions.

The message is clear: women who are too opinionated or too educated, too odd or too curious, are punished. They deserve whatever fate they get.
Women like us.

“We’re witches, Cate. We were born that way. Magic isn’t shameful, no matter what the Brothers would have us believe. It’s a gift. I wish you would accept that.”

I frown at my reflection in the pond, wishing with every fiber of my being that I weren’t a witch.

Sister Elena is pretty—no, beautiful—with smooth brown skin and black ringlets peeking out from beneath her hood. And she’s fashionable—as fashionable as the Brothers’ strictures will allow. Her dress has a wide bell skirt in a soft pink that reminds me of Mother’s peonies.

“A life with you will never be dull, will it, and that’s just what I want. Think about it, Cate. That’s all I ask. Can you do that?”

Finn squares his shoulders—which have gotten a good deal sturdier since the last time I saw him. Or paid attention, at any rate. How long has it been since I actually looked? He’s gotten awfully handsome; it can’t have happened overnight.

...if the Brothers found out, they would kill me. Immediately and without trial. Perhaps they’d make an example of all three of us—burn us at the stake, or hang us in the town square, the way they did in Great-Grandmother’s day.

They cared nothing for protecting girls’ virtue. They would have women aping men— dressing immodestly, running businesses, even forgoing marriage to live in unnatural unions with other women.”

I hold back a sigh. What I wouldn’t give to share in the freedoms of Arab girls. They’re allowed to inherit property and go to university; they’ve even been given the right to vote.

I hate that I’ve taken this small happiness away from her. When I was her age, I liked to run through the gardens, and I suppose I was careless with my magic, too. Now I have to play mother for Tess and Maura, and ignore the wild girl that still bangs in my heart, begging to be let out.

It’s been years since I’ve let myself consider what I want. It hardly matters. I didn’t want Mother to die; I didn’t want Father to turn into a shadow of his old self; I didn’t want the responsibility of policing my sisters. I certainly never wanted to be a witch in the first place.
The universe has yet to take my wishes under consideration.

It’s rare that I’ve let myself feel angry with Mother. She’s dead; she can’t defend herself. But now I’m shaking with it. How could she? How could she die and leave me here to deal with all of this alone?

I want to chase right after Finn. I don’t care how big a fool I’d look.
But I can’t. I’d be no better than that Penelope. Paul’s just proposed; I can’t go chasing after another man, one who may not even want me.

“Because we’re alike, you and I. We want adventures, not quiet nights at home by the fire. I think I could make you happy if you’d let me.” Paul’s voice goes gravelly, and he takes both my hands in his.

I can’t lose Annie because I wanted to dance and kiss James. How could I have been so stupid and selfish? Everything was already screwed up; we wer

I can’t lose Annie because I wanted to dance and kiss James. How could I have been so stupid and selfish? Everything was already screwed up; we were already in trouble. I can’t believe I did this. I did this. Again. How many times will Annie have to see her own death because of me?

I know I won’t be able to kill him.

He’s still helping the puppy, untangling the leash from a tree outside the bar. And he’s not only setting it free, he’s talking to it.

His long fingers deftly untwist and unwind and undo my entire day, my entire life. Because if he doesn’t die today, Annie will, and that is one death I cannot have on my conscience.

That dumb dog has killed us all.

He shifts uncomfortably, eyes on the road. “I might have overdosed you. Just a little. I needed to think.”
Hmm. He drugged me. That’s interesting. I felt like I was safe with him. I still do.

I should be terrified. I should turn around and go anywhere else. I should curl up in a ball and cry. Instead, I think about everything in the whole entire world that makes me angry—there is a lot, oh, there is a lot—and I start singing Justin Bieber at the top of my lungs.

And Fia—oh, Fia, you are so beautiful it makes my heart hurt—is in the middle of it all, slamming her body, moving and swaying and dancing to the beat in a way that no one else can. Her eyes are closed and her arm is raised.

“Drugs, drugs, drugs, I want some drugs,” I sing, dancing out of the bathroom and into my living room.
Crazy crazy. And I don’t care. I skip down the wide, empty hallway, singing at the top of my lungs. I know I’m not free yet, but I feel like I am.

How could she want him dead? Did she want me to do it? How could she set me up for that?
I don’t know her at all. All these years, all these things I’ve done, all these things I’ve become to keep her happy, to keep her safe. I don’t know her. I tap tap tap Annie’s betrayal onto my leg.

Adam was a threat. A huge, massive, all-consuming threat.

“It was bigger than us. It is bigger than us. I wasn’t doing it for me. Or even for Fia. I was doing it so Fia wouldn’t happen to a thousand other girls.”

Some sort of accident.
Some sort of accident.
Some sort of accident.

Something is wrong.
It’s wrong wrong wrong WRONG WRONG WRONG! I need to find Annie.

(Control, control, control. Control got Clarice killed.)
(Control didn’t get Clarice killed. I killed Clarice.)

Annie is safe.
Annie is safe. Annie is safe. Annie is safe. Annie is safe. Annie is safe. Annie is safe. Annie is safe. Annie is safe.Annie is safe. Annie is safe. Annie is safe. Annie is safe.

The strange staring contests. The lack of parents. And the missing blood. Oh God, the missing blood. How could I be so stupid? Th

The strange staring contests. The lack of parents. And the missing blood. Oh God, the missing blood. How could I be so stupid? They’re vampires, or at least under a number of severe delusions.

Jesus, Sophie, the guy’s name is Vlad.

Marisabel just shrugs, rolling on her back to stare up at an open copy of Twilight.

“This is not right at all,” she says. “Edward is dreamy, though. Maybe you could get some tips.”

I can imagine the expressions that flicker across my face; there’s the “Crap, she is a vampire,” followed by “Crap, I am not supposed to know she is a vampire,” followed by “Crap, I think she just realized that I still know she is a vampire.”

“Like I said, I love everything you’re doing, but our school paper is generally supposed to be less investigative and more...”
“Fluff?”
“Celebratory. It’s not that your article on the health code violations committed by lunch ladies in the cafeteria wasn’t stellar—it was—but I think we are ruffling too many feathers. I also think they spit in my soup when I’m not looking.”

Vlad is hot. Vlad is cool. Vlad has a silver Hummer with tinted windows and he offered to drive Caroline around in it. Vlad is rich. Vlad’s parents are away on business in Europe, so he has the house to himself. And yes, he’s delighted that they let his friends come stay with him this semester so he wouldn’t be lonely.

“They already like me, Neville,” Vlad says. “Did you see how many of them congratulated me afterward? Look, this is called a ‘fist bump.’ It is more accepted now than a handshake.”

