#Review - Hide by Kiersten White #Thriller #Supernatural #Horror

Series: Standalone
Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
Release Date: May 24, 2022
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thrillers / Supernatural / Horror

The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don’t get caught.
 
The prize: enough money to change everything.
 
Even though everyone is desperate to win—to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts—Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she’s an expert at that.
 
It’s the reason she’s alive, and her family isn’t.
 
But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive.
 
Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run.
 

"Come out, come out, wherever you are."

Set in a long abandoned Amusement Park, Hide, by author Kiersten White, is a high-stakes hide-and-seek competition that takes a deadly turn in this dark supernatural thriller. Sponsored by a group called Ox Extreme Sports, they are putting together a contest of Olly Olly Oxen Free aka Hide and Seek tournament. The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park that was closed after a little girl disappeared and don't get caught. If you get caught, you're out. No second chances. The winner will get $50,000.

For Mackenzie (Mack) Black, the price money is enough to change her life and make up for her past mistakes.Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run. Even though everyone is desperate to win--to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts--Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she's an expert at that. It's the reason she's alive, and her little sister isn't. It's the reason why she agreed to participate in this contest since she blames herself for what happened to her sister Maddie years ago.

The Rules
-30 minute hiding window given at the start of each day
-the game is active from dawn to dusk
-no allowance for medical, bathroom emergencies or food runs
-a beacon will shine in the sky at dusk calling the contestants back to camp
-2 contestants will be eliminated each day.

As the people begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive. She chooses to make an alliance with Ava, who is a veteran who nearly lost her legs in Afghanistan. To make things interesting, the author doesn't leave the reader hanging. She actually allows you to read certain sections of a dairy that explains what happened years ago, and why every 7 years, 14 people are chosen to come to this abandoned Amusement Park. 

As the game progresses, Mack realizes the prize for winning this mysterious hide-and-seek game is her life. Mack's an interesting character whose name is famous to those in this world's Horror genre. She has to choose whether she can win by hiding by herself, which she's good at, or finding someone to align with so that they can survive until the end. Mack's story literally begins with her in a homeless shelter where she just lost everything and later we find out who she really is as a character. 

I don't believe that you have to pay attention to all 14 characters in this story. By the time the game begins, 2 will already be dead, and then 2 more, until Mack and her allies realize something is really, really wrong here. It is fair to say that I will not compare this story to the Hunger Games. More like The Cabin at the end of the World. I am happy with the way the story wraps up. The story isn't all that gore filled as with other more dastardly horror novels. Readers get a look at the monster, but only through the eyes of Mack who is one of the only people in the entire contest who can see  it.

The Amazement Park opened in 1953.

get lost in the fun! posters advertised, and it was true: Crowds surged through the gates in the morning and didn’t stumble out again until the sun had set, and spotlights at the exit guided them free. The maps were useless, the You Are Here guides impossible to find. It was a park designed to swallow. Trees loomed over lush grounds. Signature topiary lined every walled and wandering path, adding to the sense of wonder. Roller coasters, swings, carousels, games, houses of love and fun and terror—though the house at the very center was always closed for refurbishment.

The park was open from mid-May until early September. whites only was on signs in the early years, heavily implied when such a thing became harder to officially declare. And, for one week every seven years, it was free. The gates would swing wide, and the summer migrant workers and distant relatives of the wealthy townsfolk, normally too poor to enjoy something designed purely for escape, would wander in, wide-eyed. There were no ticket sales, no attendance numbers, just a joyfully packed park.

In 1974, during the free week, a prominent businessman from upstate decided to visit. He hadn’t been invited, but he was considering investing since a cousin-of-a-cousin owned the park. He wanted to see the attractions for himself first, though. He brought along his wife and two children and made it a holiday.

Their little girl, five, was never seen again.

One of the migrant workers was arrested for her murder, but the negative publicity left a stain that didn’t wash out. So the Amazement Park closed its gates.

Eventually, the rumors died. The plants grew. Nature slowly co-opted the buildings, the rides, the roller coasters. What didn’t crumble rusted, and what didn’t rust leaned, and what didn’t lean sagged under the weight of ivy and neglect.

Somewhere, very close to the center—the house that was always closed, where few ever even got, owing to the odd layout of the park—a shoe had caught on the low branches of a topiary. Unchecked, the verdant beast slowly grew higher and higher until the shoe was eye level.

It was patent leather, dulled and cracked with weather and time. The perfect size for a five-year-old foot.

It takes money to make money, her dad used to say.

He also once said Come out, come out, wherever you are, dragging the knife along the wall as music to accompany the dying gasps of her sister. Mack might have imagined the gasps, though. Who could say.

She couldn’t, and even if she could, she wouldn’t.

She’s not saying anything right now, either, sitting across from the manager. The meeting was mandatory, a “shelter requirement,” though she’s been here several months now and this is the first one.

“Come on, Mackenzie. Help me help you.” The woman’s smile is painted on like her cheekbones and eyebrows, and just as artfully. Her expression doesn’t shift at all in the face of Mack’s silence. It’s impressive. Does she do stamina reps in the quiet dark of her bedroom, lifting the corners of her lips over and over, careful not to disrupt her eyes?

The manager clasps her hands together, fingernails painted dark red. “I’ll be honest with you. Things are going to change around here. I believe that we can help only those willing to help themselves. These shelters have stagnated—no hope, no progress. How can we live in a society without progress?”

The voice is animated, but the eyes remain untouched by the sentiments or the smile. Expressionless. Like they’re hidden behind something. Mack feels an odd affinity for this woman, alongside an instinctive wariness. But she disagrees. The point of a shelter isn’t progress. It’s shelter.

“I’ve looked at your file.” The woman gestures to a blank manila folder on the desk. Mack suspects it’s empty. She hopes it is. “It’s bad luck you’re here. I understand. No social safety net to fall back on. A few months without a job, without rent, and it’s hard to dig yourself out. You need to move on with your life. Contribute to humanity. All you need is a little good luck first.”

“Donation bins could use tampons more than luck.” Mack’s voice is soft and dry with disuse.

The woman cracks, something triumphant behind her eyes. Mack shouldn’t have spoken. The woman holds up an envelope. “It just so happens, some luck has come in the mail. Whether it’s good is really up to you. Right now, it’s an opportunity. And I think you’re perfect for it.”

Mack has never been perfect for anything in her life. Perfect feels like a foreign word, stiff and uncomfortable. But maybe it’s a job. A little money to get presentable and she’ll have an actual chance. As long as they don’t pry. As long as they don’t look too closely. She could make it work.

