“Mother effer,” I muttered. “So that spell we did to find David paged you instead?”
Blythe reached up and pulled her sunglasses down from the top of her head. “Oh my God, seriously? You were doing a ritual and didn’t even know what it was for?”
That last bit was directed at Ryan, who looked distinctly unhappy with this development. “It’s not my fault,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his khakis. “We didn’t know what we were looking for, so—”
“So you just decided to do any magic you could find, hoping it would work out?” Blythe folded her arms over her chest. “Well, that’s not incredibly stupid or anything. Oh, wait, I actually meant the opposite of that.”
“Yes, we’re familiar with sarcasm,” I told her. “But the fact remains that we did the best we could with a situation that you and your bosses—or boss, whatever—caused.”
Blythe whipped her head around to glare at me, and the anger in her eyes was so intense, I nearly took a step back.
“They were not my bosses,” she practically spat.
I probably should have backed down given the look in her eye, but I’m not really good at that. “Oh, sorry, it’s just that you did a thing they asked you to do, which generally makes someone your boss? See, that’s more of that sarcasm I identified before.”
Blythe took a deep breath through her nose, the universal sign for “I am trying so hard not to murder you right now.” But when she spoke, her voice was relatively calm.
“Look, it doesn’t matter if you were trying to summon me or not. Point is, I’m here now, and we all want the same thing: to find the Oracle.”
My pulse leapt. The attack at the pool—what if it was actually Blythe’s doing? The idea that I had been right, that David would never send people to hurt me, nearly made my knees weak with relief. “Why do you want to find him?”
She turned to me, wiping her palms on her skirt. “Because he’s gone rogue, right? Scampered right off with more magic than he knows what to do with? Seems like a potentially yikes-y thing.”
“How did you know that?” Ryan asked, stepping forward a little bit, but Blythe waved a hand at him like he was a particularly annoying mosquito.
“Believe it or not, you’re not the only ones connected to the Oracle,” she said. “Thanks to that little ritual I did on him at your cotillion, I’m just as connected to him as his Paladin. Magic does bond people.”
“You mean like the magic that you did that had him making Paladins?” I suggested, lifting my eyebrows. “The magic that, for all we know, you’re doing again?”
That seemed to genuinely surprise Blythe. She stepped back just the littlest bit, lifting her chin, her dark eyes wide. “You think it’s my fault that he’s descending into crazy-town?”
We were still standing just outside the country club, and I knew people would be coming out soon. Bee was already looking toward the door, probably keeping an eye out for her parents. I turned back to Blythe. “You can’t exactly blame us for thinking it.”
She paused, considering that, and then shrugged. “Fair enough. But I promise you, this”—she looked down at the little purse dangling from her shoulder, opening it up and pulling out a folded piece of newspaper—“has nothing to do with me.”
I took the paper. It was from yesterday’s edition of the Ellery News. Ellery was a medium-sized town, big enough to have a weekend edition. Yesterday’s headline was about a missing girl from Piedmont, Mississippi, who had turned up in Ellery with no memory of how she’d gotten to Alabama.
“Read it,” Blythe instructed. “The last thing she remembers is meeting some guy with, and I believe I’m quoting this correctly, ‘glowing eyes.’”
My heart seemed to stutter in my chest. There was no picture of the girl, and even if there had been one, I’d never actually seen who attacked me at the pool. But, reading this, it became pretty clear this was her. Her name was Annie Jameson, and she seemed . . . a lot like me, actually. From what I could gather reading the brief snippet, she was an upcoming senior at Piedmont High School, an honor student, no history of trouble . . . I still didn’t understand why she’d run off, or how she could suddenly be . . . de-Paladined. None of this made any sense, and my skin felt itchy, my nerves jumping.
Piedmont wasn’t very far from here.
I was still looking at the paper when Blythe turned to me and said, “So when are we leaving to go after him?”
Chapter 10
STARTLED, I LOOKED up from the piece of newsprint. “What?”