Vlad is making his way across the cafeteria. He moves silently and with an easy grace, an achievement when you take into account the cheap tile that makes everyone in sneakers sound like farting mice.

“Not only won’t they talk to me, they scare the crap out of me. They’re not normal students. I overheard a very strange conversation yesterday. And Vlad’s dating my sister. And possibly dating his sister, too.”

“She’s said to be the great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter of some dumb baby of some musty vampire family named Mervaux.”
“Let me guess. A half-vampire baby?” I ask, leaving off the “...who fights crime.”
“No!” Marisabel says. “A plain old human baby. That’s what makes the whole thing so weird. Who cares about a human baby? People have those all the time.” She pauses. “Well, I mean, not vampires. They never have any babies, which is good because child vampires are freaky.”

For one crazy, hurtling second I heave a sigh of relief; if forced to choose, he is the better option. But then again, I would also rather drown than be eaten by snakes.

I attended a weekly karate class with the same fervor as a nun attending Mass. It was three years before my sensei told Marcie that he was afraid I was there for the wrong reasons. I believe the word “bloodthirsty” was used. Right before the phrase “I think you should get her checked out.”

After a moment of deliberation, I grab the wooden spoon and a knife and do my best to file it into a point. Two thousand years of folklore can’t be that wrong, right?

She is gorgeous in a dark, moody way, with thin black brows and long chestnut hair that breaks into a natural wave at her shoulders. If ever there were a girl meant to sit in a smoky café and tell you about the guinea pig that died tragically when she was four, it’s her.

“Can I ask you a question?” Violet asks. “Let us say that you liked this boy. You liked him so much that you didn’t care that your family and friends said that it would end badly. You think he admires you as well, so you give him everything that he could ever want. But what does he do? Does he stay with you forever? No! He ignores you and goes off to live who knows where.” Her voice cracks, and she lets go of my arm to flounce back into her seat. “I am at a loss,” she hiccups, holding the handkerchief to her mouth. “Do you think I should give him a lock of my hair? Maybe he is unaware that I still care.”

“Can you believe them? Neville does nothing but attach himself to any organization that will have him, and Violet...yesterday Violet asked if I wanted to participate in a ‘quiz’ that will tell me what my ‘best fall look’ is,” he says. “What does that even mean?”
“Mine is eggplant,” Marisabel offers absently. “And scarves.”

“And you’re stronger?”
“Yes.”
“And you have heightened senses.”
“Yes.”
“And you sparkle in the sunlight.”
His lips make the “yuh” shape, but then he does a double take. “What?”

I’m just about to start my return creep across the yard when a figure darts through the far hallway. For a second my shocked brain scans for a “Stop, drop, and roll” sort of acronym that explains what to do when you’re about to be caught spying. I decide on RLH—Run Like Hell.

“Wonderful,” Vlad says, and then probably follows it with something else ridiculous (“Your hair is like sunlight in space” or “Let’s greet the dawn with kisses”).

In reality our relationship consisted of hair pulling (age six), doll vandalism (age eight), and relentless teasing about my freckles (age eleven). Not exactly Romeo and Juliet, but try telling Marcie that. Luckily he moved away to New York before either one of us had to drink poison or kill a cousin.

Now I channel all of my anger and lingering fear into one mighty upward chop to the nose. When he covers his face, I bend my knees up and use my legs to pop him off of me before rolling sideways and scrambling to my feet, my legs still shaky from the adrenaline.

“I’m sorry, were you expecting a parade?”

“It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. You can’t kick me more than I’ve kicked myself.”
“Couldn’t you have just dyed your hair purple and called it a day?” I ask weakly. When I think about the loneliness and grief that drove him to do this, I am suddenly choked up. I slide halfway across the floor to be closer, to let him know that I appreciate his honesty. When I stop, he lifts an eyebrow.
“Really? That’s the best sob story I’ve got. What does a guy have to say to make you move all the way?”

I got them all killed. I was supposed to protect them, and I was underground, entertaining a convict, throwing daggers at a wall.

I got them all killed. I was supposed to protect them, and I was underground, entertaining a convict, throwing daggers at a wall.

"Our village is gone. The women massacred, the men turned to shadow stalkers, the children stolen. I believe that qualifies as ‘something gone wrong.’”

"A dagger won’t kill the fever. Won’t kill the spirits.” She turned. “But good luck anyway.”

It was a piece of meat, almost like a ball, but...
She realized what she was looking at and covered her mouth to keep from crying out again.
“It’s a heart,” she whispered.
It was indeed a heart, impaled on a branch.

He pulled a dagger from his belt. The blade shimmered in the lantern light, but it wasn’t the steel that caught her attention—it was the filigreed handle.
“That’s...that’s my sister’s dagger.”

“I didn’t mean to mock you, Ashyn. It’s just...sorcery? I suppose in a place like Edgewood they still believe in that sort of thing. Old superstitions.”

“It must be sorcery,” she murmured. “To make such a creature.”
“You’re as superstitious as an old nanny. Sorcery didn’t make such a creature. Necessity did.”

“It isn’t shadow stalkers,” she whispered. “They don’t speak—”
“Shhh!”
“It must be guards, from the village. They’re searching—”
“Shhh!” His lips came to her ear, warm breath filling it, his voice harsh with anger. “Be still and be quiet, Keeper. For once.”

Moria raced through the forest as she clawed vines aside.
I shouldn’t have left Ashyn. I know it’s my duty to protect everyone, and Ashyn can keep the spirits at bay. But I shouldn’t have left her.

“And you just happened upon him?”
Ashyn seemed as if she’d like to say yes, that’s what happened, but she could not lie to her sister. “His uncle captured me. Briefly. No one harmed me, though. Now let him up. Please.”

Ashyn loved her sister. And yet...It was not that Ashyn particularly wanted any of the young men who trailed after her sister. It was simply...well, simply that she wouldn’t mind a boy’s attention, if only to prove that she wasn’t completely invisible next to Moria.

As hard as Ashyn tried, she could not quite shake the lingering hurt over Ronan’s...betrayal certainly wasn’t the right word. Even abandonment felt too harsh.

“You’re different.”

Different. And there it was.

All her life Barrie had been on the receiving end of different.

Even once she’d learned to disguise t

“You’re different.”

Different. And there it was.

All her life Barrie had been on the receiving end of different.

Even once she’d learned to disguise the Watson gift, she’d still been the daughter of a woman who stood at the window and glared at people on the street from behind a curtain. The goddaughter of the drag-queen who went to parent-teacher conferences dressed in vintage suits and designer shoes.

