Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely 1)

“You hold the most powerful court. You alone. You can lead the way to stopping Bananach.”

“And if I can’t, what then?” She let her defenses drop for a moment, let her fears show in her voice.

“You can.”

She nodded. She could if she didn’t let her doubts get in the way. She straightened her shoulders and peered up at Evan. “If I allow another early spring, Summer will grow stronger, closer to an even balance with our court. I will speak to Aislinn. You will find out what you can about the Dark and send word to the Hounds. Sasha and the Hawthorn Girls will see me home.”

“As you wish.” With a fiercely proud look, Evan nodded and walked away, leaving her with the wolf and the trio of Hawthorn Girls, who were silent but for the whirring of their wings.

“COTTON CANDY SKIES” Short Story

COTTON CANDY SKIES

The sky was the color of cotton candy. Tish would like that. Rabbit hadn’t made it through a day yet without thinking about his sister. She’d been dead for two months now—two months during which he’d watched his other sister become one of the rulers of Faerie. Ani and Tish had been the children he’d never expected to have; they’d been his to raise since Ani was a toddler, chin jutting out, Hunt-green eyes narrowed, clutching seven-year-old Tish’s hand.

The paintbrush in his hand hung limp. Some days he was able to paint, but this morning didn’t feel like it was going to be one of them. He stared at the sky. The clouds were thin wisps, stretched-out bands of darker pink woven into a pale pink background. Trees, some familiar and others peculiar, popped up in the landscape, not always where they’d been the day before—or perhaps the moment before. Few things were predictable in Faerie. That part he liked. Feeling lost, however, was a lot less appealing. In the mortal world, he’d had a function—he’d raised his two half sisters, been in the employ of the Dark King, and had a thriving tattoo studio. There, he had belonged.

“It’s hers.” One of the other artists, a faery woman with stars always slipping in and out of her eyes, leaned against a low wall outside his cottage. “The sky. She colored it today.”

Rabbit looked away from the artist. When he stared too long, he had trouble remembering to breathe. He watched falling stars, comets that whipped past, entire nebulae all glinting in her night-sky eyes. Every time he looked at her, he had to force himself to pull away. Something about her intensity made him fear that he’d get trapped in her gaze. He wasn’t sure if such a thing were truly possible, but he was living in Faerie, a land where the impossible was more likely than the expected.

“Not your her,” she said.

“My her?” Rabbit asked.

“The Shadow Queens. The girl who is two girls.” The artist walked toward him. “It’s hers, the High Queen.”

Talking to the artist was one of the few joys Rabbit could count on. She was unexpected in the way that not even the fluid world around him was, but she had a sense of calm about her that he craved. Before, when he was the person he’d been for all but these past two months, he’d have asked her to grab a drink or dance, but the idea of doing something so free now made him fill with guilt. Logically, he knew he wasn’t at fault for surviving, but if he could trade his life in for Tish’s he’d do so in an instant. With conscious effort, Rabbit stopped pondering that.

“Will you tell me your name today?” he asked.

She smiled. “You could ask the queens.”

“I could,” he agreed. “It’s your name, though. I told you mine.”

“No.” She took his brush, touched the tip of it to her lips, and started painting in the air. Glimmering bits of light hovered in the empty space in front of him. “You told me a name that is not what I should call you.”

Silently he watched as she created a flower in the open air, and beside it a small rabbit that lifted its head and watched them. The rabbit she’d drawn seemed to be rolling in the grass in front of a cluster of yew trees. The illusory rabbit startled, then ran under the lowest branches where it peered up at the sky.

She handed him his brush. “You do not need to be a lonely, lost animal.”

“My father called me ‘Rabbit,’ and my sisters did, and . . . it’s who I am,” Rabbit explained to her again.

She sighed. “It is not all of who you are.”

“They were my life,” he whispered. “Before my sisters . . . I wasn’t worth anything, and if they don’t need me . . . I am nothing.”

Gently, the artist covered his hand and he felt cold flow from her skin into his. When she touched him, he felt as if he wanted to grab her and never let go. For all of his mortal traits, he was still half-Hound. He wanted closeness, but he was afraid.

“Starlight,” she murmured, “close your eyes so you can see.”

The words made no sense, but the press of her body against his made him feel a happiness that was absent the past two months. She filled his emptiness with something pure, filling him, pushing away the grief. He felt that light slide into his skin, and he was afraid. If I let go, will I lose Tish’s memory? As a half-fey creature, he’d lived long enough that he’d forgotten the faces of long-gone mortal friends. Will I forget Tish? Sometimes he thought he could still hear her laughing, and he didn’t want that to end.

“Paint,” the artist urged. “Keep your eyes closed and paint.”

He felt tears slip from his closed eyes as he moved his brush. There was no canvas, nothing that would contain the images that he saw in his mind, and he wasn’t sure if he’d see them hovering in the air if he opened his eyes. Unlike tattoos, these images were temporary at best. The paintings the artist created in the air were visible, but he wasn’t sure if his would be.

Her hand rested atop his as he painted. He could hear Tish’s voice, her laughter, and then finally, he thought he felt her hand brush away his tears. In the images he created, Tish was smiling at him. She wasn’t dead.