Unthinkable - Hardcover

Werlin, Nancy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803733739 ISBN 13: 9780803733732

Verlag: DUTTON, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

This much anticipated sequel to the New York Times Bestseller Impossible a fantasy full of suspense, mystery, and romance will appeal to fans ofBeautiful Creatures, Raven Boys, and Wicked Lovely.

Fenella was the first Scarborough girl to be cursed, hundreds of years ago, and she has been trapped in the faerie realm ever since, forced to watch generations of daughters try to break this same faerie curse that has enslaved them all. But now Fenella’s descendant, Lucy, has accomplished the impossible and broken the curse, so why is Fenella still trapped in Faerie?

In her desperation, Fenella makes a deal with the faerie queen: If she can accomplish three acts of destruction, she will be free, at last, to die. What she doesn't realize is that these acts must be aimed at her own family and if she fails, the consequences will be dire, for all of the Scarborough girls.

How can she possibly choose to hurt her own cherished family not to mention the new man whom she’s surprised to find herself falling in love with? But if she doesn’t go through with the tasks, how will she manage to save her dear ones?

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Nancy Werlin is a New York Times bestselling author (for Impossible), a National Book Award Finalist (forThe Rules of Survival), and an Edgar Award winner (for The Killer’s Cousin). She lives with her husband near Boston.

Nancy Werlin is a New York Times bestselling author (for Impossible), a National Book Award Finalist (forThe Rules of Survival), and an Edgar Award winner (for The Killer’s Cousin). She lives with her husband near Boston.

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A desperate plea

“Consider—”

“I have considered! I have spent the last four hundred years helpless while every girl in my family suffered. They blamed me for their fate, along with blaming Padraig. I caused the curse, and then I failed to break it, and then I failed to protect any of them. I failed!”

Fenella sank to her knees and raised her head on a rigid neck. “I have already tried to die in every way I know. Poisoning and drowning. Fire and blade. Hanging and leaping. Nothing worked. Show me mercy. Undo this life-spell that Padraig cast. Let me die. It is long, long past my time.”

One of the elk fey whispered to a rabbit, and the mossy rock face of a stone fey glowed phosphorescent in the moonlight.

“I beg you,” said Fenella.

 

ALSO BY NANCY WERLIN

Are You Alone on Purpose?

Black Mirror

Double Helix

Extraordinary

Impossible

The Killer’s Cousin

Locked Inside

The Rules of Survival

Chapter 1

“I demand to speak to the queen!”

Panting, shouting, a redheaded human girl named Fenella Scarborough raced toward the center of the forest clearing, barely in front of the willow-tree fey chasing her. She felt the flick of a long thin branch start to twist around her waist, but she wrenched it aside before it could yank her backward. The full-moon court of the fey was assembled, with countless faeries crowding the ground and trees and air, but Fenella ignored them all. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the tall figure of the queen as she zigged and zagged and fought toward her.

The girl’s desperation was real, but the chase was staged. The queen’s tree fey guards were helping Fenella Scarborough. They might not approve of her quest, but she had convinced them of her need to try.

Bless them, Fenella thought as she evaded another feint at capture.

She reached the queen and staggered to a stop. The queen had risen to her feet, and Fenella looked a long way up into her face, for the queen was taller than tall. But the queen’s half-mask of reptilian skin, which nestled over her forehead and around her left eye, made it hard to read her expression.

“You must hear me.” Fenella put an unconscious hand to her side, where she had a stitch from running.

The assembled court stared and pointed and chattered. The tree fey whipped restraining vines around Fenella’s waist. In a moment, they would have to drag her away.

But then it happened, just as Fenella had hoped and planned. The queen’s wings rose with interest and she held up a clawed hand. “I will hear this human girl.”

The tree fey guards loosened their bindings, though they did not remove them.

Fenella knew to wait now, until she was bidden to speak. She stood still beneath Queen Kethalia’s examining gaze. She did not let her eyes slip even once to the thick, curved knife that the queen wore in a sheath on one forearm.