“Lula was the kind of mother who locked herself in her room and surfed online auctions for designer clothes no one would ever see her wear because she hadn’t left the house in seventeen years. The kind who didn’t let anyone, not even me, see her scars. Who didn’t tell her twin sister she was still alive. Who dropped dead of a heart attack when her best friend—her only friend—told her he was dying of cancer, so she wasn’t there for him the one time he really needed her.”

it was only Barrie’s first name, her real name—Lombard—that served as a reminder of Lula’s bitterness.
Lombard, after San Francisco’s crooked street, and in memory of Wade, Barrie’s crooked father

Mark’s room had always looked like the Moulin Rouge had thrown up, pink and black satin, a throwback to his drag show days when he’d been going to be the next RuPaul, the next José Sarria.

People had always judged Mark. For being too gay, or not gay enough, or not transgender the way some expected.

His voice sounded pinched, the way it had the night of her first awards ceremony, when he’d worn Spanx to squeeze into a pink Chanel suit he’d accidentally bought too small on eBay.

He looks up as we pass, and for an instant, our eyes meet, and it feels like the world slows on its axis.

“Look, I’m all for the idea of bringing a bunch of hot college guys to town, but are you sure we should be opening the gates if a bunch of magic-haters are out to kill us?”

We can have anything we want. Good grades. Fabulous clothes. Immunity from teachers’ punishments. Control over everything. Lust and love from whatever boys we choose. It’s all ours. Doesn’t that interest you?”

Across the group of mourners, two impossibly beautiful girls are staring right at me. One is a beautiful honey blonde with perfectly tanned skin. The other, who’s even more stunning, has glistening cocoa skin, a perfect model’s body, and mounds of wildly gorgeous ebony curls.
They’re surrounded by three guys and two other girls, all of whom are also gorgeous

She’s paired her oxford with a set of Chanel pearls featuring a diamond-encrusted, interlocking double C. Her high-heeled Mary Janes are studded with what look like diamonds, and her hair is artfully mussed.

“Gin and tonic?” Arelia asks eagerly as she smoothes a corner of the blanket. It’s cashmere, I notice. “Or would you prefer champagne today?”

Not only are they undoubtedly the most gorgeous girls in school, but they’re being trailed by a crowd of adoring-looking guys as they sweep into the cafeteria in a cloud of expensive perfume.

“Dandelion and mojo beans, sandalwood and lemon balm, we draw your power. Spirits, open the gates of Carrefour on Saturday night.”

"We’re getting you a haircut and a makeover on Thursday after school. We’ve already scheduled an appointment for you at Cristof’s Salon.”

The thing is, I’ve always felt a half step different from everyone else.

“It’s like one big country club,” I say.

A half-dozen shops that look like they belong in an Atlantic seaside resort town—not middle-of-nowhere Louisiana—extend down the left side of the street.

"At one time our ancestors were very powerful practitioners of voodoo. But in 1863, they, along with Peregrine’s and Chloe’s ancestors, struck their own deal with the fates because they felt voodoo was getting too commercialized."

...some sort of sorority ritual.

“There are a few things to know: First, all charms have to start with asking Eloi Oke to open the gate so that we can talk to the spirits. Second, they all have to involve herbs or flowers, because we channel our power from them. Third, they always have to be specific. Like you can’t say, ‘Make all the boys fall in love with me.’ Instead you’d have to ask for your own beauty enhancements, or ask for the love of a specific guy. Or both.”

“But I mean the one with the blue eyes,” I mumble.
“The light-skinned black dude?” Drew asks.

I wish I weren’t thinking about Caleb. I wish I hadn’t spent the last twenty-four hours daydreaming about being pressed up against the solid chest I’d collided with outside the library.

"Liv...it’s a name, a verb, a command. A notion of mortality. That’s a name ripe for some epic poetry. If I could write, I’d write you one, a poem.

"Liv...it’s a name, a verb, a command. A notion of mortality. That’s a name ripe for some epic poetry. If I could write, I’d write you one, a poem.”

“I appreciate the effort, man, but let it go,” Gabe said, sincerely. “You know what’s most important right now: to learn the truth and bring justice. For her.”

My grades certainly didn’t get me into Wickham Hall. I assumed it was my portfolio.

They dressed the same. Their hair was almost identical. Their skin was milky with the occasional bout of freckles. Their noses even turned up in the same way. But mostly, they all talked the same.

That’s when I noticed him. He was standing next to the headmaster, still looking at me even though the others had turned away. Our eyes met, and I quickly looked away. But I could feel his gaze linger. I desperately willed my face not to flush, my lips not to purse. Suddenly I was aware of every single muscle in my face.

I looked up, mouth full of bread, to see what had happened and...he was there.
He stood in front of me and asked, “May I have this dance?”

He was skittish and intense, but his brown eyes were gentle. Still, I wanted to keep at least three feet away. He was almost exactly how I’d always pictured Vincent Van Gogh—in other words, pretty crazy.

Malcolm let go of my hand and took out his iPod. He clicked it on and then handed it to me. A playlist called Liv, Forever was cued up.
“I made it for you. Obviously.”

And we walked along a sun-dappled path, comfortable like two people who’d known each other forever.
I looked out over the terrain. Lush and seemingly endless. And we walked right into it, serenaded by the Beatles’s “I’m Looking Through You.”

He turned to me. “Draw on me.”
“What?”
“Draw on me.""
After he said that, he took his shirt off. His body was perfect.

My head whipped back from its force. And that’s when everything went black.

My body was cold and dull. Plump with death. I looked almost serene. My dark hair spread around my head, kind of like that famous painting of Ophelia floating in the river. Funny, I’d made so many self-portraits and yet I’d never really looked at myself and realized I was actually kind of pretty.

He kneeled on the ground next to my body and kissed my cheek.

I was separate from the world. I had become the star, hadn’t I? That tragic, lonely thing.

I imagined myself an angel. I kind of was, wasn’t I?

I waited and waited until there was enough condensation for me to write a single sentence. It took every ounce of willpower to ignore the pain in my fingertip. But I did it.
I will hold u again, I wrote on the glass.

It was mid-afternoon so there were no stars, of course, but the leaves were every possible orange and the clouds were perfect puffs.

A self-portrait. Almost all my drawings are self-portraits. They don’t necessarily look like me—in fact, they rarely do—but they represent me.

“You are so talented. Do you understand? Your skill is exceptional. If you unleash and add true emotion to your work, it will sing, Olivia! It will fly!”

“I think I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”
“It must’ve been a pretty boring life.”
“It was. Then I met you.”

But then images started to emerge from the darkness around us. At first they were pleasant: a Titian cherub, a Chagall angel. But then one of Bosch’s devils appeared. And Munch’s screaming terror. Francis Bacon’s agonizing Pope. And one of Basquiat’s jagged skulls.

