I smiled at the image. “As long as I don’t have to wear a chain-mail bikini, I’m fine with that.”

“It’s a deal,” she said, holding out her hand for me to shake. “Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s time for this princess to get some sleep. Is there anything else you need before I abandon you?”

The list of things I needed would take an hour to recite, but I put on my bravest smile. “Nope, I’m good.”

“All right then. See you in the morning.”

Giving the couch a baleful look, I pried off my shoes and arranged the pillow and blanket as best I could. Then I climbed into my makeshift bed and tried not to think. I fell asleep before I could decide if the couch rated as torturously uncomfortable, or merely miserable.

The next time I woke up, there was no crisis, which made for a nice change. My neck and back were stiff and sore, and my head didn’t feel much clearer than it had when I’d first touched ground in London, but at least no one was kidnapping me and no monsters were attacking me.

Stretching in a vain attempt to work some of the kinks out, I stood up and headed toward the kitchen where various noises indicated Kimber was up.

I rounded the corner in time to see her pour some Cheerios into a bowl, and had to swallow a laugh. Who knew a Fae ice princess would eat something as mundane as Cheerios for breakfast?

I must have made some noise despite my effort to be quiet. Kimber turned and gave me a grumpy, first-thing-in-the-morning look.

“Want some?” she asked, shaking the cereal box.

My stomach growled its approval, and I nodded. I couldn’t help watching her out of the corner of my eye as I poured my cereal and doused it with milk and sugar. She moved with the uncanny grace of the Fae, but she looked far more human this morning than she had last night.

She was still naturally beautiful enough to make me feel like Ugly Betty by comparison, but her hair was tied up in a messy knot at the top of her head, and she was wearing faded flannel pajamas that looked like they were meant for a guy. I surreptitiously checked her feet for bunny slippers, but she wasn’t quite that human.

It was when I glanced at the clock over the stove that I nearly choked on my mouthful of cereal. It was almost noon. I couldn’t believe I’d slept that long.

“Ethan’ll be here around one,” Kimber told me. “Then we’ll take you out to conduct our … test.”

I swallowed hard. Ethan had said it wasn’t anything to be afraid of. But then again, he’d said I’d be safe in the cave last night, so he wasn’t what I’d call a reliable source. I stirred my Cheerios around in my bowl, my appetite gone.

Kimber pulled a sponge from the cabinet under the sink and used it to wash her bowl. I wasn’t surprised to find that she wasn’t the sort to leave dirty dishes lying around. She shot me a glance.

“It’s really no big deal, you know. The test.”

I nodded and tried to smile. But if I wasn’t going to trust Ethan’s word for it, I saw no reason why I should trust his sister’s.

Kimber pursed her lips. “You’re just going to look at something and tell us what you see. Real simple. Okay?”

I can’t say I was convinced, but I dropped the subject anyway. “Can I ask you a question?”

Her lips twitched in an almost-smile. “Apparently so.”

Har-dee-har-har. “Do people in Avalon always carry knives and guns around?” I remembered the shock of seeing Jason draw a gun and wondered for the umpteenth time what I’d gotten myself into.

Kimber thought about that question for a moment before she answered. I wondered what she’d decided to leave out.

“It’s not what I would call common practice,” she said. “But we are the Student Underground, and Avalon politics can get cutthroat. Literally. If we didn’t have Ethan, we might not scare anyone enough for them to bother us. But Jason wasn’t lying when he said Ethan is a prodigy. He can do amazing things now, and it’s scary to think what he’ll be like when he’s older and has more experience.” She made a sour-lemon face—inferiority complex, anyone?—before she continued.

“He’ll be a force to be reckoned with someday, and some people might prefer to reckon with him now while they still can. So he’s single-handedly made our Underground into a threat, and the rest of us are at risk by association. And that’s why we make a habit of always being armed.”

“Aren’t there, like, gun laws or something?”

She laughed. “We radicals like to think of laws as more of ‘guidelines.’ Besides, I’d rather risk someone going all technical on me about carrying a concealed weapon than be unarmed when attacked by Spriggans.”

She was being real chatty this morning, despite her obviously edited answers. I figured as long as she kept answering my questions, I’d keep asking them. “So are there a lot of Spriggan attacks in Avalon?”

I’d stopped eating my cereal, even though there were some milk-sodden O’s left in the bottom of the bowl. Kimber took the bowl from my hand and washed it while she talked.

“Not usually. Only the humanoid Fae are allowed into Avalon, though it’s a lot harder to keep Fae creatures out than it is to keep humans out. The border on the Fae side doesn’t have the kind of immigration system that you humans do.” A frown furrowed her forehead. “But the Spriggans would only take orders from Unseelie Fae. I can’t imagine why any of the Unseelie power players would want to attack our Student Underground. We’re known to favor an Unseelie candidate.”

“Maybe they were after me, ” I suggested. After all, everyone kept telling me I was in mortal danger. “Aunt Grace was attacked yesterday, and she said she thought her attackers were after me.”

Kimber raised an eyebrow at me. “She was attacked, you say?” There was no missing the skepticism in her voice.

“That’s what she said. And she had this big bruise on her face.”

Kimber snorted. “I bet you she was faking it. Even I have enough magic to heal a bruise. My guess is she was trying to scare you into doing what she wanted.”

“I wouldn’t put it past her,” I mumbled. “But even if that was all a big, fat lie, the Spriggans could have been after me, right?”

Kimber shook her head. “They couldn’t have known where you were or that you were with us. No, they were after Ethan, and the rest of us were just in the way.”

Does it make me a bad person that I was glad they were after Ethan instead of me?

I could have easily kept asking her questions till the sun went down, but Kimber had apparently had enough.

“I can lend you something to wear if you want to throw your clothes in the wash,” she said, striding out of the kitchen, which now looked as neat and pristine as if no one had eaten there for a week.

“It would have been nice if you and Ethan had grabbed my bags when you kidnapped me,” I grumbled. At five foot six, I wasn’t exactly a midget, but Kimber was much taller. I didn’t think I’d fit into her clothes real well.

She looked me up and down with an appraising eye. “I have some capris that should be just about right on you.”

Kimber was wrong. The capris didn’t look right on me—they looked like capris that were too long. But at least they weren’t the same clothes I’d slept in. With the pants, Kimber lent me a long-sleeved T-shirt. Good thing it had elastic cuffs; otherwise the sleeves would have swallowed my hands whole.

It was a gray and gloomy day when Kimber and I headed out to the courtyard to meet up with Ethan. Occasional splats of rain dripped from the clouds, but neither of the Fae seemed to think a raincoat or umbrella was necessary. I shivered in the damp chill and pulled the long sleeves over my hands after all.

Ethan must have noticed me shivering, because he stepped up beside me and threw an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to his side.

I froze. I know it’s not really a big deal to have a guy put his arm around you, but still … Ethan wasn’t just any guy. He was a guy who’d make the most gorgeous human in history look ordinary. Plus he was Fae. Plus he was older than me.