by Jenna Black
Girls' Night Out
( Faeriewalker )
Jenna Black
Girls' Night Out
(A book in the Faeriewalker series)
A Novella by Jenna Black
Dedication
For my readers. Thanks for all the love you’ve shown the Faeriewalker series!
Chapter One
At the risk of making myself sound like a geek extraordinaire, I was really looking forward to the first day of school. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt that way—when school was out, I had to spend way too much time in the presence of my mother, the drunk—but it was even more welcome this year than most. This year, it promised a kind of normalcy that had disappeared from my life the moment I’d set foot in Avalon, the one place in the universe where Faerie and the mortal world intersect.
You see, I’m a Faeriewalker—a rare individual who has just the right mix of Fae and mortal blood to be able to travel freely in both the mortal world and in Faerie. I can also take magic into the mortal world and technology into Faerie. My unusual powers—and my late aunt Grace’s attempts to use me as a weapon to usurp the Seelie throne—had made me very unpopular with the two Queens of Faerie, and I’d been living in a bunker-like safe house under threat of death all summer. I had reached an agreement with Titania, the Seelie Queen, and she was no longer out to kill me, but my status with Mab, the Unseelie Queen, was less clear. I had recently revealed that unlike Faeriewalkers past, I could actually sense and use magic, and that my magic could turn a Fae into a mortal. I hoped the knowledge would encourage Mab to just leave me alone as long as I didn’t bother her.
My trip to Faerie, and my revelation of my power, had certainly made me safer than I’d been since the moment I’d set foot in Avalon. However, safer wasn’t the same as safe, and my dad, who had legal custody of me, insisted I remain ensconced in my safe house under twenty-four hour guard. Whenever I
complained, he pointed out that until I was eighteen, it was his decision to make, and that ended any argument. I wished I had another power: to speed up time so I could turn eighteen already!
My dad was paranoid enough that he’d categorically refused to let me go to school like a normal person. He thought having me out in public on a predictable schedule for seven hours a day, five days a week, would be inviting trouble. I’d wheedled, cajoled, begged, and otherwise made a major pain in the butt out of myself and finally got him to break down and compromise. To keep me from feeling like I was being buried alive in my safe house, Dad had agreed that I could audit one class at Avalon University so I’d be around other kids every once in a while. Kids who were all older than me, true, but after the things I’d gone through during the endless summer between my junior and senior years, I wasn’t sure I could even relate to ordinary high school kids anymore.
At first, I’d wanted to choose a class my best friend, Kimber, or my boyfriend, Ethan, were attending, but one look at their schedules had convinced me to strike out on my own. Kimber’s a brainiac sixteen-year-old who’s already a sophomore and studying to be an engineer. Her classes were way over my head and not even remotely interesting to me. Ethan is Kimber’s older brother, but he’s just a freshman, and his schedule is full of required classes—ones I would have to take myself for credit next year when I presumably would enroll in Avalon U full time.
I ended up choosing History of Avalon, because I was woefully uninformed about the history of my adopted home and because Kimber had had the professor before and said he was really good.
I was both nervous and excited as I made my way from my safe house to the university, carrying a backpack with my textbook, a notebook, and a handful of pens over my shoulder. Finn, my bodyguard, had offered to carry it for me, but I wanted to cling to any pretense of normalcy I could, so I stubbornly insisted on carrying my own bag, even if the textbook did weigh about thirty pounds.
I’d been anxious enough to get started that I’d managed to get us to the lecture hall almost a full fifteen minutes before class was scheduled to start, but at least I wasn’t the first one there. A handful of seats in the auditorium-style lecture hall were filled, and I paused for a moment at the back of the room to decide where to sit. I glanced back over my shoulder at Finn.
“Are you going to sit with me?” I asked, hoping and praying he would say no. He was a really nice guy and all, but he wasn’t exactly unobtrusive—he was a Knight of Faerie, and he dressed like he was playing a secret service agent in an action movie, complete with dark glasses no matter the weather, indoors or out. I might as well carry a billboard saying “Look at me, I’m not normal” if he was going to sit next to me.