She takes the sheet of paper the woman slides across the desk. It’s thick. It feels expensive. Mack is suddenly aware of her hands—her bitten fingernails, her shiny burned palms, her ragged cuticles. If she sets down the paper, will she leave a smudge? It’s hard to be embarrassed at this point in her life, but the idea wriggles beneath her skin.

She’s so worried about leaving a fingerprint—one that will somehow count against her in this imaginary job interview—that it takes her several seconds to process what she’s reading.

“Is this a joke?” she whispers.

The woman’s smile doesn’t budge. “I know it sounds like one. But I assure you it’s legitimate.”

“Who told you?”

Finally, the woman’s cheeks relax, and her eyebrows draw close. “What do you mean? Who told me what? That it’s legitimate?”

About me, Mack thinks. Who told you about me? But the woman’s confusion can’t be feigned. Can it? If she can paint on a face, can she paint on emotions, too? Mack drops the letter. There are no fingerprints. But the words have left smudges across her mind.

“Why are you giving this to me?” Mack knows how lost she sounds, how scared, but she can’t help it. “Why me?”

The woman laughs, a single dismissive burst. “I know it seems silly. The Olly Olly Oxen Free Hide-and-Seek Tournament. It’s a children’s game, for god’s sake. But it’s a chance to win fifty thousand dollars, Mackenzie. You could use that to actually move up in the world. You’re young. You’re intelligent. You’re not a thief, you’re not an addict. You shouldn’t be here.”

No one should be here. They all still are.

The woman leans forward intently. “It’s run by an athletic company, Ox Extreme Sports. I can put in a good word and get you registered. There’s no guarantee you’d win, but—I think you have a shot. It’s more about endurance than anything else. Besides, you strike me as someone who’s good at hiding.”

Mack’s chair scrapes back, jarring them both. But Mack can’t be in this room, can’t think, not while she’s being looked at. Not while she’s being seen. The woman doesn’t know about Mack’s history, and still, somehow she knows.

“Can I think about it,” Mack states. It’s not a question.

“Of course. But let me know by tomorrow. If you don’t want the spot, I’m sure someone else will. It’s a lot of money, Mackenzie. For a silly game!” The woman laughs again. “I’d enter it myself, but I can’t go more than twenty minutes without needing to pee.” She waits for Mack to laugh, too.

She’s still waiting as Mack slides out through the door, not even a whisper in her wake.

Everything about the shelter is designed to remind them that nothing is theirs. There are no lockers. No alcoves. No closets. No bedrooms. In a featureless box of a space, the ceiling looming so far overhead a bird lives in the beams, there are cots. Each has the same stiff white sheets and scratchy blankets. The area beneath the cots is to be kept clear at all times. They are not allowed to use the same cot more than two nights in a row. Anything not cleared by nine a.m. will be confiscated and thrown out, so they can’t even leave their meager possessions on the cot that is not theirs.

When the cots are all filled, Mack is as good as hidden. She’s small. She’s quiet. But now she feels as though a spotlight has been trained on her. Everyone else has already cleared out for the day. Some will go to whatever work they’ve found. Several will sit outside on the sidewalk until they’re allowed back in at four p.m. The rest, who knows. Mack doesn’t ask. Mack doesn’t tell. Because she goes somewhere she doesn’t want any of them to know about, either.

Hidden behind a half wall, choked with the scent of burning dust, an old water heater sizzles and rages. She has permanent shiny burns on her hands from where she scales the water heater, wedges herself between walls, and shimmies up.

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Review The Excalibur Curse by Kiersten White #YA #Fantasy #Historical

Series: Camelot Rising Trilogy (#3)
Format: Hardcover, 368 pages
Release Date: December 7, 2021
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Historical / Medieval

While journeying north toward the Dark Queen, Guinevere falls into the hands of her enemies. Behind her are Lancelot, trapped on the other side of the magical barrier they created to protect Camelot, and Arthur, who has been led away from his kingdom, chasing after false promises. But the greatest danger isn’t what lies ahead of Guinevere—it’s what’s been buried inside her. 

Vowing to unravel the truth of her past with or without Merlin’s help, Guinevere joins forces with the sorceress Morgana and her son, Mordred—and faces the confusing, forbidden feelings she still harbors for him. When Guinevere makes an agonizing discovery about who she is and how she came to be, she finds herself with an impossible choice: fix a terrible crime, or help prevent war.

Guinevere is determined to set things right, whatever the cost. To defeat a rising evil. To remake a kingdom. To undo the mistakes of the past…even if it means destroying herself.

Guinevere has been a changeling, a witch, a queen—but what does it mean to be just a girl? 

The Excalibur Curse is the third and final installment in author Kiersten White's Camelot Rising Trilogy. This story picks up immediately where The Camelot Betrayal left off. After leaving Camelot behind under a dome of magic, Guinevere, or a version of said Guinevere, has fallen into the hands of the Picts led by their King Nechtan, as well as Morgan Le Fey, or Morgana for short, and the always present Mordred as they travel north to meet the Dark Queen who may or may not hold the answers to her origin story.

 

While Arthur chases down a lead about a false son, she’s going to have to rely on herself to escape and discover who she truly is. With Merlin sealed away, Morgana may be the only one left who can help her, but she has her own agenda with the Dark Queen. Guinevere has been struggling with her own identity and whether she can truly know who she is if she doesn’t remember her past, and that search comes with a painful twist. What Guinevere discovers is more terrible than she could have guessed, and she has a choice between saving Camelot or undoing a terrible wrong that could destroy her. 

 

The only way to fix things, may be the one thing that could blow up in her face and cost Arthur and Camelot everything. Arthur claims that the sword Excalibur is both a gift and a curse thanks to Merlin and the Lady of the Lake. Guinevere thinks she understands that, but perhaps there is more to Arthur’s way of thinking than she realizes. After being pulled in multiple directions by people with good and bad attentions alike it was nice to Guinevere her take control and shine.

 

If you have read the first two installments in this series, you know that the author intended to write a feminist series focusing on the women of Camelot including Isolde without Tristan, and Brangien who was the third player in the Arthurian legend of Tristan and Iseult. In this world, it is Brangien and Isolde who are in love, while Tristan is but a sad player without any home of finding true love. You can also add Lily, the Princess of Cameliard, and Dindrane who Guinevere ended up being friends with.

 

In this world, Lancelot is a female who has become the Queen's best friend, confidant, and protector and if the author had her way, most likely lover. Each of the women mentioned are brilliant, strong, funny, and mischievous. Each of them will eventually make up a Women's Council which is just another Knights of the Round Table feminized. This story quickly turned into a lovefest between a variety of characters including Mordred who Guinevere seems not to keep her hands off. 

