Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(31)

“It has to be part of being the Harper.” Those weird, creepy powers were taking her over like some sort of superhero-y disease. Her body didn’t feel like her own anymore. She dropped the bow4 even though her fingers ached to shoot some more, just like her entire being was dying to touch the harp again.

“It could be that I’m an incredible instructor.”

Maeve snorted. Did Aedan just make a joke? “Or, I’m just amazing. Maeve, the Goblin Slayer.” She mimed a slashing motion.

Aedan stiffened up, all humor draining out of his features. “Harper or not, you’ve never been in battle. We are only working on this so you can defend yourself if the goblins break our lines.” His hand gently brushed her arm. “You’re not a warrior.”

The whole ‘you’re a weak human’ thing was starting to get on her nerves. She drew herself up, looking him straight in the eye. “I am part goblin, you know.” She bared her teeth in what had to be an awful grimace. “My ancestors probably had yours for dinner.”

Aedan stared at me for a moment before breaking into a laugh. “I think you might win the battle on witty commentary5 alone.” “Then, you agree. I can be on the front lines,” she said lightly, rolling an arrow between her fingers.

Aedan grew dead serious. “Only if you want to be killed6. I can’t defend the gates if I need to protect you.”

“Oh, you’re worried about protecting me because I’m weak?” Somehow, her body just knew what to do. Without a second thought, she yanked the brooch off his cloak and threw it in the air, whipping her bow into position and letting an arrow fly. The arrow hit the wooden pillar with a thunk, the circular brooch swirling around its shaft. “I disagree.”





18


“What are the chances, between ‘No way in hell’ and maniacal laughter, that this might actually work?”

“In my time, we’d say we have the same chance as a cat in hell without claws.”

“Thanks for the confidence.”—Marissa and Cyril—The Hidden House series book 3, Found

I nocked my arrow and pulled back, anchoring at my chin as I took aim before letting it fly. Completely off the mark. “So, how are things with you and Wilhelm?”

Em handed me another arrow from her perch on the grass beside me and heaved a theatrical sigh. “Status quo. He wasn’t able to get another foreign exchange year. Something about visas or whatever.”

“That sucks.” I took aim again and this time hit slightly off-center. With a sigh, I dropped to the ground next to Em. “Do you want to try?” I asked, gesturing my bow towards Em. “Turning targets into Swiss cheese always makes me feel better.”

Em laughed, poking at my bow with her finger as if it were a snake. “I never hit the target.”

I gestured around us at the empty football field and baseball diamond. With school out for the teacher’s convention, we had the athletic fields to ourselves. Coach Rentz never locked our practice shed and didn’t care if we dragged out the targets as long as we put them back again afterwards.

“No one’s here to see if you miss.” I wiggled my bow at her temptingly.

“I’ll probably stab myself, become one of Rentz’s horror stories, or shoot you. No, thanks.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing.” I rubbed my thumb gently along the smooth wood grain of my Maeve bow. It was hand carved and beautiful, no sight, no stabilizer, definitely not for competition, and Coach would have a fit if she saw me sneaking in a practice with it. Maeve would definitely love a weapon like this one.

Em’s burst of laughter made me look up. “Do you want me to leave you two alone? You look pretty cozy.”

I tossed a handful of leaves at her, most of which didn’t even make it half the distance. “You need to get a hobby. Preferably something that keeps you too busy to talk.”

“Oh, I have that. His name is Wilhelm.”

“Making out in the movie theater isn’t a hobby.”

“I disagree. Plus, the people who called it French kissing apparently never made out with a German.”

Em’s retort was so fast, it took a minute for her sentence to fully register. I resisted the urge to facepalm. “I really didn’t need to know that.”

“You’re the one who mentioned making out.”

“Believe me, I’ll never make that mistake again.” I rubbed at a spot of dirt on my bow that had lodged in one of the carvings. “You’ll need something to keep yourself busy this summer when Wilhelm’s not around,” I said, trying to really lightly gloss over the “not around” part. “Are you going to do community theater again?”

“Actually,” she said, while pulling apart a clover, leaf-by-leaf, “I was thinking of auditioning to be one of those historical interpreters in Philly. How cool would it be to get paid to dress up, talk about the revolution, maybe sing a colonial song every now and then, and do improv all day long?”

It actually sounded like Em heaven. “Cool? In the city in the summer? Only if they let you wear ice packs under all those skirts.”

“I’ll just make sure I’m so dazzling in the audition, they’ll have to give me an indoor job.” She put her hand to her chest and put on a starry-eyed ingénue expression. “I could be the daughter of a wealthy merchant from the islands. Maybe you can teach me how to fake that I’m knitting something, like a sock. Or maybe embroidery—I can stick a needle in the fabric every now and then and make it look like I’m making a tapestry or something.”