Finn gave me an ironic half-smile. “I’ll sit in the back.”
The few kids who were seated had taken notice of us already. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see more than one curious face watching us. Even if Finn sat in back, people were going to know he was with me, but at least I wouldn’t be flaunting it.
“Thanks,” I told him, then blew out a steadying breath and started down the stairs with an eye toward snagging a seat in the center. I didn’t have the guts to actually sit next to some stranger, but I was hoping someone would eventually end up sitting next to me. Maybe someone who would come in later and hadn’t seen me arrive with a bodyguard in tow.
Pretty soon, the classroom started to fill up, students at first trickling, then pouring in. I was used to being the new girl in school, my mother having made us move about a thousand times while I was growing up, and I knew there were a lot of freshmen, who were all as new as I was, but I still felt a pang as people came in in pairs or groups, or as friends were reunited after the summer break. I even started to feel a bit sorry for myself, sitting alone in the middle of the room with empty seats all around me. People who already knew each other were sitting in little clumps together, and the really extroverted strangers were striking up conversations, but the more introverted people, like me, picked seats that weren’t directly next to others.
When the clock struck eleven and Professor Matheson stepped in through a door at the front of the room, about three quarters of the seats were taken, and there was still no one sitting on either side of me. I told myself it didn’t matter. It took a special kind of person to make friends with someone who never went anywhere without a bodyguard, and I was lucky to have any friends at all. I shouldn’t be hoping for more. I glanced back and saw that Finn had taken an aisle seat in the back row. He probably thought he looked more inconspicuous that way, but the people near him kept turning to peek at him when he wasn’t looking.
The class started to settle down, conversations dying out as the professor arranged his lecture notes on the podium. The sudden hush made it easier to hear one of the doors at the back squealing open, and I—along with half of the class—looked over my shoulder at the new arrival, expecting to see an ordinary student running late, perhaps flustered and embarrassed by his or her not-so-silent entry.
The girl who stepped through that doorway was anything but ordinary. She was Fae, with the typical height and willowy build of her people, but that was about the only thing about her I could label typical. The Fae are mostly blond, with a few redheads here and there to spice things up. The only naturally dark-haired Fae I’d ever met was the Erlking, the leader of the Wild Hunt, and he was one of a kind.
The girl who stood in the back of the room, taking her time to look over the available seats at her leisure, not a bit flustered at being late, had long, jet-black hair with bright purple streaks in it. She wore a flimsy black camisole top—I would freeze to death wearing that in Avalon, where summer temperatures soared into the sixties, usually with mist or rain to add to the chill—paired with an ultra-short
black skirt of fluffy tulle that looked almost like a tutu. The skirt revealed about twelve yards of leg, encased in purple and black striped stockings with a couple of artful tears in them, and calf-high unlaced combat boots. She finished off the outfit with about three tons of silver jewelry, including countless rings in her ears, as well as a ring through her eyebrow and a ball through her lower lip.
Clearly, this girl knew how to make a grand entrance. The fact that
practically everyone in the room was staring at her didn’t seem to faze her a bit.
She was so striking that for half a second, I failed to notice the Fae man who’d slipped through the doorway behind her, and that’s saying something. He was built like a football player and dressed much like Finn in Secret Service chic. Everything about him, including his assessing scan of the classroom, screamed bodyguard, which made me even more curious about the mysterious Fae Goth girl. Her bodyguard narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Finn. Finn didn’t exactly look at ease, either, though he remained in his seat and didn’t in any way act like I was under threat.
The Goth girl started down the center aisle, not in any hurry to take her seat even though she was late. As she approached, I felt the prickle of magic against my skin. My body instantly went on red alert, my pulse speeding, my muscles tense and at the ready. Most of the time I’d been in the presence of magic, bad things had happened, and I seemed to be having a Pavlovian response to its approach. At least that was how I explained my sudden discomfort to myself. The fact that I practiced self-defense twice a week with a Fae who used magic to shield himself—and whose magic didn’t make me the least bit uneasy—made my
explanation a bit suspect.
