by Jen McConnel
I didn’t look at her. “I’m sorry about using you.”
“Did you mean what you said?”
“About what?”
“About actually liking me, stupid.”
Cautiously, I met her eye and nodded. “I think you’re cool, and it’s been fun hanging out with you. But I understand if you never want to see me again after all this.”
Her eyes flashed. “First, we have to get Marcus back. You aren’t getting off that easy.”
I dropped my head, ashamed. “You’re right.”
After a pause, she put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m just kidding. What you did sucks, but I sort of understand. And I think you’re cool, too.”
I smiled at her awkwardly. “So you don’t think I’m a monster?”
Izzy laughed. “I don’t think you’re any worse than my brother.”
That thought sent chills down my spine, but I knew Izzy hadn’t meant to sound threatening. I bumped her shoulder with mine and stood up. “We better figure this all out, and fast.”
Izzy nodded. “Can you drive a manual?”
Her question surprised me. “What are you talking about?”
She gestured out of the cairn. “The car. It’s manual. Can you drive it?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. My mom’s car is a stick. I can try.”
“Good.” She fished in the pocket of her hoodie for a minute and then handed me a key ring.
I raised my eyebrow. “I thought I saw Marcus put these in his pocket.”
Her shrug was eloquent. “Maybe you did. But I never said I didn’t like to pinch things. Guess it’s a good thing, this time.”
I eyed her cautiously. What else didn’t I know about Izzy? A slow smile spread across my face. “Glad you did.”
She grinned in response. “But now you know, so you better check your pockets.”
My hands went involuntarily to my backpack, and Izzy laughed.
“You don’t trust me?”
Her tone was suddenly serious, and I studied her face. “Actually, I think I do.”
“That’s good. Darlena?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I trust you, too.”
I gave her a quick hug. “Thanks.” It had been a long time since I felt like I had a friend.
Her eyes flashed impishly. “Just don’t screw it up.”
I rolled my eyes. “Are you ready to leave now?”
“Give me ten minutes to try to contact Isis.”
“Can I stay?” I was really interested in Izzy’s patron, especially since I remembered that Izzy had said Isis was similar to Persephone.
Izzy hesitated, but then she shook her head. “I want to talk to her alone. No offense,” she hurried to add, “it’s just that today has been so much. I need her advice.”
I nodded. “I understand. I forgot you said she was like another mother.”
“Yeah.” Izzy looked down at her feet. “So I’ll meet you at the car?”
“Make sure you don’t disappear, too.” I tried to joke, but her face crumpled when I spoke, and I felt like an ass. “I’m sorry, Izzy. We’ll find him.”
She nodded, tears streaming down her face. “I’ll be done in a few.”
I walked back toward the car, watching the frozen patterns my breath made in the air. Today hadn’t been anything like I’d imagined. While it had been sort of a relief to see Persephone, her news horrified me. True, I wasn’t surprised to know that Hecate wanted to destroy the world—she’d never struck me as the nurturing type. What did surprise me was something Persephone had said about the other Red gods. If Hecate wasn’t acting alone, would binding her do any good?
Opening the car door, I slid into the tattered driver’s seat. Who had Marcus borrowed the car from? If Izzy didn’t know, I wasn’t sure how we would get it back to its owner. As the thought flitted through my mind, I started to giggle. I had just found out the world might be coming to an end, and I was worried about getting a trashed car back to its owner? My laughter grew until I was doubled over, clutching the immobile steering wheel for support. By the time Izzy came back to the car, my fit of hysterics had passed, but I was still hiccupping from time to time.
She shot me a look but didn’t say anything, and I turned the key in the ignition, forcing myself to calm down. “Any good news from Isis?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Izzy shake her head. “Nothing that helps us.”
I fumbled with the clutch and the car lurched into motion. “That sucks.”
“Yeah.” She hesitated.
“What?”
Izzy’s voice was small. “Isis warned me about something. She thinks I may be in danger.”
I risked a glance at her as the car ground down the road. “From what?”
“She wasn’t sure.” Izzy paused and then met my eye. “But she thinks it has something to do with Red magic.”
The drive back to Edinburgh was tense. I didn’t really know how to drive a stick, so between the grinding and thumping sounds coming from the car and Izzy’s warning from Isis, we were both on edge when we finally made it back to the city that night.
“Drop me near the school, okay?” Izzy didn’t look at me, and I wondered what she’d been thinking.
“Okay. I don’t mind taking you home, though.”
“It’s fine. The school is good enough.”
I shrugged. So much for trusting each other; she didn’t even want me to know where she lived. I pulled up to the curb outside the looming gates, and the car jerked to a halt. “Do you know who Marcus borrowed the car from?”
Izzy shook her head. “No, but I can do a spell to find out.”
“Okay.” I turned the car off and handed her the keys. “I’ll leave it here with you, then.”
I got out of the car and headed off in the direction of my hotel. Izzy cleared her throat. “What’s our next step?”
I turned and looked at her, surprised. “After what your goddess said, I figured you didn’t want to help me.”
