Finlay’s alarm blared at eight a.m. ship’s time, waking him from another dream about Alaia. He opened his eyes to a room flooded with cold light. The stale, chilly air of the ship filled his lungs, and the distant engines whirred sharply.
For one moment, he still felt her arms around him.
By the time she reached the age of fourteen, the rest of the faefolk knew that she would not get any stronger.
Such a shame, they’d whisper as she drifted through the square. She’ll never find a trade, they’d mutter as she meandered through the market. It must have been her mother, they declared, infrequently caring if she could hear them or not. Was her mother a windfolk? Probably not.
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Genies don’t like to be called monsters. We monster hunters like to disagree.
Sure, they’re beautiful. Sure, they’ll give you three wishes. But you have to catch them first—before they mess with your head, or turn invisible, or shapeshift into a scorpion so that you don’t want to catch them.
I love you. –Jack
I sat on the roof of the barn, reading the note over again. I didn’t know a Jack.
I’d already searched the school, asking every unknown boy if his name was Jack—yes, I’m that type of person.
No Jacks went to my school.
Amara hummed as she worked in her tiny lab, her makeshift greenhouse tucked into a corner of the roof of the industrial complex. She remembered reading about a study done many years ago on the positive effects of music on plants. What must it have been like back then to have so many plants to study?
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“You want to marry me?”
Aba gave me a sad little smile. “Aye, my beauty detective. Want, but cannot.”
The first set of words I’d longed to hear since I’d laid eyes on him nearly six months ago. The second set made me want to strangle him.
Prince Stewart Johannes Percival Ashford rolled over in his antique sleigh bed, yanking the Egyptian cotton sheets over his head. “Humphrey, go away. I’m sleeping.”
Humphrey ignored the command, as he did every morning, and marched across the room. “It’s the Day of Thanks, Master Stewart, and your parents have a full day of festivities planned.”
Wisps of charcoal gray wafted on the wind. The smog gave the illusion of ghosts preceding me to the alley. Perhaps it was ghosts, the three murdered souls beckoning me to their killer. I suspected the victims, each desperate for a miracle, were lured here for their money.
A steam-powered carriage careened around the corner,
I saw through everything in that magical ballroom. Chandeliers cast a warm glow, but I knew which shadows would hide me. The orchestra played a lively reel, but I knew the immense pipe organ in the balcony above could be problematic in an attack. The governor’s palace was lit with elegance as I joined Georgianna, Cynthia, Elizabeth and the other ladies in their chatter.
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Crash!
Lase sighed. She hated doing this, especially with her brother.
“Yuck!” More banging.
“Tim, quiet! We’ll get caught,” she hissed.
“What do you even take from an apota…apot-a-carry?”
“Apothecary, you dolt. We’re here for healing ointments.”
“Is this it?” He emerged, reeking of a floral scent with swamp water highlights.
I shambled to the mailbox on day 37 of the most boring summer ever. “1000 FREE MINUTES!” the little, blue, compact disk screamed. It looked like a dozen other disks we’d received in the mail and subsequently relegated to coasters. I’d seen disks offering 100 minutes, 400 minutes, and even 750 minutes of free internet access, but I’d never seen an offer for 1000 free minutes. This was going to change my life.
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It was 7:00 p.m. on a muggy summer Sunday—a time when any sane man would’ve been at home with a cold one, but there’d been word that the gangster known as Jitters was bringing in a shipment that night—and I was at the station, trying to find somebody who knew something.
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