She’s staring at me as though seeing me for the first time. Does she? Does she see the real me, in all my dark Fae glory—fangs and pointed ears and high cheekbones, sapphire eyes ringed in Fae gold? Could she ever truly like me…for me?
Stop staring at her, Roue. You’ll blow your cover, and hers.
I want to stare at her, to drink her in, but that would be her death. Agravaine would notice. I jerk my gaze away and scan past her. Did he notice?
Not yet. Syl is short, and she’s blocked from his view by a massive deck of amps. Agravaine gestures for me to play on, and I do.
I pour more of myself into the spellbinding music. The circuits in my hands pull and stretch, working with my gramarye to bind the crowd tighter and tighter. I can feel my arm moving, but I cannot feel my fingers on the bow.
The crowd undulates in time, caught up in my dark spell, a waking sleep. I step the edge of the stage and sway with them, meeting Syl’s gaze, willing her to move with me. Dance with me, sway with me. Syl…
A pang of guilt spears me as I come to the end of the song. From the moment I entered her life, I have caused her nothing but pain. The accident, the train—violet lightning lashing from my bow, ripping up the tracks, hurtling train cars up into the air like a child’s toy and then smashing them down. Broken glass and twisted metal and lost lives.
And two girls huddled in the midst of it, protected by the sleeper-princess’s power. I know now that it was Syl and not—
“Get her.”
Agravaine’s Command comes harsh, cutting through the final soft notes and the hush of the crowd as they wait for the end.
He’s spotted her! My heart seizes painfully. I cannot breathe. The Contract laces my blood and bone with fire, compelling me.
And as the crowd breaks into cheers, my body jerks forward. I fight it, and agony lances through my Moribund hand, up my arm, through my chest, leaving me gasping.
I grit my teeth. Bloody bones.
Agravaine fixes me with a warning glare, but he knows the Contract will win and I’ll do his bidding. Confident, he slips from the stage into the crowd, slicing through their ranks like a shark through water.
Fiann. He’s going after Fiann.
I see her now, struggling against my gramarye. She’s one of the Wakeful, but she’s no sleeper-princess. She’s a deer in the headlights, and she knows it. I feel a pang of pity for her. She’s just a foolish girl.
A fresh wave of agony slices through me. If I don’t do as he says, the Moribund will devour me from the inside out. No thanks. I’d rather die young and stay pretty.
He said get her. Not kill her or destroy her or anything permanent sounding. Maybe I can twist his words. Dark Fae are good at that.
Leaning down into the crowd, I reach for Syl. A dozen hands reach for mine, their faces entranced. They want to get closer to me; they gravitate toward me, toward the euphoria flooding their veins.
The spotlights flash over the crowd, blinding me, and then a small hand slips into mine. I know from the heat of her. She burns my soul. Syl.
I pull her up on the stage.
Her face is lined with concern. “Euphoria, what’s happening?”
She says something else, but the Command screams in my mind, Get her, get her, get her.
Agravaine watches, his gaze shrewd, while I pull Syl in against my side. Behind me, the band picks up my lapse, synths and bass and drums pounding. They don’t need me anymore. My gramarye is cast.
“Euphoria…” Syl touches my face.
Her touch is like a lick of flame, igniting my every nerve ending. Her heartbeat is a rabbit kicking beneath my hand. My own heart is racing. At the closeness of her, her small body pressed up against me, at the scent of her. I am burning up with desire, my entire body responding to her.
I smell it now—the barest hint of vanilla and sweet sunshine.
She is Awakening.
And I am drawn to her, a winter moth to a scorching summer flame.
“Syl.”
Get her, get her, get her!
She looks up at me, her expression dazed, but not from my spell. Her eyes, fiery and fierce, lock onto mine. Her breath is warm on my face. She burns me hotter than the fire from resisting Agravaine’s Command.
My hand falters. I drop my violin with a clang, the bow with a clatter. Syl is so close. The Command jolts through me again, bringing agony like burning blades. I’ll get her, all right.
I sweep her up into my arms. I’ll get her…out of here.
