Page 1 of Faerie Trials

1

Ionce more found myself staring at a small, molting Christmas tree that looked like a definite fire hazard…and wondering how I’d gotten to this place.

Except unlike the last one, this tree was alive—well, more like only half dead. It was December again, come all too quickly and bringing the Faerie holiday of Yule along with it.

The little evergreen tree had no pretensions in terms of ornaments or lights or decoration. Someone had magicked the limbs to stay in place and the fake snow to fall in a continual stream from the empty air above the decoration.

Yikes. The snow didn’t really help.

“You’ve had a rough six months, haven’t you, Miss Alderidge?”

I jolted at the sound of my guidance counselor’s voice, and turned my attention to the Fae woman staring at me from behind a desk carved out of an old tree stump.

Miss Wicks tapped a long, spindly finger against the desk. Sure, she had a beard, but otherwise she seemed a perfectly nice lady. The beard and the spider web-like consistency of her hair went hand in hand, as did the rest of her, which more resembled the bark of a tree than actual human skin. I didn’t know what kind of Fae she was and didn’t have the nerve to ask her.

“Your classes are getting the better of you and your first full semester nearly did you in. You failed in the Solstice Games…” Wicks trailed off, glancing down at the paper in front of her as though checking to see she hadn’t made a mistake about my terrible performance. No mistake. “Yes, absolutely, abysmally failed.”

I wanted to shrink into my seat a little further with each word.

Selene thinks I was failed on purpose, I thought bitterly. Somehow, the nosy reporter dogging my every move during the Games became not only an ally but a friend. Did I trust her completely? That would be a hardno. Did I think she had a point about me being failed on purpose? I did.

Not that I would tell Wicks about our association. There was enough suspicion swirling around me already.

“Yes, it’s been exhausting trying to keep up,” I ended up saying to the guidance counselor.

Wicks nodded. “Exhausting is one word for it, certainly.”

She and I were in complete agreement then because honestly, it was true. The first semester at the Elite Academy in Faeriehadnearly killed me. If I had anywhere else in the realm to go, I would have packed up my bags and bolted in seconds, leaving behind the heavy workload, the bullying from the pure-blood Fae, and my forced after-school work in the palace kitchen.

It was just before New Year’s Eve and my second semester at the Elite Academy of Faerie was poised to begin. More like it loomed, a giant mushroom cloud on the horizon, and I wanted to hide my face. Ostriches with their heads in the sand may have the right idea there, I thought.

Wicks was still speaking: “…accused of murder, and then fleeing the realm on a kidnapping claim. Of all the crazy things for you to do, Miss Alderidge! I’d like to think you should have known better, but then again I’m simply not sure.” She fixed me with a hard stare. “I suppose no one knows you well enough to make a case for you.”

I thought back to the tracking device the King of Faerie had forced me to wear after the whole murder debacle. It had been taken off before the new school semester began, but the humiliation still stung over having had to wear a tracking device. Still stung over how I’d been the prime suspect. Little ol’ me accused of harming someone, even a ridiculously dramatic gypsy like Madam Muerte? It was insane.

Odder still was the fact that I could now think about murder without batting an eyelash or breaking a sweat.

What has my life become?

“The kidnapping was real,” I insisted. “And I had nothing to do with Madam Muerte’s demise.”

Miss Wicks gave me a shrewd look. “As you claim. No one here witnessed the alleged kidnapping, or the fight you claim to have overheard the night of the murder.”

It had been right after the Solstice Carnival, when the famed gypsy palm reader and tarot card reader had delivered a death blow of a premonition about how I would bring about the end of the world. Me. Destroyer of realms.

Yeah, let that sink in.

And as if that weren’t enough, I remembered how Mike had danced with me at the Solstice Ball. How Michael Thornwood, the Crown Prince of Faerie, had whisked me off into the gardens around the palace and kissed me.

Kissedme.

The whole world had slowed down and narrowed around us and there was only the feeling of his lips against mine. And like all good things in my life, the steamy make-out session was cut short by events beyond my control: an argument, a scream, and death.

It was I who discovered the body—I was starting to think it one of my best skills—and unfortunately, the palace guard found me hovering over Madam Muerte’s lifeless corpse. He had jumped to his own conclusions about me and the king had followed along with the man’s unfounded suspicions. Thus I was the prime suspect in the murder of Madam Muerte.

My stomach sank again at the memory, as it did every time.

No witnesses to the crime, no real suspects, yet they’d frothed at the mouth to put the blame on me because I was new and an interloper, only recently granted citizenship to Faerie and not yet a part of their realm. Not really.

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