“How was school?” Mom asked as I banged through the screen door and tossed my backpack on the table.
“Fine,” I mumbled, making a beeline for the fridge. She stepped out of the way with a sigh, knowing it was useless to talk to me when I was starving. I found the leftover pizza from last night and shoved two slices in the microwave while chewing on a cold third. Thirty seconds later, I was about to take my plate up to my room when Mom stepped in front of me.
“I got a call from the principal’s office this afternoon.”
My shoulders sank. “Yeah?”
Mom gestured firmly to the table, and I slumped into one of the chairs, my appetite gone. She sat down across from me, her eyes hooded and troubled. “Anything you want to tell me?”
I rubbed my eyes. No use trying to hide it, she probably already knew—or at least she knew what Hill told her. “I got into a fight.”
“Oh, Ethan.” The disappointment in her voice stabbed me like tiny needles. “On your first day?”
It wasn’t my fault, I wanted to say. But I’d used that excuse so many times before, it seemed empty. Any excuse seemed empty now. I just shrugged and slouched farther in my seat, not meeting her eyes.
“Was it … was it Them?”
That shocked me. Mom almost never spoke of the fey, for probably the same reasons as me; she thought it might attract their attention. She would rather close her eyes and pretend they didn’t exist, that they weren’t still out there, watching us. It was one of the reasons I never talked openly to her about my problems. It just made her too frightened.
I hesitated, wondering if I should tell her about the half-breed and his invisible friends, lurking in the halls. But if Mom found out about them, she might pull me out of school. And as much as I hated going to class, I did not want to go through the whole “starting over” thing one more time.
“No,” I said, fiddling with the edge of my plate. “Just these two dicks that needed a lesson in manners.”
Mom gave one of her frustrated, disapproving groans. “Ethan,” she said in a sharper voice. “It’s not your place. We’ve gone over this.”
“I know.”
“If you keep this up, you’ll be kicked out again. And I don’t know where we can send you after that. I don’t know …” Mom took a shaky breath, and covered her eyes with her hand.
Now I felt like a complete ass. “I’m sorry,” I offered in a quiet voice. “I’ll … try harder.”
She nodded without looking up. “I won’t tell your father, not this time,” she murmured in a weary voice. “Don’t eat too much pizza or you’ll spoil your appetite for dinner.”
Standing, I hooked my backpack over one shoulder and took it and the plate into my room, kicking the door shut behind me.
Slumping to my desk, I ate my pizza while halfheartedly jiggling my laptop to life. The episode with Kingston, not to mention the talk with the half-breed, had made me edgy. I went to YouTube and watched videos of students practicing kali, trying to pick out the weaknesses in their attacks, poking holes in their defenses. Then, to keep myself occupied, I grabbed my rattan sticks from the wall and practiced a few patterns in the middle of my room, smacking imaginary targets with Brian Kingston’s face, being careful not to hit the walls or ceiling. I’d put a couple of holes in the drywall already, by accident of course, before Dad made the rule that all practice must be done outside or in the dojo. But I was much better now, and what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
As I was finishing a pattern, I caught a flash of movement from the corner of my eye and turned. Something black and spindly, like a giant spider with huge ears, crouched on the windowsill outside, watching me. Its eyes glowed electric green in the coming darkness.
I growled a curse and started forward, but when the creature realized I’d spotted it, it let out an alarmed buzz and blinked out of sight. Yanking up the window, I peered into the darkness, searching for the slippery little nuisance, but it was gone.
“Damn gremlins,” I muttered. Stepping back, I glared around my room, making sure everything was in place. I checked my lights, my clock, my computer; they all still worked, much to my relief. The last time a gremlin had been in my room, it had shorted out my laptop, and I’d had to spend my own money to get it fixed.
Gremlins were a special type of faery. They were Iron fey, which meant all my precautions and protections from the faery world didn’t work on them. Iron didn’t faze them, salt barriers didn’t keep them out, and horseshoes over doors and windows did nothing. They were so used to the human world, so integrated with metal and science and technology, that the old charms and protection rituals were too outdated to affect them at all. I rarely had problems with Iron fey, but they were everywhere. I guessed even the Iron Queen couldn’t keep track of them all.
The Iron Queen. A knot formed in my stomach. Shutting the window, I put my sticks away and dropped into the computer chair. For several minutes, I stared at the very top drawer of my desk, knowing what was inside. Wondering if I should torment myself further by taking it out.
Meghan. Do you even think of us anymore? I’d seen my half sister only a few times since she’d disappeared from our world nearly twelve years ago. She never stayed long; just a few hours to make sure everyone was okay, and then she was gone again. Before we moved, I could at least count on her to show up for my birthday and holidays. As I got older, those visits grew fewer and fewer. Eventually, she’d disappeared altogether.
Leaning forward, I yanked open the drawer. My long-lost older sister was another taboo subject in this household. If I so much as spoke her name, Mom would become depressed for a week. Officially, my sister was dead. Meghan wasn’t part of this world anymore; she was one of Them, and we had to pretend she didn’t exist.
But that half-breed knew about her. That could be trouble. As if I needed any more, as if being the delinquent, broody, don’t-let-your-daughter-date-this-hooligan wasn’t enough, now someone knew about my connection to the world of Faery.
Setting my jaw, I slammed the drawer shut and left the room, my thoughts swirling in a chaotic, sullen mess. I was human, and Meghan was gone. No matter what some half-breed faery said, I didn’t belong to that world. I was going to stay on this side of the Veil and not worry about what was happening in Faery.
No matter how much it tried to drag me in.
CHAPTER THREE
FAERIES IN THE GYM BAG
Day two.
Of purgatory.
My “fight” with the school quarterback and my discussion in the principal’s office hadn’t gone unnoticed, of course. Fellow students stared at me in the halls, whispering to their friends, muttering in low undertones. They shied away from me as if I had the plague. Teachers gave me the evil eye, as if worried that I might punch someone in the head or pull a knife, maybe. I didn’t care. Maybe Principal Hill had told them what had gone on in his office; maybe he’d told them I was a lost cause, because as long as I kept my head down, they ignored me.
Except for Miss Singer, who actually called on me several times during class, making sure I was still paying attention. I answered her questions about Don Quixote in monotones, hoping that would be enough to keep her off my back. She seemed pleasantly surprised that I’d read the homework assignment the night before, despite being somewhat distracted by the thoughts of gremlins lurking around my computer. Apparently satisfied that I could listen and stare out the window at the same time, Miss Singer finally left me alone, and I went back to brooding in peace.
At least Kingston and his flunky were absent today, though I did notice Todd in one of my classes, looking smug. He kept glancing at the quarterback’s empty desk, smirking to himself and nodding. It made me nervous, but I swore not to get involved. If