“We need to get my brother back.” Her voice shook, but I couldn’t read her expression in the faint glow from the streetlamp. “And,” she added dryly, “I don’t fancy the end of the world.”
“Me, neither.” I took a deep breath and crossed my fingers. “Should I meet you back here?”
She nodded. “We have to figure out how to bind a god.”
“I have a few ideas.” The words slipped out, and instantly, I wished I could take them back. I wasn’t ready to tell Izzy about Loki yet, but luckily, she didn’t ask.
“So do I.”
Her words surprised me, and I smiled. “I’ll see you in the morning, then?”
“Sounds good.”
We stood there awkwardly for a minute, and finally I turned around first. I was glad she still wanted to help me, but the fact that she didn’t want me to follow her home grated on me. What did she think I’d do to her?
I was in a pretty awful mood by the time I got back to my hotel, and I ignored the blinking message light on the room phone. Even if Mom or Justin had called, I was too drained to talk to them right now. Instead, I fell into the bed with my clothes on and passed out before I realized that I should at least brush my teeth.
***
The next day, I met Izzy in front of Lady on the Lake. She was already there, sitting on the ground with two cups of coffee.
“How’d you get here so early?”
She smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I accepted the second cup she passed up to me, but I stayed standing. “No, seriously?”
She shrugged. “I thought you’d figured it out by now; this is a boarding school.”
I almost choked on the steaming coffee. “You’re kidding. So you’re, what, a snobby boarding school brat?” I laughed at the words.
She didn’t. “Sure. Something like that.” Izzy stood quickly and headed for the building.
“I’m sorry.” I rushed to keep up with her. “You just have to understand: I’ve
never met anyone who goes to a boarding school. Trinity was exclusive, but we still went home at night.”
Izzy remained silent, but her pace slowed considerably. I walked beside her in silence until we were inside the foyer, standing on the polished marble floor. Then I stopped and put a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry. Really. Can I see your room?”
A slow smile spread across her face. “I thought you’d never ask!”
She trotted up the stairs, chugging coffee as she went. I followed quickly, feeling awful for the way I’d teased her. I’d never had a sister, so I hadn’t really realized what a big difference there was between fourteen and sixteen. I had to stop treating her like a girl my own age. Rochelle would have laughed at my snarky comment. That thought stopped me cold. What was I doing, comparing Marcus’s sweet kid sister to someone as warped as Rochelle? I shook my head and took another swig of coffee.
“Here it is.” Izzy stood proudly beside a thick wooden door.
I hesitated for a moment. “Do you have a roommate?”
She shook her head. “Nope. The school believes that magical practice is best done with relative privacy.”
I glanced up and down the massive hall. “How many students go here?”
She shrugged. “It depends. But there are always enough rooms, even if they aren’t all the same size. I’ve been here awhile, so my room isn’t too bad.”
That was an understatement. When she opened the door, I thought I’d just entered a ritzy hotel suite. “Not too bad? Are you kidding? This is huge!”
She blushed and perched on the edge of her bed. The bedspread was a brilliant blue batik pattern, with gold swirls and stars scattered across it.
“That’s really cool.” I pointed to her bed, and she blushed again.
“Thanks. I designed it.”
I stared at the bedspread. “Did you Witch it?”
She laughed. “Nope, it’s not magic. I found the fabric in town at a market, and I got the girl in the next room over to do the sewing. Totally mundane.”
“But it’s really gorgeous. Izzy, you have a great eye for color!”
She shrugged. “Just for blue.”
I nodded, and sat on the rag rug in the center of the room. “What else did she say yesterday?”
Izzy fiddled with her coffee cup. “Who?”
“Isis! Who do you think?”
She took a long sip from her coffee cup. “She said she’d heard about you.”
I bristled. “I hate it when the gods think they know me just because they’ve heard about me.” I wanted to ask Izzy if Isis had told her to be afraid of me, but I sort of didn’t want to know the answer.
“It wasn’t like that! She’d spoken with your old patron.”
“Aphrodite?” I was surprised. “What are she and Isis doing palling around?”
Izzy leaned forward eagerly. “When Isis’s followers spread, lots of people compared her to Aphrodite.”
I frowned. “But Aphrodite is a Red goddess. How’d they make the comparison?”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t just Aphrodite. Isis got compared to every major goddess, wherever she went. It’s like people realized she was super important, even if they didn’t understand her.”
I thought about that for a moment. “What did Aphrodite say about me?”
Izzy creased her brow. “I’m not sure. Isis just said she’d heard about you from her.”
I must have looked skeptical, but Izzy continued.
“She had more to say about what I need to focus on right now.”
“And what’s that?”
Izzy looked at her hands again. “Balance. Isis strives for balance, and she reminded me that I need to, too.”
“Balance.” I sighed. “Izzy, I think maybe you need to remind me to focus on that, too. That’s how this whole mess started.”
“Have you given up on finding balance within Red magic?” Her question was tentative, and when I glanced up, she was staring intently at me.
