Winner of the Andre Norton Award Return to New York Times bestselling author Holly Black’s enthralling realm of faerie in the second Modern Faerie Tales novel, where danger and magic come hand-in-hand in the dark underground of New York City. When seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to New York, she’s trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city’s labyrinthine subway system. But there’s something eerily beguiling about Val’s new friends that sets her on edge. When Val is talked into tracking down the lair of a mysterious creature, she must strike a bargain to make it out with her life intact. Now drawn into a world she never knew existed, Val finds herself torn between her affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming. Holly Black is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of fantasy books, including the Novels of Elfhame, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown , The Spiderwick Chronicles, and her adult debut, Book of Night , as well as an Arthurian picture book called Sir Morien . She has been a finalist for the Eisner Award and Lodestar Awards, and the recipient of a Mythopoeic Award, a Nebula Award, and a Newbery Honor. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages worldwide and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library. She invites you to visit her online at BlackHolly.com or on Instagram @BlackHolly. Chapter 1 1 Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that! —LEWIS CARROLL, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS Valerie Russell felt something cold touch the small of her back and spun around, striking without thinking. Her slap connected with flesh. A can of soda hit the concrete floor of the locker room and rolled, sticky brown liquid fizzing as it pooled. Other girls looked up from changing into sweats and started to giggle. Hands raised in mock surrender, Ruth laughed. “Just a joke, Princess Badass of Badassia.” “Sorry,” Val forced herself to say, but the sudden surprise of anger hadn’t entirely dissipated and she felt like an idiot. “What are you doing down here? I thought being near sweat gave you hives.” Ruth sat down on a green bench, looking glamorous in a vintage smoking jacket and long velvet skirt. Ruth’s brows were thin pencil lines, her eyes outlined with black kohl and red shadow. Her hair was glossy black, paler at the roots and threaded with purple braids. She took a deep drag on her clove cigarette and blew smoke in the direction of one of Val’s teammates. “Only my own sweat.” Val rolled her eyes, smiling. Val and Ruth had been friends forever, for so long that Val was used to being the overshadowed one, the “normal” one, the one who set up the witty one-liners, not the one who delivered them. She liked that role; it made her feel safe. Robin to Ruth’s Batman. Chewbacca to her Han Solo. Val leaned down to kick off her sneakers and saw herself in the small mirror on her locker door, strands of orangey hair peeking out from a green bandanna. Ruth had been dyeing her own hair since the fifth grade, first in colors you could buy in boxes at the supermarket, then in crazy, beautiful colors like mermaid green and poodle pink, but Val had only dyed her hair once. It had been a store-bought auburn; darker and richer than her own pale color, but it had gotten her grounded anyway. Back then, her mother punished her every time she did anything to show that she was growing up. Mom didn’t want her to get a bra, didn’t want her to wear short skirts, and didn’t want her dating until high school. Now that she was in high school, all of a sudden her mother was pushing makeup and dating advice. Val had gotten used to pulling her hair back in bandannas, wearing jeans and T-shirts though, and didn’t want to change. “I’ve got some statistics for the flour-baby project and I picked out some potential names for him.” Ruth unshouldered her giant messenger bag. The front flap was smeared with paint and studded with buttons and stickers—a pink triangle peeling at the edges, a button hand-lettered to say “Still Not King,” a smaller one that read “Some things exist whether you believe in them or not,” and a dozen more. “I was thinking maybe you could come over tonight and we could work on it.” “I can’t,” Val said. “Tom and I are going to see a hockey game in the city after practice.” “Wow. Something you want to do for a change,” Ruth said, twirling one of her purple braids around her finger. Val frowned. She couldn’t help noticing the edge in Ruth’s voice when she talked about Tom. “Do you think he doesn’t want to go?” Val asked. “Did he say something?” Ruth shook her head and took another quick draw on her cigarette. “No. No. Nothing like that.” “I was thinking