The Wingsnatchers by Sarah Jean Horwitz

Author:Sarah Jean Horwitz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2017-03-30T04:00:00+00:00

14.

MEN IN BLACK

Grit finally managed to bargain her way out of Madame Euphemia’s claustrophobic sitting room with the promise that she would go straight to the Moto-Manse, but there wasn’t much to do there besides wait for Carmer to return. She entertained herself by making the model train zoom around the room until sparks flew out from the tracks, shooting the little bolts of energy that flowed, almost naturally now, from her fingertips through its insides. She tried coming up with ideas for the third and final round of the Symposium, but it was impossible to settle on anything; she didn’t know enough about Carmer’s kind of magic to put together something magical and plausible on her own.

She finally lay down on top of Carmer’s desk, watching the planets in his model solar system make their slow journey around the plaster sun, and just for a moment, she let herself feel homesick. Staring at the colored spheres until they blurred in front of her eyes, she could almost imagine they were the colors of the Arboretum—the lush green of the grass in spring, the blue roses in full bloom, the fiery leaves at their autumn peak just before the real cold of winter set in. Everything would be nearly brown and sleeping by now, though. (Humans might even say “dead,” but the fae knew better.)

There were things Grit didn’t miss about living in the castle, of course. Like her mother’s constant scolding, or worse—the times when Ombrienne ignored Grit, retreating into cold silence and disappointment. Grit would climb to the very top of the Great Willow, where not even the armored crickets or Bressel would follow her, and look out into the kingdom—her kingdom—wishing for nothing more than to be able to fly away from it all.

Grit had thought her outings with Ravene and Remus were exciting adventures, but now she was in the middle of a real one, and it was far more dangerous than she’d ever imagined. The fate of her kingdom was in her hands and the hands of a strange human boy, and her people had no idea.

But she’d faced the Wingsnatchers—poor, “defenseless” little Grit—and survived. She and Carmer could best the beasts yet, she was sure of it now. She’d discovered a power she didn’t even know she possessed, all because an oddball human boy thought she could work miracles.

Felix Cassius Tiberius Carmer III. His social ineptitude and frequent thickheadedness baffled her, but she had to admit that if she couldn’t have run into a Friend of the Fae in the alley that day, she was glad to have run into him. He’d come in pretty handy against the Autocats, after all. Now he was walking into the dragon’s lair . . . but Grit refused to admit that she was worried about him. Wallowing in homesickness was quite enough wasted feeling for one day, thank you very much.

Grit blinked, bringing the spinning planets once more into focus. She heard a footfall on the stair and scrambled off Carmer’s desk.

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