 

In this story, we are introduced to two more powerful women in Fina and Nechtan who offer their own unique personalities into the mix. The relationships between Guinevere and Arthur, and Mordred, and Lancelot were not so tidy and I found myself wishing that the author had been a bit more clear about Guinevere's feelings for each person. Arthur who is allegedly the King, takes a backseat for most of the story and is really mostly a two dimensional character who has to decide if Guinevere is really worth all the trouble she's brought with her.

As I said, White chose to write an Arthurian era story revolving around the women of Camelot whether good or bad and that's exactly how the finale of this series comes to an end.

 

 

Chapter One 

Once, not so long ago, Guinevere had ridden surrounded by armed soldiers and marveled at her power. Now she rode surrounded by armed soldiers and marveled at her smallness. She tried to hold on to both thoughts at once: her power and her smallness, each a comfort in its own way. She was only one girl, after all, in a world full of them. 

Unfortunately, the armed soldiers around her at this precise moment were enemies of Arthur: Picts, led by their king, Nechtan; the sorceress Morgana, Arthur’s half sister; and his nephew, Mordred the betrayer. 

Guinevere had thought herself triumphant in sealing the city just before they arrived. But they had never been coming for the city. They had been coming for her. It was enough to drive her mad, but she was too tired for it. Guinevere half suspected the reason they had not dismounted and rested for the past twelve hours was to ensure that her nether regions were so painful that she would not try to escape. She had lost feeling in her toes, and her spine ached from sitting as straight as possible so as not to lean back against Mordred. The least they could have done is give her a horse instead of forcing her to ride with him. 

She had no idea how many leagues they had covered, but it was certainly more than she had ever traveled in a single stretch. Their pace was hurried without being frantic. The Picts were practiced soldiers. They were not going to risk their horses’ health, but their horses had been trained to do exactly this. 

Camelot falling farther and farther behind them as they rode into the night worried Guinevere less than the fact that they were galloping in the opposite direction of her goal. Merlin’s cave would take her so much longer to reach now. She had planned on walking straight there, figuring out a way to free him from the Lady of the Lake’s trap, and demanding answers about who she was. So she could finally know. If she could only know that, everything else would make sense. Would be easier. She was certain of it. 

She focused on the cave, because that was less painful to think about than Camelot. About how she had left it. About who she had left. 

The image of Lancelot on her knees behind the magical barrier they had created to keep armies out—but Lancelot in—lingered in Guinevere’s mind like a wound. Guinevere knew what it meant to be denied crucial information. To be manipulated into a course of action without the freedom to decide. And she had done exactly that to Lancelot, not telling her brave knight until it was too late that Lancelot would be inside the city’s shield, and Guinevere outside it. 

It had been cruel, and unfair, and a betrayal of the trust Lancelot had always given her. 

So she tried her best to not think about it. Fortunately, between the enemy soldiers and Mordred and this wretched, endless ride adding to the already long walk between her and Merlin’s cave, she had an abundance of distractions. 

At last, with dawn stretching pink and terrible across the sky, Mordred called out, “The horses need to rest.” 

It was the first time he had spoken the entire journey. The first time he had spoken since he had arrived at Camelot, begged her not to lose faith in him, and then announced he had successfully kidnapped the queen. Other than his chest at her back and his arms around her holding the reins, their only interaction was when he periodically passed her a canteen to drink from. 

As soon as Mordred declared the horses needed to rest, word spread along the traveling party. Guinevere estimated there were two or three hundred soldiers. She slipped a hand into her pouch. All this long journey, she had tied knot after knot in her mind, from the most innocuous to the most vicious. It was time to choose. 

A shudder rippled through her. She knew what she had to do. She would need her iron thread, and she would need blood, and it would be the worst knot she had ever tied. Worse than the protection she had placed in the river above Camelot that would kill anyone who ventured past it with intent to do her harm. Worse even than what she had done to Sir Bors, reaching into his mind and manipulating his memories. Perhaps not worse than what she had done to King Mark, destroying his mind but leaving his body, but certainly an evil enough magic that it would haunt her the rest of her days. 

She was going to tie a death knot, loop it around herself so that any living creature that touched her would immediately die. And then she would walk out of the camp. It would not matter if they followed her all the way to Merlin’s cave, because no one could touch her. The knot would mean she could not take a horse, but after twelve hours on one, that was almost a blessing. 

She had to get away from Mordred first, though. Someone would touch her, doubtless, before they believed her threat. But it could not be Mordred. Not Mordred. It had to be someone whose name and face she did not know. A soldier sacrificed to a conflict Guinevere had not started. 

A person, both small and infinite, ended because Guinevere valued herself more. 

How did Arthur do this? How did he make these decisions? Her stomach churned, gnawing at its own emptiness. She squeezed her eyes closed. She could do this. She would do this. 

Mordred’s fingers circled her wrist, his grip gentle but insistent as he pulled her hand out of the pouch. He detached the pouch from her belt and tossed it to a tall, elegantly cloaked woman. His mother, Morgana. She caught it neatly and tucked it into her own bag. 

Guinevere did not know whether she was about to cry out of frustration and disappointment or relief. Mordred had taken the choice from her. No one would die at her hand today. She would figure out another means of escape, hopefully one with a less desperate cost. 

Feeling blurry with exhaustion, she watched as a camp appeared around them with practiced efficiency. Soldiers laughed and called to each other while they worked. Then everyone stilled as King Nechtan rode past them. He slowed, fixing eyes that had possibly once been wide and kind on Guinevere. Whatever they had been was hidden beneath bushy eyebrows and a permanent glower. He would have been intimidating even without the fur mantle he wore around his shoulders that quivered with black moths. Guinevere knew that each moth carried a bit of the Dark Queen inside it. A constant reminder of whom King Nechtan was working with, or for. It was hard to say which with the Dark Queen. 

One moth rode on his earlobe like an ornament. Nechtan bent his head toward it, his gaze turning distant and unfocused, before snapping back to Guinevere with an almost physical force. She sighed with relief when he turned to Mordred. It was not only the presence of King Nechtan but also the knowledge that anything he did or said was not him alone. The Pict king and the Dark Queen were each a formidable enemy on their own, and now Guinevere had to contend with them both. 

Nechtan said something in his language. Guinevere did not understand, but she did not need to. The way he spoke made it clear that Mordred was in trouble. If she were in higher spirits, she would tease him. As it was, she was grateful that King Nechtan continued riding past, his head bent once more toward the whispering wings of his passengers and the queen they were part of. 

Mordred dismounted, then held up his hands to help Guinevere down. She deliberately threw her leg over the opposite side of the horse and slid off. But she had not accounted for how numb her legs would be after a ride that long. As soon as her feet hit the ground, her knees buckled and she fell gracelessly on her sore backside.

