“This shit is crazy,” Leonie said. “This is not normal Fairfold weird. Not tourist weird. It’s actually fucked-up-and-not-okay weird. Amanda’s family’s always lived here; she’s supposed to be protected. People are freaking out. And I’m repeating the rumor because I thought you’d want to know. I’m not broadcasting it all over school.”
Hazel took a few calming breaths. Snapping at Leonie wasn’t helping anything. “Sorry. It’s just that none of the stuff that goes on in the woods is okay, not the tourist stuff, not any of it. And I don’t see what Amanda’s being unconscious has to do with Jack at all.”
“Well, I think it comes from two facts: Firstly, Jack’s one of them. And secondly, Amanda broke Jack’s heart, which is tragic because it means that even a supernatural hottie has the same generic taste as every other idiot in this school. I think he liked her even more than he used to like you, and that’s saying something. But it does give him a motive.”
Hazel rolled her eyes. “Me? You must be thinking of someone else. Jack Gordon was never into me.”
Leonie shook her head. “Whatever, the point is, he’s not human and people know it. Remember when he broke Matt’s nose?”
“I guess,” Hazel said, slamming her locker shut. She was having difficulty with the whole staying-calm thing. “Matt is supernaturally annoying, if that’s your point.”
The bell rang and they both started down the hallway in the direction of their first-period classes. They had about five minutes before the second bell. Hazel wondered if Jack or Carter knew about the rumors. If they did, she hoped they stayed home from school until all this blew over. Everyone was just scared, that was all, and Jack made a convenient target. No one would ever believe Carter had anything to do with this, not for long. And they’d get over thinking it was Jack, too, just as soon as they thought things through.
At least Hazel hoped they would.
“I was there,” Leonie said. “The fight with Matt got weird. The kind of weird that people remember.”
Matt Yosco was about three years older than Hazel and Leonie, handsome, with jet-black hair and a constant sneer. Matt had been Leonie’s worst habit, worse than cigarettes or weed, worse than any wastrel any of the rest of them had ever dated. He’d been the kind of cruel that insinuated itself into your head, making you doubt yourself, and Hazel had hated him. He was one of the few cute boys in town she’d never even considered kissing. Despite being so awful, when he moved away for college, Leonie had cried for a week straight.
“Weird how?” Hazel asked. They were standing in front of her American History room, but she wasn’t ready to go inside. Her heart was racing. It felt as though Severin’s being released from his casket had been the first domino to fall, but she still didn’t know the pattern its falling produced. And if Severin wasn’t the first domino, then she knew even less.
“Jack didn’t punch Matt.” Leonie glanced to one side, as if she was afraid of being overheard. “Matt was being his usual awful self, then Jack—well, Jack smiled this really weird smile, leaned over, and whispered in his ear. The next thing we knew, Matt was hitting himself. Like, really going to town, slamming his fist into his own face, until his lip was cut and blood was streaming from his nose.”
Hazel had no idea what to say to that. “How come you never—”
“Said anything? I don’t know. Later, Matt seemed to remember it like it was a fistfight, so I just went along with that. It seemed easier. Other people were there, though, and even if they didn’t say anything before, they’re going to talk now. And that can’t be the only time Jack slipped up. There’s stuff about him that he’s not exactly forthcoming about, I guess is all I’m saying. He has secrets. He can do things.”
The bell went off, making Hazel jolt.
“I should have told you before,” Leonie said softly.
“Ms. Evans,” Mr. DeCampo, her balding teacher, called. “Standing directly outside my door and gossiping with your friend is not the same as being in class, so I suggest that you get to your desk immediately. Ms. Wallace, you are beyond late. I suggest that you run.”
“You’re a good friend,” Hazel told Leonie.
“I know,” Leonie said, making a face in Mr. DeCampo’s direction. “See you at lunch.”
