MariannaSkye watches me with feline intent as I mix chocolate powder into her glass of milk. Her favorite glass. The only glass she’ll drink milk out of. She has a glass for juice and another for water, but those are tightly packed away as it stands.The kitchen is in shambles, boxes stacked as high as my shoulders in some spots. I know she saw me slip her vitamins into the milk. I know she’s going to curl her lip at me, giving me that… look. That look that reminds me who her father is, even if nothing in the world could ever make me forget. “It’s just protein powder,” I say, setting the blue ombre glass with little painted daisies dancing around it on the table, which has just enough space carved out for her cereal bowl. The rest of the space is taken up by train tickets and moving manifests, which she’s picked through, of course, sucking every insignificant detail into her mind like it matters to her in the slightest. “There’s already seven grams of protein per serving in my cere
Book 15BlakeI love a straight line. I like a natural, expected curve. I like a perfectly sharpened pencil against graph paper, the rhythmic pull of an eraser swiping away at flakes of lead. I like a solid foundation built on the back of flawless trigonometry–something static, impenetrable, and utterly flawless. I like solid, well-built rooms in shades of muted gray. I like clothes that feel weightless, soft, without a tag scratching my neck or the feeling of fabric rubbing my skin. I like exactly three foods–a rare steak. Nectarines. One specific brand of granola that I’ll stop eating if the recipe even remotely changes. I like a single cup of coffee in the morning–black and bitter. No cream. No sugar. No frills. No color. No emotion. No feeling. Nothing unexpected. Nothing that’ll draw my mind out of the carefully crafted funnel of resistance I’ve crafted where I’m safe and secure, unbothered and unburdened. But… noise…I flinch as another shrill voice wafts from the radio atta
Marianna“I don’t understand.” I swallow hard past the lie, folding my hands over my lap, meeting the headmaster’s shrewd gaze. She’s an otherwise lovely woman in her late fifties, I believe, with raven-black hair peppered with silver and bright brown eyes. Her pink lipstick crinkles when she gives me a sad, sympathetic smile I know all too well… because this has happened before. Twice. Three times now, if I count today. The pewter stone walls of the exclusive, ridiculously expensive Children’s Academy of Crescent City smothers me. She looks down at her desk for a moment, sighing. “Ms. Abbot,” she says, meeting my gaze again, her face washed in what I believe is empathy but could be something far less deep. “Skye doesn’t belong here. She's too–too–” She waves her wrist in what I can only construed as dismissal. “Too intense?” She purses her thin lips. “I have other students to think about. We’ve given this a shot, haven’t we? After her… premature departure from MoonWolf Preschool,
SorenPatton limps down the wide, golden hallway somewhere on the fourth floor. He’s dressed in a brand-new tuxedo, something of Jane’s doing, I’m sure, but it fits him like a glove. He checks his watch.Voices drift through the air and the sun beams onto the pristine, crimson carpet. I catch my reflection in one of the many mirrors along the golden walls and stop to adjust my hair, sweeping the chestnut curls away from my forehead. The black-on-black tuxedo I’m wearing was Evander’s idea, even though I could be in sweatpants and a T-shirt right now. The electric hum of the crowd gathered around the palace walls reaches the upper levels of the grand house I now call home, but it’s been like this since the earliest hours of the morning when Maeve sent warriors out into the street to proclaim the birth of the princess. She was, technically, born three days ago, but we’ve had a lot to do since then. Mostly… rest. In fact, Maeve, Fallon, and I haven’t done much but sleep, eat, and sleep
SorenIt’s dark in Moonrise when we return to the palace–to Maeve’s entire family in wait. Blake is whisked away by his parents and a trio of healers. Jane, blubbering, reunites with Patton and the two disappear to the clinic to have his wounds tended. Sydney brought us back within minutes of Maeve using her magic to scorch the island into a blackened heap of rubble, and we’re back, but… everything feels different. Ryatt stayed behind with the Ghosts and Evander, but I feel his presence everywhere I step. Maeve clutches my hand tight, her fingers like ice, and we rush through the castle toward her suite. Our suite, I suppose. Toward the daughter I promised I’d be here to witness coming into the world. Maeve’s armor clicks as she moves like the wind, ignoring the shouts coming from the end of the hallway where we landed only moments ago. Warriors and healers rush after us but neither of us turn around. My heart is in my throat as we climb the final staircase to the sixth floor. Ke
MaeveMonths ago, when the trees were green and summer bloomed all around me, I used my powers to try to spirit home from the Roguelands. My powers did, in fact, take me home, but… not to the home I expected. I should have realized it then. Now, the landscape coming into focus is desolate and barren–an icy hell of wind beaten grass and rough seas… but he’s here. My powers brought me here, back to him, back home.Firestone witches can have mates, and I’ve found mine, but my powers recognized him before I did. I like to think the Goddess had a hand in our first two meetings–that She drew him to that tea shop on the same night as me, seeking quiet companionship. That she urged me in his direction after Brie and Logan’s elopement just so we’d cross paths ago, planting the seed of our bond in both of our chests. Now, my powers have called me home again, but I have no idea where I am. A cold, angry sea laps against a beach of sharp, dark stone. Cliffs overlook the roiling black water, a