There was an opening in the canopy of trees where we could see the brilliant moon. And stars. Hundreds of them. He took my hand. He held it strongly—with commitment. We lay there silently for a long while until he spoke.
“Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

I was dying inside. Brain exploding like a Pollock. Heart melting like one of Dalí’s clocks.

And he cried. He didn’t have that embarrassed look guys usually have when they cry, like the way my dad had struggled against his tears. Malcolm let go, without shame.

“You know what I wish?” he asked.
What?
“That I could just see you one last time—hear your voice. Hold you.”

“A story? You are recording your horrors?”
“How am I to accurately write about something unless I have been a firsthand witness to

“A story? You are recording your horrors?”
“How am I to accurately write about something unless I have been a firsthand witness to it?”

It seems the stories I have been told were untrue. The streets of America are not paved with gold but with uneven stones.

A sense of unease fills my stomach as I stare up at what is to be my new home.
Dark and foreboding, it appears just as unwelcoming as the rest of Philadelphia.

I hurry out of bed and reach for the bucket. “Let me help you with that.”
“No, miss,” she scolds. “It isn’t yer place.”

“Practice makes perfect. It shall certainly take time to prove this with someone of your limited background.”
Dropping my arms, I feel an ache in my shoulders.
Clearly, my education is going to require a vast amount of practice.

Father takes another step closer. Deep lines mark his face. He looks almost as old as Grandpere. “She bowed like a man, for God’s sake. Her manners are sorely lacking, and until they have been improved, I shall not encourage her.”

MURDER AT RITTENHOUSE SQUARE.
POLICE FIND GRISLY SCENE OF DISMEMBERMENT
...the limbs had been torn asunder from the torso and the head cleaved from his neck. POLICE urge all women and children to take heed of this atrocity and to take special cautions.

Every muscle in my body has tightened and my hand shakes when I place it upon the doorknob. I take a deep breath and try to steady my nerves, and just as I am about to turn the knob—

Someone grabs hold of me.

“Allan’s always a gentleman, that one,” Cook replies.
“He’s very different from his cousin, Edgar,” I say. “I’m amazed they are even related.”
The room instantly goes silent. Cook stares intently at her tea as Maddy and Johanna exchange glances.
“Just stay away from him, miss. Stay away. He’s a right nasty one.”

I did it because I thought
you would be scared.” He watches me carefully. “But I suppose it is in your blood. You were never going to be scared by any of this, were you? You are your father’s daughter after all, Annabel Lee.”

All I can make out is a large structure of pale stones, tall doors, and rows of windows gleaming like sharp teeth against the night.

His attention returns to me. “Have you ever felt a story was inside you, but you could not do it justice? It’s as if there were something standing in your way, blocking you from being able to write the story, and only this other piece of you could understand whatever it was?”

I am saddened that I have already offended Father with my rough manners and poorly chosen gift.
I wonder if I shall always be such a disappointment to him.

"...it’s the name of the most evil Black Witch there has ever been.”

I want to say “Marcus.” He’s my father and I want to say his name, but I’m too

"...it’s the name of the most evil Black Witch there has ever been.”

I want to say “Marcus.” He’s my father and I want to say his name, but I’m too afraid. I’m always too afraid to say his name.

“She’s dead because of you.”
I back against the wall.
Jessica shouts at me. “She killed herself because of you!”

Niall catches me on the side of the head with the brick and Connor is clinging on to me.
Then I get rammed in my back, which must be with the brick again.
It reverberates down my spine and stops me dead.
I’ve been hammered into the tarmac like a nail.

He puts the point back into my left shoulder blade and I clench my jaw and scream while he makes another cut.
He stops again and says, “You should have listened to him.”
He makes another slow cut.
And I am going mad screaming and praying for someone to make him stop.
But he makes another cut and then another and all I can do is scream and pray.

The routine is the same as ever. And so is the cage. And so are the shackles. The choker is still on, loose but there. If I try to leave, I’ll die, no doubt about it.

I scream and curse him and move my finger as much as I can but the ring tightens and the needle goes into me again.
As it comes out I’m sweating.
He moves on to the top of my finger, over the fingernail. The needle goes through again.

So I must go to him.
I must go and find my father.

Hunters are the elite group of White Witches employed by the Council to hunt down Black Witches in Britain. Gran says they are employed by other Councils in Europe more and more as there are so few Blacks left in Britain. Hunters are mainly women, but include a few talented male witches. They are all ruthless and efficient.

i hava bordr and sisser my bordrs Arran
he is niss and Debsis clvrer

Annalise has long blonde hair that glistens like melted white chocolate over her shoulders. She has blue eyes and long pale eyelashes. She smiles a lot, revealing her straight, white teeth. Her hands are impossibly clean, her skin is the color of honey, and her fingernails gleam.

I hold out my picture. “What do you think? Now it’s finished.”
I’m prepared for her to say something horrible, laugh at it or at me. But I don’t think she’ll do that.
She smiles and says, “It’s really good.”

It is a secret story that I tell myself when I’m in bed at night. My father is not evil at all; he is powerful and strong. And he cares about me . . . he loves me. And he wants to bring me up as his true son, to teach me about witchcraft, to show me the world. But he is constantly persecuted by White Witches who give him no opportunity to explain. But he is waiting for the right time to come for me and take me away with him.

Of course I know. I know that even if I don’t fight, even if I avoid Annalise, even if I get on my knees and lick Niall’s and Connor’s boots, it will make no difference; they will do what they like and say what they like, and what they say will be believed.

"You aren’t evil, Nathan. Nothing about you is evil. You will have a powerful Gift—we can all see that—but it’s how you use it that will show you to be good or bad."

This class is way over my head. Half an hour of this and I swear my notes were penned by a retarded monkey who is just as confused as I am.

“What kind of obtuse podunk outfit is this anyway? Supersized, narcissistic Rent-a-Cop!” I sit back and realize the cop has returned to my window. Aw crap.

His voice is rich with a funny eastern accent, which under lighter circumstances I would find amusing.

His head is now turning slowly, methodically, and he is looking at me as though I’m one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

His concern for me is palpable, like a hand caressing my cheek.

He could feel her concern for him radiating like a lighthouse.

No, not just hot but sexy as hell and— Wait, what?
Sexy? Where in the hell did that come from?

He had been tracking his lost lover’s soul and found it in Sophia.

So his wardrobe was chosen with care: black jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt buttoned at the throat. And for good measure, he wore a long black duster, a favorite from the old days.

He opted for black skinny jeans with multicolored Converse high tops and a black T-shirt that said, I DIED FOR AN IRON MAIDEN.

He wore black jeans rolled at the cuffs, black combat boots, and a tight black T-shirt over his beefy chest. His hair had been cut shoulder length and gathered at the back of his head with a leather, noose-like strap.

