Briar Queen Read Online Free PDF

the mounds of coats and boots and backpacks. “I think she did it to unnerve all of us.”
    As they walked into the family room, Jack set down the basket. “Phouka sent some treats.”
    Christie walked over, peered into the basket, and drew out a deranged-looking gingerbread man, which he examined doubtfully.
    From outside came the sound of glass breaking. They all glanced at the window. Past the blinds, Finn could see the empty house—now for sale—that neighbored Christie’s.
    â€œMaybe it’s Mr. Redhawk’s ghost,” Christie suggested. “Not the ghost of Mr. Redhawk—I mean, the ghost he told me lived in his attic.”
    â€œThere are no such things as ghosts,” Jack said reasonably. “There are only the dead, who linger for all sorts of reasons.”
    Finn thought about Jack sleeping like the dead last night, and the cozy room suddenly didn’t seem warm enough.
    â€œWell, someone’s been lingering in my neighbor’s house for a while. I swear I heard someone moving stuff around in there when I was walking past, two nights ago.”
    Jack’s eyelashes flickered, which meant he was interested in what Christie was telling him. “I’ll have to investigate.”
    â€œMaybe it’s one of your friends.”
    â€œMaybe it’s a vagrant who used to be a liberal arts major.”
    Christie bit the head off one of Phouka’s gingerbread men and went mutinously silent.
    When they were ready to leave for the Lotus and Luna hangout, Christie andSylvie took Christie’s Mustang, and Finn accompanied Jack in his sedan. The two cars began the half-hour drive into the mountains, along plowed roads that shimmered as if covered with white sequins.
    It was Friday night, and Lotus and Luna, a restaurant that resembled a Buddhist-temple-turned-saloon, was packed. Seated at the corner table Jack had reserved were Hester Kierney and Ijio Valentine, two descendants of the families who had made a pact with Reiko and her tribe of immortal outlaws. Although referred to as the blessed, Finn saw no otherworldliness in Hester or in Ijio, only a secular glamour. Hester dressed like a 1920s starlet and wore expensive ornaments in her short, dark hair. Ijio was always in suits that seemed a bit stylish for a twenty-one-year-old. He was a philosophy major. Hester was deciding between physics and chemistry.
    â€œYou’d better get to the stage, Jack.” Ijio checked his watch. “Now. Your lead singer is very tempestuous.”
    Jack bent and murmured into Finn’s ear, “The others are here. Be careful.”
    And he was gone. Finn surveyed the crowd. She could tell who the “others” were. The regular people wore stylish winter gear, but the others wore fur and feathers and modern incarnations of Renaissance and Victorian clothing, what Sylvie called “neo-antique.” They were as brightly marked as venomous snakes.
    â€œDon’t worry, Finn.” Hester was watching her. “Phouka rules them now.”
    â€œIt won’t last.” Ijio drank from a silver flask. “Not with that lot.”
    â€œWhat are you saying?” Finn folded her arms on the table. “Some new badass is going to come along and try to take over? Like what usually happens when a sheriff in a western dies? Anarchy?”
    Christie leaned toward them with his own question. “You were both there on Halloween, to watch Finn burn. Let’s not pretend you’re actually friends, ’cause you’re not.”
    â€œChristie, stop.” Finn knew Hester had tried to call the police on Halloween.
    â€œWe didn’t know it was going to be a real sacrifice,” Ijio said, genuinely upset. “We thought it was just, I don’t know, a dramatization. That bitch on wheels, Reiko, said nothing about fire and death.”
    â€œHow does it work, exactly?” Christie pretended to be curious. “You clean up after