A woman laughed nearby. Guinevere looked up to see one of the Pictish soldiers—they were all dressed alike in leather and fur—hold out a hand. The woman who laughed was a soldier. 

Guinevere took the offered hand and was pulled swiftly and unceremoniously to her feet. 

“Your king should ride you more often.” The woman winked. A bold blue cloth was wrapped around her head, and her face had freckles that put Guinevere’s to shame. Her pale blue eyes were framed by nearly white eyelashes and eyebrows that were tinged with orange. She had two axes strapped to her back, and a belt full of knives. 

“Fina. Enough.” Another woman, taller than the first by a few inches with almost the same face and even more weapons, shoved Fina’s shoulder. She looked down at Guinevere without curiosity, her expression cooler than even the icy blue of her eyes. “I am Nectudad. Most of the soldiers do not speak your language, so trying to speak to them will be a waste of energy.” 

“I learned your language to marry your husband.” Fina grinned. She had a gap between her front teeth that made her smile seem even larger and happier. Guinevere did not know whether she was expected to apologize for marrying Arthur, but Fina’s smile grew. “Lucky for him I did not. I do not think he would have survived me.”

Guinevere’s eyes narrowed. “Arthur is the strongest man I have ever known.” 

“I did not mean in combat. I meant in bed. Not if he prefers delicate morsels like you.” 

Mordred appeared next to Guinevere. “Oh, good, you have met the princesses.” He bowed deeply. “They make princesses very differently in the north.” 

Even Nectudad smiled at that, a more reserved reaction than Fina’s brash laugh, which was so loud the horse next to Guinevere startled, stamping its hooves. Mordred reached out a hand and put it on the horse’s neck. The animal calmed immediately. 

“My father wants to see you, fairyson,” Nectudad said. “He has questions about how you came to join our party.”

Morgana appeared again with a sweep of her black cloak. She looked none the worse for wear, even after such a grueling journey. Her hair, black with streaks of silver like metal woven through it, was perfectly plaited, and her eyes, a darker and older green than Mordred’s, betrayed no weariness. “Of course. We have much to discuss with him.” 

Morgana held the two stones—the ones with which Guinevere had done blood magic, the ones that had failed to give her enough warning of Morgana’s return to be of any use—in her hand. So she had found the stone hidden in Guinevere’s pouch, and its mate.

How long ago had Morgana discovered the secret stone? Had she only realized what it was when she saw the same rock in Guinevere’s bag, or had she kept it to warn Guinevere of the approaching army? Guinevere could ask, but how could she ever trust an answer from the woman who had disguised herself as Lily’s maid, infiltrated Camelot, and tried to make Guinevere leave with her?

But then again, Morgana had had ample time to hurt Guinevere, or Lily, or even Arthur. None of them had suspected her. Even after Morgana had given Guinevere a potion to make her tell the truth, Guinevere had not feared her. She had felt compassion, sorrow for her losses, and confusion about what Morgana really wanted. 

None of those feelings were likely to change soon. Particularly the confusion. 

“Come, Mordred,” Morgana said, her face inscrutable. “Fina, Nectudad, will you see our guest fed and settled? And watch her hands.” 

Fina raised a dubious eyebrow. “I should be afraid of this slip?”

“Make sure she does not sew or tie knots in anything. Bind her hands before she goes to sleep.” 

“Southerners,” Fina muttered, shaking her head. “I do not understand you. Well, come along, Slip.” She put her arm around Guinevere, forcefully guiding her. Guinevere looked over her shoulder. Mordred was watching, concern shaping his brows, but then he turned and followed his mother. 

Mordred and Morgana were not her allies. She could not trust anything they did or said. But at least they were familiar. Nothing else here was. All around her, soldiers—men and women both—were bustling about. She could not understand anything they said. Even the scents of the meals being cooked over fires were unfamiliar. 

Her despair must have shown on her face. Nectudad patted her shoulder roughly as they stopped outside a hide-covered tent in the center of camp. “We have no quarrel with you. Only with your king.” 

“And with our new queen,” Fina grumbled. 

Nectudad shot her a narrow-eyed warning, hissing softly. 

Fina straightened, grinning once more. “And you have no need to worry about your virtue. Unless you want me to relieve you of some of it, in which case you can tell your king exactly what he missed. But you will never want to go back to him after tasting me, so be certain before you ask.” 

“Fina.” Nectudad said the name like an exasperated sigh. 

“What? She looks too tense. I am offering solutions, being a good caretaker.” 

“Go get food.” Nectudad shoved Fina in the direction of the nearest campfire and then turned back to Guinevere. She lowered her voice so only Guinevere could hear. It was clear and calm as a lake on a windless afternoon. “I will protect you because I need you. But if you do anything that threatens my father or if you try to escape, I will break both your legs and all your fingers. Do you understand? Nod if you understand.” 

Guinevere nodded, her throat tight. She understood perfectly well. She had left Camelot to figure out who she was. She had left Arthur, Lancelot, Brangien and Dindrane and Lily, everyone who loved her. She had left behind the castle and the crown. Now she was surrounded by enemies. She had no allies, no one she could truly trust. Only herself. But that would have to be enough for now. With or without Merlin, she would discover her past. 

Preferably with all her limbs intact.

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Review - The Camelot Betrayal by Kiersten White #YALit #Fantasy #Historical

Series: Camelot Rising Trilogy (#2)
Format: Hardcover, 384 pages
Release Date: November 10, 2020
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Legends, Myths, Fables / Arthurian

The second book in a new fantasy trilogy from New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White, exploring the nature of self, the inevitable cost of progress, and, of course, magic and romance and betrayal so epic Queen Guinevere remains the most famous queen who never lived.

EVERYTHING IS AS IT SHOULD BE IN CAMELOT: King Arthur is expanding his kingdom’s influence with Queen Guinevere at his side. Yet every night, dreams of darkness and unknowable power plague her.

Guinevere might have accepted her role, but she still cannot find a place for herself in all of it. The closer she gets to the people around her—Brangien, pining for her lost love Isolde; Lancelot, fighting to prove her worth as Queen’s knight; and Arthur, everything to everyone and thus never quite enough for Guinevere—the more she realizes how empty she is. She has no sense of who she truly was before she was Guinevere. The more she tries to claim herself as queen, the more she wonders if Mordred was right: she doesn’t belong. She never will.

When a rescue goes awry and results in the death of something precious, a devastated Guinevere returns to Camelot to find the greatest threat yet has arrived. Not in the form of the Dark Queen or an invading army, but in the form of the real Guinevere’s younger sister. Is her deception at an end? And who is she really deceiving—Camelot, or herself? 

