Rage Over a Personal Betrayal Drives a Deadly Wish In This Excerpt from Her Dark Wings

Greek mythology retellings are all the rage right now, from Madeline Miller’s Circle to Rachel Symthe’s Lore Olympus webcomic. That we haven’t seen more of these sorts of stories in the YA space is the only real surprise, but Melissa Salisbury is trying to change that with Her Dark Wings, a Persephone retelling with a decidedly contemporary flair.

Set in a modern world whose culture and religion still revolve around the Greek gods and their various aspects and feuds, Her Dark Wings follows the story of Corey, who is devastated when her boyfriend Alistair suddenly dumps her for her best friend Bree. But when Bree dies under mysterious circumstances during one of the ancient festival of the Thesmorphia, Corey must grapple with many confusing emotions—including no small amount of guilt, since it’s not like she was exactly wishing her BFF well at the end. And when she is accidentally drawn into the Underworld herself, she’ll come face to face with Hades, and be forced to reckon with the price of justice and punishment. 

Here’s how the publisher describes the story. 

For all of Corey’s life, it’s been Bree and Corey, Corey and Bree. Best friends, the girls are inseparable—until a devastating betrayal leaves Corey shattered and alone. Corey is sure nothing could hurt more, until Bree suddenly dies. Now Corey is heartbroken and furious. How can she mourn her one-time friend when she is still so angry at her?

Yet Corey and Bree’s tale is far from finished. When Corey accidentally catches a glimpse of Bree’s spirit passing into the afterlife, she finds herself face to face with a god pulled from the darkest myths of her Hades, lord of the dead.

Turns out, the legends are real. But Hades is different from what Corey imagined—and so are the Furies, terrifying and beautiful creatures who encourage Corey to embrace her rage. The more Corey discovers about the Underworld, the more her own power stirs. But can she resist the lure of the darkness within?

Her Dark Wings will officially hit shelves on Tuesday, December 12, but we’re excited to bring you an excerpt from the story right now. In it, Corey attends a community festival in the wake of a devastating betrayal, following her discovery that her best friend and her boyfriend are not a couple themselves. There, she meets a handsome young man who will unexpectedly change her life forever. 

When the random boy had come to me, hand outstretched for mine, I was standing at the edge of the festival, trying to drum up the courage to either stay and find someone I could hang out with or just go home and listen to my playlist of sadness for the thousandth time. 

And then he appeared, with wide shoulders, a smile full of promises and shadowed eyes, offering a place by his side. I slipped my fingers between his and followed him into the crowd, deliberately not looking for them, trying to act as though he was the only thing in the world on my mind as we started to dance. 

I didn’t know for sure they were there, but it was the Thesmophoria and I couldn’t imagine them being anywhere else. And, honestly? In that moment I wanted them to be there. I wanted them to see someone else wanted me. I wanted the whole Island to see that I was fine, because some other boy with a beautiful mouth he’d painted gold, and a hammered copper mask that looked like scales in the red firelight, had picked me out of the crowd. Here was the proof that my world didn’t begin and end with Alistair Murray and Bree Dovemuir 

I needed to believe that. And the boy had, for one moment, kissed me with gilded lips and made it real.

His mouth was cold, he tasted like ice, or salt, or diamonds— something clear and sharp and glittering, something that would quench or call a thirst, or buy an army, start a war. His hands were cold too, cooling my burning skin where they touched me, and my fingers gripped the lapels of his coat so tightly that they cramped. I wanted more; his kiss made me hungry. I wanted to swallow him down, like honey. I wanted to be like the legendary mellified men we’d learned about in history, I wanted to consume this boy until he was my sweat and my tears, until it killed me, and then I wanted to be buried in him for a hundred years.

I’d only ever kissed Ali, so I didn’t know how different it could be. I’d thought it would just be a kiss, like a hundred kisses before. I thought I knew what to do, how it would go.

I didn’t know anything at all.

And this was a kiss without love, or liking, or even knowing. 

This was a kiss just for kissing’s sake. Imagine if I had cared. Imagine if it had actually meant something.

