Free Briar Queen by Katherine Harbour Page A

minute.”
    As Finn climbed out onto the fire escape, Jack came after. She gazed out over the snowy parking lot as that terrible night replayed in her head . . . her sister, shattered in blood and glass. She felt the poisonous sleepiness return, fought it with clenched teeth. “I thought she was dead. Seth Lot took her.”
    Jack gently said, “I’ll have Moth tell me where she is. Then I’ll go search for her.”
    â€œI’m coming with you.”
    â€œWhere Lot has taken your sister—if what Moth has said is true—it isn’t a safe place. And . . . this concerns me—that bracelet is made of silver. Where Moth has come from . . . silver and iron decay or transform.”
    Her stomach twisted. Where was Lily Rose? “You’ll take me with you or I’ll find a way to go alone. I’ll find Leander. And if any of your Fata friends even attempt to make me or my friends forget you, my sister, or anything else, I’ve got things written and hidden, files on several computers, and little reminders scrawled on some of my everyday stuff.”
    He stared at her, his brows knit. Then he bent his head and kissed her.
    She hadn’t expected such a tactic and knew that he was trying to distract her. She got a little angry, so the kiss wasn’t delicate, but heated and fierce. She stood on her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pushed her hands through his hair. She dragged his lean-muscled body close as her blood became fiery butterflies . . .
    She pulled away and steeled herself from winding her arms around him again as he leaned back against the railing, one boot heel pressed against it, his hair in his eyes as he watched her. They were both breathing quickly.
    She pointed at him. “I mean it, Jack. Do you think Moth’s telling the truth? He doesn’t even know his real name.”
    â€œLot”—Jack was studying her from beneath his lashes, which meant he was scheming—“will have taken that from him. Moth is a changeling, a stolen-away. From Elizabethan England. He’s probably lost his mind more than a few times. As for Leander, he seems like a fugitive as well.” Jack settled against the railing beside her and she could feel him sheltering her from the cold. “Leander called himself ‘Cyrus’ when I met him in San Francisco, when Reiko was visiting Lot, who’d made a temporary den in Muir Woods. Cyrus went to Seth Lot because he’d lost whoever had made him a Jack. He was rootless, as I once was.”
    Finn hated to think of Jack as he’d been, someone who’d caught the attention of a creature who had murdered him and brought him back to life stitched full of magical roses that kept him immortal. In the beginning, Jack had lured Finn to him like the elf knight in an old ballad, with no good intentions. And, dull withgrief, she’d fallen for him. Was that how it had been with her sister and Leander? She carefully set her hands on the railing. “It wasn’t just Norn, the Fata my sister met when she was little. It was Leander, too, who told Lily some of those things in her journal. Leander loves her. He bleeds for her. My sister is still alive .”
    â€œWe need to remember that Leander and Moth once belonged to the Wolf. Go home, Finn. I’ll take Moth to a safe place after I’ve talked to him.”
    â€œRemember our deal, Jack. Find out where my sister is and take me with you . And don’t try to trick me.”
    His mouth curved, but his eyes were troubled. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
    AS FINN ENTERED THE LAMP-LIT HALL of her house in a jangling of keys and elation, her father called from the parlor. “Finn.”
    She ducked her head around the corner.
    â€œCome. Sit.” He patted the sofa next to him. She sauntered in and dropped beside him, glad Jane Emory wasn’t there. As he handed her a cold cherry Coke, she squinted at him. “How did