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Back The Ever After Save as PDF
Chapters (92)
  1. Cover
  2. TheEVERAFTER
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
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  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12
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  84. 82
  85. 83
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  87. 85
  88. 86
  89. Epilogue
  90. GLOSSARY
  91. TheEVERAFTER
  92. By Amanda Hocking

I missed him so badly. I had a constant dull ache of longing in my chest, and I knew it would remain until I could hold him in my arms again. For the first time, I wondered if all of this was worth it. If maybe it would be better to give up my hunt for the past so I could actually have a present.

The owl nearby had been hooting the whole time I left the message, but it fell silent. The temperature dropped suddenly, and goose bumps sprang up on my arms. I waited for a minute for wind or rain to follow, but it never did. The air remained perfectly still, and the clouds moved in, finally blotting out the moon. It was dark and cold, so I went back inside the house.

12

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Studious

The worst part of leaving was mostly behind me—telling the kids I was leaving again. Surprisingly, Hanna took it the best, but she understood that I’d be back. Emma started wailing, and then Niko and Lissa joined in.

It had been a rough morning, and it wasn’t even eight-thirty A.M. We’d thought it would be better to do it before Finn left for work. By the time I went up to the room to finish getting ready to go, everyone had stopped crying, except for Emma, but she spent twenty percent of her days crying. I was doing one last sweep around the room to make sure

I wasn’t leaving anything behind, and someone knocked on the bedroom door.

“Come in,” I said, assuming it was Mia or Finn, because none of the others would’ve knocked.

Instead, it was Sunniva Kroner, smiling thinly at me. She was more casually dressed than when I had seen her last—a striped crop top and skinny jeans, with her long curly hair pulled up into a messy bun. Gold hoop earrings hung in her ears and bangles sparkled on her wrists.

“Oh, alai!” I said in surprise, and then remembered in dismay that she was a high-ranking Marksinna, and I wasn’t, so I attempted a hasty bow.

Sunniva waved her hand quickly to stop me. “No, no. Don’t do that.” She surveyed the room from under her thick lashes, and her eyes landed on my bag. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Yeah, I’m visiting a friend for a few days, maybe a week. But I’ll be back.”

“Good.” She admired the handcrafted Dala horse on the twins’ dresser. “Are these handmade?”

“Yeah, at the Trylle Toy Shoppe, the owner makes them. Every kid in town has one.”

“Oh.” She set it back on the dresser. “I didn’t grow up here, so I never had one. I’m a changeling.”

“I never had one either,” I said, unsure of how else to respond.