Garnet 5 - Silver Feathers Have Fallen

We were walking home from the bus stop—okay, I'll admit it, I was practically skipping after my amazebeans performance at lunch earlier—when Jack leaned down and whispered, "What are we going to do with Lily?"

I bit back a sigh. Why did we keep having to have this conversation? "We're not doing anything with her," I replied.

"What about when your parents come home? If your parents find out Lily's here without parental consent, they'll just ship her right back to the Whitmoor house."

I bit back a Homer Simpson "d'oh!" and tried not to grind my teeth. I hadn’t even thought of that. I didn’t know how I was supposed to handle the secret about my parentage. I was apparently a Boajuun, a demon from Fayre. Jack had triple-checked by making a tasty snack out of my neck (with my permission) and tasting the starlit demon magic in my blood. Apparently this also made me incredibly tasty. Yay for him, I guess. But the fact that I was a demon meant one of two things: either my parents had lied to me for eighteen years and I was adopted, or my parents had lied to me for eighteen years and they weren’t human, either. At the moment, I wasn’t sure which one I was hoping for.

If my parents were human and I was adopted, they had no clue about the world of faeries and witches I'd stumbled into by punching Lilith Whitmoor in the face on the first day of school. Since they didn’t know about that, they wouldn’t understand why I had to keep Lily at our house. I couldn’t lie and say her dad was molesting her or something, because then the cops would get involved. And who knew? Mr. Whitmoor might try to kill them to get Lily back.

Not that he loved her. I knew that. He wanted her back because someone had taken his property. I still couldn’t believe the creep thought of his own daughter that way. Liars or not, I was so glad my parents were homicidal, über-possessive warlocks like Lily's dad.

Don't even get me started on her mom. I still wanted to take a tire-iron to Gia Whitmoor's supermodel face for all the things she'd done and said to Jack and Lily. The ho-bag needed to die. Like, pronto.

"Well?" Jack demanded, nudging me with his elbow.

Part of me did a happy dance because I loved it whenever he touched me, for a thousand reasons—the two biggest being, he was the hottest thing since the sun had exploded into existence, and because it meant he wasn’t afraid to touch me—but at the same time, I had no idea what to do when my parents arrived.

So I just shrugged. Go, the eloquence of me.

"You'll have to think of something soon," my King reminded me. I bit back the expected retort of no kidding, Sherlock. He added, "When are your parents coming home?"

"No idea," I muttered. "They're still at my grandfather's. They know I've got some friends staying over for pretty much every weekend, but they think you're all girls. I didn’t know how to tell them we had dudes involved without my dad freaking out and telling me to chase after you with his claymore."

Come to think of it, maybe I should've said something to my dad. I'd commit metaphorical murder to get permission to put my hands on the claymore he kept hung up on the wall of his office. I wasn’t allowed to touch it until after I'd had at least a year of sword-fighting lessons, which were not the same thing as fencing. So my fencing lessons apparently didn’t count. Boo.

"They're scheduled to call me again tonight," I added. "I'll ask them when they're coming back then." I scratched the back of my neck and looked around. "This is so weird," I mumbled, eyeing my quiet neighborhood. The only noise came from my Black Court's inner circle trudging and talking behind us.

"What?" Jack asked.

"It's quiet," I complained.

Jack shot me a look and raised a single golden eyebrow. "The proverbial 'too quiet?'"

I nodded. I didn’t like it. Until I'd defeated Lily, I'd pretty much gotten into a fight or had some sort of altercation with someone pretty much every day I'd gone to school. I hadn’t been attacked since Homecoming. It made me itchy, waiting for some assault. Maybe we had a temporary ceasefire with the Red Court, and White Court currently called me Queen of the Universe, but Gavin's psychotic little groupies were still out there, and Gavin wanted me dead. Maybe raped and dead. I wasn’t sure about that.

Why hadn’t Gavin attacked yet? Was he trying to get Lily away from me first? Because he couldn’t possibly be afraid that she would help me if he attacked. Everyone and their dog knew Lily would've rather played a very violent game of cat's cradle with my intestines than help me out. Her one show of support—throwing me her bondline so I could hook into her nexus (the magical hook-up in her chest that controlled her psychic connections to everyone in her Court and Coven)—had been an act of self-preservation. It was either she let me hook into her nexus with my dominant bondline, or I shatter every connection she's ever had with anyone. I'd still broken her connection to her dad, the High Priest of the Coven of White, but somehow I didn’t think Lily minded that so much. She hated her dad almost as much as Jack and I did.

"Whoa," Chantal chimed from behind us. "What's wrong with Bianca?"

I'd been staring at my shoes, a bad habit when I was busy thinking too hard about something I couldn’t figure out. Now my head snapped up in time to see Bianca Rairah, Fiver's fourteen-year-old sister, tripping over her black Vans and the straps on her pink-trimmed bondage pants as she came running down the sidewalk, platinum braids streaming out behind her. Her ice-blue eyes were wide with panic.

Fiver shouldered past us and moved to intercept. Bianca threw herself into his arms, gasping and crying. The crying galvanized me; I was running before my brain had processed the word tears. I snagged Fiver's shirt and swung myself around so I didn't trip and skin my palms on the pavement trying to stop on a dime.

"…don't know where it came from, but it's pulling at me, Hrair, it's horrible, make it go away, I can't make it stop, it shouldn't be here…" Bianca sobbed into her brother's shirt. Chantal got to Bianca and put her arms around the kid, hugging her while Fiver stroked her hair. I noticed a bruise darkening her cheek.

"David," I said sharply, catching my Knave's eyes. I'd learned over the past three months that a Knave's job was to protect his Queen—and anyone else she told him to watch out for. Protecting Lily had been Jack's job until I'd broken his soulbond with her and he'd hooked up with me instead.

David Jacobson wasn’t just my Knave. He was almost seven feet of solid muscle. The phrase "play dodge ball with your head?" David could totally do that to someone. He had a two-inch fro going on, eyes that were normally the color of melting chocolate, and a smile that always promised a good time. Lily had used magic to force Jack to kill David's little brother Larry a couple months ago, but David didn’t blame Jack for it. David had also been the protector and Knave of Julie Frost, the Queen of Spades. My best friend. David had been with Julie all their lives. He probably would've still been with her if Doreen hadn’t killed Julie by shoving her down a flight of stairs. Magic had done the rest.

Now David moved into position on the sidewalk, effectively blocking an attack from the street with his body. Aoife Dodarino and Wilhelmina McGill, two former Red Court girls who'd teamed up with me after I'd had my throat ripped out by the Knave of Diamonds, flanked him. Tacit backup.

Eddie Wong, the guy who'd ripped my throat out, moved to protect our other flank. Eddie didn’t look intimidating unless you got close enough to see his teeth. A therian who should've been able to transform into a giant Moray eel, Eddie spent his days as a scrawny Asian kid with glasses, with perpetual but invisible neon sign overhead blinking the words, Please steal my lunch money. He moonlighted as my second Knave and one of my Chessboard Knights. On the Twilight Chessboard, he scared the jeepers out of people.

Harriet took her place with Eddie, tugging on the hem of her black Happy Bunny shirt so everyone could see the words I have fun when I break stuff written in gold above a corpse-blue rabbit smiling like an axe-murderer. But that pretty much described Harriet. She was quiet most of the time, but when things got crazy, she went right along for the ride.

