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Which had always struck Dru as sad; she couldn’t imagine worse parents. But when she looked up at this boy, with his eyes as bright as razors and his death-black wings, it was impossible to pity him.

“Oh, very good,” he said. “I thought I was going to have to introduce myself again. It does start to get tiresome.”

“You saved my life,” she said. “Why?”

He looked down at her, something that was not quite a smile curling the edge of his mouth. “You’ll find out,” he said. “You might even come to hate me for it.”

Dru felt as if she’d been dunked into the icy water of the river. Ash’s wings expanded, spreading out above her, beating against the air like oars, sending them hurtling upward with a speed that made her lose her grip on his shirt. She felt herself slip; she heard him curse, and then they were turning, spinning. The sky was the ground, the river the Milky Way. As they plunged toward the Hudson, darkness came down, swallowing her up like black water.

Excerpt from An Annotated History of the Courts of Faerie, by Jos. Fairchild

The histories of Faerie are much disputed, yet here are some facts we know to be true.

Long ago when there was only one Court, there were two princes, Séoras and Silvan. Prince Séoras was the eldest and thus heir to the throne, but he did not have the love of the people. His younger brother Silvan had the love of the people but did not hold the throne.

Séoras became king. All might yet have been well, save Silvan fell in love with the Lady Rowena, the betrothed of Séoras. His love was returned, and the two attempted to flee Faerie together, but were apprehended by the guards of the King.

The sentence for their crime was death. However, their tale had touched the hearts of the people, and when the couple was brought out for public execution, the guards were attacked by all manner of fey. Rowena managed to make her escape, but in the chaos, Silvan was seized by his own brother, Séoras. Séoras slit his throat, and when he did so, the crown of the High King shattered, for the blood of family had been spilled upon the land.

The Lady Rowena fled, and King Séoras hastened to go after her, but the people of Faerie made a wall with their own bodies, splitting the land in half. When the King ordered them to stand down, the people said, “In order to get by, you must cut us down, one by one, and then you will be a cursed king, with no people to rule.”

King Séoras was forced to admit defeat, and returned to Rowena the body of her beloved. Rowena buried Silvan in the cold earth, and from the ground, a great tower grew overnight, and in that tower, Rowena lived, and raised the children she had later, though she never forgot Silvan. And the line that came from Rowena and her descendants became the heirs of the Unseelie Court, a place of mourning and sorrow.

Since that time, there have been two kingdoms in Faerie, the Seelie and the Unseelie. But the future of the land is kept in prophecy. One day a king or queen will come, a true Heir who can unite the two courts once more. For only then will the Unseelie Court flower again, and only then will the Seelie Court rid itself of the stain of Silvan’s spilled blood.

3

Our Just Inheritance

Kit woke to rain—real British autumn rain, lashing the tall windows of Cirenworth as if it wanted to get inside. He felt exhausted. As he dragged himself out of bed, showered, and threw on clothes, he kept seeing the acorns strewn across the harvest grass.

Incipit.

The word blinked behind his eyelids like a traffic light. He should tell Jem and Tessa, he thought. They needed to know. It could be nothing. It probably was nothing, he reassured himself, as he zipped his hoodie to his chin and headed out into the hall. A faerie prank. All the wards annoyed the local fey, and it wouldn’t be the first time they’d pulled something. Once they had replaced the house number on the metal placard outside the Cirenworth gates, and for a week Tessa and Jem hadn’t gotten any of their mail. (Plus, they had replaced the numbers with a rude drawing, and the neighbors had complained.)

Now, as the smell of frying eggs and baked beans drifted up from the kitchen below—Tessa’s old-fashioned comfort cooking was excellent on rainy days—Kit tried to tell himself that his dark mood had more to do with the weather, his bad dream, and lack of sleep than with a foreboding feeling about vague Latin messages.

He arrived in the kitchen just as Jem was putting on the kettle for tea. Tessa was flitting gracefully between the stove and the table, filling everyone’s plates. Church, their crabby Persian cat, was asleep on the windowsill.

Mina was in her chair, perched on a booster seat, and her dimpled face lit up when she saw Kit. She held out her arms. “Hug,” she said.

“You’d better do it, Kit,” said Jem, his dark eyes sparkling as he and Tessa sat down at the table. “She’ll be angry all day if you don’t.”

Kit bent down and hugged Mina, not minding that she was getting oatmeal on his clothes. It was a family joke that Mina was the only person in the house who could get Kit to do whatever she wanted. It was also true.

Kit flopped down in his usual chair and started forking up bacon, eggs, and the rest. It had taken him a while to get used to beans for breakfast as a concept, but he was coming around, especially when he was allowed to pour ketchup on them.

“You’re awake early,” Tessa said, nibbling the corner of a piece of toast.

I didn’t sleep much. But Kit held back the words. Despite the rain outside, turning the view of the garden into a blur of gray, green, and gold, it was warm and cozy in the kitchen. He wanted to savor the normalcy before plunging into a discussion of nightmares and acorn messages.

Mina poked Kit in the arm. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Yes?”

“Would you love me if I was a pencil?” Mina said. It was her new game. Would you love me if…?

Kit pretended to consider the question. “Yes,” he said. “I would love you, but in a pencil way. I would turn you upside down and draw with your head.”

Mina giggled in delight. “Would you love me if I was a…”