Once Broken Faith Read Free Page B

said.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” said Raj, grabbing Chelsea’s wrist and hauling her out of the kitchen without leaving her time to do more than wave to the rest of us. The argument in the front room changed timbre again only a few seconds later.
    I looked at May. She grinned. I grinned back.
    â€œOkay, this was a fantastic idea and we should do it every week,” I said. As if on cue, there was a knock at the back door. I crossed the kitchen to answer it.
    Dean Lorden—slightly older than the rest of our guests in chronological terms, slightly younger in terms of experience with the world outside the Undersea—was standing on my back porch, a backpack slung by one strap over his left shoulder. He was dressed in his usual Court clothes, which meant he looked a little old-fashioned, like he’d just stepped out of the 1920s and didn’t understand the concept of “denim.” He looked unsettled.
    â€œMarcia drove you, huh?” I guessed.
    â€œShe says I need to get used to riding in cars if I want to live in the human world,” he said, and stepped inside. He released the illusion making him look human as soon as he was over the threshold, adding a layer of eucalyptus and wet rock to the bizarre mix of magical scents already hanging in the air. His clothes remained the same; only his features shifted, becoming sharper and indefinably inhuman. He was a handsome kid, with his mother’s sand-colored skin and his father’s bronze hair, completewith a patina of verdigris highlights. His eyes were dark blue, like the sea at night, and his ears tapered to sharp points. He’d be a heartbreaker when he got a little older.
    I was just hoping the heart he chose to start with wouldn’t be Quentin’s. Dean and my squire had been seeing each other for a few months. I wasn’t sure yet whether “dating” was the word. Dean had grown up in the Undersea, and I had no idea what their formal courtships looked like; Quentin was a pureblooded scion of the Daoine Sidhe, destined to become High King of the Westlands. He’d dated once before, a human girl named Katie. It hadn’t ended well. As long as he and Dean were being careful with each other, I was fine with their relationship, but the second I felt like someone was going to get hurt, I was going to . . .
    Oak and ash, I didn’t know what I was going to do. This was all outside my realm of experience, and I was as confused as everyone else.
    May handed Dean a plate of cookies. “Take these to the front room,” she said. “Everyone will be delighted to see you.”
    He smiled shyly. “Okay,” he said. To me, he added, “You have a lovely home.” Then he was gone, following the sound of shouting toward the rest of the party.
    I walked over to one of the unoccupied kitchen chairs and collapsed into it. “Five,” I said mournfully. “There are
five
teenagers in my house right now. Who thought this was a good idea? It can’t have been me. I have more common sense than that.”
    â€œNo, you don’t,” said May, setting a fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie down in front of me. “If you did, you wouldn’t be you.”
    â€œI hate you all,” I muttered, and reached for the cookie.
    Someone knocked on the back door.
    Slowly, we all turned toward the sound. Jazz spokefirst. “I thought everyone was here already,” she said warily.
    â€œAnd Tybalt doesn’t knock,” said May. “He just sort of shows up. Like the plague.”
    â€œTybalt is busy at his court tonight,” I said, standing. Being engaged to a King of Cats has come with its share of adjustments. Getting used to the idea that sometimes he wasn’t going to be available, no matter how much I wanted him to be, had been one of the bigger ones. Raj was his chosen heir. Because of that, for Raj to have an official “night off”—as opposed to