Dante changed clothes three times before settling on black designer jeans and a charcoal mock turtleneck. After all, this was a special occasion. He should look nice and sophisticated but not like he was trying too hard.

“Now we go to America!” Dante announced the command he had been waiting years to say.

Dante clenched his teeth. “Fine! To Italy. And then to Connecticut without another delay.”

He seems disjointed from the others like a curious bystander.

He was blue!”
“As a Smurf!”

I look and see Casey James laughing at his own joke. A moment later he stops, and his mouth opens and closes like a fish. His eyes gradually bulge in panic. Before I can think the words, He’s choking, Michael is there, wrapping his arms around Casey’s waist and hauling him out of the chair.

“But he was dead!” I whisper. “And Raph didn’t do CPR!” We stop at my locker and I throw my books inside.
“Well, he must have done something, right? I mean, Casey choked to death.”
“But...Raph didn’t. You saw that he didn’t, right?”

“What are you?” he whispered into her strawberry-scented curls. Damn. He breathed in deeply. He could inhale that smell all night. His body reacted

“What are you?” he whispered into her strawberry-scented curls. Damn. He breathed in deeply. He could inhale that smell all night. His body reacted to it like cats to catnip.

"Mr. Rock-Star-National-Geographic"

“It seems young Dillan has also been part of several, and I mean several, ad campaigns for designers like Calvin Klein and Armani, to name two."

"He was once approached to star in a movie."

"He’s even rumored to have dated every young Hollywood starlet and emerging singer you can name."

"You know that Taylor Swift song—”
“The one about the guy who dumped her?” Kyle asked.

“Dillan’s also the son of the legendary duo of archeologists: Dr. Jarvis Sloan and Dr. Lillian Sloan.”
“You mean the two who proved Atlantis is really in South America and not in Spain?"

“As I was saying,” she continued. “Rumor has it Dillan was responsible for unearthing a lost civilization in the Amazon.”

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” He sighed like he tasted the meaning behind the words.

The cat on his lap purred. “You like Frost, huh?” He glanced at the contented feline. “I know. The man can rhyme.”

...her nose scrunched up and the tops of her cheeks tinted pink. She clutched the handle of the feather duster so hard its feathers quivered. Her lips contorted.

Those unique aquamarine eyes he could stare into all day. They reflected her heart and soul. And her blushes that stopped his heart every time.

He shifted moods from zero to sixty in less than three seconds. I was beginning to see that he said mean and snarky things as a defense mechanism.

An entire succubus population in one school? They made him feel like fresh meat ready for the taking.

“I’d like a piece of him,” he heard the woman say. He tried not to cringe. Or run. Cougars were known to give chase.

The second we touched, a spark zinged up my arm.
“Ye-aw!” I jumped out of my seat. All eyes in the room immediately focused on me.

He smirked. “What happened to compromise? You know the meaning of that word, don’t you? Or should I get a dictionary?”
I let out a keening growl and threw the tub of glue at him without thinking twice about it. The jerk had it coming.

His arms tightened around me. I sighed at his body heat against mine. It felt like a blanket on a rainy day—comforting and safe. Nothing like the arrogant Dillan I knew.
“No.” A hint of pleading crept into his tone. “Not yet. Don’t move yet.”

“I need to suck out the poison.”
Ignoring his continued protests, she bent over him and sucked at the wound she’d created.

The utter menace in Garret’s expression made him look like a man who knew people who specialized in making annoyances disappear, no questions asked.

“Il-lu-me-na-ri. My family...we protect people. Simply, we are what stand between you and chaos. Humans aren’t the only race in this world. Many of those we protect you from still consider you as food. In the Illumenari we call them Supernaturals. Basically everything that goes bump in the night."

"He was a love sick puppy with nothing but you on his mind. It was sickening to hear him talk about you all the time. Just ask any of his teammates."

She baffled the hell out of him. Selena Fallon. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. About the electricity their contact created.

I was gangly and awkward—coppery curls that broke brushes, a complexion like I’d never heard of the sun, and long limbs meant for banging into things.

She wrinkled her nose. “The freckles are still there.”
“No, no, no, no! They’re a feature that brings out the sea in your eyes! You’re beautiful.”

Another thump.
This would be the point where the audience would scream at me to run back to the house. But, like in horror movies, the heroine—i.e. me...moved to investigate.

What could be going on in that brain of hers to challenge a group of undead with a stick?

“Rainer!” He moved further into the house, not having the patience for his uncle’s mind games. “You dick, I know you’re home.”

“You’re trouble, and I don’t do trouble.” He opened the book again and continued reading like I’d been dismissed. Well, his highness had another thing coming.

“What?” Her words didn’t sink in fast enough. He was too distracted by the way the setting sun brought out golden highlights in her copper curls.

I whispered my disappointment at how Constance let herself fall into Dillan’s trap.

“Do you see how you’ll lose?” he continued, his voice seething. “And I will win.”
“I reckon I can stop you,” came Jake’s voice.

In the nick of time,

“Do you see how you’ll lose?” he continued, his voice seething. “And I will win.”
“I reckon I can stop you,” came Jake’s voice.

In the nick of time, as always.

“Injun girl don’t speak English?”
No matter his age though, he was a rude bastard.
“Of course I speak English,” I snapped, refusing to be intimidated. “You’ve been hearing me speak all day.”
He scratched at his sideburns. “I tend to tune out when a woman’s speaking.”

“Savages,” Jake snarled, holding up the hand and inspecting it while Avery and Tim were now trying to hold him down. He eyed me with hate. “Your kind of savages.”

Jake raised his hand in a greeting, though his other one was now resting on his revolver at his hip. “Can you speak to them? They look like they eat pine nuts just like you.”

“Picking anything up, Pine Nut?”
I ignored my new nickname.

I was hit with the intense aroma of rotting flesh, carried on a hot burst of air.
I opened my eyes.
A pair of pale blue eyes, lit by firelight, were leaning over me. A bloody mouth sneered.

There were over a dozen monsters standing outside the cabin, staggered about, all of them facing us with expressions of hunger and mindless hate. Their mouths were open, drooling, with grey tongues lolling around beside black gums.
All of them wanted to eat us.

“Is it?” He took a step closer to me. “Are you capable? If you ask me, I think inviting you along was the worst idea Isaac ever had, and the whole thing about you being a great tracker is a load of horseshit.”
"I never claimed to be a good tracker.”

“Damn it, Tim, what’s the use in having a mountain guide if she can’t even talk to the locals?”
“I never said I was a guide,” I said quickly over my shoulder.

Many times I led everyone to a cliff face or an impassable river before we had to double back and find the way again. I knew they were getting impatient with me but I was trying my very best.