I’m completely disobeying. And one hundred percent not caring about the consequences.
I turn to run—
A rough hand on my jacket yanks me back viciously. I push Syl away, staggering then falling beside my violin. Agravaine hulks over me, his face flushed in anger, Fiann cowering behind him. He wants to be the one in my arms. Not her.
He stands between us, glaring at us both. “That’s not what I meant.”
Way to interrupt a moment, jerk. “Maybe you should word your Commands better.”
Rage turns his pale skin an interesting shade of purple.
He opens his mouth to issue another Command.
That’s when I kick my bow into my hand and drag it across the violin. A flare of violet lightning lashes from the strings. It strikes him in the chest, knocking him sprawling onto his back.
Awww, did the big bad Huntsman fall down, go boom?
Grinning like a madwoman, I leap to my feet, bow and violin in hand. Syl is staring at me, breathing hard, her eyes wide in fear.
“Run,” I say as I turn and start flicking switches—house music, amps, volume, loud, loud, louder!
The club fills up with noise as feedback spirals through the speakers, house music cutting in over the band, instruments blaring, mics backlashing a wall of sound.
Agravaine is shouting at me.
I smirk at him. “I’m sorry. Are you trying to Command me? Can’t hear you, buddy-boy!”
He can’t hear me either, but he gets the gist of my mutiny. Already, he is gaining his feet, the rage on his face propelling him toward me, toward Syl.
I step between them.
Syl grabs me, but I shove her toward the stage door. “Run!” The noise swallows my scream, but she gets it.
She looks at me, betrayal and hurt and confusion swimming in her grey eyes. It tears at my heart. “Please, Syl, please run!”
She runs.
Relief washes over me just as Agravaine’s fist crashes into my cheek.
Chapter Eleven
Syl
A sleeper-princess can only Awaken
In times of great stress
And even then, perhaps not fully
- Glamma’s Grimm
“Run!” Euphoria shoves me one last time, and I go stumbling. The music is blaring, the feedback loop screaming through the amps. My heartbeat ramps up, jack-knifing me in two. That night, the tracks, the accident, the train whistle that went on and on and on… My brain struggles to remember details, but looking at her, looking at Agravaine, only fear comes, bright and stabbing.
Panic lights up my limbs. I’m at the stage’s edge before I look back.
Agravaine stands over Euphoria, his face black with rage. He grabs her, lifts her off her feet with one hand. One hand. Holy--! I’m stunned by the unreality of it—like I’m watching two actors do a Hollywood stunt.
One hand is bunched in her leather jacket. With his other, he viciously yanks the main power cord. Sparks fly, the music cuts off, and a whole bank of stage lights go out, all the blues and greens winking out until we are bathed in red like blood.
Red lights. Emergency lights. That night on the train, our train car pitching over the side of the viaduct, the James River a black abyss below us, Fiann’s screams in my ear, her fingernails digging into my arm.
She stands behind Agravaine now, a look of sick triumph stamped on her face.
It’s the look of someone who’s totally lost their grip on reality. Her loopy grin is movie-vil
lain creepy. She walks over to the pulpit the Homecoming committee’s erected and grabs the crown. She puts it on her head.
Homecoming queen. I’d like to brain her with the royal scepter, but I’ve got bigger problems.
Agravaine lifts Euphoria up by the throat. Pain lines her face, her hands tensing on his as she struggles to escape. He leans in, whispers something I don’t hear, and the gloomy-dark indigo aura that surrounds him waves over her. She stops fighting.
I have to help her!
I run, but I don’t flee.
My hand touches the fire alarm. “Hey!” I shout my challenge over the dazed crowd, but their collective aura stays all violet. They’re still under whatever spell Euphoria cast. They won’t be any help. I’m on my own. “Hey, jerkface!”
Agravaine whips around to look at me, his white hair flying anime-style, those shark-black eyes eating into my soul…that indigo aura rippling off him. I feel its gross, sticky heat lapping at my skin.
“Ugh. No wonder you’re single.” That, and he clearly doesn’t know how to treat a lady. “Let her go.”
