by Bree Despain
At the time, I had rejected his words for being meaningless platitudes. They’d bounced right off the shell that I had retreated into, but in the wake of my flooding emotions, I cling to them now like they’re a life preserver.
I can’t allow myself to be swept away in despair, and I can’t allow myself to shut down. Not merely Daphne’s future, not merely mine, or ours, but everyone’s is depending on me. Once the Compass is in our possession, the real decisions—and the real danger—will begin, and a battered heart is not something I can allow to get in my way.
chapter thirty-nine
TOBIN
Dax and I sit in a car we’ve borrowed from Joe’s collection two blocks away from Rowan’s town house, waiting for his motorcycle to pass. He should have left almost fifteen minutes ago but we can still see the motorcycle in the driveway. A text pops up on Dax’s phone asking if Rowan has left yet. It’s from Haden. Dax takes another look at the house through his binoculars before replying.
I’m seeing some movement. He should be leaving soon, he messages. I can feel the anxiety starting to build as I try to psych myself up for another breaking-and-entering job. Seriously, when did my life become a James Bond movie?
Rowan finally comes out of the house, pulls out of the driveway on his motorcycle, and races off down the street, passing us without so much as a glance.
“Let’s go,” Dax says, hopping out of the driver’s seat. We jog up to the door and, a moment later, Dax has it unlocked and we’re inside.
“Where do we look first?” I ask.
“You start with the kitchen. I’ll take the living room. Then we’ll make our way upstairs. Make sure you check everywhere: behind boxes, air vents, the fridge. Everywhere.”
Dax makes his way to the couch and starts pulling cushions off, so I head to the kitchen in the back. We work silently for about ten minutes before Dax announces that he’s going to the dining room. I’ve almost completely destroyed the pantry and the cabinets under the sink when Dax comes back.
“Anything yet?” he asks.
“No, but I think I’m going much slower than you.”
“Nothing wrong with being thorough. We just need to make sure we’re out of here before he comes back. I’d say we maybe have another twenty minutes, tops.”
I hesitate, not sure I know how to ask Dax the question that has been plaguing my mind since my encounter with Terresa.
“Dax … Do you really think this is the best way to get Abbie back?”
Dax stops pulling beer cans out of the fridge but doesn’t look at me, as if he’s contemplating my question. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, we’ve been so concentrated on helping the group find the Key, but they’ve hardly spent any time helping us figure out where Abbie is or if she is even safe. I feel like everyone seems to think that, if we find the Key, we’ll miraculously find Abbie, too, or something. But maybe it’s time I split off from the group and start concentrating all of my energy on Abbie. Maybe you should join me.”
Dax doesn’t answer immediately. “Haden needs me, Tobin. He needs your help, too. Maybe looking for the Key won’t help us directly find Abbie, but who knows what leads might open up to us when we find it?”
“But are we doing enough now?” I ask.
“Believe me, Tobin, if I knew of a faster way to find Abbie, to make sure she’s safe, to bring her home—I would move heaven and earth to do it.” He finishes searching the fridge and moves on to the cabinets under the stove. “But I trust Sarah the Oracle. She said if I helped Haden find his true path, that I would be reunited with Abbie. So that’s what I’m doing now.”
“But why do you trust the Oracle?”
“She hasn’t been wrong yet.” Dax’s phone buzzes with the arrival of a text. “Kopros. Rowan is on his way back. We’ve got maybe ten minutes with the way he drives. I’m going to head upstairs and check the bedrooms.”
Dax’s words about moving heaven and earth were meant to comfort me. To remind me that we are doing everything we can. To encourage me to be patient. Instead, they have me thinking about Terresa’s proposition.
If I knew of another way, wouldn’t I move heaven and earth, too? Wouldn’t I do whatever it takes?
A sudden urge to break something comes over me. I move on to the living room and knock over the TV, just because I can. And, you know, in case the Compass is hiding inside of it. I go for a lamp next.
A few minutes later, Dax barrels down the stairs.
“Got it!”
“Where was it?”
“Can you believe that arrogant piece of kopros just left it on his bed? Now I’m kicking myself for not starting with the master bedroom,” Dax says. “We’d better get going, though, before Rowan shows up.” He eyes the damage I’ve caused in his absence. “I’d hate to be you when he sees this.”
“Agreed.”
We rush out the door and cross the street. I can hear the roar of a motorcycle not too far off. I pick up my pace to keep up with Dax as we sprint for the car. We duck inside just before Rowan races by. He pulls into the driveway with screeching brakes, bounces off his bike, and throws his helmet at the garage door. He must have added a bit of lightning to his tantrum, because the helmet explodes with a loud flash and a crack. Lights from some of the neighbors turn on as he storms inside the house. Dax turns on the car and creeps away for another block, like we did when escaping from Ellis Fields, before he hits the headlights and accelerates onto the highway.
chapter forty
DAPHNE
I pace in front of my bedroom window, frustrated and annoyed that I’m being left out of the action. Dax had informed me via a phone call that Haden insisted that I stay far away from his meeting with Rowan, and from Dax and Tobin’s search for the Compass. His logic made sense—I shouldn’t be in the same place as the Compass with Rowan around—and I had consented to stay behind, but I couldn’t help wondering if the real reason Haden had wanted me to keep my distance was because of what happened in the grove this afternoon.