“He’s making Paladins,” Blythe said, tapping the paper. “It’s a little bit my fault for doing that ritual on him, sure, but it’s also your fault for letting him get away.”
I tried very hard not to look at Ryan and Bee, but I could sense them shuffling next to me. Placing blame was pointless at this stage in the game.
“We can’t,” I told Blythe now, but the words were hollow. “It’s not feasible.”
Blythe shoved her glasses back on top of her head, blinking at me. “Are you kidding? Isn’t this, like, your entire sacred duty?”
I gestured around to Bee and Ryan. “It’s . . . Look, I don’t know how you got here or where you came from, but it isn’t easy for us to just go gallivanting around the country for a few months. We have things like responsibilities. And parents.”
The second the words were out of my mouth, I felt kind of bad. I mean, I had no idea if Blythe had a family or not. Obviously, she had at one time, but what did they think happened to her after she ran off to be a crazy Mage?
But then I remembered that Blythe cast a spell on my boyfriend, kidnapped my best friend, and tried to kill me multiple times—once with a letter opener—and my sympathetic feelings disappeared in a big poof.
Blythe rolled her huge dark eyes. “You also have magic,” she said. “Buttloads of it. Mostly mine since this redheaded Ken doll over here seems kinda worthless.”
Ryan frowned, one hand touching the back of his head. “My hair isn’t red.” Glancing over at Bee, he raised his eyebrows. “It’s not, right?”
She patted his leg. “It’s only a little red,” she assured him, and Ryan’s frown deepened.
Blythe gave a little smirk before turning back to me and crossing one leg over the other, the heel of her bright yellow ballet flat slipping off as she propped one toe on the sidewalk. “We have to find the Oracle and put a stop to this before it gets any worse.”
She was right, I knew that, but putting my trust in her was not exactly the easiest thing to do.
When I said something to that effect, she heaved a deep sigh that seemed to come up from her toes. “I get that. But how many times do I have to say this?” Tilting her head down, she fixed me with a look over her sunglasses. “I. Am. Not. Doing this. For. You.” As if to punctuate the statement, she shoved her glasses back into place with one perfectly manicured finger. “This is not about saving your boyfriend or helping you all become one happy, magic-doing, future-seeing, butt-kicking threesome—not like that,” she added when it was clear Ryan was about to protest.
“It’s about me undoing the thing I did for people who never deserved my powers in the first place.”
There was something cold in her tone when she said that, something so bitter about the words, I felt like I could almost taste them. I didn’t know what had happened to Blythe after the Ephors took her, but whatever it was, it had clearly been bad.
“Blythe wasn’t there,” Bee suddenly said, and I turned to see her standing just behind me, arms folded tightly. “When I was with the Ephors, she wasn’t there.”
It was weird, remembering that Blythe and Bee had that in common, being held by the Ephors, and when I looked back to Blythe, a muscle twitched in her jaw.
“Yeah, let’s just say they made sure I was out of sight,” she said. “It wasn’t until Alexander died that I was even a
ble to get out of that place.”
“How did you know he died?” I asked then, and Blythe gave another one of those eye rolls that suggested we were all wasting her time.
“I could feel it. There was a lot of magic going into keeping their headquarters running, and even more into making sure I couldn’t get out. When it just went away, I knew Alexander was gone. It was the only explanation.”
That made sense, I guessed, but this was all moving so fast—and I was very aware of curious eyes on us as people made their way to the parking lot—so I decided to cut to the chase.
“Okay, but why should we go with you when we already have a Mage?” I said. “You may not be impressed with Ryan’s powers, but he’s still every bit as useful to us as you would be, with the added bonus of not being insane.”
Throwing her hands up in the air, Blythe made a disgusted sound. “He can come, too, for all I care. But you need me. I’m the only one who can find the spell we need to stop him.”
People were starting to leave the country club now, my parents and aunts among them, and I gave them a quick little wave before gently taking Blythe’s arm and leading her closer to the tennis courts. There was no way I was going to be able to fake smile at her while my parents watched.