And of course Darren stayed behind us. Sadie and Mouse stayed with him.

I wasn’t sure if Darren was actually watching our backs or just didn’t feel like dealing with a crying freshman. But since we were pretty much covered, I decided to let it go and focused on Bianca again.

"Hey," I said gently. "Rabbit Ears. Snap out of it, I need you to take a breath." Bianca shoved her face into Fiver's shirt. "Bianca. Rabbit Ears. Hey. I'm right here with you, okay? Whatever just happened, whatever tried to grab you, it's okay. No one is going to hurt you, okay? They have to go through me and everyone else first. It's okay."

Bianca loosened her death-grip on Fiver's Ghostbusters t-shirt. Her shoulders hitched and she gulped loudly, which was kind of icky, but then she swiped at her face with the back of her arm and forced herself to breathe evenly. My overwhelming, panic-induced urge to track down random bad guys and punt their faces with my knee slowly faded. I laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Okay, you okay?" I asked. She nodded. Fiver kept his hand on her head and Chantal kept her arms around the younger girl. "Okay. Can you tell me what happened?"

"There's an ayza hole in your front yard," Bianca whispered.

Fiver stiffened. Chantal gasped and her hair did this weird rustle like it had tried to stand on end but was too heavy. Jack managed to choke on his own spit from sheer surprise.

When he finally stopped coughing, he growled, "What?"

My super awesome spidey-senses told me "ayza holes" were another thing that, as the Black Queen, I should've known about, but somehow had fallen into the Abyss of Stuff Everyone Forgot to Mention Because It Would Never Come Up in Conversation. Except it just had. I was pretty sure everyone needed to rethink this approach.

"What's an ayza hole?" I asked, wondering if I was actually going to get a viable answer. I knew the Ayza were the royal family of Fayre, and they were all demons (apparently, according to Darren, marrying into the royal family involved a transfer of power that turned non-demons into demons somehow).

Jack bit out, "Something that shouldn’t be at your house."

Well, that was a no on viable answers, then.

My King continued, "Did anyone see it?" Bianca shook her head. "Did anything come out?" This time she nodded. Jack's hand flashed out and he gripped her shoulder. "What was it? What came out of the hole?"

"A silver feather," she whispered. Reaching into the massive pocket of her bondage pants, she pulled out a shiny, silvery thing and held it up. It was a huge feather of hammered silver, perfect in every detail. As big as it was, it probably belonged to a harpy eagle. When I looked at it, I smelled rotting honey. Demon magic.

Jack reached for it, then snatched his hand back before he could touch the sharpened silver. Bianca was careful to hold it by the two-inch quill. I had a feeling anyone who touched the feather-part was going to lose a lot of blood. Maybe a finger.

"Is that a Jubei feather?" I asked, possibilities crashing around in my brain. Jack and Fiver both nodded. Chantal and Bianca just stared at it. "Is it Janee's?"

Janee Avix was a Jubei demon who'd come to Tucson just in time for Homecoming. She'd shown up on the Homecoming ballot somehow, and won a slot in the Homecoming Court because for the first time ever, Pillar Prep had been hit with a three-way tie, and Principal Burton was such an idiot that he didn’t know how to break said tie. And any tie for the Homecoming crown should have been between me, Geneva, and Lily. Instead, it was between me, Geneva, and Janee. We'd all been crowned Homecoming queen, and Janee's king had been Gavin Whitmoor. I was pretty sure, after all that, that Janee was out to get me, too.

Pretty much, after the three months I'd had, it was just better to assume everyone was out to get me. I kept an open mind in case they proved me wrong, but except for my inner circle, I didn’t trust anybody.

"I don't know," Fiver mumbled.

Jack stared at it for a long moment. Then he plucked it delicately from Bianca's fingers and brought it to his nose. He sniffed once, gently. Sniffed again, a deep suck of air. He closed his eyes and lines wrinkled his forehead as he seemed to taste the scent of the feather.

He opened his eyes again. They looked gray, black irises and pupils half-bleached by dearg power. He shook his head. "It's not hers. It's someone else's."

I wanted to face-palm. "Are you serious? Someone else trying to kill me?"

"We don't know Janee's after you, Alyssa," Jack reminded me. I gave him my best duh look and didn’t bother arguing. He knew my policy. "And we don't know this Jubei is after you, either."

"Opening an ayza hole in her front yard doesn’t really speak to friendly motives," Fiver muttered.

Jack shot him a savage look. He was doing the protecting-me thing again. It was cute, really, and I understood why he wanted to protect me. I'd nearly died during my fight with Lily at Homecoming. Jack had thought I had died for a minute. That was the closest I'd ever seen him come to crying in the real world. So I got it. And I knew that even though so far I'd survived this little war of the witches, I wasn’t invulnerable if any big bad faeries wanted to bring some smackdown.

But I was the Queen. I needed to protect my people. Bianca wasn’t officially part of our Court yet, but I liked her, and she was Fiver's sister. She counted. So if this ayza hole was so bad, I needed to know why.

"An ayza hole is supposed to be a secret form of travel," Fiver said, literally reading my mind. Jack opened his mouth to protest, got one look at my face, and shut it like a steel trap. Smart guy. The albino dearg continued, "It's supposed to be used only by the Council of Wings or their people. No civilian just throws open an ayza hole willy-nilly. Most of us don't even know how."

"That's why I couldn’t use it to bring you to the Chessboard," Jack added. "It's the easiest and safest way, and you actually go to the Chessboard physically instead of just psychically, but it's almost impossible to do if you haven't been taught by the Wings."

The Council of Wings wanted me dead. They didn’t know it was me, but I was the Alice, the girl from Lewis Carroll's prophecies who was apparently destined to break the famous Treaty of Jubei. According to Jack, the Council of Wings would do anything to stop that from happening because once the treaty broke, the magic that had gone into forging it would be let loose on the world. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the Council didn’t want that to happen. Once it did happen, all the faeries in the human world would get the full complement of their powers back. Even more important, humans everywhere would be able to see the Fayre. They would remember faeries actually existed.

That would be chaos. I knew that. But during all the crazy shenanigans, people screaming about Justin Bieber being the spawn of Satan, and everyone cringing from any sign of the impending apocalypse, one very important thing would happen.

The warlocks and their corrupt, pet witches would go down. So even though trying to break the Treaty—which was an actual magical force—would probably result in me dying, I was totally okay with that. At least I'd bring people like Lewis Whitmoor down with me.

Unfortunately, Jack was not okay with that. He would do anything to protect me. And if I died, he'd probably off himself because he thought I was the only person who really loved him. I knew his parents didn’t care about him, but I wasn’t sure about Lily.

I didn’t get Lily. Everything in me screamed that she loved Jack…but she also loved cutting him open when he made her mad. I just didn’t get it.

"So what's it doing on my front lawn?" I demanded, dropping the thought of Lily for the moment. I worried about the White Queen a lot. I wasn’t sure if that was because I was afraid she'd snap one day and try to kill us all, or if I wanted to fix her.

I jumped a mile high when Darren chimed in from behind me, "There's only one way to find out." I whirled on him.

"Aren't you supposed to be guarding the rear?"

"I left two very competent people in charge," he said, voice dripping acidic sarcasm. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Mouse and Sadie.

