Chapter1
Evie
Happy last birthday to me,I sang in my head as I unsuccessfully contained my utter freak-out over this place. Looking past my sister and best friend, I confirmed I was for sure going to die here. The snarls, growls, and magic that filled the pub over the sound of the jukebox in the corner attested to that.
“Why did you pick this bar, Maggie? We don’t exactly blend in with this crowd. We need to go home before we get caught.”
My sister slid over in the booth to pat me on the shoulder with a placating smile. Her eyes, one shade darker than mine, sparkled with glee in the low light. Blue flames danced in jars on the tables, lending everything a mystical glow, including her.
“It’s called Bar None for a reason. They’ll let anyone in.” They really would. “Stop ruining your own fun. No one’s even looking at us.”
I wanted to rip out that perfect ponytail full of thick, russet hair, so like my own. We humans remained banned from the realm. How could she be so cavalier about sitting next to the fur, fangs, and wings that we had always been told would tear us apart as soon as we stepped out of our village? This bar wasn’t full of the Kings and Queens with benevolent magic the elves sometimes let slip in our limited conversations. These were monsters.
If I wasn’t so nervous, I would have been thrilled that Maggie tried to make amends at all. The suspicion that this birthday outing equated to some sort of peace offering on my sister’s part didn’t make it any less terrifying. We’d never left the village, so this was her weirdest and most dangerous apology yet. Way weirder than the pig she tried to get me as a pet, so I wasn’t lonely. That one I promptly shooed back to her without touching it. Pigs were uncanny.
The bar was an odd mashup of otherworldly chic and classic Harrowlands. A gleaming liquid bar top competed with hand-carved bar stools. Eye-watering under-lighting illuminated hand-carved table tops. The foreign music set a jovial mood with an edge of violence. It all clashed together. My sister smirked, pretty smug about finding it for my birthday.
“I could be looking for my missing pair of angora wool socks right now. Without them, the collection isn’t alphabetical.” I chastised my sister, who downed a third glass of sweet wine we didn’t have to make ourselves for once.
My best friend Fallon swung around at the tone of my voice, sipping on her own giant pink concoction, her short curls bouncing against her rounded cheeks. “They’ll still be wherever you left them,” she said.
Always practical.
“Nothing is going to happen.” Fallon’s pat was only slightly less condescending.
I clutched my glass of whiskey too tightly. Easy for her to say. Her button nose, scattered freckles, and cupid’s bow mouth made her uneatable as long as she kept said mouth shut. Maggie looked like she would help the monster carve body parts. I was just the overweight morsel of the group. There had been a decided lack of ripping us apart so far, but I couldn’t relax. What if there were harpies here? They were supposed to be vicious. Or vampires in the shadows smelling our blood? What if there was a shifter waiting to mate with our fragile bodies? Okay, the last one didn’t sound so bad, but still.
“We’re not doing this, Evie. We all need to get out of that dusty town. You’re only thirty once and I’m not letting you ruin it by staying at home organizing one of your piles of old junk. What woman under seventy spends their time collecting things like some sort of grandma hoarder? We’re opening the present guaranteed to cure your obsession.” My sister also said that about the pig.
“Hey! I just don’t want this to be my final birthday.” And I liked my collections. It wasn’t like there was much to do in our little corner of the Harrowlands. I trusted everything I collected to be exactly where I left it. They had no emotional wants or needs other than to be dusted occasionally. They certainly wouldn’t reject me.
She rummaged around in her giant bag that always seemed to produce a snack, spring water, or a crystal. “It’s my obligation as your sister to inject some adventure into your life before you become a shut-in old crone.” Maggie gave me a hard look full of absolutely-done-with-my-bullshit. “And get your mind off HIM.”
Fallon tried the gentler approach. Well, gentle for her. “If we left it up to you, you’d hole up eating leftover pastries while you cried over that butt waffle.”
Fallon - ever a traitor to my hermit cause. She knew me too well. I had already been crying over that ‘butt waffle’ for a month.
“I would have invited you,” I grumbled. “For the pastries, not the crying.”
My sister held my gaze remarkably well for three glasses in and I crumbled.
“Okay, for both… probably,” I amended.
“You need to get over it already. My sister will not live like a cave troll,” Maggie said as she took my hand. “Your fate line is too long to keep yourself trapped in your house.” She traced a wrinkle at the base of my palm.
I resented the troll comparison. I was better off alone. She never understood we were different people, despite coming from the same womb. I didn’t believe in her charts and crystal nonsense and she didn’t think my collections and isolation were healthy.
“I got you exactly what you need now that you’re single and you’ve passed into the third decade.” Maggie held out a large box wrapped with a giant red bow.
Weighing the large box in my hands, I couldn’t help but feel touched. Maybe I should have given Maggie more credit. She was trying to make amends. Nothing bad had happened yet. It wasn’t her fault I hated humanity in general and one asshat in particular.
Our relationship hadn’t been the easiest lately, and she really went all out for my birthday. I always tried my damnedest to complain, but I was secretly glad someone made the effort to get me out of the house, even if it turned dangerous.
The box was bigger than anything sold in town, and that made it all the more intriguing. Since the gates closed, we scraped by in our hidden pocket of the realm with the help—okay, more like subjugation—of the elves. It made getting gifts a bitch since we all shopped at one store in our town.
Setting the present on the table, I shimmied off the bow. I removed the lid, peering inside with all the goodwill my dark heart could muster, then promptly slammed the lid back down, clutching it to my chest.
“MAGGIE!”
