“She was right behind me.” Andrew twisted, looking at the empty track. “I just don’t understand why she lied. I’m so confused, I’m always—I’m so confused.”
“Andrew.” Thomas’s voice came sharper this time. “Look at me.”
He drew in a shuddering breath, trying to center himself as he leaned into the one person who would always hold him up. But almost too late he registered a growing panic in Thomas’s face, a worry not stoked by monsters or the night or all the rules they were breaking.
He kissed the corner of Andrew’s mouth so tenderly it could make him cry.
“You need to listen to me,” he said, low and urgent. “You were not talking to Dove.”
“I was—”
“That… thatthingyou were talking to. It wasn’t her.”
“She’s my sister. I know her—”
“Andrew.” Thomas’s voice cracked. “It can’t be her. You know that.” His eyes looked like a thousand shattered mirrors as he pressed his thumb to Andrew’s mouth. All he could taste was blackberry briars and dirt and forest rot. “That thing was not Dove because Dove is dead.”
5 MONTHS EARLIER
Andrew had bitten his pen until ink had bled across the corner of his mouth. Thomas kept looking at Andrew’s lips, and this had to be why. What other reason was there?
They lay on the grass in the Wickwood rose gardens, books strewn around them in a fruitless display of studying. Sun warmed their heads in a dangerously comfortable way. It would be so easy to fall asleep, cheeks cushioned on arms, the echoes of a busy afternoon at Wickwood humming around them. From the sports field, whistles blew as the soccer team did drills, and students chattered along the garden paths as they wound in and out of the library. Exams would be over soon. Then summer would be here, glorious and long and free.
“Come home with us for the holidays.” Andrew lay on his stomach on the grass, notebook open and half a story fallen from his pen.
Thomas sat cross-legged, his brow furrowed in furious concentration as he drew a crown of hollyhock and blueberry vines onto a wicked fairy king. “Sure, let me whip out a couple of thousand dollars for a plane ticket.”
“My dad would pay.” Andrew bit his pen again. “It’s not like your parents would miss you, right?”
“They won’t even remember to pick me up.” Thomas sounded unconcerned, but his shoulders had tightened. “MaybeI’ll just nest in the forest like a goblin child and eat summer berries and go entirely feral.”
He was halfway there already, his frowns always a little too sharp and chaos spilling out of his pockets all through classes. He’d stood atop the garden shed when they stargazed last night and howled to the moon while stardust brushed his cheeks.
“What are you writing?” Thomas tossed aside his drawing and leaned in, but Andrew covered his page with an elbow.
“It’s not done yet,” he said.
“I want an exclusive preview.”
“When it’s done.” Andrew slapped the notebook shut and stuffed it beneath him. He had yet to decide if he was embarrassed about this one. In it, two dryads kissed and tangled their wooden arms together as a woodcutter split them apart for firewood. It was beautiful and anguished. And he’d written them both as boys.
It felt thrilling but strange to write. He’d never looked at a boy and wanted him.
Except one.
A wicked gleam caught in Thomas’s eyes. “I challenge the bastard prince to a duel with birchwood swords for the right of constant access to his stories.”
Andrew gave him a skeptical look. “You’re the prince, not me. I’d be the poet or something.”
“Fine, the prince demands it from his loyal poet. Disobey and feel a bone blade at your throat.”
Andrew started to argue against this poor storytelling, but Thomas pounced. He flung himself onto Andrew’s back and hooked arms under his shoulders to send them both rollingacross the grass. They knocked into their textbooks and pages fluttered everywhere. Andrew drove his elbow into Thomas’s stomach and got a solidoofin reward. But then he was laughing too hard to do anything but lose.
He ended up on his back, Thomas straddling him. When he dug fingers into Thomas’s ribs to tickle, Thomas pinned his wrists to the grass.
They were both breathing hard.
Thomas stared down at him with eyes bright as the forest after rain. He was so real right then, so alive.