Pulling a Spock, my eyebrow popped up. "You left the humans without offensive powers to guard our backs?"

"Gotta let them off your apron strings at some point, Alyssa."

"Shut up." But I agreed with Darren about one thing—I needed to go look at this thing. Agreeing with Darren was probably a harbinger of Armageddon, but whatever. "Let's go."

I marched past Jack before he could do more than say, "Wait—" The others moved into formation around me. Oh, it was nice to have friends. To have backup. To not have to worry that anything might come slamming into me at any second and I'd have to unleash my fantabulous ninja skills because no matter how amazing I was with Alyssa-fu, I still ended up getting hurt. A lot. Backup meant I got hurt a lot less.

When we came to my house, I had to stop. The thing was impossible. It just didn’t make any sense to me. I knew what I was looking at—a hole in my yard—but that thing wasn’t just a hole. It was…I didn’t even know what it was.

Someone nightmare giant had reached down and scooped a huge divot out of my front yard. Darkness swirled inside. The rocks in the front yard closest to the hole sparkled with flecks of gold like someone had dumped glitter all over them. The few green weeds that had sprung up since my parents had been gone—yard-work was another of my enemies, like school dances and those killer I'm-gonna-stab-out-your-eye-when-I-kick-your-face heels—had turned blue. Not been tinged blue. They were neon blue.

The same color as the butterflies that always flocked to me when I went to the Twilight Chessboard; the blue butterflies that were the symbol of the Council of Wings.

Another silver feather, longer than the one Bianca held, jutted up from the dirt between the rocks right at the edge of the hole. A piece of blue paper with familiar, looping scrawl written in glittering, yellow gel-ink fluttered on the wind.

I moved toward it, but Jack grabbed my arm. "Wait, Lyssa-love. It might be a trap." Subtext of that statement: it might be them. They might've found us already. Crud.

"I'll get it, Lady Alyssa," Mouse cried, leaping forward. The kid was human, one of us should've been able to catch him, but he slipped through our collective fingers and frolicked over to the hole like it wasn’t the freakiest thing he'd ever seen.

Then again, his stepmother was an exiled demon from Fayre. Maybe it wasn’t the freakiest thing he'd ever seen.

Mouse knelt next to the paper. Carefully pulling the feather out of the dirt by the quill, he lifted the note and scanned it, a frowning pulling at his freckled face. Then he looked over at us. I could read confusion easily on his face.

"It just says, 'Remember what the doorknob said. The Smoke has been blown away.'" He frowned harder. "What does that even me—"

An arm, pale as ivory, shot out of the hole, grabbed Mouse's sleeve, and yanked him into the hole. With a sharp cry of fear that might've actually been Darren's name, he disappeared into the darkness.

Garnet 4 - The Red Queen's Invitation

"I'm concerned," I told Jack as we threaded through the packed hallway toward the cafeteria. The kids who obviously belonged to the Red Court gave me a wide berth. Half the White Court—the half that belonged to Gavin—did, too. But what gave me a funny little glow in my chest was when a few kids sporting black and white outfits gave me tentative smiles and waved at me. I grinned at them and waved back or nodded, depending on how bad the crush around me was.

So far today, I'd been pretty much left alone. Probably because Gavin was still busy licking his wounds and Lily's people were wondering what I was going to do about them. I was still trying to figure that one out myself. And Geneva's goons weren’t going to possibly tip the outcome of our whacked out Wonderland tea party before it even happened. The Red Queen would kill them. Possibly literally.

"Concerned?" Jack echoed as we made it to the cafeteria door. He held it open for me, which always made me feel weird. I still wasn't used to the whole chivalry thing. It didn't make me feel all weak and wimpy, or like the boys thought I was too pathetic to get my own doors. It actually felt nice. And I'd get the door for them, sometimes, too, and they gave me weird looks, so we were pretty much even.

"Yeah."

"About what?" He asked as we slid into the lunch line.

I drew a deep breath. He was going to like this about as much as a cat liked getting a bath. Exhaling slowly, gathering my courage, I finally said, "About Lily."

To my surprise, he actually smiled. "Thank you," he said, sounding relieved. Um.... "Thank you! Finally you've seen sense. So," my dearg added, suddenly full of good cheer and fun. "When do we kick her out?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Pause. Rewind. Now, what? Kick her out?" I could tell from his expression he fully expected me to do just that. "What crack-acid are you smoking?"

"I... isn't that what you meant?" He asked, frowning. Dark eyes watched me as if I'd transformed into some kind of dangerous, venomous snake. "That wasn't what you meant," he said slowly. "All right. What are you talking about, then?"

"I'm concerned about Lily the person. She seems... depressed."

He blinked. "I'm sorry, but what did you say?"

Oh, brother. "She. Seems. Depressed."

"And I am supposed to, as you say, give a flying rat's buttered carcass because why?"

Oooh, he'd stolen my phrase. Sneaky, smexy phrase-thief. I'd get him back for that—after we addressed the Lily situation. "Look, I know you guys hate each other but—"

"I don't hate her," Jack replied, as if commenting on the weather. A double-take was necessary because at first glance he seemed perfectly serene. Only the sizzle of black fury through our bondline—the magical doohickey that connected my soul and emotions to his, and vice-versa—told me differently.

"You don't?" Why did I not believe him? Hmmm…gee, I wonder.

Jack gave a shrug, a liquid motion as if his limbs weren't attached the way normal people's were. "Of course not. Don't be absurd."

He'd just called me "absurd." Part of me wanted to make sure his limbs were no longer attached the way a normal person's were…but I loved him too much. Dang it.

"I just want her ripped into a million painful and incredibly bloody pieces so I can sprinkle her on my porridge most mornings." He said it the way most people said they liked milk with their cereal.

Sometimes Jack would make a comment, or smile in such a way that I was forcibly reminded that he wasn't human. It was easy to forget sometimes that he was Fayre, an old and almost completely alien race. Did that scare me? I'd say it made me a tad nervous, but scared? Me? Of Jack? Please. Besides, after everything he'd been through—being forced to do all kinds of horrible things because of the former soul-contract between him and Lily, serving as one of the main punching bags for Lily's entire family, and almost being molested by Gia Whitmoor, Lily's psychotic b-with-an-itch of a so-called mother—he had a right to the creep-edge that sometimes showed up in his behavior.

"Jack, as long as she lives at my house, I don't want her suicidal or depressed or anything like that." I snagged a couple bags of chips and dropped them onto my tray. I'd been informed by Fiver, my favorite flesh-eating Bunny Wabbit, that bringing my own lunch to this meeting would be considered incredibly rude, so I was stuck with cafeteria food on a day lacking pizza or tatertots. Which meant I was stuck with chips and maybe a chicken burger. All for the cause, though. Rah-rah and Team Spirit and all that stuff.

"I don't see why you worry about someone like her. She's not a threat anymore."

"What if she decides to blow us up or put anthrax in our morning orange juice?" I paused, considered. "Does anthrax even work that way? What does anthrax even do?"

"I'm sure I don't know anything about anthrax," Jack said in the slightly condescending tone boys used when they thought girls were talking nonsense. "And if you're that concerned about her, why don't you throw her out?"

I glared at him as I grabbed the chocolate milk. Maybe I was just a touch on the paranoid side, but it seemed really strange that there wasn't any regular milk out. Just chocolate and strawberry. Black and red. Well, brown and pink, but still…was that weird?

