Page 101 of The Evernight Court

Just like Quinn.

“What’s he planning, Quinn?” I asked, and again, her head whipped toward me fast. “Why did he want to get banished? What’s he planning?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Quinn said, then turned to the fox again. “Nobodywantsto get banished.”

“Except Valentine.” And she knew it. “Tell me what he’s planning.” I wasthisclose to begging her about it, too.

But Quinn shook her head. “I don’t know, Fall. I don’t know anything about the Evernights. I just know that your safety matters to Valentine a great deal, and I love him. He’smyfamily, even if he doesn’t consider me his.” There it was,that look again. She absolutely blamed me for something. “So, I’ll help you with whatever you need. That’s all I can tell you.” Then she stood up. “I’m going to put this away so other animals can feed off it. Be right back.”

She’d already cut off a good piece of meat from the fox’s body that I didn’t even want to look at, then she dragged the carcass away toward the trees without another word.

Yes, there was a story to everyone who came into my life, and Quinn was one of them.

But right now, as Shadow and I stared at each other from a distance, I couldn’t bring myself to care about anybody else’s story but Grey’s.

We walkedfor five hours straight with barely any word. Shadow circled around us, the sound of his wings a melody in my head that soothed me, and no animal approached us. No animal threatened us. Sometimes he’d disappear for a couple of minutes and come back with blood on his jaws, and we’d know that he’d killed an animal who’d probably tried to sneak up on us. I felt safer by the hour and, even though Quinn was constantly looking over her shoulder and to the sides, focusing on the darkness of the trees around us, she seemed at ease, too. Much more than she had been in the beginning.

We passed another town on the way, this one much bigger than what I’d seen of the town near the castle. This onehugewith so much light from torches and big light bulbs hanging onto wires that zigzagged over rooftops on the wide streets. The buildings were bigger, too, and they had animals—horses that looked very much like normal horses, though I didn’t see any up close, pulling carriages. Faeries and skinwalkers and dragon riders and witches, every kind of Enchanted living together here in harmony. In fact, the wide streets and theshops and the food joints were so ordinary that I could have been fooled into thinking I was out there in the human world on a Tuesday night.

Quinn wanted to stop and get an ale because that fox meat she’d cooked over the flames and had eaten right in front of me while I tried not to throw my guts out was still in her system. I made it very clear the moment she hinted at it that it wasnotgoing to happen. Who knew how much time Grey had left in that place, wherever he was? I was not going to stop for ale when I could be on my way to Storm instead.

And Quinn didn’t argue. She just got us new bottles of water and we were on our way again, walking the edges of the town because as much as I wanted to explore the deeper parts of it that she told me about—the parks and the gaming square and the theater that was supposed to be mind-blowing in size alone—I didn’t dare. If someone saw me, if someone even suspected who I was, when Romin came to ask questions they’d tell him about me. They’d tell him they saw me. and he’d know where I was going. He’d get there before me just to stop me, no doubt.

The farther away from the castle we went, the colder it got, and though at first, I’d regretted taking that coat with me, I was glad for it by the next morning.

We lay down to rest when my legs refused to carry me anymore, on a low hill near a large tree that Quinn believed was safe enough. We’d see anyone approaching before they saw us, and we already knew that Shadow would be taking care of any animal that tried to attack us. Even when she made a small fire to warm herself up, Quinn was still shaking when we lay down on the ground, and it took a lot to convince her to come closer and warm herself under the coat.

Even when she did, she was rigid as a goddamn rock against me, like she was that uncomfortable being so close together. We lay back-to-back so that we both had a visual ofeither side of the woods, but sleep took me within seconds. I hadn’t been that exhausted in a long, long time.

And when I woke up again, I still felt like Grey was right there, just like last time. Impossible to shake the feeling that he was whispering my name right in my ear, no matter how senseless it seemed.

We’d slept for four hours according to Quinn’s watch, and nothing and nobody had approached us. Shadow was still there right over our heads on the branch, watching, and his mouth wasn’t bloody that I could see. He hadn’t killed anything, at least in the past hour, and he was as calm as always.

AndIwas rested enough to walk for another day straight if I had to.

“We’re here,” Quinn said, as she used a stick to draw lines in the ashes of the fire she’d made the night before—what was supposed to be a map. “This is Mount Agva.” She drew a triangle to the north. “We’ll be passing by another two towns to get there—Mercen and Ivea. From this point on”—she pointed her stick to the second town—“it will be new territory for me, too. I’ve never been past Ivea before, so I’m not sure about the best route to the mountain.” She scratched her cheek in wonder.

“I think we’ll be fine if we just follow the cold.” She said it herself that Mount Agva was the coldest place in the Woods, the only one that had snow.

“Oh, we’ll get there, all right. But I don’t know what’s close to that place or what to watch out for,” Quinn said.

I raised my head to look at Shadow.

“Buthewill.” If that little dragon had stuck with us until now, I had no doubt in my mind that he wasn’t going to leave my side until the very end. And if he was here, no other animal or man could get to us, at least without us hearing it first.

“Yep. I believe it. I mean, it’s a damn miracle that we’vecovered so much ground without getting attacked once. I haven’t even had to climb a tree yet,” she said. “I think I might open a business as a guide for the Whispering Woods. What do you say, Shadow? Will you be my partner?”

I smiled, shaking my head. “That sounds like a good idea, actually.”

“I’d make bank,” Quinn said, nodding her head. “Especially if I actuallysurvivethis trip.”

“You will. Of course, you will—you just said that nothing had atta?—”

“I mean, if I survive Mount Agva,” Quinn cut me off. “Ifwesurvive it. Shadow might be good at killing animals, but dragons are a different story, especially dragons ten times his size.”

I flinched. “I know.” I knew that very well. “Butyouare not going to come with me up that mountain, Quinn. I’ll be going to see Storm by myself.”

She snorted. “Yeah, right.”

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