Jake rounded the corner, his revolver aimed straight at Hank, his dark eyes staring him down the barrel.

I quickly twisted around to see Trouble thundering toward me with Jake astride him, rifle pointing right at the creature’s mangled face.

Jake’s eyes flared and he quickly twisted at the waist, barely lining up his sight, and pulled the trigger.

It was going to eat me alive.
“Eve, don’t move!” Jake yelled, as if I could.

I screamed for Jake as the knife came down again.

[Removed] was lying in the snow in a pool of his own blood, his heart having been ripped out and eaten by the same creature, man, monster that Jake just decapitated, while [Removed] was unconscious in Tim’s arms having lost her whole damn hand to another one of the monstrosities.

Jake looked around, his hand flexing on the handle of the axe. “I’ll go gather up the horses, while you guys get the first aid kit and fix her up best you can.

“When I first saw you,” he said, “I hated you. I hated you, Eve, because I reckoned you were the prettiest damn woman I had ever seen and there was no way you could ever be mine."

“A boy.”

The woman laughs and closes her eyes, but it isn’t a happy laugh. It’s an of-course-a-boy-knows laugh. A why-did-I-even-bother-asking laugh

“A boy.”

The woman laughs and closes her eyes, but it isn’t a happy laugh. It’s an of-course-a-boy-knows laugh. A why-did-I-even-bother-asking laugh.

He waves a hand, blindly indicating the area around her head. “Your hair is blond, and Jay says it’s brown. And your eyes? Oh God. What is going on?”

“Different? Aren’t they, like, brown or something?”
Colin mumbles, “Maybe gray.”

Her eyes are murky green-brown.

Her eyes are this rich, grinding violet, flecked with metallic red

Her eyes changed colors as he watched, from deep gray to an aching, honest blue.

Her eyes morph from dark to pale yellow in the light of the bright, full moon.

He watches her eyes shift from green to silver in the light.

Her eyes open, and hunger and joy swirl green and auburn inside

Her eyes are a provocative, sympathetic indigo.

Her eyes have gone metallic brown, swirling.

Her eyes darken, mocha swirling into burgundy.

Wild, dark curls fall into his eyes, and he flips them away with an unconscious shake of his head. In that moment, her silent heart twists beneath the empty walls of her chest. And she realizes, in the absence of hunger or thirst, discomfort or cold, this is the first physical sensation she’s had since waking under a sky full of falling leaves.

“I think I’m here for you.”

She looks like a shadow of a girl. A shadow wearing a cap of sunshine.

She’s spent hours since she woke trying to understand what she is. If she’s back where she was killed, then is she a ghost?

Colin hasn’t seen her in a week, and he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about what she said just before she ran out the door.

He wants Lucy to be his girlfriend in every way that matters, including the ways that mean he can touch her. The urge to kiss her is becoming suffocating.

If the simple touch of his lip on her fingertip felt so intense, what would it feel like to actually kiss him? She’s afraid she’d be unable to process so much sensation.

“I started researching hypothermia, and it takes a long time for the brain to shut down entirely. I mean, in between being cold and being dead, there’s a lot of room.”

“You are crazy.”

His hands find waist, ribs, breasts. They grow wild and impatient, itching to feel every inch.

Stories of a place where students seemed to die at a higher rate than any other boarding school in the country. Colin never understood why it was a surprise that kids died or disappeared more frequently here than other places from things like exposure, pneumonia, and suicide.

Prosecutors allege the 42-year-old former headmaster of Saint Osanna’s boarding school outside of Coeur D’Alene stalked [his victim] for several weeks prior to the murder.

Lucy’s been lurking around campus for more than two months—minus the ten days of unexpected vanish—and no teacher really bothers to question her presence, let alone her decidedly non-dress-code boots.

Lucy is exactly where Jay said she was, sitting on a bench in front of Ethan Hall.

“Amanda said they saw her walking down by the lake,”

There’s an old dock not far from where the trail ends. Colin isn’t surprised when he sees Lucy sitting at the end of it.

She sits by the statue of Saint Osanna the next morning with her arms wrapped around her legs pulled tight to her chest.

She’s here, a ghost in girls’ clothing, haunting this private school. But she doesn’t want to haunt anyone. She wants to be tangible and solid. To sleep in a dorm and eat in the dining hall and flirt. With him. All she wants is to be near him.

She tells him that she didn’t feel the need to find her parents even though they might still be alive and how that lack of compulsion worries her somehow.

He wants more. He practically aches for her touch. It’s more than hormones. It’s like he’s physically drawn into her space, has to force himself to keep any sort of acceptable distance.

Her dimple makes him think of giggled pleas, mischievous promises, and the taste of sugar on his tongue. Gunmetal eyes meet his, and the color is alive, churning like an angry ocean, pulling him in.

He lets himself drown.

Colin mumbles, “Maybe gray,” but his heart is thundering.

He’s pretty sure if he says, “They’re like melted metal,” Jay will actually have a T-shirt made for him with the words I AM A DELICATE POET printed across the chest.

Battles are all about strategy, and strategy pivots on priorities. Since my priorities were Prince Jalan, Prince Jalan, and Prince Jalan, with “loo

Battles are all about strategy, and strategy pivots on priorities. Since my priorities were Prince Jalan, Prince Jalan, and Prince Jalan, with “looking good” a distant fourth, I took the opportunity to resume running away.

There’s power in a name. “Prince” has served me very well—something to hide behind when trouble comes.

She had to have seventy years on her, but no one would have called her more than fifty. Handsome or not, though, her eyes would turn any man’s bowels to water. Flinty chips of dispassion.

She turned that awful face towards me, one eye dark, the other milk and pearl. It had felt hot, suddenly, as if all the great hearths had roared into life with one scorching voice, sparked into fury on a fine summer’s day, the flames leaping from iron grates as if they wanted nothing more than to be amongst us.

"Men of the Drowned Isles broke amongst us. Some living, others corpses preserved from rot, and other creatures still—half-men from the Brettan swamps, corpse-eaters, ghouls with venomed darts that steal a man’s strength and leave him helpless as a newborn."

Tenth in line to a throne will get you into a not-insignificant number of bedchambers, but if a man dons the scarlet cloak of the Red March riders and wraps his legs around a destrier, there are few ladies of quality who won’t open theirs when he flashes a smile at them.

I could see corpses and timbers, some black against the hot glow, others melting into it. Even the wind’s strength couldn’t keep the scent of roasting flesh from my nostrils. The walkway ran with hot fats, burning even as they spilled down the inner wall.

I’ve always found hitting a man from behind to be the best way to go about things. This can sometimes be accomplished by dint of a simple ruse. Classics such as, “What’s that over there?” work surprisingly often.