My heart aches and my stomach throbs just from my thinking about it, and if I were in this pain, then how must my words have affected Haden? How would my refusal affect how he sees me? Would I only be the Cypher to him, and nothing more?
Kissing him had felt so right in the moment … until it didn’t. And telling him I couldn’t be with him had felt right, too.… So why does it hurt so much now?
Why do I feel like if there was one thing in this world I can’t trust anymore, it’s my own heart? Or maybe it’s my head that’s causing me so many problems?
I pace some more until my phone finally rings. “We’ve got it,” Haden says.
Relief washes through me at the sound of his voice—it’s measured and steady, and not cold like I had expected.
“Good. Do you want me to come meet you guys?” As painful as it would be for me to see Haden so soon, my hands are aching to wrap around the Compass again. I know it belongs to me the way I know that my right foot is my right foot, or my eyes are my eyes.
“No,” Haden says. “We’ll regroup tomorrow. In the meantime, you should stay away until the Compass is hidden in a new location. I’ve got Dax working on that now.”
“Oh, okay.” I’m quiet for a moment, not knowing what else to say.
“It’s been a long day,” Haden says. “I’m going to bed.” I hear a dog bark both through my window and through my phone.
I walk out to my private family room and peek through the curtains. Haden’s silent car is sitting outside the house. “Okay, good night,” I say, and he hangs up. I wait for him to drive away, but he doesn’t. I realize that, with a pissed-off, ripped-off Rowan in town, he’s probably planning to stay out there all night.
My traitorous heart wants me to invite him to come inside, but my head tells me to stick to my words. I turn out the light and sit in the window seat, watching him watching out for me.
chapter forty-one
HADEN
On Monday, we reconv
ene for another war council—as I’ve come to think of it—but this time, we don’t meet in the workshop behind the school’s auditorium. Instead, we’re in a cramped dressing room attached to the outdoor amphitheater on the north shore of the lake. Now that the weather is starting to turn warmer, Mr. Morgan has moved rehearsals here, where the final performance will be held. The outdoor setting is supposed to add to the drama and give the rock opera a more authentic feel—as most ancient Greek plays were performed in open-air theaters.
I respect the effect Mr. Morgan is going for, but I don’t care for the change in locale as far as our group’s secret meetings go. This dressing room is barely bigger than a closet, and with the lot of us—Daphne, Joe, Dax, Garrick, Tobin, Lexie, and even Brim, who’s been sticking extra-close to me lately (as if she can sense my inner turmoil)—crammed in here, practically sitting on top of each other, tensions are running higher than usual.
What I had hoped would be a rational and calm strategy meeting to discuss our plan of action now that we have the Key is quickly devolving into an unhelpful debate.
“Have you guys considered just destroying the Compass and leaving this ‘Eternity Key,’ or whatever we’re calling it now, right where it is?” Lexie argues. “That way, nobody can get it.”
“That isn’t an option,” I say. “Rowan confirmed my father’s story about the Court planning on ripping through the Pits and releasing the Keres. Without using the Key to shore up the locks, both the Keres and the Underlords could tear through the barrier that separates this realm from Pandoras Pithos any day now.”
“So then we team up with Ethan?” Daphne says, surprising me. For how angry she’d been about the deal I’d struck with him and how many trust issues she apparently has, she seems to have warmed up to the idea of working with him awfully quickly.
I take a deep breath, tempering myself before I say as much to her.
“I don’t trust that guy. Yeah, he’s hot—for a teacher—and all,” Lexie says, like one’s physical appearance would have bearing on their trustworthiness. “But how do we know he’s not really just trying to play us? He could be pretending to hate Terresa and Calix just to throw us off.”
“We could always give the Key to Terresa and Calix and let them solve our problem for us,” Tobin grumbles. “Who’d mourn the deaths of a bunch of sociopathic underlords?”
I glare at him, not bothering to hide my irritation now. “You’re talking about my home. And there aren’t just people like my father and the Court down there—there are children and Boons and servants and other innocent souls. You think Terresa and the Skylords would discriminate in their killing?”
Tobin sinks back in his chair. “I was just kidding,” he says, cowed.
“This isn’t a joking matter.”
“Back to Ethan,” Daphne interjects. Brim is perched on her knee, and Daphne strokes her furry back. “If he has the man power, why not help him open the Pits and let him help us take care of the Keres? And shouldn’t we be trying to free the Boons, while we’re at it? Other people’s Abbies and Kaylas are trapped down there. We should be trying to save them.”
The name Kayla pulls at my already-aching heart. My mother had died in the Underrealm just like all of the Boons eventually will, because humans can’t survive in a realm without sun.
