1
Present Day
I didn’t writeWest Emerson into my manuscript on purpose. It’s just that when I close my eyes and try to picture an apple, I’m one of those people who sees nothing but black. I think that’s the reason that writing descriptions of anything—landscapes, people, clothing—feels like death by a thousand cuts. It’s slow, it’s painful, and worst of all, it’sboring. The number one rule of my writing has always beenDon’t be boring—even when it gets me into trouble.
West was sitting on his bed playing video games when it happened. It was during our junior year of college, and I was stuck on writing a description of my love interest (what do people even look like?) when I glanced up, and there he was. West Emerson had long black eyelashes and a crooked nose, and before I even gave my fingers permission, Fox Caldwell did, too.
I didn’t plan to do it again, but then West and I were in the library, both of us claiming we needed to work on our Nineteenth-Century British Lit essays, both of us procrastinating. And Fox needed an eye color. Brown didn’t feel right for animmortal. Blue felt like a cliché. Green felt like the color writers pick when they’re trying not to pick blue. (I was twenty-one and thought I knew everything, but I still stand by this.)
I slipped my headphones off and kicked West’s shin under the table.
He didn’t even blink. He was in one of his trances, eyes still on his screen, pen cap hanging from his mouth, blue ink staining his lips.
“West!” I whisper-hissed, annoyed that he wasn’t paying attention to me. I had a crisis on my hands. Were gray eyes pretentious or mysterious? I had to know immediately. He looked up from his laptop, his eyes landing directly on mine.
It was pretty much game over after that.
In addition to familiar lashes and a bent nose that indicates that he’s been through some shit, Fox Caldwell has multicolored eyes and ink-black hair. He has charcoal stains on his skin, and when he’s thinking, he drums his fingers against his thigh. He’s also a five-hundred-year-old immortal faerie king.
It was those damn eyes that incriminated me, though. Ocean blue with an amber ring in the center—mentioned an embarrassing fourteen times inTorched.
What the fuck was I thinking?
Those multicolored Fox Caldwell eyes are approaching me now, and a zip of anticipation twists up my spine. If I weren’t so damn needy, I’d make a hard pivot into the campus bookstore. But curiosity gets the better of me, and I drag my gaze from the T-shirt displaying Fox Caldwell’s face to the woman wearing him on her chest. She has pink hair, a full tote bag slung over one shoulder, a lanyard covered in enamel pins.
We make eye contact; I hold my breath. What happens next has the power to ruin my whole life. Her brow furrows inconfusion, and then her eyes widen in slow recognition. I’m rooted to the spot, waiting for an adrenaline shot of validation.Or, more likely, the other thing. I’m hardly ever recognized in my real life, but this weekend isn’t real life, not anymore. This is a book festival, and experience has taught me that the type of readers who attend book festivals in faded Fox Caldwell merch are the same type of people who want me dead.
I paste on a smile and brace myself for whatever’s coming. It’s the oddest thing, having a rabid fan base that also hates you. I stopped attending book conferences and festivals years ago, turned off the comments on my social media profiles, and hid from the world. The Tucson Festival of Books is my first event in years, and I have no idea what to expect.
The woman grips a campus map tightly in both hands and strides toward me, eyes sparkling. That can only be a good sign—angry people don’tsparkle. I reach into my own tote bag, and my fingers close around a signing pen. Brand-new. Full of ink that doesn’t bleed through the page. With my free hand, I brush my fingers through my hair for when she inevitably asks for a selfie. But then she glides past me like I’m a part of the scenery—a palm tree to study under or a lecture hall constructed in the early 1900s—and throws her arms around a woman behind me.
I stand in the middle of the quad, blinking stupidly, while the excited notes of their conversation float on the early spring breeze.It’s been too long!The flight was rough, the drive was good, one of them sawTHEDaphne Castle drinking a smoothie (!!!), and the romantasy panel starts in five. They’d better hurry if they want seats.
Myownplan to attend the fantasy romance panel evaporates, and all I’m left with is a sour burning in the pit of mystomach. Maybe she didn’t recognize me, or she didn’t care. And not to be a vain fucking cliché, but I hate the idea of either. I’ve stumbled upon the only thing worse than my fans wanting me dead: a world in which they don’t care at all.
I glance through the bookstore windows toward the retractable eight-foot banner with my name and face on it.ThatMargot Darling is twenty-two years old, and I admit it might be time for new headshots. It’s been a decade since my Central Park photo shoot, and unlike some aloof authors, with their black turtlenecks and their curated bookshelves and their I’m-smarter-than-you expressions, in my picture, optimism and enthusiasm radiate from every inch of me.
Back then, I believed that being a published author could save me, and that nothing else in the world could possibly make me as happy as seeing my name on the cover of a book. I study my naive, collagen-filled face on the banner and admit that sometimes I’m still that same starry-eyed girl. So maybe I once went eleven days without washing my hair or changing my pants while I was on deadline, and maybe I’ve been tagged in reviews telling me that my book sucked so bad I should kill myself, but I can’t escape the truth. Despite everything that has happened, I still believe books will save me—I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. Nothing has ruined my life like being an author has, but when it’s good, there’s nothing better.
My phone buzzes with an email from my publicist. I swipe the notification away without reading it and get a glimpse of the scary countdown on my lock screen that reminds me just how little time I’ve got left untilShatteredpublishes. I feel myself tipping into an anxiety spiral when my eye catches another woman walking toward me. She’s six feet tall with wavy red hair and a long floral dress that belongs on a prairie, and everyinch of exposed skin below her collarbones is covered in tattoos. She looks like she could bake a killer loaf of sourdoughandbe a guest judge on the newest season ofInk Master. I pull out my signing pen and thrust it into her hands.
“Will you sign my book? Or better yet—my bra?” I jokingly tug on the collar of my shirt.
She rolls her eyes, takes the pen cap off with her mouth, and signs her name on the inside of my forearm—just below my tattoo.
“Daphne Castle,” I read out loud. “I know at least two people who would be extremely jealous of me right now.”
“My parents?”
“Four people, then. I overheard two women fangirling over you.”
“You did not,” she says reflexively.
“If it’d been anyone else, I would have combusted from jealousy.”
I think of the saying “comparison is the thief of joy.” It’s most often painted in watercolor and used as inspiration porn, just as Teddy Roosevelt intended. It might be a throwaway Pinterest cliché, but when it comes to the life of a writer, it’s as true as it is irrelevant. To be a writer is to exist in a perpetual state of jealousy. Writers’ conferences and authors’ group chats are filled with anxious, overly caffeinated people doing career math in their heads. Advances, marketing budgets, reviews, conference invites, movie deals…they’re all whispered metrics we use to try to objectively compare one another in a wildly subjective industry, and we all want what someone else has. My only exception is my friends. If anyone else had the year Daphne did, they’d be laid out on a gurney. But because it’s Daphne, I’ve never been happier for anyone.
“No one needs to be jealous of me.” She pretends to flip her hair over her shoulder only for it to get stuck in her big hoop earrings.
