“What an odd thing to be in a house. It almost looks alive.”

Mina couldn’t help it—she snorted. “No, it’s a dummy all right. No heart and all.” She walked over to her mom and ushered her into the hall.

“Aren’t you going to pick it up?” Sara asked.

Mina grinned. “Nope. It can stay on the cold floor all night, for all I care. It’s punishment for attacking me.”

“I’m really starting to not like this house. It feels too…mysterious.”

“I think it’s perfect. It was meant for us.” With that, Mina flicked off the light and closed the door.

Chapter 7

“You know you don’t have to go today. I can call the office and get you excused,” Sara said softly. Usually at this time of the day Sara would be dropping Charlie off at his school, and Mina would be arriving on her bike. But since Charlie and the bike were no more, it was time for a different tradition.

Mina chewed on the inside of her cheek and stared at the school. Just two weeks ago she was dying to go back; now she was dreading walking through the double doors. And she couldn’t figure out why. Nan was in there. She would get to speak to Nan for the first time since she left for the summer, but also Brody would be in there, along with Ever.

But Nan may not know about Charlie. Mina had intended to call her as soon as she got back from camp, but it was the oddest thing. The house they were staying at didn’t have a telephone, or a TV. Once she walked in the school doors, every student’s eyes would be on her and they would pity her, and Mina would probably break down and cry.

What to do? What to do? She was about to tell her mom to turn around and drive home when she felt her backpack grow warm on her lap. A tingling sensation spread out along her leg, and she gripped the car door and jumped out in record time.

It wasn’t a mystery what the sensation was—it was the Grimoire, which meant it was Jared telling her to get going. Sure enough, when she had walked twenty feet from the car, he joined her out of nowhere.

He silently walked next to her and only bobbed his head in a casual greeting. Mina tried to smile back, but it was forced. She could feel the tears building, and she desperately tried to hold them at bay. She reached for the entry door and began to open it, but Jared put his hand on the glass, gently closing it. Students mumbled at the traffic jam they were causing and walked around them, using one of the other doors. Jared turned and looked at her, his dark gray eyes filled with emotion.

“Hey,” he said, gently touching her shoulder so she would look up at him. “You’ll get through this. If today is too much for you, just say the word, and I’ll get you out of here. You got it?”

She dropped her head to look at her shoes and found it impossible to swallow the lump forming in her throat. “You promise?”

“I promise. Just say my name, and I’ll take you away.”

Mina nodded and adjusted her backpack over her shoulder. It now felt like someone had loaded it with bricks. Jared opened the door and motioned for her to enter first.

The school smelled the same, a weird mixture of books, paint, and sneakers. The air-conditioned air hit her as soon as she walked in, and she balked at the memory and guilt that assailed her. Jared gently touched her elbow and pushed her forward. She reached into her green jacket and pulled out a crumpled-up class schedule labeled Grime, Wilhelmina—Junior. Class A. Other than her name, she couldn’t make out where her first class was located. Her eyes were watering. She didn’t even know if Nan was in any of her classes. She was a wreck.

A cute girl with a pleated skirt, black boots, and a skull shirt popped up next to them and latched onto Jared’s arm. Her short black hair had a new stripe of purple added to it, giving Ever added flair.

She started chatting nonstop, and Mina could feel the slight breeze created from her invisible wings. Ever was Fae, like Jared. A pixie, to be exact, who had the biggest crush on the banished royal prince.

“Oh, did you see who I got for history—snooze fest. And advanced physics. Yikes! I think I’m doomed to be a student here forever. I’ll never pass those classes.” The pixie kept chatting until she noticed someone to the left of Jared. When she saw Mina, she paused long enough to say, “Hey, Gimp.” And then she was back to her self-absorbed universe, asking Jared to hang out after school.

Mina shouldn’t have been surprised at Ever’s reaction. Pixies tended to have short attention spans. But Jared was put off by Ever’s words. He pulled his arm out of her grasp and gave her an ugly glare to be quiet. She took his cue and immediately stopped speaking, and slowed to walk a few feet behind them. Jared directed Mina to her home room class and stopped outside the door.

“Here you are, safe and sound,” he said lightly. “Don’t worry—if you get through today, tomorrow will be a breeze. I’ll see you in forty-five minutes, and I’ll come make sure you don’t get lost on the way to second period. Here, give me your backpack, and I’ll put it in your locker for you.”

“Wait, how do you know where my locker is, and how do you know the combination?”

He smiled crookedly at her, and for the first time since the fire she felt a stirring of emotion other than sadness. Her mind flickered back to their encounter in the storage room, and her cheeks flushed. It was like her frozen heart had started to thaw just a little at his smile.

“Ah, that’s for me to know and you not to find out.” He opened up her backpack, pulled out a spiral notebook and pen, and handed them to Mina before turning and leaving.

Mina almost dropped the notebook and had to maneuver quickly to grab it. Instead of sitting near the front of the room, she headed for the farthest corner of the room and sat in the back row. Ever happened to be in the same home room as Mina and gave her a worried frown before sitting up a few rows and over. It was obvious that Ever was upset at Jared’s treatment and was going to take it out on Mina.

Students began to file in, and Mina stared at the spiral notebook, preferring to not make eye contact. She must have stared at the notebook for two minutes before she noticed something odd about it. It was the Grimoire, but it was once again in a notebook shape and not the small leather book she had seen it in before. Jared must have changed its shape while it was in the backpack on purpose, then handed it to her. She didn’t even know that was possible, but then she realized again—stupidly—how closely they were connected.

She flipped open the notebook and perused through all of its prisoners, because that was what the book was, a jail of sorts. But the oddest of all was how this all started. Mina’s ancestors, Joseph and Wilhelm Grimm, had found a way over to the Fae plane and demanded that the gates between the worlds be closed. The Fae agreed, but only if the brothers could complete a list of quests, which would be logged into a powerful book that resided in the Fae world. Unfortunately, the Grimm Brothers had been tricked by the Fae. There wasn’t an end to the quests, because if one Grimm failed, the responsibility passed on to the next son. And the challenges started all over again. Mina had figured out that it had nothing to do with the quests and everything to do with being manipulated by the Story. The Story wanted the Grimms to trap the uncontrollable power-hungry Fae that lived on the human plane for them.

But somewhere along the line, a witch or powerful Fae split the Fae book in two and ensnared the royal brothers Teague and Jared as servants to these books, one on the human plane to help the Grimms, while the other resided on the Fae plane. Mina had yet to find out what it was that the brothers had done to deserve their fate, but Jared refused to talk about it. He would only say that he had been banished from his home and must live as a servant to the Grimms. That was how Mina figured out that Teague was also bound somehow as well.