I knew what was weird—me, defending the White Queen to Jack. Except with the Julie thing, he'd never actively opposed me on anything important. And it turned out he'd been right to be suspicious of Julie Frost, the Queen of Spades. She'd been a spy sent by Lily to get close to me so she could seriously injure and/or kill me. But we'd become best friends instead, and Julie had died saving me from Doreen when the Red Court witch—basically acting on Lily's orders—had tried to throw me down two flights of stairs.

David Jacobson, Julie's former Knave of Spades, was not invited to this meeting. Captain of the swim team, topping off at almost seven feet tall and weighing in at more than two-hundred-fifty pounds, the wereotter wanted Doreen's head on a plate. He'd known and loved Julie almost his entire life. Of course, he also wanted Lily dead for forcing Jack to kill David's little brother.

But David was willing to abide my new rules…for now. Having to tack on for-now at the end of that made me just a little bit nervous. Okay, more like a lot nervous.

It was giving me a headache that Jack, who normally backed me up, chose to argue with me about this, especially right now. "Where is she supposed to go?"

He slashed me with an obsidian look. "Try 'I don't care.'"

He wasn't getting it. He might not care, but I did. Wasn't his job as my King supposed to be helping me run my Court? I certainly didn't want him for hired muscle. Patching him up always made it difficult to breathe, seeing how he was both bleeding and usually shirtless.

"It's my fault she can't go home—" I began.

"No, Alyssa, it isn't."

Jack stopped suddenly and whirled on me. His eyes began to bleach to white and his teeth started darkening. People behind us hissed insults or snapped for us to hurry it up, stop holding up the line. Jack flicked his inhuman eyes at them, and they fell silent. Only someone suicidal tried to tangle with a dearg when his teeth came out.

My very ticked off dearg growled, "It's not your fault. It's Lily's fault. Lily is the one who tortured the people who should have been able to trust her. Lily is the one who attacked you, repeatedly, in an attempt to make you give up and either bow down to her or kill yourself. Lily is the one who sent a spy into our midst. Lily is the one who ordered the hit on you and Julie, and Lily is the one who's responsible for her own actions."

None of which I could argue with. But Lily was caught in the system, too, just like the rest of them. It seemed I was the only who had a problem with the actual system, not just the people in it. Then there was her dad. I'd never tangled with an adult before, but I wanted to tangle with Lily's dad, who thought it was okay to beat Jack and Lily whenever either of them made him mad. And there was something I didn't think Jack had thought of yet.

"If you thought you were going to lose me—if you thought I was going to leave you—what would you do?" I asked softly.

"I...." He blinked, paused. His eyes were slowly darkening to onyx again. His teeth gleamed pearly white and had gone back to being nice and straight and even, instead of needle-thin and pointy. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just answer the question." Although I was positive I already knew the answer.

He frowned. "I don't know."

"Would you let it happen?" I demanded. This part was important, and I couldn't afford to give an inch. I'd had theories about Lily and Geneva—a lot of theories—and this past week or so of having the White Queen sleeping on my floor and getting on my nerves had solidified some of them. "Would you just let me traipse off into the sunset with Darren? Or even—blech—with Fiver?"

At Darren's name, Jack's eyes flashed and he jerked away from me, went back to sliding through the lunch line. I winced. Darren was a big button for Jack that I didn't like pushing, since Darren had made it very obvious he wanted to replace Jack as both my King and my boyfriend (not happening), but it was a valid question.

"No," he growled as the lunch lady rang up the stuff on our trays posing as food. "What does that have to do with this?"

"Would you attack Darren or Fiver to get me to stay with you? To get them out of the way? Would you do anything to me? Would you hurt me? Hurt them? Hurt anyone?"

Indecision warred on his face, in his eyes, arced along our bondline like electricity. He stepped out of line, away from me, to give himself time to compose, to think. But he couldn't decide. I could feel that. He couldn't decide whether he'd attack or hurt someone just to keep me around.

With most guys, especially all the human ones, that would normally be the behavior of a stalker. But this was different. Jack loved me, but that was only part of his motivation. He needed me, just as much as he loved me. His parents didn’t care about him. They'd let Lily's family rip him to pieces again and again. There was special niche in Parent Hell for Jack's mom and dad. He didn’t have any siblings. Except for Lily, until we'd bonded he hadn't had anybody. So I got why he'd hurt someone to be with me, to keep me with him.

Plus, without me, he would probably die. He'd be tortured by the White Court or the Red, they would break him, and then they'd kill him. There would be nothing to stand between him and the pain if I left him, because I was the one who was supposed to protect him. The only one who could. The only one who would even try. And the only person who would bust down doors, knock out teeth, and put people in the hospital if I had to in order to keep him safe.

It had taken me a while to realize that Jack had been the only one who could or would willingly protect Lily from anyone. She had needed him just as much as he needed me. Now she didn't have him. She was alone.

I remembered the voice screaming, Please! Don't leave me! Please, don't leave me alone! The day I'd shattered the soul-contract—and the soulbond—between Jack and Lily, I'd heard that frantic, desperate scream echoing through the Void.

Lily's voice, Lily's fear, Lily's need.

Obsession? No. Necessity. And a bond there, too—she loved him. I was the only one who could see it, because I was the only one who didn't think of Lily as the Big Bad Whatever, the Head Honcho of the Evil Department. In her own messed up way, the White Queen had loved—still loved—Jack. It was why she had held onto him, with chains of magic and chains of sparkly enchanted witch-iron or whatever. Punished him for, in her eyes, straying.

Would Jack do the same for me? To me? No, but that was because he knew I wouldn't leave. He trusted me. He wouldn't have bonded with me, thrown in his support to me, if he didn't trust me. After everything that had happened to him, he was too cautious to gamble with his life. I'd had to earn his trust first. That was the only reason he wouldn't hurt me.

But the others?

I hadn't looked away from his eyes, twin pools of obsidian fire, while he struggled for an answer. He opened his mouth as decision suddenly hummed across the bondline.

"I—"

"It's show time, you guys," Harriet Marshal interrupted. Another Faerie, Harriet was something called a Sluagh—basically a type of Faerie vampire, but instead of fangs, she had teeth like shards of broken glass, and her eyes glowed aquamarine when she got ticked off. She'd glided silently up to us and neither of us had noticed, because she was just that epic. The moment she spoke I jumped. "Hattie and Doreen are waiting...nice shirt, Alyssa."

Grateful for the interruption, I glanced down at myself and smiled. I'd borrowed one of Jack's only black shirts—nine-thousand thread-count Egyptian cotton or something like that; whatever, it was expensive and pretty—and wore it like a jacket over a white silk shirt with a black fractal pattern spattered across it like dark blood. Nobody had had a chance to get a good look at it yet except Jack, who'd winced when he saw I wore white. I thought it was nice and symbolic and stuff—black over white, and of course black comes out on top, just like it did at Homecoming.

And they all thought I sucked at diplomatically sending a message. Silly, silly Faerie people.

"Darren's waiting by the table, to show good faith," Harriet added, shooting a nervous look at Jack. His jaw muscle twitched. Oh, brother. Harriet was bonded to Darren, and I was pretty sure she loved him. Maybe not in love with him, but I could tell she adored the guy. Considering how he treated her—as opposed to how he always hit on me like a sex-crazed schmucky horn-dog—I understood why. And she liked Jack a lot. Jack liked her. But Jack hated Darren (for obvious reasons) and still didn’t fully trust him not to hurt me.