“You’re a man of honour.” Louder this time, looking right at me. Where the hell he got that idea, I had no notion.
“Yes,” I lied.
“We should settle this like men.” Absolutely the last words I wanted to hear.

“What’s his name?” A tall Nuban girl with copper loops through her ears and a mouth made for kissing. “How is he called?”
“Snorri,” I said. “It means wife-beater.”

I have a bad habit of blanking unpleasantness from my mind—something I’ve done since I was a child. They often say the best liars half-believe their lies—which makes me the very best because if I repeat a lie often enough I can end up believing it entirely, no half measures involved!

Bravery is just a different kind of broken. Scared of being a coward, is that what bravery is? Am I brave because I don’t fear being afraid? You’re of the light; the light reveals. Shine a bright enough light on any kind of bravery and isn’t it just a more complex form of cowardice?”

Snorri cut me off. “I took the prince out of the palace, but the palace is still crammed firmly up the prince’s arse. You need to stop moaning about every hardship, stop chasing every woman you lay eyes on, and concentrate on surviving.

“An axe for me. Swords trick you into thinking you can defend. With an axe all you can do is attack. That’s what my father named me. Snorri. It means ‘attack.’” He lifted the axe above his head. “Men think they can defend against me—but when I knock, they open.”

The air between Snorri and me spat and sparked as our hands shaped to grasp the other.

He brought his hand closer to mine and a pressure built against my skin, all pins and needles and fire.

Snorri’s magic had reached into me again and made me brave. In that moment I wanted to be the one to stand between the child and her attackers. To keep her safe. And failing that, to hunt them to the ends of the earth.

“When the swamp took my brother, it sent someone—something else to take his place. I don’t know what Lenora May is, but she’s not my sister.”

“When the swamp took my brother, it sent someone—something else to take his place. I don’t know what Lenora May is, but she’s not my sister.”

“The swamp ate my brother.”

For some reason, the swamp stays firmly on the other side. A few brave plants may reach across the line, but by and large, the swamp keeps as much distance from us as we do of it.

Her hand extends slowly and she hesitates before finding the fence. Dark hair hangs in her face, wild with curls and lovely in a way mine will never be. She climbs with something less than grace, fumbles with her dress, and nearly falls to the ground in my yard.

“I want to know who she is, why she’s here, and why you’re all acting like you know her. I watched her climb over the swamp fence, for crying out loud!”
“Now you’re worrying me,” Mama says. “Are you telling me you don’t recognize your own sister?”

I can’t remember someone who doesn’t exist. I can’t remember that her favorite color is purple but thinks Chevelles look best in red. I don’t even know her name.
Except I do.
Lenora May. May to her friends. Lenora to teachers and Aunt Mina. But Lenora May to me. Always Lenora May.

“Nathan Payola,” he says. He waits for me to react, but there’s nothing for me to react to. Angrily, he adds, “He was my best friend.”

Heath wasn’t a talker, but when he did talk, the words we shared were sweet and supplemented with notes of the flirting variety.

At any other time, I’d be stuck on him admitting he ditched me. But now, all I can think of is Phin.

We can’t fight something we don’t understand. But I remember what Heath said about hope. I’m not going to let the swamp have that, too.

There are a hundred ways to die all cloaked in the twist of pale trees—gators fast enough to catch a grown man, mosquitoes teeming with disease, stinging plants, hungry black bears, and nasty cottonmouths all filled with spite and patience.

But what’s in ours is worse.
Ours is a creature all its own. We don’t stare into its depths and we don’t ever go inside.

Most of the good folk of Sticks consider it’d be faster to throw your money in a fire if you’re that keen on wasting it, but then, most of the good folk of Sticks think the periodic table has something to do with birth control.

“I’m hungry,” he says, a sound that seems to crawl from his throat. It’s devoid of the warmth Phin’s voice should have, all mud and gravel. He reaches with webbed hands, each finger tipped with a sharp, black claw.
Not my brother, I think, a trick.

he was gone.
And it’s my fault.
If I was afraid to live in a town without Phineas, I’m plain terrified of living in a world without him.

The first time she asked me about this, I’d tried and failed to explain that it wasn’t about wanting to be thin; I couldn’t think of food when the threat of losing Phin to college was so near.

The swamp continues to beckon.
I can do this.
“Phineas Harlan Saucier,” I say to whatever might be listening. “I’m coming for my brother.”

“You’ve been so safe all your life. So safe you might as well be dead. Phin did that, he kept you from living, but I won’t. I promise you, I only want to live as fiercely as I can.”

Lenora May doesn’t care that she’s in the dirt or that she’ll have to wash her dress three times to get rid of the stubborn smells that follow you home from the track, and not caring makes her both vulnerable and beautiful.

I feel small and secure in his arms with my hip balanced against his thigh. This is different from the kiss. That felt chaotic and delirious and like something beginning. This is the opposite. Together we are solid and smart and somehow not new at all.

“Sterling Saucier,” he says.
His eyes narrow in a smile. Sunlight shines through them, illuminating too many rings of brown and brass to count. He bends closer.
“May I kiss you?” he asks.

She rubbed the bald half of her head. “In China we say, ‘The girl with the full hair is not as free as the girl with the bare head.’"

“It means that

She rubbed the bald half of her head. “In China we say, ‘The girl with the full hair is not as free as the girl with the bare head.’"

“It means that as long as I still shave my hair, I’m free. See, in China, girls keep their heads bald like the boys, yeah? Then when we’re the age to become a woman, we bind our feet and grow out our hair.

I shrank back, fighting the urge to run past her through the open door. “Th-the walking corpses,” I stammered. “The ones people have been talking about. One came to the train depot, so everyone was evacuated.”
“And what of our party tonight?” Mama insisted. “What am I to do?”
“We could cancel,” I said hopefully.
She snorted. “Of course we cannot cancel. The walking Dead must have addled your brain, Eleanor. This is our first party in years.

I raced through the now-empty main hall. My footsteps echoed off the marble tiles. The porters at the front doors exchanged shocked glances. I could imagine the sight I must have presented—a flushed ball of purple silk and rustling skirts. No matter. I whisked past them and flew out into the Philadelphia night.

“I... I need to use the necessary. Perhaps I can meet you in the Hydraulic Annex?”
Clarence’s lips quirked up slightly. “Yes, all right. Use the water closet and then meet me in the annex.”

“I must go to the necessary,” I murmured to Clarence, but he didn’t budge.
I turned to the squat Pinkerton. “I must go to the necessary.”

A gentleman simply was not supposed to shake the hand of an unmarried woman without a proper, third-party introduction. I was so used to chaperoned meetings that I had acted on foolish reflex.

