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“That wasn’t me—” Blythe said, but David acted like she hadn’t spoken.
“You tried to run me over,” he said, eyes wide behind his glasses. I could see a flush creeping up his neck.
Scowling, Blythe struggled a little against the cords. “Okay, that was me, but technically I was after her—”
“And then, to top it off, you lure me out of town and try to stab Harper right in front of me. ”
By now, David was nearly shouting, and again, I wondered why no one was running in. Surely we’d made enough noise to bring someone up here. I mean, this was a library, for goodness’ sake.
“If you’re trying to help me, why would you—or the people you work for—do any of that crap?” David rocked back on his heels, waiting for an answer, and I would’ve felt sorry for Blythe had it not been for the whole stabbing thing. Being on the other end of a David Stark Glare was a truly unpleasant thing.
Blythe sat up as straight as the cords would allow, leaning forward. “Because,” she said, clenching her teeth, “those people— that janitor, your so-called aunt—they were holding you back, David. You have a destiny, and I’m here to help you fulfill it. ”
Chapter 22
There was a pause. In it, I could hear the ticking of the little clock above Blythe’s desk, but nothing else. No sounds from downstairs, nothing from the parking lot outside. Finally, David took off his glasses and scrubbed a hand up and down his face. “I am so effing sick of that word,” he muttered, and I found myself nodding. “Destiny” was not my favorite word these days either.
“The Ephors wanted to kill David,” I told Blythe. “Because of his . . . boy parts and stuff. ”
David lifted his head at that, and I think he mouthed, Really? at me, but I was watching Blythe.
She held my stare, grinning, and between the blood, her ridiculously young face, and the Lilly Pulitzer, it was more than a little unsettling. “So you’re not totally ignorant, then. Awesome. Yes, at first the Ephors thought that David’s ‘boy parts’ would make him a bad Oracle. After all, the only one they’d ever had didn’t exactly work out for them. ”
“Alaric,” David said, polishing his glasses on the bottom of his shirt.
“The very same,” Blythe said with a little nod. “So you can imagine why they were very anti-boy Oracle for awhile there. But—” Blythe’s smile went from slightly unhinged to smug, but still seriously unhinged—“that was before they found me. ”
David still had his glasses dangling from his fingers, but at that, he put them back on and squinted at her. “What does that mean?”
“No offense or anything, but Saylor Stark has nothing on me as far as the alchemy game goes,” Blythe said, settling back into the chair. For the first time, I honestly believed she was seventeen. “I mean, Saylor can do a mind control potion on what? One, two people at a time, max? I’ve got this whole freaking library under my thumb right now. ” Smirking, she tried to cross her legs, but the way we’d tied her to the chair made that impossible. She settled for bringing her knees tighter together. “I got a job here as a volunteer, and every Friday, they do this big potluck thing. One potion in a batch of brownies, and bam. I have an office, an official e-mail account . . . ”
My hand was starting to feel a little numb, so I loosened the cardigan around it. As I did, I saw Blythe’s gaze flick to her sweater, a tiny frown creasing her brow. “So that’s why no one came up here when we fought,” I said, getting it at last. “Alchemy. ”
Tearing her eyes from her blood-soaked cardi, Blythe nodded. “I didn’t want to be disturbed. ”
“So what does your badass Alchemy have to do with David?” I asked, looping the sweater around my hand again. Blythe grimaced.
“I liked that sweater,” she said, and while I could appreciate an attachment to clothes, I was quick to snark back, “I liked my hand. ”
Blythe rolled her eyes. “You were the one who grabbed the knife. ”
As she said it, some of the adrenaline started to wear off, and a wave of nausea swept through me as I remembered the blade so close to my throat, the blinding pain of wrapping my palm around it. How close to death had I actually been? Moments, definitely. And for the second time in my life. Third if you counted the car chase.
I was pretty sure Paladins weren’t supposed to feel scared or sick, but that was fine. I wasn’t really one. Was I?
That wasn’t something I wanted to think about right now, so I scowled at Blythe. “Answer my question,” I said. “What does your . . . magic or whatever have to do with David?”
David had moved across to Blythe’s desk, and he leaned back against it, bracing himself on his hands as he waited for Blythe to answer. That put him a little bit behind her, and I could tell she was trying to look at him out of the corner of her eye.
