Page 3 of Dark Sun (Wicked Lovely 6)

That was the goal, though. It was what her mother insisted she must do. Live a lie. Pretend. Act like she was just another human girl. Katherine could watch them from the safety of the window, as long as she avoided eye contact. She mustn't reveal herself. If she failed, they moved. It was that simple.

She'd failed quite a few times in her twenty-four years.

So far they'd lived in nine states before New Mexico. She remembered five of them: North Carolina, South Dakota, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. These days, the family was living in No Name, Somewhere in the Southwestern Desert. Somewhere, New Mexico.

Okay, technically, there wasprobablya name, but Katherine hadn't been inclined to bother learning it. Why bother when they were inevitably going to move again?

"Kit!" Her aunt stood in the doorway, not seeing, not knowing. Outside the window, something luminous slithered into the tree. Palo Verde tree. That name she did know. Literally, it meant "green tree" or "green stick." The tree itself was prettier than it sounded, especially right now when it was lit up by some fey thing glowing like it held the moon inside its body.

Katherine wanted to go out, to ask questions, to figure out where she fit. Instead, she turned her back to the faerie and smiled at her aunt.

Aunt Ida, of course, could not see the glowing thing in the tree.Shedidn't have the Sight. Most humans didn't.

"Yes, Aunt Ida?"

"You should not stay so late,twilight is not good for maidens," Aunt Ida said with the sort of tone that made quite clear that she was quoting something or other again.

Ida had been a librarian, an English teacher, a traveling musician, and any number of assorted jobs. For a while she worked making carnival masks and a few years back, she assisted a rock collector in the field. Being stationary was never something Aunt Ida did for very long, so tagging along with Katherine and her mother was easier for her than meandering alone.

I want to meander alone.

"I don't remember that one," Katherine admitted to her aunt.

"Rossetti, dear." Ida smiled and opened her mouth as if to continue.

"Right. Rossetti," Katherine said before her aunt could continue.

She couldn't love anyone more than she loved her aunt, but that didn't mean she was up for another rousing night of poetry recitation. Ida knew every bit of literature or song or film or art exhibit on the fey. Okay, maybe notallof them, but the significant or semi-accurate ones. Katherine thought Rossetti had somehow had more of a clue than the average mortal.

"I shouldn't linger in the 'glen' or take fruits from strangers. Got it," Katherine said.

The poem was a little too overt, especially with something fey outside the window. The last thing anyone wanted was to have a faery snatch Ida. She might romanticize them, and maybe Katherine did, too, but she remembered her father's warnings too: most fey things weren't like him. They were twisted in ways that made sadists look stable. At the best case, they'd leave you longing for something,someone, you couldn't keep--which was curable only if the faery in question died. If her father had left but were still alive, Katherine’s mother would wither and die.

Of course, if he'd been so foolish as to try to leave them, Katherine was fairly certain her mother would've slid a long steel blade into his belly. Octavia Miller wasn't exactly a weak woman. It was more than a little intimidating to be her kid sometimes. Arguing with her was pointless. Outsmarting her was just about as likely as outfighting her.

Aunt Ida, however, was a curious mix of fluttering skirts and trailing scarves mixed with a liberal dash of willingness to get into the muck and mud. Mom was all muck, no flutter.

Katherine was still trying to figure out whatshewas.

Pulling her out of her thoughts, Ida said, "It's late, and it's just us tonight, so . . . can we close up?"

Dusk was not late by anyone's definition, but the euphemisms were necessary. They lived with the express goal of the fey neverknowing who and what she was, that Katherine wasn't as human as her mother or aunt, that she could see them and hear them, that she was developing more and more traits that hinted at her father's lineage . . . it was frightening to Aunt Ida in a way that few things were.

On the other hand, it was exciting to Katherine—to be magical, to bemorethan a secret hidden in nameless towns across the nation. It was one of those things that made her wish time would hurry up a bit.

"I'll roll the shutters down tonight," Katherine offered.

It was a test, a sort of endurance game to see if she'd still be able to roll the steel blinds over the window. Steel, because of its iron component, was potentially deadly to the fey. As Katherine became increasingly fey, it stung to touch steel. Tonight, it hurt like she imagined touching a still hot kettle would hurt, not yet burning flesh but closer than comfortable.

Aunt Ida watched as Katherine steadied her expressions. She had to be able to fake being human.

Hiding the pain wasn't a lie, just an omission.

"Hands."

Reluctantly, Katherine held them out, palms up. "I'm fine."

Her aunt shook her head. "You can still lie to me. That's something."

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