“Sleeper-princess.” He growls it so deep it reverberates in my bones. “Sleeper-princess.” He growls it like my name, and it fits. Like a glove. I don’t know what-all he’s talking about, but some part of me deep down feels the truth.
I am the sleeper-princess. Whatever that means. I can worry about it later. Right now, my give-a-damn is totally broken. I only care about Euphoria.
I make like I’m going to pull the alarm. “Let her go. Now!”
He only smiles while Euphoria fights his dark Command, fear for me in her eyes.
“Go ahead, sleeper-princess.” He squeezes her throat tighter, calling my bluff.
I should be shaking in my Docs. Euphoria’s badass, and if she’s afraid, I should be running my butt off, but Glamma always said, “Wear your big-girl panties to the ball.”
Well, I’m at the ball, all right. I pull the fire alarm. Your funeral, pal.
The glass breaks, and a howling wail fills the club. It shatters whatever woojy-woo Euphoria’s got going on. People scream and grab their ears. The violet-funk aura over everyone dissipates like mist in a high wind. Yay!
And then the panic starts.
Not yay.
Like thunder, the stampede begins, students pushing and shoving to get out, a panicked mosh-pit of bodies crushing toward the small doors. Glaring at me, Agravaine yanks Euphoria close and whispers in her ear. Whatever weird power he has over her stains the air dark, like ink dropped into milk.
She turns to me, her face pale, her eyes swimming with misery.
“Bring her to me.” Agravaine says it again—I read it on his lips—but all sound is lost in the blaring alarm and thundering riot.
She fights it. Her limbs jerk and her fists clench and unclench. Like a marionette, she walks stiffly to her violin and picks it up, picks her bow up too. A lick of violet lightning leaps from her right hand.
Violet…lightning. I jolt, memory rushing back…
That night at the tracks, violet lightning flashing right before the train went off the rails.
No… It can’t be.
Euphoria’s looking at me as Agravaine’s power, that gross, icky, indigo-darkness, overtakes her. Her luminous eyes burn as she meets my gaze, intense, predatory. My heart leaps against my rib cage, and my fight-or-flight instinct kicks into overdrive.
Yeah, it’s time for some Jurassic Park-level running the heck away.
Besides, maybe if I can lure her away from him…maybe I can talk some sense into her. Maybe?
I bolt off the stage and into the crowd. They’re in a blind panic now, pushing, shoving, the wailing alarm muffling their screams and cries. A girl goes down under the barrage, and I grab her arm, hauling her up. “Run!” I shout at her, and she takes off.
My way is totally blocked.
The front entrances are jammed with people trying to get out, their ball gowns and tuxes washed red in the emergency lights. Like that night on the train. The screams, the train pitching and shaking, thrown up into the air…
Panic shoots through me, but I force it down. Get a grip, Syl. Right. Now.
There’s no way out here. I loop back around toward the backstage area, expecting Euphoria or Agravaine to roll up any second.
But they don’t. In fact, I don’t see either of them. Or Fiann.
Whatever. I think I’ll run first and dazzle everyone with my logic later.
I hit the backstage door, burst out into the alleyway behind the Nanci, and run like a girl—which, as it turns out, is pretty darn fast.
If I survive this, I should totally go out for track. I’d crush the fifty-yard dash.
Even in a ball gown and Docs, I’m eating up the distance to the alley’s opening, my legs churning. Not even that piece of shrapnel in my leg is bothering me.
What is happening to me?
And Euphoria. What is her deal? And how is she related to Agravaine? And why does he have some kind of wonky control over her? And the violet lightning. Was she at the tracks that night? Is she really the girl from my dreams? A thousand questions drum in my mind as my feet drum the pavement.
That’s why I don’t see the punch.
It blasts me in the shoulder and takes my feet out from under me, laying me out flat. I land hard on the concrete, the breath whooshing out of me.
Not my finest moment.
A flash of black; my instincts scream a warning. I roll just as a motorcycle boot Hulk-smashes into the asphalt, sending chunks of broken blacktop flying.
Whoa! That was almost my head.
