I didn’t have to ask Mom whether she’d driven, because the minute we stepped outside, I could see our car, parked so crookedly it had taken up about three spaces. I said a silent prayer of thanks that she hadn’t managed to kill anyone.

I held out my hand to her. “Keys.”

She sniffed and tried to look dignified. Hard to do when she had to clutch the railing to keep from falling headfirst down the steps that led to the parking lot. “I am perfectly capable of driving,” she informed me.

Anger burned in my chest, but I knew exactly how much good it would do me to explode, no matter how much I wanted to. If I could just keep pretending to be calm and reasonable, I could get her into the passenger seat and out of the public eye much faster. The last thing I wanted was to have a big shouting fight scene right here in front of everybody. Mom had given them enough to talk about already.

“Let me drive anyway,” I said. “I need the practice.” If she’d been even marginally sober, she’d have heard the banked fury in my voice, but as it was, she was oblivious. But she handed over the keys, which was a relief.

I drove home, my hands clutching the wheel with a white-knuckled grip as I fought to hold myself together. My mom was in the middle of gushing over my performance when the booze finally got the best of her and she conked out. I was grateful for the silence, though I knew from experience it would be quite a production to get her out of the car and into the house in her condition.

When I pulled into our driveway and contemplated the task ahead, I realized that I couldn’t live like this any longer. Nothing could possibly be worse than living with my mother, constantly lying for her, trying to cover up that she was passed out drunk when she was supposed to be meeting with my teachers or driving me to some off-campus event. Ever since I could remember, I’d lived in mortal fear that my friends at school—what friends I managed to have when we moved around so much, that is—would find out about her and decide I was some kind of freak by association. A fear that, unfortunately, I’d found out the hard way was not unfounded.

I’d been the adult in this family since I was about five, and now it was time for me to take my life into my own hands. I was going to contact my father and, unless I got some kind of vibe that said he really was an abusive pervert, I was going to go live with him. In Avalon. In the Wild City that was the crossroads between our world and Faerie, the city where magic and technology coexisted in something resembling peace. Even in Avalon, I figured, I’d have a better, more normal life than I had now with my mom.

I’ve never been so wrong about anything in my life.

My palms were sweaty and my heart was in my throat as my plane made its descent into London. I could hardly believe I was really doing this, hardly believe I had found the courage to run away from home. I wiped my palms on my jeans and wondered if Mom had figured out I was gone yet. She’d been sleeping off one hell of a binge when I’d left the house, and sometimes she could sleep for twenty-four hours straight at times like that. I wished I could be a fly on the wall when she found the note I’d left her. Maybe losing me would finally turn on the lightbulb over her head and she’d stop drinking. But I wasn’t holding my breath.

I’d had no trouble finding and contacting my father. Mom would never have dreamed of telling me his name when she was sober, and he wasn’t listed on my birth certificate, but all it had taken were a couple of probing questions when she was in one of her drunk, chatty moods to find out his name was Seamus Stuart. The Fae, she confided, didn’t use last names in Faerie, but those who lived in Avalon had adopted the practice for the convenience of the human population.

In the grand scheme of things, Avalon is tiny, its population less than 10,000, so when I’d gone online and brought up the Avalon phone book, I’d had no trouble finding my father—he was the only Seamus Stuart listed. And when I called and asked him if he knew anyone by my mother’s name, he readily admitted he’d had a girlfriend of that name once, so I knew that I’d found the right guy.

Before that first conversation was over, he had already asked me to come to Avalon for a visit. He’d even sprung for a first-class plane ticket into London. And never once had he asked to talk to my mom, nor had he asked if I had her permission to come visit him. I’d been surprised by that at first, but then I figured she’d been right that if he could have found me, he’d have spirited me away to Avalon without a second thought. Don’t look the gift horse in the mouth, I reminded myself.

The plane hit the tarmac with a jarring thud. I took a deep breath to calm myself. It would be hours still before I would actually meet my father. Being a native of Faerie, he couldn’t set foot in the mortal world. (If he’d decided to kidnap me, he’d have had to use human accomplices to do it.) The unique magic of Avalon is that the city exists both in Faerie and in the mortal world—the only place where the two planes of existence overlap. When my father stood at the border of the city and looked out, all he could see was Faerie, and if he crossed the border, those of us in the mortal world wouldn’t be able to see him anymore.

He’d arranged to have a human friend of his meet me at the London airport and take me to Avalon. Only when I got through Avalon immigration would I be able to meet him.

I went through the immigration and customs process in London in something of a daze. I’d been too excited and nervous to sleep on the plane, and it was definitely catching up with me now. I followed the herd to the ground transportation area and started searching the sea of placards for my own name.

I didn’t see it.

I looked again, examining each sign carefully, in case my name was misspelled and that’s why I’d missed it. But the crowd of drivers steadily thinned, and nowhere did I see anyone holding up my name. I bit my lip and examined my watch, which I’d adjusted to London time. It was 8:23 a.m., and when I’d last talked to my dad, he’d estimated that if the plane was on time, I’d get through customs somewhere around 8:15. His friend should be here by now.

I took another one of those deep breaths, reminding myself to calm down. Dad’s friend was only eight minutes late. Hardly worth panicking about. I found a comfortable chair near the doors, my gaze darting this way and that as I looked for someone hurrying into the terminal like they were late. I saw plenty of those, but none of them carried a sign with my name on it.

When 8:45 rolled around and still there was no sign of my ride, I decided it was okay to get a little bit panicky. I turned on my cell phone, meaning to give Dad a call, only to discover I couldn’t get a signal. Belatedly, I wondered if American cell phones worked in London. I swallowed another wave of nerves. Dad had sent me a lovely getting-to-know-you gift, a white rose cameo, and I found myself fingering it anxiously.

I’d been in and out of a lot of airports in my life, and if the flight was long enough, my mom was invariably sloshed by the time we landed. Even when I was like eight years old, I’d been capable of steering my mom through the airport, finding our baggage, and arranging a taxi to take us to wherever we needed to be. Granted, the most exotic place I’d ever had to do it was Canada, but heck, this was England, not India.

Telling myself not to sweat it, I found a bank of pay phones. Because my mom couldn’t be trusted to keep track of bills or anything, we’d arranged for me to have my own credit card, which I promptly used to make the long-distance call to Avalon.

I let the phone at my dad’s house ring about ten times, but no one answered. I hung up and bit my lip.