The Camelot Betrayal is the second installment in author Kiersten White's Camelot Rising Trilogy. First, let me say that there is a whole lot to discuss about this book, including the ending, so I will try hard to avoid spoilers. Once again, the author creates a world based on a woman who history claims never existed. Guinevere has been portrayed as everything from a villainous and opportunistic traitor to a fatally flawed but noble and virtuous lady. It’s still debatable whether Arthur really existed, but there are historical aspects of the story that fits the time frame, including the Saxon’s and Pict's who changed the course of England’s history.

So, let’s get started to events of this book and a summary of past events. Magic is not allowed in Camelot, but Guinevere’s magic helps protect Camelot from the Dark Fairy Queen. There are only a few, including Arthur, Brangien, and Lancelot who knows that her magic is protecting Camelot. Meanwhile, Guinevere is still trying to figure out who she is and why she has no memories of the past. But, what's even more curiouser is her dreams of water, and the Lady of the Lake. Curious because she shouldn't be dreaming. She magically gave them away to Brangien to keep in touch with Isolde.

To top it off, she's still wondering if she made the right choice by returning to Camelot where she doesn’t know what her role is supposed to be, and not disappearing with Mordred who betrayed her and allowed the Dark Fairy to return. For the Mordred supporters among you, yes, he does return several times in this story always at the most interesting of times when Guinevere is in trouble. Then things really get twisted when Princess Guinevach arrives with her entourage from Cameliard claiming that she is Guinevere’s younger sister who she hasn’t seen in years. Guinevere, who still believes she is a changeling, is confused at why Guinevach recognizes her and does not see her as the impostor she is.

This part of the story is important since it gets close to revealing what really happened to her before she arrived in Camelot. The Guinevere deception worked because no one in Camelot or the surrounding areas had ever met the Southern Princess known as Guinevere. If you have read the first installment, which I hope you did, Guinevere was sent to Camelot by her alleged father Merlin to protect her. There are so many secrets that have not been revealed when it comes to Merlin and what he apparently did, and the Lady of the Lake who gave Excalibur to Arthur which destroys magic, including Genevieve’s.

There are several key moments in this book including Genevieve, Lancelot, Isolde, and Brangien going on a quest to rescue Isolde from King Mark. The author twists her own version of the historical duo of Isolde and Tristan to make it fit her own alternative version of the story. The author also digs more into Lancelot’s background. Lancelot isn’t like the other knights who owe fealty to Arthur. She wants to be the Queen’s Knight and protector for her own reasons which are touched on. Guinevere struggles how to handle Lily’s presence in Camelot, she questions her own identity, she questions what Merlin did to her, and finds out who the real threat was within the city all along. 

The last part will be the background for the next installment. I must briefly say that readers will find themselves meeting an extremely dangerous woman who I don’t think hates Genevieve. I think she has revenge on her mind for what happened not only to Mordred, but her mother, and yes, the author does spend time on why she has revenge on her mind. I also think that Lancelot will be one of the key players in what choice Genevieve eventually makes to stay with Arthur and Camelot, or Mordred. I am hoping that the Merlin question is answered quickly. I have my own questions as to what happen, but I’ll reserve comment until the final installment is released.

Chapter One

Guinevere’s room was dark, night more a cloak than the bed curtains she never drew. The dream clung like smoke, so real that she expected to find the surrounding stone newly carved and running with water.

She put a trembling hand to the wall behind her, fingers curled by dread that she would find the carvings there, fresh and recognizable. But they were only hints of memories beneath her fingers. The castle was as it had been since she arrived: ancient and worn with the passage of unknowable time.

Yet she could not escape the feel of that fall, air rushing around her, knowing what would meet her at the bottom. She climbed out of bed and pulled on her robe. Brangien shifted softly in the corner, lost in her own dreams with her beloved Isolde. Listening to her, Guinevere realized a horrible truth.

She should not be able to dream at all.

She had used knot magic to give all her dreams to Brangien for weeks now. Ever since her captivity at the hands of Maleagant, ever since Merlin had pushed her out of the dreamspace that connected them, ever since she was tricked by Mordred into giving the fairy Dark Queen physical form once more, ever since she chose to return to Camelot instead of escaping—no, not escaping, running away—with Mordred, she had had no desire to dream. Which meant that whatever dream she just had…it was not her own.

As she hurried through the night-black secret passage against the mountain that connected her room to Arthur’s, she folded her arms around herself, unwilling to touch the stone again. Distrustful of it. She was awake enough now to check that every knot she was connected to was still in place. The knot on the door to the secret tunnel entrance into Camelot that only she, Arthur, and Mordred knew about. The knot on her own door, her own windows, every way that the fairy queen—or her grandson, Mordred—might access Guinevere.

Nothing. Everything was as she had left it, all protections in place. Which terrified her even more.

She opened the door to Arthur’s room and drew aside the tapestry. She half expected him to be sitting at his table, writing letters or reading them, his candle merely a pool of wax and a flickering wick. That was how she found him most nights. But his room was dark.

“Arthur?” she whispered, moving toward his bed. There was a rustle of blankets, and then quick movements and the telltale hiss of a sword being unsheathed—along with the swirling sickness and overwhelming dread that hit her whenever she was near Excalibur.

“Put it away!” she gasped.

“Guinevere?”

She could not hear over the pounding in her ears, but she could feel as soon as Excalibur was once again in its sheath. She tripped against the bed and turned to sit on it. The shaking was coming, violent trembling that no amount of heat could warm away.

“Sorry.” Arthur pulled her next to him. He tucked the blankets over them both, holding her close as though he could stop her shaking by his strength alone. “I was not awake. It is always my first response these days, ever since…”

He did not finish. Neither of them needed him to. They had both watched the Dark Queen emerge, a creeping nightmare made real with the flesh of a thousand beetles, twisting roots, and Guinevere’s own blood. She did not question why Arthur’s reaction to being startled awake would be to seize their one true defense against that abomination.

“What did you need?” He brushed her hair from the pillow so that he could lie as close to her as possible.

“I had a dream,” she whispered to the darkness. It felt further away, less important now that he was holding her.

“A bad dream?”

“I should not have dreams at all. I knotted them away.” She had not told him about what she was doing for Brangien, or why. That was Brangien’s secret to keep or to reveal, not Guinevere’s. And with magic banned in Camelot, she would not risk her friend’s safety.

Arthur hmmed thoughtfully. They were so close that she could feel the vibrations in his chest. “Perhaps the knot came undone? Maybe you did not do the magic right?”

