can I talk to you?”
He raised his eyebrows and followed me into the kitchen. The cheerful yellow walls didn’t do much for me today. He grabbed my hand, pulling me in close, his frown deepening. “You’re not seriously considering this, are you? I might have been the one they locked up, but you were just as much a prisoner there. After everything you’ve seen, how can you even think about it? And don’t you find it a little suspicious that we haven’t had any problems until Raquel showed up?”
Anger flared sharply in my chest. Sure, I had briefly thought the same thing, but she was Raquel. My Raquel. “She wouldn’t do that. She was as worried as you. Besides, what am I even doing here? Going to class, working in the diner, counting down the days until the weekend? At least with IPCA I was helping people!”
“Yes, helping people! But how many paranormals were you hurting?”
Tears stung my eyes. He didn’t understand. He never could see anything but evil in IPCA. But they’d taken me in, had taken care of me. I didn’t even want to think where I would have been without them.
“How many paranormals am I helping right now, huh? Things have changed at IPCA. I can help paranormals, too, like werewolves who don’t know what’s going on, or this troll colony—I can find them and convince them to relocate before they get in trouble!”
Lend shook his head. “We can do that with my dad.”
“We can’t! We don’t have the resources!”
“Like faeries?”
I hated that he was using my past against me. I hadn’t been sure I wanted to work for Raquel before, but for some reason his insistence that I shouldn’t was pushing me right toward it. It was all well and good for him, off at college, doing big important things for his future. A future that would last forever, even if he didn’t know it. But I was stuck here, bored and lonely, slowly burning out with nothing to show for it.
I was struggling for a comeback when the brilliant outline of a faerie door wrote itself onto the wall.
Lend, however, wasn’t frozen. Darting to the other side of the kitchen, he grabbed one of the cast-iron pans his dad always left out. A figure stepped out of the darkness, turning his head just in time to see Lend swing with all his might.
The faerie dove, executing a roll and jumping up several feet away. Lend turned around to close in again.
“Hey-oh, what’s this?” the faerie said with a laugh.
There was something wrong, something off about the whole thing. I narrowed my eyes at the faerie. My height, with sandy blond hair, brilliant blue eyes, dimples, and—
“Lend, stop!” Reacting to my shout, he pulled his arm up short from the swing, lost his balance, and stumbled into the granite counter. He looked at me, confused. I shook my head, feeling the same way. I had no idea how it was possible, but there was no denying what I saw underneath the boy’s skin.
Nothing.
“He’s not a faerie,” I said. I looked back at the door, but it was already gone. I had watched the whole time; he was the only thing to come out. No faerie at all.
This was impossible.
“Are you sure?” Lend still held the pan at the ready, not taking his eyes off the boy. Or guy, really. He looked about our age, maybe a year or two younger.
The non-faerie smiled at me and winked, jumping up to sit on the counter. “Not quite the reception I was expecting, but I’ll give your boy this—he’s exciting.”
Raquel rushed into the room, then fixed a scowl on Blondie. “You’re late.”
He shrugged and helped himself to an apple from the fruit bowl next to him. “I got lost.” He took a big bite, crunching loudly before he blanched and spit into the sink. With a regretful sigh, he tossed the apple to Lend, who dropped the pan in his instinctive reaction to catch it.
The metal was still clanging when David came in behind Raquel. “Who is that?”
“Not a faerie, that’s for sure,” I answered. Blondie stood up on top of the counter, his head nearly brushing the ceiling. Then, with a jaunty salute, he flipped off, landing on his feet.
I kept staring, looking for something, anything under his skin. There was no glamour. His clothes were normal, too, a light blue printed T-shirt and nice jeans. “How did you do that?” I asked.
“Lots of practice. You should see me walk on my hands.”
“The door! How did you come through a faerie door by yourself?”
“Oh, that?” He ran a hand through his curls and looked back at where the door had been. “Easy. You walk up to a wall, and”—he leaned in close, all of us leaning with him, watching breathlessly—“open sesame!” He raised both arms dramatically in the air.
Nothing happened. “Huh.” He turned around and shrugged. “Well, guess I’m stuck.”
Raquel heaved a sigh I used to know well—it was her Evie, Evie, Evie sigh. But this time she followed it up with a tired, “Jack. Please stop playing around. We’re here for business.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, eyes wide and earnest. Raquel turned around to go back into the living room and Jack tugged lightly on the end of my ponytail, then sauntered out after her.
Who on earth was this person?
Lend took my hand. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
I shook my head. I had never seen anyone who could go through a faerie door or navigate the Paths unless they were accompanied by a faerie. You couldn’t even let go of your faerie’s hand on the Paths or you’d be lost forever in the infinite darkness. I still had nightmares about being there alone.
David, Lend, and I walked cautiously into the other room, tensed for an attack. But Jack was sitting, casual as can be, on the back of the couch.
“Jack is who I was trying to tell you about, Evie.” Raquel smiled smugly at us. “Thanks to him, we can transport you to and from sites with the same speed as a faerie. You’ll never have to work with the fey.”
“How?” I had seen it with my own eyes, but I still didn’t believe it. Then something struck me. “Take off your shirt!”
“I’m not that kind of guy!” He frowned thoughtfully. “On second thought, why not?” He pulled the shirt over his head, revealing a lean torso that under other circumstances might have elicited admiration, but today was only more confusing. Once again there was absolutely nothing shimmering underneath it. So much for my theory that he was hiding something paranormal under his clothes.
I blushed
