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Wings
Aprilynne Pike
An extraordinary faerie tale of magic and mystery, romance and danger, described by Stephenie Meyer as ‘a remarkable debut’.Laurel is an ordinary fifteen-year-old high school girl. But something incredible is happening to her. She is changing.Now Laurel is about to discover that a deep and powerful magic holds the key to her destiny.
APRILYNNE PIKE
Wings
Copyright (#ufd186ee1-6cb2-57d4-8483-55fcff77b877)
HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2009
Copyright © Aprilynne Pike 2009
Aprilynne Pike asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007314362
Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2010 ISBN: 9780007362943
Version 2018-06-21
Dedication (#ufd186ee1-6cb2-57d4-8483-55fcff77b877)
To Kenny - the method behind my madness
Epigraph (#ufd186ee1-6cb2-57d4-8483-55fcff77b877)
Laurel was mesmerised, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful - too beautiful for words.
Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.
Table of Contents
Cover (#u9be345cf-e115-55f5-b4f2-9dcb730d1b81)
Title Page (#ua1fcb05e-34d1-5075-9d29-0d4c3c8adb70)
Copyright (#u91314659-37eb-5b18-8337-56540d9c81f5)
Dedication (#uf79e18f2-8f37-56e9-ac2e-3780bdff7952)
Epigraph (#u75b6e0f6-250c-5786-a120-af8799b3d4c6)
Chapter One (#u0288927b-323e-5853-b330-8920da609e68)
Chapter Two (#ub76f16a5-bdc0-52c7-92db-b5a3b93fc719)
Chapter Three (#u9d1767c5-6fd9-5994-8bdf-69f65a282735)
Chapter Four (#u02208fdd-21ab-57e1-9f83-68892f08ea54)
Chapter Five (#u9a2e91ba-6c5d-5b48-aa56-13539904074f)
Chapter Six (#u9bb9d143-9a36-5159-a413-64813b56de7a)
Chapter Seven (#u7085da3f-9e85-5131-899b-4874503ebb39)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-one (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-five (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
E-book Extra (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ufd186ee1-6cb2-57d4-8483-55fcff77b877)
Laurel’s shoes flipped a cheerful rhythm that defied her dark mood. As she walked through the halls of Del Norte High, people watched her pass with curious eyes.
After double-checking her schedule, Laurel found the biology lab and hurried to claim a seat by the windows. If she had to be indoors, she wanted to at least see outside. The rest of the class filed in slowly. One boy smiled in her direction as he walked to the front of the classroom and she tried to muster one up in return. She hoped he didn’t think it was a grimace.
A tall, thin man introduced himself as Mr James and began passing out textbooks. The beginning of the book seemed fairly standard - classifications of plants and animals, she knew those - then it started to move into basic human anatomy. Around page eighty, the text started to resemble a foreign language. Laurel grumbled under her breath. This was going to be a long semester.
As Mr James called out the roll, Laurel recognised a few names from her first two classes that morning, but she knew it was going to be a long time before she matched even half of them to the faces that surrounded her. She felt lost amid the sea of unfamiliar people.
Her mom had assured her that every sophomore would feel the same - after all, it was their first day in high school too - but no one else looked lost or scared. Maybe being lost and scared was something you got used to after years of high school.
Homeschooling had worked just fine for Laurel over the last ten years; she didn’t see any reason for that to change. But her parents were determined to do everything right for their only child. When she was five, that meant being homeschooled in a tiny town. Apparently, now that she was fifteen, it meant high school in a slightly less tiny town.
The room grew quiet and Laurel snapped to attention when the teacher repeated her name. “Laurel Sewell?”
“Here,” she said quickly.
She squirmed as Mr James studied her over the rim of his glasses and then moved on to the next name.
Laurel released the breath she’d been holding and pulled out her notebook, trying to draw as little attention to herself as possible.
As the teacher explained the semester’s curriculum, her eyes kept straying to the boy who had smiled at her earlier. She had to stifle a grin when she noticed him sneaking glances at her too.
When Mr James released them for lunch, Laurel gratefully slid her book into her bag.
“Hey.”
She looked up. It was the boy who had been watching her. His eyes caught her attention first. They were a bright blue that contrasted with the olive tone of his skin. His slightly wavy, light brown hair was on the longish side and slipped across his forehead in a soft arc.
“You’re Laurel, right?” Below the eyes was a warm but casual smile with very straight teeth. Braces probably, Laurel thought as her tongue unconsciously ran over her own naturally straight teeth.
“Yeah.” Her voice caught in her throat and she coughed, feeling stupid.
“I’m David. David Lawson. I - I wanted to say hi. And welcome to Crescent City, I guess.”
Laurel forced a small smile. “Thanks,” she said. “Want to sit with me and my friends for lunch?”
“Where?” Laurel asked.
David looked at her strangely. “In…the cafeteria?”
“Oh,” she said, disappointed. He seemed nice, but she was tired of being cooped up inside. “Actually, I’m going to go find a place outside.” She paused. “Thank you, though.”
“Outside sounds good to me. Want some company?”
“Really?”
“Sure. I’ve got my lunch in my backpack, so I’m all set. Besides,” he said, hefting his bag on to one shoulder, “you shouldn’t sit alone your first day.”
“Thanks,” she said after a tiny hesitation. “I’d like that.”
They walked out to the back lawn together and found a grassy spot that wasn’t too damp. Laurel spread her jacket on the ground and sat on it; David kept his on.
“Aren’t you cold?” he asked, looking sceptically at her jeans shorts and tank top.
She slipped out of her shoes and dug her toes into the thick grass. “I don’t get cold very often - at least not here. If we go somewhere with snow, I’m miserable. But this weather’s perfect for me.” She smiled awkwardly. “My mom jokes that I’m cold-blooded.”
“Lucky you. I moved here from LA about five years ago and I’m still not used to the temperature.”
“It’s not that cold.”
“Sure,” David said with a grin, “but it’s not that warm either. After our first year here, I looked up the weather records; did you know that the difference between the average temperature in July and December is only fourteen degrees? Now that is messed up.”
They fell silent as David ate a sandwich and Laurel poked at a salad with a fork.
“My mom packed me an extra cupcake,” David said, breaking the silence. “Want it?” He held out a pretty cupcake with blue frosting. “It’s homemade.”
“No, thanks.”
David looked at her salad doubtfully, then back at the cupcake.
Laurel realised what David was thinking and sighed. Why was that the first conclusion everyone always jumped to? Surely she wasn’t the only person in the world who just really liked vegetables. Laurel tapped one fingernail against her can of Sprite. “It’s not diet.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I’m vegan,” Laurel interrupted. “Pretty strict, actually.”
“Oh, yeah?”
She nodded, then laughed stiffly. “Can’t have too many veggies, right?”
“I guess not.”
David cleared his throat and asked, “So, when did you move here?”
“In May. I’ve been working for my dad a lot. He owns the bookstore downtown.”