“Maybe.” Guinevere wanted to agree. It would be easier, safer, simpler if that were the case. But she did not think it was. There had been something so visceral about the dream. It was a dream with purpose, a dream with intent. And it had not been her own dream, of that she was certain. But…could she be certain? Her mind had been tampered with—holes created and holes filled by Merlin, whether or not he meant to. How could she say what her mind would dream?

“Do you ever feel like you do not know yourself?” she whispered.

Arthur was quiet for a long time. Finally, he answered, his voice gentle. “No. Though there are parts of myself I wish I did not have to know. Why? Do you feel that way?”

“All the time.”

Arthur settled, one arm around her, his hand next to her head, stroking her hair. The fight had left his body and she could feel him moving back toward sleep. Arthur was ready at a moment’s notice to face any threat, but he was also very good at accepting a threat was not there and releasing whatever was coiled to strike. She envied that ability. She had constant tension from her magic knotted into the rooms and surrounding city, and even if that had not been the case, she found herself perpetually mulling over the figurative knots of her life and her choices, checking for weaknesses, for where she could have done better.

“This is a problem I can help with,” Arthur said. “I know you very well. You are kind. You are clever. You have far more a sense of humor than any princess could.”

“But I am not a princess.”

“No, but you are a queen.” She could hear his smile. His arm around her was comfortingly heavy, her trembling almost past. “You are strong. You are brave. You are quite short.”

She laughed, poking him in the side. “That is not a character trait.”

“No? Hmm.”

She felt him drifting further away, back to sleep.

“You are Guinevere,” he murmured, and then his breathing went soft and even.

She wished with a ferocious longing that any of it were true.

Chapter Two

It had been a long summer, and autumn was only beginning to appear with a hint of chill in the evenings and the promise of work to come. Guinevere understood things like harvests now, how much went into them, how vital they were. A good harvest was the difference between a comfortable winter and a deadly one. With a city as large as Camelot, already they were preparing. As queen, she had taken over Mordred’s role in keeping track of supplies and making certain everything was ready. And riding all over the countryside taking stock of the harvest and speaking with farmers gave her an excuse to search for evidence of the Dark Queen’s seeping reach.

Guinevere had wards set in Camelot; she would know if a threat arrived on their shores. But she wanted to know long before then. She would not be caught off guard. No one would trick her, ever again.

“Should we check the perimeter of the forest?” Lancelot asked. They had just finished with one of the farthest tracts of land. Guinevere was hot and itchy in her dress, layers of bold blue and red. She envied Brangien her simpler clothing. But Guinevere was out here as the queen, and she had to look the part. Lancelot, too, looked the part. Her armor was no longer patchwork. She wore uniform leather with metal plates over chain mail and a tunic with Arthur’s sigil on it. Guinevere missed Lancelot’s old armor, though she was glad Lancelot no longer had to wear a mask.

Brangien looked longingly over her shoulder in the direction of Camelot, but offered no complaint. Only Brangien, Lancelot, and Sir Tristan could accompany Guinevere on these trips. They alone knew that she wielded magic. If word reached anyone else, everything would be at risk.

Arthur rode with them when he could, but it was not often. Guinevere preferred it that way. Though normally she longed for more time with him, the Dark Queen was her fault. Her responsibility.

“Yes.” Guinevere guided her horse toward the dark smudge of trees waiting meekly on the edge of the tamed land. Elsewhere the forests loomed and lurked, dominating the countryside. But in Camelot’s boundaries the trees had been felled, and where not felled, tamed. They were gentler forests, there to serve man.

Guinevere’s sleeves rubbed at her wrists, where she bore thin white tracings of scars from trees that were old and hungry and angry.

“Did you sleep well?” Brangien asked, riding at her side. Her tone was so deliberately even and pleasant that Guinevere immediately knew she was fishing for information. Brangien was never pleasant without a reason. Guinevere had not slept in her own bed, and her friend and maid wanted to know about it.

Alas. As always, sleeping in Arthur’s bed had simply been sleeping. Guinevere had awoken to find herself alone. She always woke alone. Sometimes she wondered what would happen if he stayed. If, warm and muddled with sleep, he reached for her in something other than companionship. If they shared a kiss as fierce as the one Mordred had stolen the night Lancelot won her tournament.

“Is that a blush I detect?” Brangien teased.

Guinevere yanked her mind back from where it had wandered. That was the treacherous path that had led her to the fairy queen’s meadow. A path with clever smiles and eyes like the pools of green shadow beneath a tree. Mordred had not been the one to abduct her, but he had used her to hurt Arthur. And he had hurt her, too. Guinevere would not forget it. “I will let you know when there is something to blush about,” she told Brangien.

Brangien frowned at Guinevere’s curt tone, but Guinevere could not explain. “Did you dream with Isolde last night?” she asked instead, remembering her own disturbing dream and Arthur’s suggestion that her knot magic giving away her own dreams had failed.

“Yes.” This time Brangien blushed, a dreamy smile on her face.

That was not good news. It made Guinevere’s odd dream even more puzzling and worrisome. It would need to be addressed, and she hated anticipating how Brangien would take the news. So much of magic was about taking—power, control, even memories—but with Brangien and the dreams Guinevere had been able to give.

Guinevere hurried toward the trees, pulling away from her companions. It was a problem for tonight. She did not have to think about it now, not while she was out here. She wanted to reclaim the sense of peace she found in wild lands. Though Camelot was home now, she had grown up in a forest.

Once again her mind halted. Had she grown up in a forest? She had mere handfuls of memories, and if her last visit to Merlin was any indication, they were not accurate. The cottage she remembered sweeping was a ruin, uninhabited for decades. How could she have lived in a place that was unlivable?

Lancelot had caught up to her. She was subtle about it, but Guinevere’s knight never let her too far out of reach.

“How much do you remember of your childhood?” Guinevere asked.

“My childhood?”

“Your teeth.”

“My teeth?”

There had been a conversation at a market with Brangien and Mordred. They seemed confused that Guinevere did not remember losing her first teeth to make way for her second teeth. She repressed a shudder at having to once again acknowledge the fact that all children with their tiny pearls of teeth had other, bigger teeth, lurking beneath the surface, waiting to burst free. “When did you lose them?”

Lancelot had a hint of laugh in her voice. “I would imagine at the normal times? My first was before my mother—” Lancelot broke off. Her father had been killed serving Uther Pendragon, Arthur’s tyrant father. And while she had never specified how her mother had died, it had driven her to pursue vengeance and then knighthood with singular intensity. “My two front teeth I bashed out falling from a tree. It took quite a while for them to grow in. I had a lisp.”

“Were you teased?”

“Never more than once.” Lancelot smiled at the memory.