Considering Darren was one of only three people I knew who knew the big bad secret of me being not just a demon, but the Alice from Lewis Carroll's coded prophecies—the other two being Jack, of course, and Fiver, who could read minds—and Darren hadn’t ratted me out yet, I had to admit I trusted him. And I liked him…when he wasn’t being a douche.

Ignoring the silent byplay between Jack and Harriet, I headed for the lunch table where the Lady Dormouse—aka Doreen Moss, Darren's twin sister—and Geneva's Mad Hattie waited for me. Talk about a mad tea party. What was next, croquet at the Queen's?

Cold, dark eyes slid up from the table to stare at me as I sank onto the bench, flanked by Harriet and Jack. Darren, with a weird smile, sat next to Harriet. Doreen, the owner of those chilling eyes, glared at her twin brother before turning to Hattie Marshal.

Hattie Marshal looked better than she had after the Homecoming battle in the school parking lot, but that wasn't saying much. The giant gaping chunk that Jack had bitten out of her that night still hadn't grown back completely, and the lopsided way her shirt and jacket hung on her told me just how much bandage she wore on her shoulder. Bruises painted a violent watercolor across her face. Still, I didn’t feel too bad. She'd been trying to kill Jack.

"Greetings, Black Queen," Doreen said after a long pause. She glanced at Hattie again, but the look on the Sluagh girl's face made even a whacko like Doreen nervous enough not to push for her to be chatty-chatty and polite. Hattie was the kind of person who would ask in normal conversation if you wanted to know what your spleen looked like in the light of day, and be completely serious.

"Greetings to the emissaries of the Red Court," Darren said in his smoothest, silkiest voice. Hattie flushed and Doreen glowered. Considering that, in their eyes, he'd stolen Hattie's twin sister to be his brainwashed slave—Love slave? Ew, don't think like that, Alyssa, yech!—and was a traitor to the Red Court, their reactions were understandable. But if it came down to a fight against Geneva's Mad Hattie, I wanted someone physically stronger than her who was also immune to magic and could take Doreen in a one-on-one fight, leaving Jack and Harriet free to deal with Hattie. The only person I knew who fit the bill was Darren.

"Looks like we're all here," said bill-fitter continued, "the Hatter, the Hare, both Dormice, and Alyssa."

"And the Black Jack," Hattie growled through peeled-back, black-painted lips, showing serrated teeth like shards of silvered glass. Her eyes glinted like ancient gold coins, but they weren’t glowing yet. Hunger burned in their depths.

Hattie was Sluagh, too, descended from the Faerie Wild Hunt—those magical creatures who randomly chased after anyone in their path. If the person ran, they were torn to bloody bits by Faerie hounds. If the person didn't run—and who wouldn't run from an army of sweaty, hairy, toothy Faerie guys on horseback with crossbows and swords and ravening, salivating, man-flesh-desiring demon-poodles?—then they were made part of the Hunt, and cursed for their courage (see suicidal tendencies) to ride through the skies forever or until they chose to hop down off the Faerie Ponies of Doom and die. Sounded kind of like a Johnny Cash song, actually, except without the awesome, croony cowboy voice.

Because Hattie was one of them, she craved blood the way crack addicts craved their drugs. It wasn't like actual nosferatu vampires (which didn't exist, apparently), where they fed on the blood of the living to survive. If the Sluagh didn't eat regular food and drink regular water or whatever, they'd die even if they had blood. But that didn't stop Hattie Marshal from craving Jack's blood like a meth-head craved crystal crack. They'd always been rivals. I didn't get that, but I wasn't a blood junkie or a psycho, so obviously I didn’t get to join the club. Not that I wanted to.

"And the King is here, too, of course," Darren said, as if he didn't see the glint of raw bloodlust and hatred in Hattie's eyes or, if he did, didn't care. Harriet kept a wary eye on her sister, but Darren merely shot Jack a look before saying, "So—down to business."

§

"So now that we're all here, what do you want, exactly?" My Queen demanded, propping her elbows on the table. A casual observer would think she didn't take this meeting seriously, but the fact that she was dressed up told me otherwise. I wondered what she might get from this conversation that the rest of us would miss. She had such a unique way of looking at things.

I wasn't worried about how she'd handle herself. What worried me was Darren, and the fact that she'd brought him along with us in the first place. I understood her reasoning, I did. But Darren could not be trusted. He'd already made it clear he was after something other than Alyssa's wellbeing. Whatever it was—and I doubted it was just her body, though the fact that he wanted that as well made me want to rip his appendix out—I wouldn't let him have it.

However, I could appreciate the spit-in-the-eye symbolism of bringing Darren to a meeting with Doreen. The only two people Doreen had ever lost a fight to were her twin brother and Alyssa. A narcissist to the core, no doubt that rankled her quite a bit.

"How about we eat first?" Doreen replied to Alyssa's prompting, with all the manners of a society hostess. A muscle in her cheek twitched when she began almost spastically rearranging the plastic-ware around her lunch tray. No doubt she was imagining carving Alyssa up with the shards of her plastic knife and fork. Doreen liked cutting things up.

"I can never eat when I'm excited," my Queen replied with chilly politeness. "Let's cut to the chase. Why did you set up this meeting with us?"

"We're here to offer an invitation, nothing more," Doreen said. Hattie said nothing, just watched me with half-mad eyes.

"An invitation to what, pray tell?" Darren asked his sister.

"Geneva is hosting a tea social two weeks from now. Until that time, we propose a ceasefire between the Black and Red Courts. We can't make promises for Gavin Whitmoor and his people, obviously, but for our part, no violence. In exchange, you agree to come to the aforementioned tea social."

"I don't even know what a tea social is," Alyssa replied.

Hattie finally tore her gaze away from my face to stare at Alyssa with a WTF expression on her face. "It's a fancy word for tea party, all right? Humans are so stupid."

"Geneva wants me to come to her tea party?"

Doreen nodded. "Precisely."

"Not to be rude or anything, but uh…why?"

"She doesn't want bloodshed. She doesn't want a battle like the one you had with Lily. She certainly doesn't want a war."

"Meaning she doesn't want to get her ass kicked and lose the right to try for the Garnet Crown," Darren interjected.

"Wait, what?" Alyssa stared from Darren to Doreen, who glared at her twin as if she would cheerfully claw his eyes out with her bare hands. Darren just offered his sister that bland "oops" smile that made most of the guys in the senior class want to deck him. I could actually appreciate it, though, since it made Doreen grind her teeth.

"Can't you ever keep your mouth shut, warlock?" Hattie snarled. She started to lunge to her feet, but Harriet and I both stood up before she'd finished moving. Alyssa propped her chin on her hand and looked bored, but I felt her fury sizzle along our bondline, hot enough to burn. She wouldn’t go out of her way to attack Hattie or Doreen, but if they attacked someone she cared about—including Darren, unfortunately—she would come down on them like an avalanche. Considering she'd nearly beaten Lily to death in a fit of rage at Homecoming, neither Doreen nor Hattie wanted to deal with enraging the Black Queen that much.