I could hear the sound of drums, my own heart thundering. I knew with certainty that the ground beneath us had opened and we were going down, down, down, until the earth would cover us and bury us alive, and I was fine with that. I wanted that. I wanted him.

I pressed my whole body against his, and shivered when his hands moved from my face to my waist, holding me to him, keeping me there. Somewhere close by I heard a wolf whistle, long and loud, piercing through everything. I remembered where we were and pulled back, embarrassed. But my fingers were still curled into his coat so he couldn’t get away because I wasn’t done—we weren’t done. And he was still holding me just as tightly. When I looked up into his eyes, they were dark and shining, like he knew exactly what I was thinking and he agreed, and I turned away because suddenly it was too much.

That’s when I saw Ali and Bree. It took me a second to realize it was them, partly because of their masks, but mostly because Bree didn’t look like Bree anymore. At school the day before her hair had been in the usual topknot, chestnut waves bound up and out of the way. Now it was short, cut to her chin, the curls bouncing without the length to hold them down.

We’d always had long hair. She’d wanted to cut hers for years, but her mom wouldn’t let her.  Whenever they fought, Bree would threaten to chop it off, though she never did; even she wouldn’t go that far. Until now. I felt a starburst of hurt that she’d do something so huge without telling me first, without us doing it together, even though it was stupid and we hadn’t spoken for months. I felt like she should have told me, or warned me. Asked me if I thought it would suit her. It did suit her, and that hurt too.

And it never stopped hurting to see her in his arms. To see them without me.

Bree was in a long tartan coat, cinched tightly at her tiny waist, that flared as she spun, her wind-tanned skin glowing warm in the light from the bonfire. Next to her I’d always looked like a child: short, soft and round, milky skin, wheat-colored hair. And Ali, holding her, tall and broad-shouldered, like a warrior prince. They looked like equals. They looked like they belonged.

It killed the kiss. It soured the honey.

The boy followed my gaze and said something, but I didn’t hear his words over the roar of blood in my ears like a thousand birds taking flight at once.

I wished her dead.

I wished for it with my whole heart. Because for a moment I’d forgotten about her and Ali and I’d been happy. But the second I saw them, all of the hurt and humiliation and anger came rushing back and I remembered everything.

How they must have spent weeks laughing together at what a gullible little idiot I was. How, when Ali took longer and longer to reply to my messages, I told Bree I thought something was wrong, and she said I was being paranoid. How when she started taking longer and longer to reply, she told me it was because I kept going on about Ali being weird and she was bored of it. How they were probably together when I sent most of the messages, how they probably showed them to each other.

How I’d tried calling her all the way home after Ali broke up with me and she never answered, never replied, never once said sorry. How she sent her little brothers to my house to bring back the stuff I’d left at hers and collect the things she’d left at mine. She’d made a list: books, a cardigan she didn’t even like, a set of pajamas, three nail polishes, an almost-empty tube of hand cream and, worst of all, Ali’s big blue sweater that I’d had longer than he ever did. How she’d excised me from her life so neatly and I was here, months later, still clawing at myself to tear all the little bits of her out of me.

I hated her so much in that moment.

So I sent a cursed dart out from my mind, straight into her chest, and wished she’d drop fucking dead. That she’d be dragged to the Underworld and left there to rot.

The boy spoke again.

“What?” I’d said, barely looking at him, too busy with my hate.

He didn’t repeat himself, just drew me back into the dance, away from Bree and Ali, around the fire so it blocked them from view. But the magic was gone, and I’d smelled the fat and onions from the burger stand overpowering everything, could hear the guitar in the band was out of tune, see how stupid we all looked, most of us wearing jeans and bundled up against the weather, faces covered by cheap masks with feathers and sequins that fell off and were crushed into the mud. As if they might be enough to fool any gods who walked among us that we were like them. As if we could be anything other than human.

Cover and excerpt from HER DARK WINGS by Melinda Salisbury. Text copyright © 2023 by Melinda Salisbury. Reprinted by permission of Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. All Rights Reserved.

Her Dark Wings will be released on December 12, but you can pre-order it right now. 

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Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB