Read Online Briar Queen by Katherine Harbour - Free Book Online

guitar, his voice was a howl that sent splinters into Finn’s already raw nerves.
    â€œThe Unseelie,” Jack said. “No wonder Wyatt didn’t want us in here.”
    â€œ Leander is here. There!” She’d caught sight of a flash of golden hair in the eerie light near the stage. She grabbed Jack’s hand and pulled him with her.
    One of the dancers jostled her and she lost her grip on Jack, then turned to see him gazing after a female figure in a hooded coat of crimson velvet. Finn remembered the girl Leander had come with and pushed toward her, glimpsing the girl’s face, strangely familiar—
    Someone seized Finn’s other hand. She whirled to face a grinning young man with bleached hair and ram horns strapped to his head. His bare chest glistened with green spirals. “Well, hello, pretty pretty. However did a thing like you get past the guard dog?”
    â€œLet go of me.” She tugged, but his grip was like steel. His nails, painted green, were sharp. She looked up into silver eyes with rectangular pupils and began to feel that strange buzzing in her ears . . .
    Then Jack was between them like a slice of dark murder and the Fata had let go of her hand and was backing away, saying, “Sorry. I didn’t know . . .”
    Finn had spotted the golden-haired figure in the pale suit moving up a flight of stairs. She broke free from Jack and wove through the Fatas, heard Jack swear violently as he plunged after her. She ran up the stairs and he followed. Pushing through a stained-glass door, she stepped onto the roof.
    The figure in the pale suit stood with his back to them, his head bowed. Hoarsely, he said, “Why are you following me?”
    â€œLeander.” Finn moved forward. “It’s me . . . Finn.”
    Jack stood in the doorway. In a voice like a knife, he said, “Cyrus. Turn around, face her, and tell her what you are.”
    Leander Cyrus shuddered and turned, shoving his hands through his hair. When Finn saw all the rings he wore, a slow horror crawled through her. She walked across the rooftop and reached out to touch his wrist, carefully wrapping her fingers around it. She breathed out in relief when she felt his pulse. “Leander—”
    â€œWhy,” he whispered, lifting a dark gaze to hers, “why are you here ? With him ?”
    Jack. He meant Jack. As if he knew what Jack had been. She said, “My da and I moved here a few months ago. Why are you here?”
    His hand in hers was cold and his fingernails were dirty. His hair didn’t look too clean either. His suit was expensive, but threadbare. He whispered, “I came here to kill a wolf.”
    He raised his head, and she stepped back with a small cry—his eyes glinted the mercury silver of a Fata’s and the scent of oceans and flowers came so strongly from him, it made her choke. She recognized the flower smell, spicy and delicate—morning glories, which had once grown outside of her window in San Francisco.
    â€œFinn.” Jack’s voice was soft. “I hoped I would never have to tell you.”
    â€œYou knew? You knew what happened to him? Jack .”
    â€œI recognized the name when you first spoke it.”
    â€œRecognized the . . .”
    She looked back at Leander, the kind, familiar young man who had been an older brother to her younger self, the one who’d taught her how to use a camera, who had taken her to old movies, and who’d comforted her whenever she’d cried over a cruel remark from Lily.
    Leander Cyrus was a Jack. He had always been a Jack.
    â€œYou never saw him in the day, Finn. You never noticed because you were a child, and to a child, a Jack’s habits would not seem so odd.”
    Leander stepped back. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Finn.”
    She flew at him, pummeling him, and he didn’t try to defend himself as she shouted, “ What did you do to my sister! What did you do