Jenna Black - Glimmerglass

“Sorry to startle you,” Ethan said, though I suspected he’d done it on purpose. The jerk.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Yeah, what I’m doing tonight isn’t scary enough, so pulling juvenile pranks is a fabulous idea.”

He looked more genuinely sorry now, but he didn’t apologize again. “Come on, let’s get moving. Where are we going, anyway?”

“To the Hilton. Wherever that is.”

Ethan frowned. “A car would be nice,” he said. “That’s going to be a hike.”

Great. At least I had on comfortable shoes. “Uphill or down?” I asked, praying he’d give me the right answer.

“Down.”

“Phew.” I tried to tell myself that was a good sign, that it meant fate was with me. “Lead the way.”

The drizzle I’d noticed from Dad’s window picked up to a light rain as we started walking. Of course I hadn’t brought an umbrella, and neither had Ethan. The wool sweater was keeping my skin dry for now, but even so I was already cold. I curled my hands into fists, then pulled them up into the sleeves of the sweater for warmth.

“If this is summer,” I grumbled, “I’d hate to see your winters.”

To my shock, Ethan slung his arm around my shoulders and pulled me against him, sharing his warmth. I knew I shouldn’t be letting him touch me, not after everything I’d learned about him. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to keep his hands to himself. But he was so warm. And he wasn’t treating the gesture as some sort of a come-on. He didn’t even look at me, just kept walking as if putting his arm around me was so natural it didn’t occur to him that I might object.

If everything went well, I’d be out of Avalon by tomorrow, and I’d never see Ethan again. So what did it matter if I sent him mixed signals? What did it matter if I acted like I forgave him even when really I didn’t? His warmth fought off the chill, and I should take advantage of it while I had the chance. So I slipped my arm around his waist, making it easier for us to walk, and neither of us said anything about it.

For the record, walking in Avalon sucks. At least, it sucks when you’re trying to go up and down the mountainside, because the road spirals, which means even if your destination is only a hundred yards down from where you’re standing, you have to spiral all the way around the mountain to get there. Every once in a while, there was a stairway that allowed us to quickly cut from one level of the road to the next level down, but they were way too rare for my taste.

My knees and ankles told me that walking downhill for extended periods of time wasn’t really that much easier than walking uphill. It just caused a different sort of pain. And the steady light rain had soaked through my shoes and socks, so my feet had turned to ice.

The Hilton was located at the very bottom of the mountain, within view of the Southern Gate. It looked incongruously modern next to the stately brick and stone buildings that surrounded it. There was even a multilevel parking deck on one side. Ethan and I were no doubt looking pretty bedraggled by then, and I know I, at least, was exhausted.

I didn’t have the heart to make Ethan wait for me out in the rain, but I didn’t want to take him up to my mother’s room, either.

“She’s pretty touchy about the Fae,” I told him. “There’s likely to be enough drama already. I don’t want her going all hysterical because you’re there.”

Ethan didn’t like it—I think he was afraid I was going to try to ditch him—but since I refused to get into the elevator with him, he finally gave up and agreed to wait for me in the lobby.

“If you’re not down in fifteen minutes, I’m coming up to get you,” he said.

“Okay,” I agreed, just to get him off my back. It would be kinda hard for him to come get me when he didn’t actually know what room my mom was in, but whatever.

I wasn’t surprised when my mom didn’t immediately answer her door. It was, after all, the middle of the night. Plus she hadn’t answered any of my calls, so why should I assume she’d answer the door?

I knocked on the door a little louder, hoping I wasn’t waking everyone else on the hallway. “Mom?” I said, not quite shouting, but speaking loud enough to have a hope of being heard. If she was passed out drunk, getting her to wake up could be a serious challenge.

Still nothing, though I thought I heard some movement. I knocked yet again, and this time I was sure I heard someone move.

“Mom? It’s me.” Like she wouldn’t know. Who else would call her “Mom”?

She mumbled something incoherent. I breathed a sigh of relief, both that she was awake, and that the bad guys hadn’t gotten to her. I knocked one more time, just to make sure she didn’t decide she was dreaming and go back to sleep. She said something else—I think, maybe, “Coming!”—and I heard footsteps approaching the door.

At the same moment, my skin started to prickle and the cameo, tucked under the neck of my shirt, started to heat. Just as my mom’s door swung open, I realized what that meant. But it was too late.

Someone shoved me from behind, sending me flying through the door and into my mother’s room. I slammed into Mom, and we both fell to the floor. By the time I managed to roll off of her and get to my feet, someone had closed the door and turned on the light.

Dread clenching in my gut, I turned to see who had just ambushed me.

Aunt Grace lounged in the doorway, looking terribly proud of herself. By her side, a disembodied arm floated in the air, holding a gun pointed at my mom. On the floor under the arm—about where you’d expect a person’s feet to be—were a pair of shoes. I gaped. Grace laughed and reached into the seemingly empty air. A moment later, the arm and the shoes were attached to a smallish, human-looking guy wearing a hooded black cloak. A cloak just like the one Aunt Grace was wearing.

“The cloaks only work when the hoods are up,” Aunt Grace explained, like we were having a friendly conversation. “And they only hide what’s behind the fabric, so one needs to keep one’s limbs tucked under to be completely unseen. They cost me a small fortune, but they were worth it.”

I couldn’t think of anything clever and witty to say, so I just stood there staring at the gun, hoping Grace’s friend didn’t have an itchy trigger finger. I swallowed hard, wishing I’d let Ethan come up to the room with me after all. Then again, I doubted Ethan was a match for Grace, and he certainly wasn’t a match for that gun.

“What do you want?” I asked, and I was surprised that I sounded almost calm. My pulse was galloping, and I’d broken out in a sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature.

She arched one graceful brow. “Don’t you know, dear?”

“You want your very own pet Faeriewalker. Well, let me tell you, your methods of winning me over aren’t lighting my fire.” Gee, that sounded kinda brave. Now, if my hands would only stop shaking, Aunt Grace might actually believe I was as brave as I sounded.

She gave me a marrow-freezing glare. “Obviously your mother didn’t teach you any manners.”

I crossed my arms over my chest—more to hide the shaking hands than to be defiant. “Apparently yours didn’t either. Or do you consider kidnapping your own niece polite?”

Grace moved so fast I couldn’t have stopped her if I’d tried. Her hand flew at my face and landed a bell-ringing slap on my cheek. I gasped, and tears misted over my eyes. My face felt like it had just had a run-in with a truck.

I swallowed the tears as best I could, gritting my teeth and ordering myself not to cry over one little slap. I thought about what kind of pain Finn must have gone through during his encounter with the Knights. If he could endure that without complaint, then I could force myself not to give Grace the satisfaction of seeing me cry.