Guinevere envied her both the ability to defend herself even as a child and the memories of those events. She was hungry for a past, for some way to fill the emptiness she found when she tried to excavate her own history from memories. In the magical dream where she had connected herself to Merlin to look for him, walking back through her life, she had hit a certain point and found…nothing.

A void. Wiped clean. It did not feel clean, though. It felt like a violation, and filled her with shame. She cleared her throat and continued, wanting Lancelot to talk. To distract her. “Where did you go after you lost your parents? You have never told me much about that.”

Lancelot’s smile faded and something closed in her face. Lancelot was never dishonest, but there was a hint of evasiveness in the way she changed the subject. “We should focus. What are we looking for in the trees?”

Guinevere pulled her horse to an abrupt stop, dread and an odd sense of triumph warring in her breast as she looked at what should have been an orderly line of trees and found a riot of enormous, twisted oaks, draped with vines that rustled and reached in the dead, windless air. “That,” she whispered.

“We should wait for the king.” Lancelot eyed the trees warily, sword drawn and held ready. Guinevere did not know whether Lancelot could feel it the way she could—the way the air felt like a breath being held, the sense that if she whipped around fast enough, she would catch the trees moving—but it was clear Lancelot could feel the threat.

They had left their horses outside the forest with Brangien while Sir Tristan dashed madly for Camelot and Arthur.

“I came back to help Arthur in the fight against the Dark Queen. This is that fight.” Guinevere crouched, resting a hand against the dirt beneath them. Her fingers dug in. The soil was hard and unbroken, and it compacted beneath her fingernails. A worm wriggled by and brushed her skin.

Not a worm.

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Review - Chosen by Kiersten White #YA #Fantasy

Series: Slayer # 2
Format: Hardcover, 368 pages
Release Date: January 7, 2020
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Source: Library
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy

Nina continues to learn how to use her slayer powers against enemies old and new in this second novel in the New York Times bestselling series from Kiersten White, set in the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Now that Nina has turned the Watcher’s Castle into a utopia for hurt and lonely demons, she’s still waiting for the utopia part to kick in. With her sister Artemis gone and only a few people remaining at the castle—including her still-distant mother—Nina has her hands full. Plus, though she gained back her Slayer powers from Leo, they’re not feeling quite right after being held by the seriously evil succubus Eve, a.k.a. fake Watcher’s Council member and Leo’s mom.

And while Nina is dealing with the darkness inside, there’s also a new threat on the outside, portended by an odd triangle symbol that seems to be popping up everywhere, in connection with Sean’s demon drug ring as well as someone a bit closer to home. Because one near-apocalypse just isn’t enough, right?

The darkness always finds you. And once again, it’s coming for the Slayer. 

Chosen is the second and final installment in author Kiersten White's Slayer duology. What you should know: This story takes place in the Buffy the Vampire TV series world. Buffy is alive, but retired. She has made some guest appearances via Slayer dreams. If you've watched the Buffy TV series, you should have no issues with understanding what has happened before these series takes place. 16-year old protagonist Athena aka Nina is both a Watcher with medical training and a Slayer, the last one ever apparently. 

Ever since she had her powers returned to her by Leo, Nina has a darkness chasing her in real life as well as her dreams. Nina's allies include Doug, Rhys, Cillian, Jessi, Jade, Imogen, her mother, and Ruth Zabuto who has been a watcher longer than most of these characters have been alive. Meanwhile, Nina and the Watchers have started to build Sanctuary, a place for demons and Slayers who have nowhere else to go. Truth be told, Nina has failed in her attempt at bringing Slayers to the Sanctuary. Until 3 of them are introduced just in time for them to help Nina against her sister and her new allies.

Her twin sister, Artemis (who gets some story time of her own), has chosen to go her own way with her girlfriend Honoria leaving Nina and her mother behind which will be a bone of contention for Nina throughout this story. Artemis decides she needs to take drastic steps to make herself stronger to protect herself and her loved ones. Instead, she finds herself hurting and betraying the ones she claims to love the most. Nina must try to stop her sister without ruining their relationship. There is also the dreaded prophecy hanging over the sisters head. Will one of them destroy the world? Will one of them be the one to save it? Stay tuned! 

As I mentioned, while Buffy is basically a guest in this series, there are others who appear as well. I am not sure if this Oz is from the series, but it's curious that Oz discovered he was a werewolf in this series, and this Oz just happens to be a werewolf. Another guest appearance in this story just happens to be Faith who actually imparts some pretty decent knowledge onto Nina right before she is to fight her sister, Honoria, and her allies.

"You can't stop what's inside you. If you fight it, it'll win. Figure out how to live with it, how to direct it instead of letting it drag you in its current. And only you can do that.” 

“You can't handle the pain and anger inside you? Welcome to the club. You're so much more than that, though. Maybe you messed up. You'll mess up again. But you're doing the best you can, and that's not nothing, you know?” 

“The darkness isn't going anywhere. But there's a difference between walking through it and becoming it. It doesn't control you. You got more of it than you should? Good. Use it. Use it all.”  

The reason for the rating was in essence because most of the book really wasn't all that entertaining. Nina was out of her element while she was supposed to be in charge. The humor and sarcasm tried too hard to make readers laugh. The final chapters were entertaining enough once Nina and her allies have to face Artemis and hers in order to save the planet. But, the ending felt a little too quick and neat for my liking. Also, I am not a fan of resolutions where we have to forgive a character for nearly destroying the entire planet just because they were envious that they weren't the chosen one.

 

Chapter 1

THE DEMON APPEARS OUT OF nowhere. Claws and fangs fill my sight, and every instinct screams kill. My blood sings with it, my fists clench, my vision narrows. The vulnerable points on the demon’s body practically flash like neon signs.

“Foul!” Rhys shouts. “No teleportation, Tsip! You know that.” Even while playing, Rhys can’t help but be a Watcher, shouting out both advice and corrections. He’s not wearing his glasses, which makes his face look vague and undefined. Cillian passes him, mussing Rhys’s carefully parted hair into wild curls and laughing at Rhys’s frustration.

I take a deep breath, trying to clear my head of the impulse to kill this demon I invited into our home and swore to protect. “It’s just soccer,” I whisper. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t even like soccer.”

“Football, bloody American,” Cillian sings, neatly stealing the ball from me. His shorts are far shorter than the January afternoon should permit, but he seems impervious to cold. Unlike those of us who are translucently pale at this point in winter, his skin is rich and lovely. He passes to Tsip. Tsip is a vaguely opalescent pink, shimmering in the sunlight. She paints her claws fun colors when we do manicure nights, and I try desperately not to miss Artemis.