My sense of unease heightened when she stopped at my row and worked
her way around the people sitting near the aisle. There were two seats between me and the next person on that side, and though I’d been hoping for someone to sit next to me, I had the brief hope that the Goth girl would take the farther seat. But, of course, she dropped into the seat right beside me.
The professor started to talk, but his words all seemed to run together in my mind as the Goth girl’s magic swept over me, making me squirm in my chair. How the hell was I supposed to pay attention to a lecture when I felt like I had little stinging ants crawling all over me?
The Goth girl swung the desk arm into place, set a spiral-bound notebook and a pen on it, then turned to me and smiled.
“Hi,” she said in a low voice. “I’m Althea Mabsdotter. But my friends call me Al.” She stuck out her hand for me to shake, which was an awkward gesture in the cramped seats with the desk arms.
“Um, hi,” I said, reluctantly shaking her hand. I felt kind of rude introducing myself while the professor was talking, but I would have felt even more rude if I hadn’t. “I’m Dana Hathaway.”
She had a handshake like a guy’s, firm almost to the point of being painful.
Or maybe that was just the continued discomfort of her magic. It took me a second to fully absorb her introduction.
“Mabsdotter?” I murmured, a chill traveling down my spine. I was sitting close enough to her now that I could see the tiny red roses—the symbol of the Unseelie Court—dotting the placket of her camisole. Put that together with her last name—which she’d probably made up, since the Fae who aren’t Avalon natives don’t use last names—and her Knight bodyguard, and I came to an uncomfortable conclusion. “As in Mab’s daughter?”
“In the flesh,” she confirmed, blue eyes sparkling with amusement.
Was it a coincidence that she’d just happened to pick the seat next to me?
Or did she know who I was? And if she did know who I was, was she here on some unpleasant mission from her mother? I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder at Finn. I suspected he had recognized Mab’s daughter on sight—and had probably been expecting her, because he’d likely looked over the class roster before letting me set foot in the room. If he’d thought she was a threat, I wouldn’t be here.
“You’re the Faeriewalker, right?” Al asked, picking up her pen and doodling in her notebook.
Definitely not a coincidence that she’d sat next to me, then.
The professor was writing something on the whiteboard, and I figured I should probably be taking notes. Too bad I still hadn’t heard a word he’d said, nor did I have the concentration to read what he was writing. Not while sitting next to a genuine Faerie princess who bristled with magic and might wish me dead.
“Yeah,” I responded, because there seemed to be no point in denying it.
“You’re not here to kill me or anything, are you?”
She laughed, drawing a couple of annoyed glances from students who were actually paying attention to the class.
“You’re direct,” she said, still grinning. “I like that. And I’m here to go to school, nothing more. I’m a sophomore. I’ve been a student here since before you arrived in Avalon.”
A human girl in front of us turned around and glared. The Fae boy sitting next to her nudged her with his elbow, then bent and whispered in her ear. She turned to face front hastily, sinking low into her seat. Al smiled with smug satisfaction, and I decided immediately that I didn’t like her. She struck me as the kind of person who used her status to bully those around her, and I’ve never had much patience with bullies.
I forced myself to begin copying down the professor’s notes, although I was too distracted to absorb the words I was writing. Maybe if Al saw me taking notes, she’d start paying attention to the class and leave me alone. I was auditing a class mostly to escape the safe house and be around other people, but I did genuinely want to learn, too. I had a feeling Al’s presence would be a massive distraction.
____
Much to my relief, Al didn’t talk to me throughout the rest of the class. I didn’t think she was paying much attention, either—her notebook was covered with doodles, but no actual words—but at least she wasn’t actively trying to distract me or annoy the people sitting around us.