“No. But I’m worried.”
“What about?”
I hesitated, not sure how much I could say to her. “Is it really balance,” I asked, choosing my words carefully, “if a Witch gains power over a god?”
Izzy was silent for a moment. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Me, neither. But I don’t know of any other way to stop Hecate. We have to bind her.”
She stood up. “I know.” She looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “You said you had an idea?”
“It’s not one I like.”
She nodded. “Me, neither.”
We were silent for a moment. Finally, I said, “We just need to know more before we do something.”
Izzy looked thoughtful. “Let me show you the school library. It’s the whole top floor of the building; if there’s a safe way to bind a god, we’ll find it there.”
I nodded, throwing my coffee cup into the trash. I followed her into the hall, wondering what ideas she’d had that she wasn’t telling me. Maybe there was another way besides making a bargain with Loki. I hoped we could find it if there was.
***
The library was massive. Rows and rows of shelves stretched to the ceiling, and here and there ladders leaned against the stacks, inviting you to climb up and have a look. I stood, gaping at all the books, while Izzy marched up to the librarian’s desk in the center of the room.
No one was in sight, so she rang a small brass bell on the counter. The sound was musical, and a tall man appeared almost immediately from behind the desk. It was as if he had been crouching down, waiting to spring.
“Yes?” He peered down his long nose.
Izzy glanced at me before she spoke. “We’re looking for books about the gods.”
He frowned slightly. “Can you be more specific?”
“Stories about control,” I chimed in.
He glared at me. “Control over the gods?”
“Just myths about different times the gods were, um, incapacitated.” Izzy smiled, batting her eyes innocently.
The stork-like man glanced between us and finally sighed. “There are such stories. But they are not collected in one volume.” He eyed Izzy for a moment. “You follow a god of Egypt?”
She nodded. I took a step back, hoping he wouldn’t try that trick on me, but he didn’t even look at me.
“We’ll start with Egyptian stories, then.”
He led Izzy to a shelf near the wall, and pulled down a thick, dusty volume. It looked heavy; she sagged a bit when he put it in her hands.
“This cannot leave the library. You see how old and precious this book is.”
Izzy nodded reverently, and I leaned in to have a closer look. The dust on the book made me sneeze loudly, and the librarian glared at me.
“Something for you to look at, too, I suppose.” He scrutinized me, and then his expression turned to pity. “You haven’t taken a patron?”
How in the world did he know? I raised an eyebrow but stayed silent. Clearly, this weird man knew his way around the massive library. We needed his help, and I didn’t want to risk offending him by getting into an argument about the supposed value of taking a patron. Besides, he kind of gave me the creeps, and I figured the less I said to him, the better.
He tapped his cheek in thought. “Perhaps a compilation, to help you choose. I have just the thing—it’s written by one of our own faculty members.” He led the way to another shelf, catty-corner from the one where he’d found Izzy’s book, and handed me a slender green book. “You can sit over there to look at these.” He gestured to two wing-backed chairs facing a window.
“Thank you.” Izzy smiled at him, and his expression softened as he looked at her. Even the grumpiest people seemed happier around Izzy, and I wondered again if that was because of her magic, or just her sweet personality.
“Just be careful with these books. You wouldn’t be able to replace them if you damaged them.”
He retreated to the desk, and we crossed ove
r to the chairs he’d suggested.
I flipped through the book he’d handed me. It talked about different gods and the elements, but at a glance, none of the stories spoke of confinement.
“This may be something.” Izzy’s quiet voice was hopeful, and she pushed her open book at me.
I skimmed the tale of Isis and Osiris while Izzy watched me intently.
“So,” I said slowly, still reading, “his brother Set made a coffin to his measurements. And he covered it in gold, and offered to give it to whichever god would fit in it?”
Izzy nodded.
“And Osiris fell for it?”
She glared at my tone. “He wasn’t the only one. All the gods wanted that coffin! If Set had wanted to, he could have trapped them all.”
“But he didn’t. He just wanted to get his brother out of the way.”
“And when Osiris climbed into the coffin, he couldn’t escape.”
I exhaled loudly. “Well, that’s great, except for a few things. One, how would we build a coffin like that, and two, how am I supposed to convince Hecate to try it on for size?”
She looked hurt. “Have you thought of anything better?”
Loki’s offer was on the tip of my tongue, but I shook my head. “Not yet. I’m going to get another book.”
I handed the book back to Izzy and left her happily buried in the myths. I thought about stopping at the librarian’s desk, but frankly, he gave me the creeps. The way he knew that I hadn’t taken a patron was unnerving, almost like he could read my mind. Craning my neck, I wandered around reading the neatly labeled shelves, skimming for something that would help us.
There didn’t seem to be any system of organization in the library. I found “Divination: Tarot” on the shelf below “Gods: Native American.” Despite the weird filing system, I felt better walking through the library than I had since leaving North Carolina. Libraries had always been calming places for me, I guess; when you’re surrounded by books, it’s like nothing else is real. But my fight with Hecate was real, and I needed to focus.
