Page 28 of Forgotten Monsters
“I know you don’t like me, Hawks, but this is a lot to take in. You’re basically telling me I missed a decade of my life.”
“It wasn’t that long for me, either.” A tightness at the corner of her mouth tells me she’s annoyed with me again, the joy of theWinslows-are-alivenews slowly eroding in the face of all my questions.
I don’t care. I need answers, and time to process them.
“Where am I?” I skim the pieces for a blond woman. “I’d be a stupid white pawn, I guess.” The line of white pawns glares back at me, one of them with blue hair and a half-buzzed cut. Olson.
She spares me a wistful look. “You’re not on the board, yet.”
“Mm.”
The blacks have a king, too, with my sister’s effigy. Her hair is thick with purple highlights, but she’s definitely the king. Fire forms a halo above her head. And the queen on this side is…Cole, I realize. The dark ringlets and the wings leave no room for interpretation.
I point at the two pieces. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
“Why?” Her brush pauses in mid-air. ”The queen protects the king. And as long as the king is safe, this side—” she motions to the black side of the chess board—“can win.”
“But you thought Jules was dead.”
“Actually, I was the only one who came to think she wasn’t, but my powers scarcely make sense, so no one would believe me.”
I touch the pieces one by one. A few of them, I don’t recognize, but Deveraux is there, a tower for the blacks, and I find Dad, Lydia, Onyx—even Trent—standing on Jule’s side.
If Jules was taken by the Fae patrol as Lydia suggested, she needs my help. I can’t afford to spiral, but I can’t help but pick up Daniel’s piece.
The golden-red dragon stands in the space of a white knight, and I hold back a nervous cackle. Daniel’s not a knight, but in the game of political chess, he’s certainly a powerful, elusive piece. His moves are certainly not as predictable as the others. Two unicorns form the knights on the blacks’ side.
“Where is Daniel—I mean Oz? Is he still headmaster?”
“Your two-faced ex is at a party tonight.” She bites her bottom lip, the silence between us stretching into awkwardness until her gaze meets mine, her tone an octave lower than it was before. “It’s actually his engagement party.”
I dig my nails into the table, my whole body stiff. “Engagement to whom?” If a decade passed since I “died,” I shouldn’t be surprised, but electricity sparks in my hair.
Lydia picks up one of the white tower piece, a woman with brown hair and blood splatters that taint her white dress, and angles it to me. “Melanie Darkwood.”
11
FIRE AND THORNS
Ants of thunder crawl along my arms. A dark cloud quite literally follows my every move. All those days on the boat, holding my frustrations in, and now I’m…unleashed. Unhinged. I want to shatter Oz with a lightning rod, expose him for the liar that he is, and dance over his ashes.
Lydia seems oblivious to my fury—or eager to change the subject. “If Jules was taken by the Fae, Flynn will contact us soon.”
The mention of the obnoxiously beautiful, maverick Fae intrudes on my thoughts, more sudden and unsettling than a bee sting. “Flynn?”
“He helps us with the force fields to contain the hollows here so they don’t slip into Faerie. We trade information,” Lydia explains.
“Excuse me if I’m not on board with leaving my sister’s fate in Flynn Verinos’ hands.” Disbelief thick in my voice, I give her the stink eye.
Deveraux clears her throat loudly behind me, luring me away from the puddle of regrets and humiliation threatening to drown me like quicksand.
I crane my neck around to look at my professor and almost topple over.
Barron stares up at the suspended chandelier with a puzzled expression on his face. With his arms crossed over his broad chest, he looks gigantic.
I grip the back of my chair. “What are you doing here?”
He doesn’t look away from the ceiling, tilting his head from one side to the other like he can’t quite understand how the physics of wax and fire work. “Rose invited me.”
