“I think I’m just really tired,” I said, trying to sound reasonable and sincere. It helped that it was true. “I haven’t been sleeping well. So, I’ve kind of got a short fuse right now. But I’m going to do better. I promise.”
Fiedler frowned. “You know it’s not a punishment, right? Speaking with a counselor could really help you sort through everything you’ve experienced.”
Unlikely, I thought.
Fiedler must have sensed my resistance. Instead of pushing, he sighed. “How about this? Promise me you’ll consider it. Anytime you’d like, we can set you up with the school counselor. And I mean anytime. During class, during lunch, after school—whatever you need, if you need it.”
I forced myself to smile. “Okay. I’ll consider it.”
Fiedler nodded, then leaned forward, crossing his arms on the desk. It was an oddly informal gesture. “So about this business with Amber.”
“Right.” I slumped in my seat, steeling myself for the fallout.
“I think we can give you a pass.”
“Really?” I looked up, genuinely surprised.
“Just this once. But promise me you’re going to take better care of yourself. Get some sleep. And consider visiting the school counselor if you need someone to talk to.”
“Yes,” I said. “I promise.”
“Then I think we’re done here. If you hurry you should still be able to enjoy your lunch.”
“Thank you,” I said, standing. Fiedler nodded, then waved me out. I left his office and my stomach growled. Lunch sounded just about right.
“Braedyn.” Seth was waiting for me in the hallway.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you were on the way to the hospital.”
“Naw,” Seth said. “The paramedics checked me out and said I was fine.”
“But—” I started, unwilling to believe that was that. I mean, he’d been on fire less than an hour ago.
“Look, this is the perfect excuse,” Seth said, lowering his voice. “Everyone knows what happened to me. Just call Lucas and tell him you’re skipping lunch to come visit me at the hospital.”
“Why?” I asked. After this morning, the thought of lying to Lucas turned my stomach.
“Because we’ve got some fresh ericameria nauseosus to collect, and it’ll be a lot harder to find it at three o’clock in the morning. Who knows,” Seth gave me a conspiratorial smile, “we might even have time to get some sleep tonight.”
That settled it.
“I’m in.”
We drove out of Puerto Escondido, heading northwest. Seth had been following several “wildflower sightings” blogs, looking for news on a flowering Chamisa (which was also called “Rabbitbrush” by the wildflower enthusiasts). Apparently, they usually flower in September, but someone had spotted a late-flowering bush out here just two days ago.
“It’s much better if the ingredients are fresh,” Seth said, rereading the notes he’d taken from his mother’s journal.
“Yeah, but the ritual’s still over a week away,” I pointed out. “They’re not exactly going to be fresh at that point.”
“We’re drying them,” Seth said, distracted. “It just helps to control the final outcome if we’ve got fresh flowers to start with. Something about us killing the blooms ourselves, rather than simply finding dried flowers on the bush.”
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, but he wasn’t paying attention. “You sound pretty excited.”
Seth looked up from his notes. “Yeah, aren’t you? This means you get to become human, be with Lucas. I know that’s what you want.” Seth gave me a watery smile.
I turned back to the road, thinking for a moment in silence. “It’s amazing.”
“What’s that?” Seth asked.
“When I met you, you didn’t even believe Lilitu were real.”
“Huh.” Seth chewed on his lip for a minute in silence. “A lot has changed since then.”
“Yeah.” I risked another glance at him, worried.
“Mile marker 63,” Seth said, straightening. “Pull off on this access road.”
I followed his directions, and in about 10 minutes we were parking off the side of a dirt road.
“It’s supposed to be over here,” Seth said, shielding his eyes from the sun to look out over the flora of the high desert foothills.
“There,” I said, pointing. A bush, maybe seven feet tall, sat nestled at the base of a bolder, crowned with bright yellow flowers.
“That’s the one,” Seth said.
We picked our way through the scrub brush, prairie grass, and cacti until we came to the bush.
“We want only the most perfect flowers,” Seth breathed. He snapped off a small yellow blossom. It looked like a trumpet, opening up into five delicate petals at the end. “Like this one.”
“How many do we need?”
“Enough to grind the dried flowers down into a cup or more of powder.”
“So... how many?”
“A lot,” Seth said. He handed me an empty canvas grocery bag. “We should probably fill a couple of these.
I took the bag with a sick, twisting feeling. “We’re not going to make it back for afternoon classes, are we?”
“I’m in the hospital, remember?” Seth shot me a roguish grin. “And my good friend, Braedyn, is keeping me company. You should probably call Lucas. We don’t want him freaking your dad out again.”
“Right,” I said. But I hesitated before reaching for my phone. This was very different from just not telling Lucas what was up. This was deliberately misleading him. And I wasn’t sure if it was something I wanted to do. But Seth was right, if he called my dad or Hale, things would get very complicated, very fast. I fished my phone out of my pocket and dialed Lucas’s number.
Seth saw the movement and walked a little ways off, giving me some privacy.
Lucas picked up on the third ring. “You’re not at lunch,” he said. It wasn’t an accusation, just a statement.
“No.”
“Is it Seth?” he asked.
“Yeah, it is,” I answered, glancing back at the skinny boy happily snapping yellow blossoms off the plant behind me. “I’m with him right now.”
“Oh, man,” Lucas said. “I heard about what happened. Is he going to be okay?”
“I think so.”
“How about you? I heard about that other thing, too. You really went after Amber?”
“What? No!” For a moment, anger chased away my guilt. “She totally framed me. Who told you I attacked her?”
“Royal and Cassie,” Lucas said, sounding confused. “They said they saw the whole thing.”
“Why would I attack Amber?” I asked. “I’d just be making her life easier if I got kicked out of school.”
“Right.” But Lucas didn’t sound convinced. “So, are you going to stay at the hospital for the rest of the day?”
“Um,” I took a deep breath, every part of me fighting the lie. “I think I’m going to stay with Seth as long as he needs me.”
“You’re a good friend,” Lucas said, with real warmth in his voice. “I’ll ask Royal for a ride home. Maybe he’ll actually let me drive this time.”
“Thanks,” I said, desperate to end this call, “I should probably get back to Seth.”
“Okay. Tell him hi from me? We’re all thinking about him.”
“Yeah.”
I hung up, taking a moment to settle my racing heart. You didn’t technically lie to him, I told myself. And then another thought surfaced. Great. Now I’m lying to myself.
Seth and I finished our harvest a little before school got out. I drove us home, then Seth and I smuggled the bags of Chamisa blossoms into his room. He’d already set up a drying station in his closet, but it’d take several more hours to hang all the blossoms up so they’d dry evenly.
“You should probably go to practice,” Seth said. “Keep up the routine.”
“You don’t need help with this stuff?” I asked
.
“I’ve got it.” Seth shrugged. “I’m actually looking forward to the solitude.”
I studied his face for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay. You know where to find me if you need anything.”
It felt good to throw myself into practice after the afternoon’s deception. The physical workout felt like a penance. I fought hard, focused only on the next attack, the next defense.
At the end of our normal training session, Lucas sat down and Gretchen and Matthew ringed me for another round of two-on-one. While I wasn’t great at anticipating both attacks simultaneously, there was one moment when I was blocking Gretchen’s frontal attack that I almost sensed Matthew behind me. Instinctively I dropped, dodging the blow before it landed. In the next breath, I swept out my leg, catching Matthew behind the knees and knocking his legs out from under him.
“Nice work, Braedyn,” Hale called from the stairs. He was grinning. “I can’t think of a better way to end a session.”
“I think we’re starting to see some progress,” Gretchen said, offering a hand to help Matthew up off the floor mat.
“Thanks.” I flashed them a brief smile, then picked up my water, draining it. My muscles felt hot, but loose, relaxed. Except for the tender spots—reminders of what happens when I don’t move fast enough to block a punch—I felt remarkably good.
Until Lucas cornered me.
“Is everything all right?” He kept his voice low and neutral, to avoid drawing the attention of Hale and Gretchen, talking a few yards away.
“Yeah, why?” I tried to make my voice nonchalant.
Lucas gave me a strange look. “You don’t normally train like your life depended on beating the crap out of my sister-in-law.”
“What?” I glanced over at Gretchen and saw her rubbing at her shoulder, wincing. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of what I mean,” Lucas said. “It was like your mind was a thousand miles away, and all that was left was this robot-girl hammering out punches.” Lucas dropped his voice even lower. “Is it Seth?”
“No,” I said, not thinking.
“But something’s bugging you.” Lucas scrutinized me shrewdly.
“Lucas.” I faced him full on. “Do you trust me?”
Lucas glanced at Hale for the briefest moment before answering. “Of course I do.”
“Then trust me.”
He gave me a smile, and shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry. My radar must be off or something.”
I blotted my face with a towel, hiding the guilt I was afraid I couldn’t conceal if Lucas was staring into my eyes. When I pulled the towel away, Lucas was drinking his water.
“I should probably get back to my place,” I said. “Fiedler’s on my case about my grades and I’ve got a quiz in English tomorrow.”
“Right. See you at dinner?”
“See you.” I left the basement, hurrying up the stairs. When I got home, Seth was sitting on the foot of our staircase, waiting for me.
“I found the last two ingredients on our shopping list,” he said.
“Careful,” I murmured. We couldn’t afford to get careless, and just blurt things out.
“No one’s home,” Seth said, shrugging my caution off. “Come on. We can make it there and back before dinner.”
“No,” I said, more firmly than I’d intended. Seth looked at me, startled.
“Is something wrong?” He seemed to shrink into himself. He made me think of an abused puppy, expecting another kick.
“Sorry,” I relented. “Sorry. What did you find?”
“The tinctures,” Seth said. “I found an herbalist who’s totally anal about her preparations. She’s got several varieties of tincture of rose hips, including the dog rose, and she’s got the juniper one we need, too.”
“Can we go tomorrow instead?” I asked. “It’s just, we’re supposed to be here, so if Dad gets home and we’re gone—”
“Sure. I totally get it.” Seth folded up his ingredients list and shoved it into his pocket.