Her involuntary shuddering made her glad for the support of the tree fey’s vines. Would the queen think she was afraid? Fenella jutted her chin out. She was not. Not of the new young Queen of Faerie, not of anyone, not of anything. Fear had burned out of Fenella Scarborough years ago.

“You look like a young girl,” mused Queen Kethalia at last. “But you are older.”

A discreet tug at Fenella’s waist cautioned her not to reply.

It was true that Fenella Scarborough looked young, eighteen at most. But an acute observer with knowledge of magic—and the queen was nothing if not that—would stop and look again, questioning the surface. And it would not take knowledge of magic for an observer to notice the firm tilt of Fenella’s chin, the thrust of her strong nose, and the character hinted at by her wide, mobile mouth. There was none of the uncertainty of youth.

“Also,” continued the queen thoughtfully, “someone, sometime, has put a foot on your neck, and kept it there.”

“Never again!” Fenella snapped. The willow fey warned her with another tug, and immediately, she compressed her mouth.

Now there was not a muscle of her body that she wasn’t holding tautly. But it was even more disconcerting than she had expected, to be under the gaze of the young queen. She knew exactly what she was doing here, but she had not anticipated feeling so naked. She had not known, really, what to expect from this new young queen. Her friends the tree fey had not been willing to share their thoughts beyond agreeing to help her gain an audience.

Unlike Fenella, Queen Kethalia really was only eighteen. There was a whiff of the human about Queen Kethalia too. It was not in her blood; it was culture and upbringing. The queen had recently spent several years in the human realm, in disguise as an ordinary human girl. The queen had had a human foster mother, and had attended human school, and—worst of all, according to some of the fey—had had a human best friend whom she actually loved.

Whispers said that Queen Kethalia missed those days and she missed that friend, and it had affected her judgment.

There was no telling any of this, however, from the impassive face meeting Fenella’s gaze now. “Speak now, girl,” the queen said. Her voice, if not gentle, was calm. “What do you want?”

Fenella unclenched her hands. Her voice rang out firmly. “I want to die.”

The entire watching court leaned forward.

“What?” said the queen.

“I want to die.”

Three of the insect fey winged to the human girl and examined her with their multi-faceted eyes nearly in her face.

A human seeking death was incomprehensible to the long-lived fey. In the old days, many humans came to Faerie seeking the opposite. Plus, the entire faerie race had only just managed to claw itself away from extinction; the threat of which had been why the queen was sent to the human realm to begin with.

“Please,” Fenella added huskily.

The spotted lizard that rode the queen’s shoulder poked his head out from the glorious mass of her hair. He flicked his tongue toward Fenella, as if to taste her sincerity.

Then the queen’s partial brother, Ryland, padded up beside the throne.

Ryland was a manticore. To human eyes, he seemed a monster, with his enormous, muscled lion’s body, dragon’s tail, wings, and human head. But to faerie eyes, he looked like what he also was: royal.

Seeing him, Fenella wondered about other rumors she had heard. Would Ryland have been a better ruler than Queen Kethalia? It was said his ideas were different from his sister’s and unmarked by any fondness for humans. And yet their mother, the old queen, had at the end chosen Kethalia—firmly.

“Sister,” Ryland said formally. “I know about this girl. May I comment?”

Ryland had not been in Fenella’s plan. Panic pushed at her throat. “I don’t know him! It is my life. I will speak for myself.” The last word emerged only as a squawk, as the tree fey tightened their hold on her. A leaf even brushed her mouth in light reproof. Fenella subsided.

What was that fleeting expression on the queen’s face as she glanced from her brother to Fenella and back again? Fenella squinted at her, suddenly uncertain she had seen anything at all.

The queen nodded to her brother. “Go ahead.”

“It is an old tale. The girl was once the human slave of the Mud Creature.” Ryland put an expression of polite inquiry on his face. “Sister, you may not know the Mud...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: DUTTON
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0803733739
• ISBN 13: 9780803733732
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 392
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar