Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception by Maggie Stiefvater Read Free Book Online

strange unspoken agreement. He pretended to be normal, and I pretended I believed him. I wanted to believe him. But I couldn’t. What brand of abnormal, I wasn’t sure yet. I just hoped it didn’t involve axes, gags, and the trunk of a car.
    Outside, the air looked wavy and greasy as it came up from the asphalt. The heat hung heavy in the tree tops, weighing down the leaves so that the only movement was that of automobiles, roaring slowly past them on the two-lane road. It was a day to do nothing practical, summer at its most stifling.
    “Here,” I said unnecessarily, and Luke turned into the parking lot of Dave’s Ice. It felt like I’d pulled into the lot a million times before. In a lot of ways, I’d learned more here than I had at school.
    Luke looked at the squat, concrete-block building and parked in one of the shaded spots at the back of the lot. “Why is it called Dave’s Ice?”
    “Well, they used to sell just ice to people, way back in the old days, before fridges, I guess. Then, ice, now, ice cream. Makes sense, doesn’t it? A sort of logical leap?”
    “Do you like it?”
    I was taken aback by the question. I didn’t remember anyone ever asking me that question about anything before. “I do. This’ll sound dumb, but I love making all the scoops perfect. You know, center the hot fudge, just the right number of swirls to the whipped cream, sprinkles go on in the right order so they stick perfectly …” I stopped, because he was laughing. “What?”
    “So you’re saying you’ve been a perfectionist for quite a while, then.”
    “Oh, shut up,” I told him crossly. “Are we getting ice cream or not?”
    He turned off the car, seemingly unfazed by my tone. “I’ve never seen anyone get angry as quickly as you. Come along, my frosty queen.”
    “I’m not frosty,” I protested, but I got out and followed him across the parking lot. The heat rose off the blacktop, burning my feet through the soles of my shoes. “I am curious, though.”
    Luke’s face was inscrutable. He stepped onto one of the painted lines in the lot, carefully moving along it. I stepped onto it after him, my steps as measured as a gymnast’s, as if it were a balance beam and I might fall to my death.
    “Curious about four-leaf clovers,” I persisted. “About them being good luck. And other things, you said. What other things are they good for?”
    “Feeding horses?”
    Jerk. He couldn’t hint at things and then play hard to get. It wasn’t fair. “What else ?”
    His voice was level. “Scaring snakes.”
    “What else?”
    “Curing scorpion bites.”
    “What else?”
    “Seeing faeries,” Luke said. He jumped from the painted line up onto the sidewalk. “Phew. Made it.” Then he took my hand and tugged me up after him. “Now stop being so clever and let’s get some ice cream.”
    I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. I stopped outside the door. “Clever how?”
    He wagged a finger at me. “It’s what I like about you. You listen. You watch. It’s how you learned to do everything so well, while everyone else talked over top of everyone else. Now, would you please stop riddling me for half a moment so we can get some ice cream?”
    I relented, though my heart thumped as he led me into the frigid air-conditioning. Not normal. Not ordinary. I knew I should be running back home this second, but I was stuck. Stuck as stuck, Luke would say.
    As he looked at the menu board, I said, “I never thought I’d be the sort that went for bad boys.”
    Luke didn’t look at me, but he smiled widely, the biggest smile he’d worn all day. “No more riddling, remember? What’s good here?”
    I’d eaten enough ice cream in place of meals to answer immediately. “Chocolate Dream.”
    Sara Madison, a wine-bottle-shaped redhead who occasionally worked with me, was at the counter. She looked at Luke with considerable interest. “Can I help you?”
    He politely asked for two Chocolate Dream cones and Sara, with