I stay rooted to the ground where I’m standing. Tsip caught me off guard, but that shouldn’t matter. I like her. And the fact that I went from trying to score a goal to plotting a dozen ways to kill my opponent in a single heartbeat is frankly terrifying. I can’t get my heart under control, can’t shake the adrenaline screaming through my veins.

“Gotta take over for the Littles. I’m out.” I wave and jog from the field. No one pays me much attention. Jade is lying on the ground in front of the goal, the worst goalkeeper ever. Rhys and Cillian are bodychecking each other in increasingly flirty ways. Tsip keeps shimmering and then resolidifying as she remembers the no-teleportation rule. They’re all happy to keep going without me, unaware of my internal freak-out.

I’ve deliberately kept them unaware. Things here are going so well. I’m in charge. I can’t be the problem. So none of them know how I can’t sleep at night, how my anger is hair-trigger fast, how when I do manage to sleep, my dreams are …

Well. Bad.

They don’t need to know and I don’t let them. Except for Doug, his bright yellow skin almost nineties Day-Glo levels in the thin winter sun. Annoying emotion-sniffing demon. He watches me from our goal, his nostrils flared. I can’t lie to him the way I can to everyone else. I shake my head preemptively. I don’t want to talk about it. Not with him. Not with anyone. There’s only one person I want to talk to about it, but Leo Silvera’s not exactly available.

I do a quick sweep of the perimeter of the castle. Leo loved me. Check the woods. Leo betrayed me. Check the locks on the outbuildings. Leo saved me. Pause and just listen and look, feeling for anything pushing against my instincts. I let Leo die.

I keep walking. Leo loved me, betrayed us, saved us, and then died, and I can’t be sad without being mad or mad without feeling guilty or guilty without feeling exhausted.

Past the meadow, the tiny purple demons are taking turns pushing each other on the tree swing. That, or they’re trying to push each other off. It’s hard to tell with them. With nothing else needing my attention outside, I end up at the front stairs to the castle.

“Hey, Jessi.” I wave halfheartedly to our resident vengeance demon. She’s leading the Littles through an elaborate game of hopscotch. George Smythe, bundled up and barely able to see under a floppy knit hat, is shouting each letter as he lands on it. “G!”

“What?” Jessi snaps at me.

“E!”

“I can take over for you.” I find the Littles soothing. They might be three incredibly hyper children constantly needing snacks, entertainment, and education, but at least none of them ever randomly triggers a kill reflex in me.

“A!”

“No,” Jessi says, her voice as sweet as summer fruit. “G-E-what-comes-next …”

“O!” George course corrects, wobbling on one short leg before jumping to the required O.

“Good! Oh, you’re so clever. Priya, how are your letters coming?” Priya, a tiny moppet with shiny black hair, is crouched over her own chalk work, which looks more like Klingon than any alphabet I’m familiar with. “Very good, darling! You’re really working hard. Hold the chalk with one hand, like we talked about. Thea, love, fingers out of noses, please—that’s a dear.”

And to think, we once considered these children the entire future of the Watchers. I watch as Thea spins until she falls flat on her bottom. Actually, the future of the Watchers is pretty accurately captured here. I pat Jessi on the arm. “So, you can take the afternoon off.”

Everything sweet in Jessi’s voice turns to ice. “I said no. I don’t trust you with these three precious wonders. We have an entire day’s curriculum to get through, and we haven’t even done story time yet or finished our art projects. Are you going to do any of that with them?”

“I—I could?”

“You were going to turn on a cartoon and read while their fertile minds were filled with weeds.”

Jessi doesn’t have her powers anymore, but I’m pretty certain if she did, I would have been vengeance-demoned right into something oozing and seeping. She’s already turned away from me and back to her three charges. Her whole face is full of gentle warmth and absolute love.

“R!” George declares, hopping emphatically down on it. Jessi claps like he’s cured the common cold.

Thoroughly dismissed, I skulk up the stairs and into the castle. Jessi could at least pretend to be nice. She’s got a lot of enemies out there—vengeance is a nasty cycle—and without her powers she’s vulnerable. We took her in despite her obvious hatred for everyone over the age of ten. There was some debate, given her history, but my mom argued in her favor. It’s a little easier to forgive a vengeance demon who made it her immortal life’s work to avenge children than a vengeance demon who specialized in, say, fantasy league sports rivalries.

But Jessi’s dismissal leaves me with nothing to do. I used to have my medical center and my studies, all my little Watcher duties. Even with so few of us, the castle ran as near to Watcher traditions as we could manage. Which in retrospect was absurd, since we didn’t have a Slayer and weren’t actually doing anything Watchers should.

But now everything has changed. We lost Watchers—Wanda Wyndam-Pryce, sulking off into the sunset, good riddance. Bradford Smythe, murdered. Eve Silvera, secretly a succubus demon and murderer, smushed thanks to my actions. Artemis, off to find herself with her awful girlfriend, the thought of whom makes my jaw ache as I grind my teeth. And Leo, who didn’t warn us what his mother was (and what he was) but fought her to give us enough time to stop her from opening a new hellmouth.

And now we have a Slayer, again some more, thanks to Leo somehow returning the powers his mother stole from me. I don’t know how he did it, and it hurts too much to think about, like everything else. I spend so much of my days trying not to think, and it’s harder than it should be. I used to believe that all Slayers did was act without thinking. I was wrong, but I wish it were true. There’s so little acting and so much thinking these days.

It’s good. It’s all good. It’s good, I remind myself, over and over like a chant. Sanctuary, what we decided to turn our castle into, is just starting out, but it’s exactly what we dreamed it could be. We’ve taken in demons who had nowhere else to go. We’re keeping them safe, and ourselves safe, and we’ll keep looking for those who could benefit from the generations of knowledge and abilities we have. We’re protecting, not attacking or destroying.

Between our new demonic additions and existing Watchers, everyone has tasks and times to do them. It’s more work than anyone anticipated, keeping everyone taken care of and fed, making sure the castle runs like it should. But so far everyone is happy. Everyone is safe.

I sink down against the wall, feeling the cold of the stone radiating outward. The unpellis demon, all four gentle eyes soft and brown and hopeful, snuggles up to my side like a dog. It’s more animal than human in nature, nonverbal, and still recovering from its frequent de-skinning treatment in Sean’s demon-drug manufacturing scheme. I saved Pelly from that cellar.

I didn’t save everyone, though.

I wrap my arms around Pelly and close my eyes. Everything is exactly what we dreamed it could be. Except I feel Leo’s loss everywhere, and I miss my twin, Artemis, with a constant, physical ache.

And, worst of all, with enough time after Tsip surprised me to calm down and remind my body there’s no danger …

I still feel like killing something.

Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes & Noble | Kobo