Chapters (42)
- Title Page
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Acknowledgements
- Also by Kim Harrison
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
- Cover
“Oh, they all knew,” she said bitterly. “Anything Trent knows, both Quen and Jonathan know. It’s like a bloody men’s club. Worse than the demons. Rachel, I can’t go back.”
Was it fear or shame? I couldn’t tell. “Trent wouldn’t hurt you,” I said quickly. “Quen wouldn’t let him.”
“No,” she agreed so confidently that I believed her. “Trent wouldn’t hurt me, even if Quen wasn’t there.” Her gaze went to her swelling middle, and she made a rude face. “But I should have known that you were in trouble. If Trent would let pixies in his gardens, I’d have a hundred eyes and maybe be of some help, but I’ve nothing. I’m useless.”
She sounded forlorn. Reaching out, I gave her a hug. The hint of ozone clinging to her mixed with something wild that might be her child growing within her. “You aren’t useless. Ceri, don’t be so hard on yourself. Trent is good at this.”
The clatter of pixy wings pushed us apart, and Jax darted between us, Jenks’s oldest son shedding orange sparkles of discontent. “Ms. Morgan,what do you want to do with the wingless wonders? They’re starting to stink.”
My brow furrowed as I turned to the picnic table. Giving Ceri a touch on her shoulder, I followed Jax back to Ivy and Pierce … and the fairies. Tired from a lack of sleep and the spent adrenaline, I sat beside Pierce. Before us on the old wood under a green-tinted sheet of ever-after were the survivors. Sixteen. That was it. The rest had “accidentally” died at some point between me destroying their wings and now. The scent of hot chitin and burning hair smelled faintly like a lobster boil, and it made me ill.
I could tell the leader from the rest by the bandage around his head where Jenks had struck him. He looked proud, his long pale face stiff with anger. All his teeth were sharp, more savage than a vampire’s, and they showed when he talked. His eyes were black and too big for his face. Fairies were a savage race, and without the softening of the wings, they looked like pale grim reapers in their flowing white, almost ragged clothes made from spider silk. All of them without exception had white hair, the men keeping it as long as the few women I could see. The women had smaller teeth and were somewhat shorter, but otherwise, they looked the same.