I spring to my feet easy-breezy, like I’ve practiced it a hundred times. I haven’t. It seems like my body is ready for a fight whether my mind wants to catch up or not.
And then she steps out of the shadows. Euphoria.
“Syl…” Her voice is pained even as she strides toward me.
I back up. How can I save her? How can I save myself?
She throws a punch, and my body reacts. I sidestep faster than I can blink. Her hand crushes the brick behind me. Holy—!
“Whoa, take it easy, Supergirl!”
“Syl, please.” Her face is contorted in agony.
There’s a trickle of blood coming from her nose, thin but bright scarlet against her bronze skin.
And that’s when my Fae-sight kicks in.
My vision doubles. I see Euphoria, and then I see beneath Euphoria, beneath her faerie Glamour. Raven-dark hair. Her ears long and pointed, her skin a glowing bronze, cheekbones high, sharp, her fangs glinting.
Sapphire-blue eyes ringed in gold.
My breath goes out in a painful gasp. Euphoria is the girl from my dreams.
They’re both from my dreams. Her and Agravaine.
That night… They came after me, shadowy silhouettes hunting me, attacking the train. All pointed ears and fangs. Dark Fae, Glamma called them.
Holy cats! Glamma was right. The dark Fae are real, and they’re out to get me.
And all those fairy tales she told me… Are they all real too?
I shake my head. It’s crazy, ridiculous, impossible. But here’s Euphoria, standing right in front of me. In all her dark Fae glory.
And she’s been ordered to capture me, to bring me back…to him.
“Syl…” Her face is fierce with that Command, but beneath that fierceness, there is a softness to her, a glowing burn that ignites my soul and lures me in.
Just like in my dream.
But this is way too real.
All I wanted was a date, a dance, maybe a goodnight kiss.
And now…now my heart aches like it’s being torn out. Who is she? Has she been lying all this time, just to get close to me? Hurt wells up in my chest and spills over. “Did you attack the train that night?”
My question stops her dead. Another trickle of blood rolls from her nose. She’s resisting Agravaine’s Command. “Yes,” she says.
My mind flashes me back—violet lightni
ng in the sky, the train rattling and rolling, and then the sudden, terrible lurch. We’re in free-fall, tossed into the air, backpacks and coffees, laptops and books and purses. And the people…the look of glazed-over bliss on their faces.
Just like tonight.
She cast some dark spell on them.
I step back and back and back until I fetch up against the wall. “You…you killed all those people.” I stare at her, trying to see the monster beneath her Glamour. Glamma always said the dark Fae were evil to the core, that they’d steal your soul right from inside your skin.
But when I look at Euphoria, none of that is right.
The hurt in her eyes, the pain…
“Syl…” She steps forward, reaching for me, reaching for my hand.
Her touch is fire and ice, wonderful and terrible and amazing, and my emotions tangle up inside me, squeezing into a tight ball in my chest.
And then her body jerks as though someone’s pulling invisible strings. Agravaine. The effort of resisting his Command rocks through her, twisting her face in agony.
She wipes dark red blood from her nose. “Syl…I can’t fight it much longer.”
I feel for her, but I slap her hand away. The smack hurts me inside, a spear to my heart. “You don’t get it, do you? Ever since that night… Fiann doesn’t talk to me. My life is a nightmare. And what about all those people on the train? All those people!”
She crumples inward, sagging. She’s powerful and badass, but in this moment, I could push her over with a feather.
I don’t want to. I just want to hold her, to comfort her.
“It wasn’t me… Agravaine…” She jerks. Her body lurches forward, her hand pistoning out. The bricks behind me shatter, and I’m covered in dust. She grabs me, her hand tightening like she’s going to crush my arm, but she only pushes me away. “Go. Toward the train tracks. You’ll be safer there. Go!”
I look back at the building. Everyone’s pouring out the front. Everyone is safe, but I’m not.
Euphoria loses the battle.
Her eyes dilate black with the force of Agravaine’s command, and in my Fae-sight, the dark shroud of his power falls over her. “Run, Syl.” Her voice rasps like she’s gargling razor blades.
Moribund Page 9