“What kind of spell?”
Blythe shrugged out of my grip and pulled at the skirt of her yellow dress. “Why, so I can tell you, and then you and your friends can run off and screw it up? You people don’t exactly have the greatest track record with magical nuance.” She shook her head, making her ponytail swing. “Nuh-uh. We’re either all in this together, or we’re not in it at all.”
“Whatever you’re doing, we don’t want a part of it,” I told Blythe, and when I folded my arms over my chest, Ryan and Bee mimicked my pose. Blythe looked at the three of us for a beat before scoffing and putting her sunglasses on top of her shiny brown hair.
“Okay, fine. Be the Three Musketeers and solve this on your own. I mean, that’s clearly worked well for you so far. We’ve got a Mage who has no idea how to use his powers”—a flick of her hand at Ryan—“and two Paladins who are losing theirs.” She moved her hand to gesture to me and Bee, her lips pursed slightly.
“How did you know about that?” I asked without thinking, and then from beside me, I heard Bee suck in a breath.
“Wait, that’s true?” Ryan asked.
I ignored him, keeping my eyes on Blythe. One corner of her mouth lifted in a smirk. “The longer you’re away from the Oracle, the weaker your powers will get. It may not happen at the same rate,” she added, nodding at Bee, “but it will happen to both of you, Harper. And that means you’re going to have Paladins coming after you without being able to fight back. Do you see now why my idea might be the best one?”
It was. I totally saw that. Heck, I’d always wanted to go after David rather than sitting back and waiting for things to happen to me. “Proactive” was practically my middle name, but that didn’t mean this would be easy.
But if we had Blythe—and Blythe’s plan, whatever it was—maybe it could work?
I felt the briefest spark of hope in my chest, and then I remembered Blythe at Cotillion. The look on her face as she’d done the spell on David. The way she’d vanished with Bee. The complete and utter havoc she’d wreaked in the few days I’d known her.
I wanted to find David, and I was curious about whatever she had planned, but trusting Blythe after everything? Was I that desperate?
“I understand that you don’t trust me,” Blythe added. “I mean, I wouldn’t trust me if I were you.” She leaned closer, and I could see my own skeptical face reflected in her sunglasses. “But there are things I know that you just don’t. Spells this guy”—another dismissive glance at Ryan—“hasn’t even heard of.”
Reaching out, Blythe tugged my purse off my shoulder. I gave a startled squawk, but she just fished out my phone and typed into my contacts.
“Now you have my number. When the three of you decide to grow up,” she said, even though I was the only one she was looking at, “you can give me a call. But I’m only sticking around for a few days.”
With that, she spun on her little ballet flats and headed toward the parking lot.
But then she stopped, turning around to look back at us, her hand lifted to shade her eyes. “This isn’t just about you, Harper. You or your friends. Alaric destroyed an entire town when he turned. He killed Paladins, sure, but innocent people, too. This whole thing is so much bigger and worse than you understand.”
She nodded at my phone, still in my hand. “So you think real hard about that. And then call me.”
Chapter 11
“DON’T YOU HAVE anything smutty on that cart?”
I blinked at Mrs. Morrison. It was Monday morning, which meant I was helping The Aunts with their volunteer work at the local assisted-living facility, Hensley Manor. They visited at least three times a week, sometimes arranging activities for the residents, sometimes just to chat or sneak in homemade cookies. My Aunts genuinely liked helping people, but they also liked to remind themselves that while they might be old, they weren’t that old yet. I was usually too busy to help during the school year, but during the summer I tried to commit at least one day a week to being in charge of the mobile library, which was really just a rolling cart full of paperbacks.
Paperbacks that were not smutty enough for Mrs. Morrison.
I glanced back over the rows of spines, trying to find something that had the word “savage” in the title, finally settling on a bright pink book with half-naked people on the front, and a very alarmed-looking swan in the background. “Will this work?”
Mrs. Morrison’s watery blue eyes went wide and she plucked the book from my fingers. “You’re a good girl, Harper,” she said, and I smiled as I stood up, pushing my cart toward the door.