"It's not my problem if the Red Queen is a coward," Darren replied airily.

Doreen leapt to her feet this time, eyes blazing, reaching with one hand for Darren. "How dare you—"

"Okay, everyone shut up!" Alyssa suddenly yelled, and the cafeteria fell silent. She eyed the rest of the room, baffled, before turning back to Doreen and Darren. "Jeez! What is this, kindergarten? Do I have to make the quiet sign? Now no more name calling or someone's gonna end up in time-out."

"Don't you dare mock me, human," Doreen snarled.

Alyssa folded her arms. "I'll mock you if I want to, if you decide it's socially acceptable to act like the last fourteen years of your life never happened and you don't know how to behave. What are you, two? Act like a teenager and I'll treat you like one."

"How do you put up with her, Darren?" The warlock's sister demanded. Indignation spread across her face like a disease. "I know you have sick tastes, but seriously!"

Alyssa stiffened. I tasted rot on the back of my tongue and knew I was in danger of going dearg in the middle of lunch if someone didn’t do something to make Doreen stop talking. Rumors like that, of the Black Queen bypassing her King for the Black Knight—especially when that Knight was Darren Moss, demon-possessed warlock—were dangerous on a good day.

"Well, it's so nice to see the children can behave themselves without adult supervision," a familiar voice said behind me. I turned to see Fiver Rairah approach the table and take a seat next to me, sandwiching me between the ash-blond dearg and my queen. "Doreen, I had no idea you had such a twisted, depraved mind."

Alyssa smiled. "Yes, you did."

"Hmmm, you're right, my Queen. I did. Now, Doreen, you asked how we put up with Lady Alyssa? I will admit, she may be a bit eccentric, but at least she's not…what do you call them, my Queen? Homicide Barbie?"

Alyssa shot him a look that plainly ordered him to behave. To my surprise, he subsided, smiling. Then I realized—we were in public. Of course he was going to act as if he obeyed her every whim. In reality, he drove her crazy. Strangely, she seemed to find that comforting.

Darren grinned. Alyssa suddenly stiffened again beside me.

§

Something touched my thigh, and I froze. I glanced under the table and realized it was Darren's hand, stretched across Harriet's petite figure. The scheming warlock replied, "The benefits of being bonded to the Black Queen far outweigh the negative aspects."

"You better get your hand off my thigh or I'll demonstrate some negative aspects," I growled, and jabbed his forearm with the prongs of my plastic fork. He barely stifled a yelp and jerked back from me. Turning to Hattie and Doreen as if nothing weird had happened—and considering this was Darren we were talking about, nothing weird really had—I said, "Tell Geneva she'll have my answer in a few days. I have to talk it over with my Court."

"The sign of a weak Queen," Hattie muttered. Oh, well now she was hurting my widdle-bitty feelings. Boo. "Why not simply order them to obey you?"

"Because they might have valid reasons why I shouldn't go, like the fact that you're all certifiably crazy. Or that this might be some kind of trap. In which case I'd have to go all gung-ho on your butts and beat you into turkey stuffing before sashaying off into the sunset like the epic ninja I am."

"A Queen should have absolute control over her Court," Hattie spat.

I snorted. "Yeah, we saw how well that worked with Lily."

"Lily Whitmoor is weak."

I couldn't help it—I smirked. Maybe it wasn’t politically savvy, but I couldn't help myself. "I didn't see your Queen stepping up to the plate at Homecoming. She just stood there with her cutesy-wootsy widdle crown on her head, doing the Beauty Queen wave. We were all very impressed." I nodded with a mock-amazed expression on my face. Of course Doreen leaned forward, eyes blazing, teeth bared. Honestly, she looked like a rabid spider-monkey.

"I ought to rip your face off," she hissed.

Jerking my chin at the crimson blouse she had on—normally she didn’t wear ruffles; must've been the occasion—I said, "You'd get blood on that nice, silk shirt. If you're anything like Darren, that would make you really unhappy."

For a second I saw something flicker in her eyes. She glanced at her brother, then looked back at me. Her expression turned mean again. "I'm nothing like Darren."

Darren glanced at me. I raised my eyebrows. He smiled politely and said to the Red Court girls, "I take it this means we're done, then?"

Hattie and Doreen rose to their feet, matching looks of disdain on their faces. That was the problem with mean girls—they would've been knockouts if they didn’t insist on twisting up their faces like angsty pretzels all the time. Hattie said coldly, "Four days, Black Queen. Geneva will have your answer after school, this Friday."

"Fine." I waved at them. "Now go away. I'm hungry."

They left. I looked at Harriet, at Darren the Schmoozer, at my favorite albino Bunny Wabbit, then at Jack. They all looked relieved more than anything. I felt great. I'd gotten through my first political meeting and nobody had died. Go, me.

Now if only I had some tatertots…

Garnet 3 - White Queen in the Looking Glass

Lily watched Alyssa leave the room for the second time, the silvered glass like a barrier between the White Queen and Black. The young witch stared hard at her reflection for an excruciating moment, examining every flawed detail of her face—too wide nose, too thin lips that no amount of lip plumper could fix, eyes set too far apart, cheekbones too prominent, forehead too big, eyebrows too thick, ears sticking too far out, hair too thick with not enough wave to make it at least look the littlest bit stylish.

At first glance, Lilith Whitmoor was beautiful, a knockout. With a closer look, she was positive that anyone with eyes and a brain would see what she and her parents always saw—faults, imperfections. Where there should have been a glittering diamond, there was only a cracked and flawed cubic zirconia. Just as pretty to the uneducated observer, but worthless on the inside, her mother had always said. And Gia Whitmoor would know; the woman was an expert on fashion and jewels. Lily hated to admit it, but Gia knew quality when she saw it. Which was probably why her mother had wanted to get rid of her when the witch Queen had discovered she was pregnant a second time. Lewis Whitmoor, Lily's father, had had to talk (and threaten) her out of it—in case Gavin, Lily's older brother, "hadn't worked out."

That appreciation for quality was also probably why Gia had homed in on Jack. One of the few things Lily and the flesh-eating Faerie boy had always agreed on—Gia Whitmoor was a depraved cougar with no life who needed to keep her hands off her daughter's Knave. Lily had approved wholeheartedly when Jack had nearly ripped her mother to pieces when the disgusting ho-bag had tried to seduce the dearg.

Yes, Gia and Lewis Whitmoor both knew quality when they saw it…which was why they'd always despaired of their second child and put all of their hopes behind Gavin.

Lily thought of Alyssa Carde, the Black Queen, with her compact body and elfin face; her silky cap of auburn hair, chopped short so no one could grab it in a fight; the spark in her fierce, feral eyes...the same gold as the White Queen's, but a totally different shape and look. She dressed like a homeless bag lady, acted like a total barbarian, and didn't have the sense God gave a rock.

But Jack loved Alyssa, and hated Lily.

She'd seen it in his eyes when he'd come into the bedroom: hate. Pure and unadulterated, sharp as razor wire, toxic as any poison. It had been like every slap her father had ever delivered with the hand that bore his coven ring, times a thousand. The one person who was supposed to stay with her, the one person who had to love her—because what else was he there for?—hated her. Thought she was worthless, just like her parents.

Lily wanted to hate the Black Queen for that, and couldn't. Because unlike Jack, unlike the Black Court she was unwillingly now a part of, unlike her brother Gavin, and unlike her parents, the Black Queen didn't want her dead and didn't treat her like she was worthless. She'd let Lily move in, given the former White Queen her own room, defended her to the rest of the Black Court…it was like Alyssa was actually on Lily's side in a way.

Which didn't make any sense.

That's how she stole the Queen of Spades from you, Lilith, her father's voice hissed in her ear. By pretending to be on her side. Don't let her fool you. She's manipulating you.

A sharp pain lanced through Lily's temples and she turned away from the mirror to glance out Alyssa's bedroom window. A cap of bronze hair bobbed along next to a halo of golden curls. Alyssa and Jack. The Black Queen and the Knave of Hearts.

No…wait…

An ache settled deep in Lily's chest when she remembered that no, he wasn't her Knave anymore, her Knave who would rip out any number of Red Court hearts to make her happy. He was Alyssa's Black Jack now, the Black King to her Queen.

"I hate her," Lily whispered, but she knew it wasn't true. She hated a lot of people—Geneva, the Red Queen; her own brother, Gavin, their father's favorite; their mother, busy sleeping her way through the starving artists of Paris to solve her midlife crisis; their father, who played favorites and never seemed satisfied with her. She disliked Alyssa, firmly believed she had the IQ of a lamp post, and needed to be put in her place. But the fire behind hate wouldn't come, because if she hated Alyssa, the only person who didn't want her dead, the only person standing up for her, then she would have no one.

She'd never had no one before. There had always been Jack. Jack, who fixed her snacks in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep; who would let her camp out in his tree house when they were kids and she'd had nightmares about Gavin trying to kill her; who beat up anyone who made her cry, even Gavin, even though attacking the White Knight would earn the dearg a beating; who took her shopping and always made her feel good about herself when she tried something on, instead of telling her she looked cheap or trashy, like her mother would.

But Jack hated her now. Wanted her dead, just like her family. She had to get used to that. Alyssa was the only one who didn't hate her quite that much, and wasn't that just pathetic?

Oh, she hates you, her father's voice muttered, silky as sin. How can you not see it? How can you be so blind to her contempt for you? A witch who can be fooled by a human doesn't deserve to call herself a witch.

"Shut up," Lily snarled, dropping her face in her hands. She rubbed her throbbing temples. "I don't care what you say. I'm not coming back just so you can punish me again. At least no one hits me here."

And that was just bizarre. Except for that single fistfight at the Heart of the Maze of Mist at Homecoming, no one had physically attacked her since she'd moved into the Black Queen's house. She knew Jack and the others wanted to—they wanted to kill her in a million slow, horrible ways—but Alyssa had told them point-blank that anyone who attacked her would be kicked out of the Court. Kicked out for good. For her sake.

"I'm physically safe here," Lily added. "I'm not leaving."

You're not safe, though. This voice was her own, the niggling voice of doubt. If Alyssa ever changes her mind, Jack will have a lot of fun tying you down, slicing you into bits, and baking you into pies. He's always had a fondness for witch flesh. And he'd make sure it hurt. He doesn't love you anymore. Maybe he never did. He won't protect you. He'll hurt you just because he can.

"I'm not listening to either of you," the former White Queen whispered. She would've put her hands over her ears, but if she let go of her head she thought it might explode. Tears of pain and panic stung her eyes. Her brain pulsed and throbbed in her skull. She needed to get up and get some ibuprofen from the bathroom…but she couldn’t even seem to force herself to her feet. She just curled up on the vanity stool, clutching her head.

You don't really think the Black Queen actually cares about what happens to you. Even you aren't that stupid. Not my daughter.

Her father again. She could almost feel the burning in her face where he would backhand her if he were there, lecturing her like he used to. The thin, raised scar on her cheek throbbed in time with her head and her heartbeat.

That's how she stole Jack, you know, the voice continued, gently chastising. Why wouldn't it just shut up? Why wouldn't he leave her alone? She didn't belong with him, with the rest of her family, anymore. She was bonded to the Black Queen, and she wasn't welcome there, with them, with her so-called family, anymore.

But she wasn’t welcome here, either. Not really.

She tricks them into thinking she loves them, that she cares, just like she's tricking you. I thought you were too good to be tricked. That's what you kept telling me. 'Nobody can fool me, Daddy, I'm the best witch at Pillar Prep.' Were you lying? Looks like it, because she's pulled the wool over your eyes. Oh, Princess, what happened to my girl who could see through all of their tricks?

Lily's head shot up and she found her face in the mirror, pinched and white with rage, tinged with gray. The pain in her head eased back until it was just a slight pressure against her temples.

"You're wrong," she whispered, reaching out and tracing the reflection of her pale face. How long had it been since she'd been outside? Seen the sun? Spoken more than a handful of words to anyone other than Alyssa? Since the night of Homecoming, she realized. Since she'd lost everything because the Black Queen had shattered her Coven and her Court. "She hasn't tricked me."

Oh? That derisive voice mocked her, made her want to scream. But if she screamed, the Black Court would come running because they had to, because Alyssa had ordered them to protect her. Lily didn't want them in here. She didn't want to see them, any of them. Especially not Jack and Alyssa, who were so in love that it turned Lily's blood to shards of razor-sharp ice in her veins because Jack had never looked at her the way he looked at Alyssa. And if she screamed, the throbbing in her head might come back. Hasn't she?

"She hasn't tricked me," Lily snarled at the mirror. Her teeth were a feral gleam between corpse-gray lips. Her eyes gleamed feverishly. "She can't trick me. I can see right through her."

Good girl. Her father's praise, imaginary though it was, filled her with warmth—the first shred of warmth she'd felt since before Homecoming. That's my Lily. Good girl.

Lily leaned back, shoving a hand through her hair. No, she wouldn't fall for Alyssa's tricks. She wouldn't. The Black Queen couldn't toy with the White Queen. And she was the White Queen. She'd get her Coven back. She'd get her Court back…and she'd show her parents that she was worthy of being the Queen, of becoming the High Priestess of the Coven of White, of wearing the Alabaster Crown of Faerie.

And most importantly, she would get her Knave back…even if she had to kill Alyssa to do it.

Garnet 2 - The White Queen in the Looking Glass

Chapter Two
The White Queen in the Looking Glass

Lily watched Alyssa leave the room, the silvered glass like a barrier between the White Queen and Black. The young witch stared hard at her reflection for an excruciating moment, examining every flawed detail of her face—too wide nose, too thin lips that no amount of lip plumper could fix, eyes set too far apart, cheekbones too prominent, forehead too big, eyebrows too thick, ears sticking too far out, hair too thick with not enough wave to make it at least look the littlest bit stylish.

At first glance, Lilith Whitmoor was beautiful, a knockout. With a closer look, she was positive that anyone with eyes and a brain would see what she and her parents always saw—faults, imperfections. Where there should have been a glittering diamond, there was only a cracked and flawed cubic zirconia. Just as pretty to the uneducated observer, but worthless on the inside, her mother had always said. And Gia Whitmoor would know; the woman was an expert on fashion and jewels. Lily hated to admit it, but Gia knew quality when she saw it. Which was probably why her mother had wanted to get rid of her when the witch Queen had discovered she was pregnant a second time. Lewis Whitmoor, Lily's father, had had to talk (and threaten) her out of it—in case Gavin, Lily's older brother, "hadn't worked out."

That appreciation for quality was also probably why Gia had homed in on Jack. One of the few things Lily and the flesh-eating Faerie boy had always agreed on—Gia Whitmoor was a depraved cougar with no life who needed to keep her hands off her daughter's Knave. Lily had approved wholeheartedly when Jack had nearly ripped her mother to pieces when the disgusting ho-bag had tried to seduce the dearg.

Yes, Gia and Lewis Whitmoor both knew quality when they saw it…which was why they'd always despaired of their second child and put all of their hopes behind Gavin.

Lily thought of Alyssa Carde, the Black Queen, with her compact body and elfin face; her silky cap of auburn hair, chopped short so no one could grab it in a fight; the spark in her fierce, feral eyes...the same gold as the White Queen's, but a totally different shape and look. She dressed like a homeless bag lady, acted like a total barbarian, and didn't have the sense God gave a rock.

But Jack loved Alyssa, and hated Lily.

She'd seen it in his eyes when he'd come into the bedroom: hate. Pure and unadulterated, sharp as razor wire, toxic as any poison. It had been like every slap her father had ever delivered with the hand that bore his coven ring, times a thousand. The one person who was supposed to stay with her, the one person who had to love her because what else was he there for...and he hated her.

Lily wanted to hate the Black Queen for that, and couldn't. Because unlike Jack, unlike the Black Court she was unwillingly now a part of, unlike her brother Gavin, and unlike her parents, the Black Queen didn't hate her, didn't think she was worthless. In fact, whenever they spoke, Alyssa's eyes held the same love a sister might have for her younger, more obnoxious, wayward sibling. The prodigal daughter. It didn't make any sense.

That's how she stole the Queen of Spades from you, Lilith, her father's voice hissed in her ear. Don't let her fool you. She's manipulating you.

A sharp pain lanced through Lily's temples and she turned away from the mirror to glance out Alyssa's bedroom window. A cap of bronze hair bobbed along next to a halo of golden curls. Alyssa and Jack. The Black Queen and the Knave of Hearts.

No…wait…

An ache settled deep in Lily's chest when she remembered that no, he wasn't her Knave anymore, her Knave who would rip out any number of Red Court hearts to make her happy. He was Alyssa's Black Jack now, the Black King to her Queen.

"I hate her," Lily whispered, but she knew it wasn't true. She hated a lot of people—Geneva, the Red Queen; her own brother, Gavin, their father's favorite; their mother, busy sleeping her way through the starving artists of Paris to solve her midlife crisis; their father, who played favorites and never seemed satisfied with her. She disliked Alyssa, firmly believed she had the IQ of a lamp post, and needed to be put in her place. But the fire behind hate wouldn't come, because if she hated Alyssa, the only person who didn't hate her, then she would have no one.

She'd never had no one before. There had always been Jack. Jack, who fixed her snacks in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep; who would let her camp out in his tree house when they were kids and she'd had nightmares about Gavin trying to kill her; who beat up anyone who made her cry, even Gavin, even though attacking the White Knight would earn the dearg a beating; who took her shopping and always made her feel good about herself when she tried something on, instead of telling her she looked cheap or trashy, like her mother would.

But Jack hated her now. She had to get used to that. Alyssa was the only one who didn't, and wasn't that just pathetic?

Oh, she hates you, her father's voice muttered, silky as sin. How can you not see it? How can you be so blind to her contempt for you? A witch who can be fooled by a human doesn't deserve to call herself a witch.

"Shut up," Lily snarled, dropping her face in her hands. She rubbed her throbbing temples. "I don't care what you say. I'm not coming back just so you can punish me again. At least no one hits me here." And that was just bizarre. Except for that single fistfight at the Heart of the Maze of Mist at Homecoming, no one had physically attacked her since she'd moved into the Black Queen's house. She knew Jack and the others wanted to—they wanted to kill her—but Alyssa had told them point-blank that anyone who attacked her would be kicked out o the Court. "I'm physically safe here," Lily added. "I'm not leaving."

You're not safe, though. This voice was her own, the niggling voice of doubt. If Alyssa ever changes her mind, Jack will have a lot of fun tying you down, slicing you into bits, and baking you into pies. He's always had a fondness for witch flesh. And he'd make sure it hurt. He doesn't love you anymore. Maybe he never did. He won't protect you. He'll hurt you just because he can.

"I'm not listening to either of you," the White Queen whispered. She would've put her hands over her ears, but if she let go of her head she thought it might explode. Tears of pain and panic stung her eyes. Her brain pulsed and throbbed in her skull. She needed to get up and get some ibuprofen from the bathroom…but she couldn’t even seem to force herself to her feet. She just curled up on the vanity stool, clutching her head.

You don't really think the Black Queen actually cares about what happens to you. Even you aren't that stupid. Not my daughter.

Her father again. She could almost feel the burning in her face where he would backhand her if he were there, lecturing her like he used to. The thin, raised scar on her cheek throbbed in time with her head and her heartbeat.

That's how she stole Jack, you know, the voice continued, gently chastising. Why wouldn't it just shut up? Why wouldn't he leave her alone? She didn't belong with him, with the rest of her family, anymore. She was bonded to the Black Queen, and she wasn't welcome there, with them, with her so-called family, anymore.

She tricks them into thinking she loves them, just like she's tricking you. I thought you were too good to be tricked. That's what you kept telling me. 'Nobody can fool me, Daddy, I'm the best witch at Pillar Prep.' Were you lying? Looks like it, because she's pulled the wool over your eyes. Oh, Princess, what happened to my girl who could see through all of their tricks?

Lily's head shot up and she found her face in the mirror, pinched and white with rage, tinged with gray. The pain in her head eased back until it was just a slight pressure against her temples.

"You're wrong," she whispered, reaching out and tracing the reflection of her pale face. How long had it been since she'd been outside? Seen the sun? Spoken more than a handful of words to anyone other than Alyssa? Since the night of Homecoming, she realized. Since she'd lost everything because the Black Queen had shattered her Coven and her Court. "She hasn't tricked me."

Oh? That derisive voice mocked her, made her want to scream. But if she screamed, the Black Court would come running because they had to, because Alyssa had ordered them to protect her. Lily didn't want them in here. She didn't want to see them, any of them. Especially not Jack and Alyssa, who were so in love that it turned Lily's blood to shards of razor-sharp ice in her veins because Jack had never looked at her the way he looked at Alyssa. And if she screamed, the throbbing in her head might come back. Hasn't she?

"She hasn't tricked me," Lily snarled at the mirror. Her teeth were a feral gleam between toxic-pink lips. Her eyes gleamed feverishly. "She can't trick me. I can see right through her."

Good girl. Her father's praise, imaginary though it was, filled her with warmth—the first shred of warmth she'd felt since before Homecoming. That's my Lily. Good girl.

Lily leaned back, shoving a hand through her hair. No, she wouldn't fall for Alyssa's tricks. She wouldn't. The Black Queen couldn't toy with the White Queen. And she was the White Queen. She'd get her Coven back. She'd get her Court back…and she'd show her parents that she was worthy of being the Queen, of becoming the High Priestess of the Coven of White, of wearing the Alabaster Crown of Faerie.

And most importantly, she would get her Knave back…even if she had to kill Alyssa to do it.