The Last Changeling by Chelsea Pitcher Read Free Book Online Page B

“Lady! How can you speak of such things? I cannot imagine anything more vile. To think of faeries and mortals … together —”
    â€œForgive me.” I tore my eyes away from the window. “Consider it a slip of the tongue.”
    â€œI will do my best. Now, tell me your plan to seek out this corrupted mortal.”
    â€œI’m not going to seek him out. I’m going to make him come to me.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œHow do you smoke out a tyrant?” I smiled, returning my gaze to the night. “You threaten his reign.”

8
    T aylo R
    Monday morning, I was supposed to meet Lora outside the school office at quarter to eight. We’d come up with some ridiculous story about my cell phone falling in a toilet to explain why I needed to use the office phone. But plans like this require more than perfect timing; they require luck, and mine had apparently run out.
    First, Lora refused to ride in my car. Something about the metal frame made her feel sick. In the end, we decided she’d walk and I’d drive, to keep up appearances. I didn’t want Mom stopping by my bedroom to ask if my car had broken down.
    Then my car actually did break down—that is, it stalled twice before I made it out of the driveway.
    Needless to say, all of our carefully laid plans went to hell before I even set foot in Unity High. But hey, that didn’t stop me from sprinting down the halls (risking the dreaded referral) and almost yanking the office door off its hinges. Doris, the lavender-haired secretary of innumerable years, looked up at me like I’d lost my mind. My arm was aching from pulling the door. But none of that compared to the feeling of my heart dropping like an anvil at the sight of Brad Dickson touching Lora’s arm.
    You’ve got to be kidding me .
    She smiled up at him.
    Please let me be dreaming.
    But no, I was fully awake, and Brad was looking at Lora like she was a hot spring he couldn’t wait to jump into.
    â€œHey, buddy,” he said to me, taking a piece of paper from Doris’s hand. A schedule? “What’s up? You wet your pants or something?”
    â€œYeah, and I was going to borrow a pair from Doris, but t hen I remembered I don’t like purple.”
    Brad narrowed his eyes. “What?” Under normal circumstances, he’d have jumped at the chance to call me a “fairy,” but these weren’t normal circumstances, were they? The fact that Lora hadn’t socked him yet was proof enough of that.
    â€œI thought I forgot something in here,” I mumbled, following them out of the office. Lora flashed me a grin. We’d managed to put together an outfit from my grandma’s old ’60s jeans and a shirt from my mom’s Victorian phase. Lora had been very explicit about wanting to fit in.
    She should have looked normal. I guess she would have if I didn’t know otherwise. But since I did know, every glance reminded me of the secret we held between us. And that, for the moment, was enough to keep me from hating Brad. Looking at her, I couldn’t hate anybody.
    I didn’t let myself consider what that meant.
    â€œSorry, man,” Brad said in a way that implied he was anything but sorry. “I’m being rude. This is Lora.” He said her name like he was running his tongue all over it. “I get to show her around.”
    â€œI’m Taylor.” I held out a hand to her. It struck me as both odd and funny that I’d never actually shaken her bare hand. Sure, we’d slept in the same room for the past two nights, but still, the handshake felt intimate. It was like we were starting over from a different place.
    I liked it.
    â€œHello, Taylor,” Lora said, holding my gaze. For a second, the locker-lined hallway faded. All I could see was a pool of white light surrounding her like a halo.
    â€œNice to meet you,” I said softly, taking a step closer. I wanted to bask in the