That didn’t mean I got a whole lot out of the class, however. Al’s magic continued to prickle my skin throughout the entire lecture. It wasn’t painful, exactly, but it wasn’t a pleasant sensation, either. I wondered what kind of magic it was, and what she was doing with it. The only other Fae I’d met who had a buzz of magic to him constantly was Lachlan, a troll who wore a human glamour so he could fit in with the humans and Fae in Avalon. I glanced at Al out of the corner of my eye, wondering if she was really who she appeared to be, or if she was wearing some kind of glamour-fueled disguise.
Whatever she was doing, I wished she would stop so I could concentrate. I wondered how the other Fae students could stand it, but I seemed to be the only one uncomfortable. I knew that the Fae could sense each other’s magic like I could, but perhaps the sensation felt different to them, or they were so used to it that it didn’t bother them like it did me.
After having looked forward to this day for weeks, I could hardly wait for class to end so I could put some distance between myself and Al’s magic. When the professor finally stopped talking, I packed up my bag in record time. I was actually eager to get back to the safe house. This was the longest, most sustained contact I’d ever had with magic, and I’d had more than enough. Al, however, had other ideas.
“Would you care to join me for lunch?” she asked, smiling at me hopefully.
“There’s a sandwich shop on the quad that serves pretty decent food, and it’s a beautiful day.”
She gestured at the windows, which showed a perfectly blue sky with only the occasional wisp of white cloud. Even in the summer, it was rare to have such a clear blue sky in Avalon, and I’d heard the weather was even gloomier in the fall and winter. It seemed a shame to retreat into the darkness of the tunnel system beneath the city, where my safe house was located. Which did I want more? To get away from the prickle of Al’s magic, or to go outside and enjoy the beautiful weather?
Of course, I could enjoy the weather w
ithout having to eat lunch with Al. It was on the tip of my tongue to say “thanks, but no thanks,” when Al added an almost plaintive-sounding “Please?” She sucked her entire lower lip, piercing and all, into her mouth, in what looked like a nervous gesture.
Call me a total sucker, but I couldn’t say no when she looked so hopeful.
She’d struck me as a bit of a bully early on, but maybe I’d misjudged her. I imagined being the daughter of a Faerie Queen meant Al’s life was even further from normal than mine was, and that maybe the reason she’d seemed kind of bitchy was because she was fronting to cover up feeling isolated. After all, we were the only two kids in class, probably the only two kids in the entire university, who had bodyguards. Maybe I should cut her some slack.
“Sure,” I said, against my better judgment. “I’d love to.”
Covering up for my mom’s alcoholism had taught me to be a really good liar, and Al beamed at me. I assumed that meant I’d done a good job of hiding my reluctance.
“Great!” she said with obvious enthusiasm. “It’ll be my treat.”
I shook my head as we headed up the stairs toward our bodyguards. “No it won’t,” I said, possibly being a little more blunt than was wise. When I was living with my mom, we’d always been strapped for cash because she couldn’t hold a job, but my dad didn’t have that problem. I’m sure Al’s mother was richer than my father, but I certainly wasn’t in the need of charity. “You don’t have to bribe me to have lunch with you.”
Al looked over her shoulder at me and frowned. “I didn’t mean it that way.
But okay. We’ll go Dutch.”
We reached the top of the stairs, our bodyguards converging on us.
“We’re going to go have lunch on the quad,” I informed Finn. “If that’s all right with you.” For a while, my dad had been so paranoid he wouldn’t let me leave the safe house without permission, but since the threat against me had eased off, I had a little more freedom now. If you considered not being able to go anywhere without a bodyguard hanging over your shoulder “freedom.” I didn’t need my dad’s permission to have lunch, nor did I need Finn’s. But just because I didn’t technically have to ask Finn whether it was okay with him to go out to lunch didn’t mean I felt right taking it for granted. My dad treated Finn like a servant, always at his beck and call—and Finn considered this treatment completely appropriate, because the Fae class system is archaic and rigid—but I refused to do the same.