I took a weary breath, lifted my hands, and purred, “I’m truly sorry, sir.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Why are you talking like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re a kitten.

I had wasted time worrying over Daniel and Clarence, playing on the croquet course, and arguing with Mama. I had neglected what was most important: Elijah.

Mama ignored me. “Your father did enough damage to our family’s standing, Eleanor, when he tried to save his company. Your brother only worsened it when he ran off. Without a good reputation, you will not make a suitable match. We will be on the streets soon!”
I opened my eyes and watched her. What an empty shell of a woman she was.

What was it about mouths that made them so fascinating? I had read of kisses (Shakespeare was fond of them in his plays), but I’d never seen one. And I’d certainly never experienced one. Did people merely touch lip to lip... or was there more to it?
Has Daniel ever kissed anyone?

His Juliet stood before him, or at least, the shape of her, frozen in blood, monochromatic crimson, but unmistakably her. Thick chains bound her across neck and waist; manacles clasped her wrists. Her eyes were the worst of all, open, bloody, blank and unseeing, yet somehow still accusing.

“You must go north. You will find the man who can help you there.”

“Farther. Farther than you have ever traveled. Over the mountains, to a castle by the sea. The seat of a murdered king.”

...the unearthly portal that divided the realm of the living and the dead.

But they were gone, the hillside, too. Romeo found himself in a strange, barren wasteland.
He was alone.

He plunged into the spectral river on the maggot’s back, and when it surfaced, screaming its rage from its horrible, rotting mouth, he saw through the portal.
And he knew Romeo would not save him.

“It’s me.”

“I don’t care!” Romeo could not hold back his anger any longer. “You’re mad, and I’m a fool for letting you lead me here.”

Hamlet groaned. “Oh, stop pitying yourself. You were desperate and unhappy at home, you’re desperate and unhappy now. Nothing has changed, except that now we’re closer to your goal.”

“Have you listened to a word you’ve said? You’re miserable without your true love, and you’ve come here to find her. You are closer to rescuing a loved one from death than any man has ever been, and now all you’re doing is complaining.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t terrifying!” Romeo shouted, his eyes wide with fear.
Hamlet shrugged. The bastard actually shrugged as he lay there on the stone. Romeo would have punched him, but there were more pressing matters at hand than the prince’s maddening attitudes.

“I don’t know. I never stepped completely through the corpseway.” Hamlet’s thought trailed off as he moved through the light, sliding his feet cautiously along the floor. “Seems safe enough. Come on.”

“I stuck my head in,” Hamlet argued. “It came out again. And my father’s ghost was able to traverse the corpseway. I see no reason that it might not work exactly as I’ve described.”

“Was there no way to find out, before you did this to me?” Juliet asked, her large brown eyes full of hurt. “The two of you never thought that a bit more preparation might have been required before tampering with the forces of life and death?”

Juliet proved tireless with her blade, to Hamlet’s surprise and delight. He could not imagine the ladies of his uncle’s court taking such bloodthirsty delight in defeating monsters.

But Romeo had seen this fire in her from the very instant they’d met, though it had been only a small spark then. Set among the tinder of conflict, she was now ablaze.

The cloth fell away from the thing’s face, revealing no eyes, no nose, just the sightless, round countenance of a maggot and a circular mouth full of teeth in endless rings.

Something in Juliet’s voice bothered Romeo. There was a smirk to her tone that was too comfortable with the prince. She spoke the way she had spoken to Romeo that night at her father’s party.

"Not everyone is created equal.”
I pursed my lips. “I don’t think I’m special.”
Roth looked at me again. “But you are. You’re a half demon that is al

"Not everyone is created equal.”
I pursed my lips. “I don’t think I’m special.”
Roth looked at me again. “But you are. You’re a half demon that is also half Warden."

...the Wardens went public ten years ago. The Alphas had ordered the Wardens to come out of the shadows. To humans, Wardens had come out of their stone shells. After all, the gargoyles adorning many churches and buildings had been carved to resemble a Warden in his true skin.

Zayne said I looked like the long-lost sister of the elf in Lord of the Rings. That was a huge confidence booster. Sigh.

No—not a mass, but a huge freaking snake at least ten feet long and as wide as I was.
The thing spun toward me, rising halfway up. Its eyes burned an unholy red.
“Don’t be scared of Bambi,” the demon said. “She’s only curious and maybe a little bit hungry.”
The thing was named Bambi?

“You don’t? I was following you.”
“Oh, so you’re a demon and a stalker?” I swallowed hard. “Because that’s not creepy or anything.”

He leaned in again, his lips brushing the curve of my cheek. “Let me suggest more appropriate places. I have this piercing—”

Roth let out a low breath. “Your mother was known by many names...And because of that, you’re on Hell’s Most Wanted List.”

Zayne’s grip relaxed. “Shut up.”
Roth came to his feet fluidly. “I don’t think I like your tone.”
“And I don’t like your face,” Zayne returned.
The amount of testosterone the two were throwing off was ridiculous.

Stacey only blinked, looking like she was coming out of some kind of bizarre trance. I scribbled hobag across her notes. She laughed and wrote virgin ice princess across mine.

Stacey started to tug her shirt up as a shield, but must’ve realized there wasn’t enough material there.

Stacey was saying as she threw herself into her seat. “I didn’t sneak out of the house dressed like this for no good reason.”
“No doubt.” I eyed her short skirt and then her cleavage. “We wouldn’t want your boobs to go to waste.”

“Great!” Stacey chirped, backing off and gesturing wildly behind Roth. She was doing something with her hand and mouth that I knew Roth would be oh so down for.

I dumped the stuff in the garbage can, shoulders stiff. “I’m not going to jump on you and suck out your soul, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Danika gasped. “That’s not what I meant—not at all. It’s just that you look like you need something and I want to help.”

Every so often the Church of God’s Children held a rally against the Wardens and then made headlines. They’d been doing it ever since the public had found out about the Wardens’ existence.

The world would descend into chaos if humans knew demons were ordering their morning coffee right alongside them.

Zayne’s eyes flicked up. They seemed brighter than usual. “You’re...perfect just the way you are.”

“Wow, he is so checking you out.”
“Huh?” I looked at Stacey. “Who?”
She glanced over her shoulder as she pulled me closer. “The guy you almost plowed into—Gareth Richmond. He’s still checking you out."

The line of his jaw hardened. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong? I told you to stop and you wouldn’t—”
“You were being a tease.” His voice dropped low. “And since when do demons really get a say in anything?”

“I...” I didn’t know. I loved Zayne, but I didn’t know what kind of love that was, and Roth... I thought I could be in love with him, if given time. Or maybe I already was, in a little way. “I don’t know.”