Holly Black - The Darkest Part of the Forest

Ben nodded.

“I shall be just as you left me,” the faerie prince said, sitting on the wheeled chair in front of Ben’s computer desk and looking up at him with unfathomable moss-green eyes. Ben mentally catalogued all the embarrassing things Severin might see if he looked around and then realized there was nothing half as embarrassing as what Severin already knew.

Severin grinned up at him, as though reading his thoughts.

Ben went downstairs.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Mom said. She was dressed up more than usual—jeans without paint stains, her oversized flower-print top, and three turquoise-and-silver necklaces. Without the streaks of silver in her hair, from a distance, she could have been mistaken for Hazel. “I heard your sister come in this morning. Tell her to start packing. As soon as I get back, we can get on the road.”

“Where are you going now?”

“There’s a town meeting over at the Gordons’. About Jack.”

“Jack?” Ben echoed.

“You know I like him. But some people are saying that he’s been in league with the Folk. And others are saying that if he just went back to Faerie, then all these bad things that are happening would stop.”

“But you don’t believe that, right?” Ben thought of Jack, curled up beside Hazel in her bedroom, and felt a flash of pure fury at every single person in Fairfold who’d thought anything like what Mom said.

She sighed, reaching for a travel coffee mug and her old brown leather purse, the one with birds stitched on it in blue thread. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s in league with anyone, but he was stolen from them. Maybe they do want him back. Maybe they want revenge, too. At least I might, if I were his mother.”

“What’s happening isn’t Jack’s fault.”

“Look, nothing’s decided. We’re just sitting down with the Gordons to talk things over. And by the time I get back, hopefully your sister will be home and we can all leave town for a while.”

“Mom,” Ben said. “If you let them do something to Jack, I will never forgive you. He’s just like us. He’s as human as any human.”

“I just want you and Hazel to be safe,” Mom said. “That’s all any of us ever want for our children.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have raised us here in Fairfold,” Ben told her.

Mom gave him a dark look. “We came back here for you, Benjamin. We could have stayed in Philadelphia, and you’d be well on your way to doing something most people can only dream of. You’re the one who couldn’t stand leaving Fairfold. You’re the one who gave the chance at a different life up, who couldn’t be bothered to practice after your injury.”

Ben was too stunned to say anything in return. They never talked about Philadelphia, at least not that way—not in a way that acknowledged bad things had happened. They never talked about any of the big, looming, awful stuff from Ben’s childhood. They never talked about the dead body Hazel found in the woods or the way Mom and Dad had let them roam around alone out there in the first place. He had always assumed that was the family compact, that they each got their own well of bitterness and they were supposed to tend to it without bothering anyone else.

Apparently, not anymore.

Walking to the door, Mom looked back at him, as if she was taking his measure. “And tell your sister to pack, okay?”

The screen slammed closed, but instead of immediately following her out, Suzie crossed the foyer to put her hand on Ben’s arm. “You say he’s as human as the rest of us. How can you be so sure? How can anyone really know what’s in their hearts?” Before he could answer, she headed off after his mother. A few moments later he heard the truck tires roll over the driveway gravel.

Ben put his head down on the counter, his thoughts a tangled mess. Then, not knowing what else to do, he got down four mugs and started pouring coffee into them.

Everybody had to wake the hell up.

CHAPTER 18

Hazel had never slept in the same bed with a boy who wasn’t her brother. She figured it would highlight all the things about relationships that she wasn’t good at. She imagined she’d toss and turn, steal blankets, kick in her sleep, and then feel guilty about it. What she didn’t count on was how it would feel to pillow her head against Jack’s arm. Or how warm his skin would be or that it gave her a chance to drink in the smell of him—forests and glens and deep drowning pools—without his noticing. She hadn’t known how solid he’d feel. She couldn’t have guessed how he’d run his hand over her back, lazily, as if he didn’t know how to stop touching her, or how she’d shiver when he did.

For the first time since he’d said the words, Hazel allowed herself to luxuriate in them. I just want to say that I like you. I like you , he’d told her just before she’d informed him she’d been in the Alderking’s service. I like you , just before she admitted she had not told him a ton of stuff about herself. It had all happened so fast and it had been so hard to believe.

Which meant that she’d never told him she liked him back.

She could tell him now—wake him up and say something. Or maybe he was half-awake, the way she felt half-asleep. Maybe she could whisper in his ear. While she was puzzling that over, she heard footsteps on the stairs.

Her brother came into her bedroom without knocking, carrying three mugs of coffee. Behind him, lounging in the doorway, holding a mug of his own, was the horned boy. Severin, in Ben’s clothes, looking as comfortable there as he ever had in the woods. Severin, whom she was supposed to hunt. Severin, whom she’d freed. Severin, who gave her a wicked smile.

Hazel pushed down blankets, yawning. Sliding out of bed, she grabbed up a hair chopstick off her dresser and pointed it at him, as though it were a blade, then used it to bind up her hair.

Severin saluted her with his cup of coffee. “I see you still haven’t found my sword.” He raised his brows, a small smile on his face, and took a sip from his cup. Despite everything, she blushed.

Ben walked across the room and held out a cup of coffee to his sister like a peace offering.

She took a deep sip, but her exhaustion was beyond the reach of caffeine. Still the liquid was warm, clouded with soy milk, and it washed the taste of crying out of her mouth. She sat down hard on the chair beside her mirror. “What’s going on?”

“There’s some kind of town meeting at your house,” Ben told Jack. “About how Amanda and the stuff at school have something to do with not returning you to Faerieland. About how they want to give you back. We’ve got to get you out of here—we’ve got to get you someplace where they’re not going to find you.”

“What?” Jack’s eyes went wide. He ran a hand over his face, over his hair. “My mom thinks that?”

“He’s not a pet that you can just rehome,” Hazel said.

“I don’t think your parents have anything to do with this,” Ben said. “I think it’s a bunch of scared people being stupid.”

“That’s why she sent me away.” Jack said the words softly, as if he wanted them to be true but was afraid of being wrong. “It wasn’t because she didn’t want me in the house. It was because she knew everyone was coming. But she’s—but they’re going to blame my family if I’m not there.” He started shoving his feet into his shoes.

“Jack, everyone in town is going to be there,” Hazel said. “You know this isn’t your fault. This has nothing to do with you. Nothing.”