“Boy Oracles can be just as awesome as girl Oracles. Heck, they can be better. ” Behind her back, she flexed her fingers. “And—look, can y’all loosen these things? I can’t feel my hands. ”
David made a move forward, but I held up my hand. “Answers first. ”
The look Blythe gave me was weirdly approving. She shrugged and continued, “If you know the right kind of Alchemy to use—which, hi, I do—you can . . . I don’t know, like,supercharge him. Make it so that he can see further into the future. And more. And it’s not even that difficult of a spell, really. Some alchemy requires, like, lizard innards and stuff, but this is just saying some—”
“We know about the spell,” I interrupted, clenching my hands at my side. “It made Alaric insane and ended with a whole bunch of people dead and a whole village destroyed. ”
Disgust flickered over Blythe’s cherubic face. “Because he wasn’t a Mage. The spell itself isn’t bad. It was just that Alaric didn’t know what the heck he was doing. I would. I mean, I do. And there’s so much you could do once the spell was in effect. ”
“Like what?” David asked, and even though she couldn’t look right at him, Blythe swiveled her head in his direction.
“Come with me and I’ll show you,” she said, her voice lower than before, almost like a purr.
David straightened a little, and I saw him swallow hard. “Um . . . no. Thank you,” he said, and it was all I could do not to roll my eyes. Boys, honestly.
“Okay, so the Ephors want David all Super Oracle. Got it. That really doesn’t sound all that bad, I guess. ”
Blythe’s eyes narrowed as David startled. “Pres?”
I kept going. “And of course, once they have a Super Oracle, it makes total sense that they’d want to kill, you know, the person sworn to protect him. ”
Gripping the arms of Blythe’s chair, I leaned down, getting in her face. “Oh, wait, except it doesn’t make sense at all. If you guys want David to be more powerful, why kill Mr. Hall? Why kill me?”
For the first time, Blythe seemed unsure. She dropped her gaze, and David stepped forward, coming to stand behind me.
“Because the spell is dangerous,” he said softly. “Why else would Harper need to be out of the way?”
My head shot up. Saylor had said that spell ended up destroying Alaric. As David’s Paladin, would I need to protect him from that?
Blythe’s big brown eyes widened in appreciation. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s not—well, there is a slight danger element, maybe. But hi, crossing the freaking street can be dangerous. And like I said, Alaric wasn’t a Mage. He wasn’t me. So it wouldn’t be dangerous. Just because he screwed up the spell doesn’t make it a bad spell. Just a bad . . . spellcaster. ”
I might have bought that if her gaze hadn’t slid from David to the bright splash of blood—mine or hers, I wasn’t sure—on the carpet. “I would do it right. ”
My head ached, and my hand and arm were still stinging, and I felt this weird desire to curl up on my bed and cry. Or sleep. Instead, I tightened my hold on Blythe’s chair. “So that’s th
e test David has to face at Cotillion? You’re going to do some spell on him that will either soup up his powers, or turn him into a crazy person. ”
From behind me, I heard David make some kind of noise, but I didn’t turn around to face him. One problem at a time.
The dried blood around Blythe’s face cracked and flaked when she smiled. “Look, I am trying to help you guys out. Just . . . just go with it, okay? Don’t fight me, don’t try to stop me. David will have awesome powers, the Ephors will have an Oracle again, and we can all be buddies. The three of us, working together, kicking ass, taking names . . . all that. ”
“We already have a Mage,” David said, coming to stand beside me. I could feel him trembling, but his voice was steady. “Saylor Stark. ”
Blythe blew a breath out, ruffling her bangs. “Who can maybe do a couple of weak mind control spells. Boring. I’m offering you everything. All the power you could ever want. ”
Flexing his fingers, David just watched her.
I shook my head. “Okay. ” Setting my hands on my hips, I faced Blythe. “Interrogation over. ”
It might have been the bad lighting, but I thought her olive skin went a little pale. “So this is the part where you kill me, huh?”
I should. Everything in my blood was urging me to kill her. Somehow, I knew that if I gripped her head the right way, jerked her neck just so, she’d be dead in less than a second. No blood, no fuss, and almost no pain at all. But even as my fingers curled into my palms, as cold sweat trickled down my back, I knew I couldn’t do it. Self-defense was one thing. This felt like . . . murder. Besides, there was something else I could do with Blythe.
“We need to take her to Saylor,” I told David. “She’ll know what to do. ” I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that was true, but I was positive that I sure as heck didn’t know what to do.
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