“You’re welcome!” I said sunnily, then headed out in the hall to continue my rounds. As soon as I was out of her sight, my smile dropped, and I had to fight back a sigh. It had been two days since we’d done the ritual in the field, and while Blythe had turned up, there was still no sign of David.
“Harper Jane, stop scowling!” Aunt May said, coming out of another room, stuffing her knitting in her bag.
I straightened up, trying to smile. “Sorry, Aunt May. Just thinking.”
She gave a little sniff. “You think too much and too hard. You get that from Jewel.”
I didn’t think it was supposed to be a compliment, but that actually made my smile a little more genuine. There were worse things in life than being like Aunt Jewel, after all.
“I’ll bear that in mind,” I said to Aunt May, pushing my cart farther down the hall.
I made a couple more stops—and a mental note to pick up some more “smutty books” at the local Goodwill—but then the soft chime sounded, signaling lunch. Stowing my cart away in the break room, I went in search of Aunt Jewel. We hadn’t gotten a chance to talk after everything at the country club, and while Aunt Martha and Aunt May had grilled me about it on our way to the nursing home this morning, Aunt Jewel had been silent. Which, I knew, meant she was waiting for a chance to talk to me alone.
I finally found her having her lunch outside in the little courtyard between the buildings, and even though it was hotter than Satan’s armpit out there, I went to sit next to her. Wordlessly, she handed me half of her sandwich. I peeled back the wax paper and took a little sniff. Aunt Martha’s famous curry chicken salad with green apples, one of my favorites.
“I was hoping to get you alone,” Aunt Jewel said after I’d taken a bite. “And ask you just what in the Sam Hill all that stuff was at the country club on Sunday.”
I went to answer, but she held up one hand. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, and also don’t bother trying to tell me it wasn’t important. Girl shows up and you go all ninja on her, I figure it has something to do with everythin
g we’ve been talking about.”
I swallowed. “It does. That girl . . . her name is Blythe, and she’s a Mage. It’s a person who does magic—”
“To protect the Oracle,” Aunt Jewel said with a little nod, her silver curls quivering. “I remember what you told me, Harper Jane, I don’t have Old Timer’s just yet.”
“Alzheimer’s,” I murmured, but she waved that off.
“I said what I meant, and meant what I said. So she’s the same thing as Ryan, then?”
Nodding, I took another bite of my sandwich. Only when I’d finished did I say, “Yes, but evil. And also crazy. And potentially dangerous.”
Aunt Jewel took that in. “So why is she here, then?”
As briefly as I could, I filled Aunt Jewel in on everything that had happened. The fight at the pool, why I thought David was in danger, the ritual we’d done trying to find him, and how that had summoned Blythe right to us. Finally, I told her about Blythe’s plan to find David.
When I was done, she continued to eat while she watched a hummingbird flit around a bright red feeder. I picked a piece of apple out of the chicken salad and popped in in my mouth, waiting. Aunt Jewel liked to take her time mulling things over.
“Is there a chance?” Aunt Jewel asked at last, turning to look at me. The little rhinestones sewn on her shirt winked in the sunlight, and her eyes were sharp behind her glasses. “Any chance at all that with this girl’s help, you could find David and stop him from sending people after you? Or whatever awful thing it is that’s supposed to happen?”
Taking a deep breath, I fiddled with the wax paper around my sandwich. I wasn’t hungry anymore, not even for Aunt Martha’s chicken salad. “I think there might be, yeah,” I said at last, and Aunt Jewel gave a little nod before biting into her sandwich.
“Well,” she said after a moment, “then that’s it, isn’t it? Nothing else to be done about it.”
I squinted at her, and not just because of the sun in my eyes. “Aunt Jewel,” I said, setting my sandwich down on the bench beside me. “You know I can’t just . . . frolic off around the country with Blythe and Bee. I’m not old enough to rent motel rooms, not to mention the fact that my parents would never sign off on some kind of epic road trip.”
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