The Pitch

Can she choose not to be the chosen one?

Katie Ross had a ready-to-go plan to ace her eighth-grade biology exam and a still-in-progress-plan to stop her parents from selling their house. She had no plan for being snatched by a hungry boogie, transported to another world, and rescued by the elvish government. Now the Seelie Court won’t send her home. They think Katie is a maiden of fire—whatever that is. Something to do with a human girl, a newborn unicorn, and vast, untapped power?

Before Katie can straighten out any answers, the Elvenworld’s only Portal to Earth is damaged, and it’s not even clear if that’s a fluke, sabotage, or Katie’s own accident. Without it, she doesn’t have a chance of getting home.

But this is a world where people have wings, characters from legends are cursed with immortality, and soltalis (their fancy word for magic) is a second lifeblood. Someone somewhere must know how to repair the Portal, and Katie is determined to find them.

To her surprise, a motley handful of elves volunteer to join her search:

• Poppy is a scarred and sheltered princess desperate to hold her family close so they won’t fracture.

• Orion is a farmer’s orphaned son; he’d sacrifice anything for Katie’s cause, but he'll have to stand up for himself too if he's ever going to stop getting knocked down.

• Joan is a mystery—an elvish girl raised by a gnome, she hides her hopes and fears along with the numbers tattooed into her shoulder.

• Plerbius is the director of the department that keeps stray humans out of the Elvenworld, but he is at his happiest when cataloguing facts about Switzerland from the comfort of his office.

• And Vius is a spy whose loyalties are twisted between two kings, but his closest-kept secrets are his own—and they all revolve around the last human girl he tried and failed to save.

Katie doesn’t need to make these strangers her friends. And she definitely shouldn’t get attached to the baby unicorn who follows her wherever she goes. Not even if Katie named her or if Starshine’s wide eyes soften Katie’s lonely, prickly edges.

None of that matters when her mission is to go home.

But Katie isn’t the only one making plans. The Elvenworld has two rival Courts with only one thing in common: they want Katie on their side. The longer she’s here, the more entangled she becomes in their game of politics and power . . . and the harder it is to leave unchanged.