At her desk, Hazel opened a notebook. But instead of taking notes on the major domestic issues of the Federalist era, Hazel began to list what she knew. She liked lists. They were comfortingly straightforward, even when they were full of crazy stuff, like:
WARNINGS:
SEVEN YEARS TO PAY YOUR DEBTS MUCH TOO LATE FOR REGRETS.
AINSEL name of faerie enchanting me?
The weird story about the farmer tricking the boggart.
FULL MOON OVERHEAD; BETTER GO STRAIGHT TO BED.
OTHER INFO:
Jack has magic he’s hiding.
Severin is loose and super scary.
I’m the one who freed him.
Even scarier monster is hunting for Severin and maybe put Amanda into an enchanted sleep.
Severin knows all the stuff we said in front of him.
Someone (the Alderking? because of bargain?) is making me do stuff I don’t remember after I go to sleep. (Or did at least once.)
Severin needs a magic sword called Heart-something for unknown and possibly sinister reasons. (To kill the thing that put Amanda to sleep? To fight back against the Alderking? To kill us all?)
My old sword is gone same sword???
Then she stopped. The idea that the sword she’d found all those years ago was the one he’d been looking for had occurred to her before, but she hadn’t really let herself dwell on it. If so, either someone took the sword or she’d handed it over to someone. Maybe to the person who’d left her the notes. Maybe the mysterious Ainsel?
Had she made a second bargain with the Folk? One that she could no longer recall? Was her forgetting part of the condition of the bargain? She pressed her pen against the page so hard that the shaft started to bend.
She needed answers. To get them, she needed to find someone with more information, which, unfortunately, meant one of the Folk. She thought of her dream from the night before and of the full moon that was going to rise that night, which meant a revel. Maybe Jack, with all his secrets, would know the way there. And then all she had to do was survive the revel, get the information, make a plan, and then survive the plan.
No problem.
She shifted on the hard plastic chair of her desk, figuring out what she could say to Jack to persuade him to tell her about the revel. After class, she waited at his locker, but he didn’t show; and when she went by his next-period class, he wasn’t there. She was too distracted to take a single note; and when she was called on in Language Arts, she gave the answer to a trigonometry question from the period before, making everyone laugh.
It took Hazel until just before lunch to find him.
Jack was walking down the hall with Carter. She wasn’t close enough to hear much of what he was saying, but Carter sounded angry. She caught the words with me last and suspect. Jack was hunched over, looking exhausted. There was a purpling bruise coming up along his cheekbone. She wondered how much today had already sucked for him.
She wondered how much worse she was about to make it.
“Jack,” Hazel called, before she could lose her nerve.
He turned, and his smile was real enough that she felt somewhat better. At least until she saw how red and watery his eyes were, as though irritated by all the charms and oils, because any protection from faeries must work against him. Then she saw how raw Carter’s knuckles looked. Blood was drying across them. There must have been a fight.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” she asked, weaving her way to Jack through the tide of the hallway.
Carter gave him a playful shove in Hazel’s direction. “Go on, then. Don’t keep the girl waiting.” Hazel wondered what she’d done to get on Carter’s good side.
Jack looked a little embarrassed. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”
They matched their steps to each other’s. He had on a striped cardigan over a worn Afropunk festival T-shirt. Heavy silver hoops shone in his ears. He tried to hold on to the smile for her, but it sat in odd contrast to the rest of his expression.
“You okay?” she asked, clutching her books to her chest.
He sighed. “I just wish Carter didn’t have to deal with this. You probably heard it all already, but just in case, he didn’t do anything to her.”
Hazel started to protest that she already knew that.
He shook his head. “And I didn’t, either. I swear it, Hazel—”
“Listen,” she interrupted. “I really do know it wasn’t him. Or you. I saw Amanda last night with the horned boy.”
“What?” His brows went up, and he stopped looking eager to convince her of Carter’s innocence. “How?”
“I told the police, but I don’t know if it matters,” she said. “And I’m sorry to have to ask you this on top of everything else, but I need to know where the Folk hold their full-moon revel. Can you help me?”