Spring (Evermore Academy 2)

48

“Do you want to read them or should I trash them?” Mack asks, tipping down her black Ray Bans to reveal her cornflower blue eyes.

We’re sitting at one of the several cream-colored couches on my mother’s penthouse balcony, breathing in the warm New York air. Fae gossip magazines stolen from the magazine vendors below by Ruby are spread out on the glass coffee table; my face stares out from every single one.

The image of me taken wearing the Summer Princess’s crown—the one that would only bloom for her—is the most widely used.

It’s also the picture that I despise the most. The wide-eyed girl on the cover didn’t know it yet, but her future had just died.

Her hopes, dreams, freedoms, and love story, all destroyed.

I hate her innocence. How she still clings to that wonderful notion that she can be happy with Valerian. That her life is still hers.

“Trash,” I finally say. “Definitely.”

“Maybe you could make Ruby stop stealing them,” Mack suggests before grumbling under her breath, “and force her to wear some clothes while you’re at it.”

“I can’t make Ruby do anything,” I protest, glancing over at the sunbathing sprite. She’s laid out on the stone railing, completely, unapologetically nude.

“I can hear you, rude human,” Ruby calls before snapping her fingers. A brownie appears from thin air with a doll-sized frozen strawberry daiquiri in hand. “They’re calling my master the people’s princess. She’s beloved by all the world. Why not show her proof of that?”

My head falls back as a ragged sigh escapes my lips. But . . . part of what she says is true. I’ve been presented as both mortal and Fae, a princess for both races.

No doubt, thanks to my mother, who’s taken this opportunity to boost the image of her company. Not that I’d expect any less from a Fae.

Mack grins. “I bet Queen Larkspur loves Ruby.”

I snort, remembering the horrified way my mother stared at Ruby the first time she caught her in the walk-in pantry, tiny butt sticking out of a jar of honey.

“How is your mother, by the way?” Mack asks. “To be around every day, I mean.”

“Beautiful. Imposing. Hard to read.” I shrug, hoping Mack doesn’t hear the pain in my voice. Even though I called Zinnia my aunt out of respect for her daughter, I always considered her like a mother.

And now . . . it’s hard to feel anything for this strange woman when I miss Zinnia so much it physically hurts. When calling the Summer Queen mother feels like a betrayal to the woman who raised me.

Zinnia hardly batted an eye when I revealed the reason I had to spend the summer here. She must have always suspected I was part Fae somehow—suspected and still loved me.

Yep, there’s no way the Summer Queen can take Zinnia’s place.

“You don’t remember the queen from your life before?” Mack presses.

I take a sip of sweet tea and then lean back against the sofa cushion. “With the Winter Prince, there was a connection immediately. But . . . not with her. The only thing that feels familiar is her perfume. It has this exotic floral aroma I can’t place, but remember somehow. It’s unmistakable.”

“You’ve been here two weeks and that’s all you know about the woman? The scent of her perfume?”

“She works all the time, so I really only see her at dinner.”

My mother’s one request. That we eat dinner together every night. She seemed offended at first by my preference for mortal food, but now she has her chef provide both.

Mack quickly shuffles the tabloids together. Before she can stand to throw them away, one of the two brownies employed by my mother appears and jerks the magazines from Mack’s grip, rushing them to a trash can hidden in the corner.

“I will never get used to them just appearing like that,” Mack whispers. “It’s creepy.”

“Same.”

I’m starting to suspect the brownies spy on me for my mother. But at least they’re super helpful spies, and once the tabloids are gone, my tension eases.

The news of my appearance—in a mortal body, no less—caused major waves in the Evermore and mortal community. Waves I’ve mostly been protected from by my mother, who’s had the penthouse under locked guard and the Fae news channels turned off.