“Did you finish hanging the blossoms to dry?”
“I did, indeed,” Seth said. “So what do you want to do now?”
“Believe it or not,” I smiled weakly. “Study.”
We were both bent over our textbooks when Dad came home that night. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was pleased. I shoved down the wave of rising guilt. He thought we were playing by the rules; he didn’t know the truth. He didn’t know we’d spent the day collecting ingredients for the ritual instead of going to class. But with less than two weeks to go before winter solstice, I had to prioritize—and that meant the ritual came first.
The next day was Friday. I couldn’t afford to skip another lunch, not with Lucas obviously watching me. But I had a study period right before physics, and if we drove fast, Seth and I could make it to the herbalist’s and back before I missed any class time at all.
Sneaking off campus was becoming uncomfortably easy. I met Seth by my car and we pulled out of the campus parking lot, no one the wiser.
We drove straight to the little shop tucked into the outskirts of Old Town.
An old-fashioned brass bell hanging over the door tinkled merrily as Seth and I entered the cramped shop. It was a tiny room, and very crowded. The walls were lined with narrow shelves, and two more freestanding shelves took a big bite out of the available floor space. We had to walk single file down the aisles.
“Hello? May I help you?” I turned as a plump woman looked up from a table at the back of the shop. Her face was weathered with lines born of too much sun-exposure, but her eyes were kind. She wore a loose cotton shirt died indigo and her dark brown hair was pulled up in a comfortably messy bun.
“We’re here for a couple of tinctures,” I said.
“I called in the order yesterday,” Seth added. “Seth Linwood?”
“Oh dear,” the woman said, looking at us kindly. “I—thought you were a bit older.”
Seth and I glanced at each other, confused.
“My tinctures are alcoholic in nature,” she explained. “I can’t sell them to minors.”
“We’re not going to drink them,” I said.
“I’m sorry, it’s just—” she pointed to a sign that read, We do not sell alcohol to minors. “I’m afraid I can’t make any exceptions. I don’t relish the idea of going to prison.”
“But—” I started.
“We’ll look around,” Seth said. “Maybe there’s something else that will work.”
“Good idea,” the herbalist said. “I’m here if you have any questions.”
In the corner of the shop, I looked at Seth. “I thought it had to be a tincture.”
“It does,” he said.
“So what are you planning to—?”
“Not me. You.” Seth met my eyes directly. “Of the two of us, which one can turn herself invisible?”
It took me half a second to figure out what he was asking. “You want me to rob her?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t want you to rob her. But she won’t sell us the tinctures, and we need them. Put some money in her drawer if you want. Here.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out a few twenties. “That should more than cover it.”
“I don’t...” I glanced at the woman, nervous. She was watching us closely. I felt like a thief already.
“You’re the one who wanted to do this quickly,” Seth reminded me. “Just go outside. I’ll distract her. You can come back in all cloaked up, do your thing, and we can get back to school.”
“I don’t even know what they look like,” I protested.
“She’s got them set aside for me. Check the back.”
I examined the back of the shop. There was an open curtain separating the shop from the storeroom. I wouldn’t even have to move it aside.
“Good,” Seth said, seeing my decision. He turned back to the woman. “So what other things do you have with juniper in them?” he asked.
I left the store, proppi
ng the door open with a rock. My heart thumped loudly in my ears. A few pedestrians walked past the shop outside. Too many eyes. I slipped around the side of the building. After a moment, checking to make sure no one was around, I took a deep breath, and felt the ripping sensation spreading along my back. It was the oddest feeling. I never seemed to get used to it. When I concentrated, I could almost feel the glossy smooth leather of my wings. But they didn’t exist in this reality—and they wouldn’t unless I learned how to make them solid and tangible outside of the dream.
Physical or not, my wings were capable of cloaking me from the sight of most mortals. And since Gretchen wasn’t around, I felt pretty safe walking into the store.
The woman Seth was talking to didn’t even flinch when I slipped back through the open door. I walked right toward her, but there was no glimmer of anything in her eyes to indicate she saw me. I slipped around her, through the curtained opening, and into the back. It was more of a closet than a storeroom, with row of shelves lining the walls floor to ceiling. On one shelf I saw a collection of simple brown sandwich bags, each labeled with hand-written names. I found the one labeled Seth Linwood and clutched it to my chest.
I walked back out of the tiny office, and out of the store, returning to my car and crouching down behind the side door before uncloaking. I stood, shaking, and unlocked the driver’s side door, slipping the package into the glove compartment and out of sight.
About 10 minutes later, Seth returned.
“Did you get it?” he asked.
“Yes.” I pointed to the glove compartment.
Seth opened it, and pulled two small glass bottles out of the brown paper bag. “That is so awesome.” He grinned at me, but I couldn’t share his enthusiasm. He didn’t seem to notice my reticence. He pulled his shopping list out of his pocket and crossed off the tinctures. “So. That leaves the vessel,” he said. He looked up at me, some of his excitement fading. “Which we have no leads on.”
“Maybe Thane will find that Clay guy soon,” I said. “He might know where it is.”
Incubus (The Daughters Of Lilith) Page 19