I shake my head. “I wish it were that simple. However, the Boons have all been through binding ceremonies. They’ve each eaten from a ceremonial pomegranate, binding them to the Champions who brought them there. We couldn’t bring any of the Boons out of the Undderrealm, even if they wanted to leave.”
Daphne hangs her head as if this idea pains her. I’ve always been impressed by her compassion. Brim pats her paw on Daphne’s hand in a gesture I wish I could emulate.
“You mean, they couldn’t leave unless the Underlords they were bound to were dead?” Tobin asks.
“That would be correct,” I say, but don’t want to dwell on the subject. What we’re doing here is trying to prevent people from dying, not entertaining the possibility of letting my race be exterminated.
“But we can at least still use Ethan and his troops to help us go after the Keres,” Daphne says. “They’re our biggest threat, as far as I’m concerned.”
“There are two problems with this idea,” Dax says, leaning forward. “First of all, who’s to say his Skylord posse will stop with merely the Keres when there’s a door left wide open to them in the Underrealm? And, secondly, do you know where the barrier between this world and the Pits opens up to? It’s in the middle of the mall in Washington, DC.”
“Seriously?” Joe says. “The pit of hell opens up in the middle of DC? Why does that seem so fitting?”
“Yes, and imagine the damage if a couple of Keres slipped past us,” Dax says.
“I’ve got half a mind to let ’em get free,” Joe says. He starts to smile like he thinks he’s so funny, but my glare shuts him down.
“Here’s a wild idea,” Garrick says. He tosses a green fuzzy ball up in the air and then catches it before it hits him in the face. “Why don’t we just get the Key, give it to Rowan, and send him through the gate with it, and we all go see a movie?”
“And then have an immortal Ren and his immortal army come after us once they can open the main gates whenever they want?” I say. “And then restart the war with the Skylords, raining down death and destruction on all the realms? Yeah, good idea, Garrick.” I throw my hands up, nearly smacking Joe in the face because of these tight quarters. “Will you all please take this seriously? This situation is as dire as it gets, and time is certainly not on our side. We’re only a couple of weeks away from the equinox, which means the gate will open on its own, and I can bet Ren will have a crew of his finest Elites ready to come after us. That is, if he hasn’t been deposed already. In that case, our time for planning could be up at any moment.”
They all stare at me as if dumbfounded by my outburst. Brim hops from Daphne’s knee to my leg, purring as if she thinks I need to be assuaged. Despite my efforts, I am still wearing my emotions too close to the surface. I take another deep breath to calm myself before explaining the plan I’ve been formulating while they’ve been bringing up useless arguments.
“One thing is for certain: we can’t risk removing the Key from Orpheus’s tree until the moment we’re ready to use it,” I say. “That way, it can’t fall into anyone else’s hands. However, that also means we need a window of time in which to get the Key and use it when no one else will be the wiser. Why not during the play?”
“During the play?” Daphne asks. Her eyes, meeting mine for the first time since we kissed in the grove, plainly show her doubts. “Like, in the middle of intermission?”
“No, I mean when most of us are on the stage, with Terresa, Calix, Ethan, and most likely Rowan staring right at us from the audience.”
“How would that even work?” Lexie asks.
“There’s a scene near the end of the play where Daphne’s character, Eurydice, is dragged away back into the underworld and disappears. The way Mr. Morgan has it set up, Daphne will stand on a floating platform and be pulled across the water from the amphitheater to the grove island. The rest of us are onstage for the next fifteen minutes, during the resolution of the story, but Daphne isn’t. What if she went for the Key right then? Dax could volunteer to be the stagehand who is supposed to wait for her on the other side, but really, he’ll be waiting to help her get to the grove and provide her protection while she gets the Key—” I’m about to go on when I feel a sharp pain in my leg. Brim has sunk her tiny teeth into my thigh. “Apparently, Brimstone wants to go with you, Dax.”
She releases my leg and meows in approval of my assessment.
“Sounds good to me,” Dax says, reaching over to give Brim a good scratch. “I’m always happy for backup.”
“The rest of us will join you three the moment the play ends,” I say. “Before any of our adversaries suspect that we are up to anything.”
“I could
add a new song,” Joe interjects, “to give her a few more minutes before the play is over.”
“But what about curtain call?” Daphne asks. “That’s why a stagehand is supposed to be waiting for me on the other side. They’re supposed to help me get back to the stage as soon as the play is over to take my bows. If I’m not there, then someone might realize that something is up.”
I stop for a moment. I hadn’t realized that was part of the play process, but I should have. “Your character is veiled in the last scene, yes? Perhaps we send Garrick onstage pretending to be you. Dax, you could whip up a second version of Daphne’s costume in the next couple of weeks.”
“Whip up isn’t how I would describe it, but, yes, I could do at least a makeshift version.”
“He’s too short,” Daphne says. “I’ve got three inches on him.”
Garrick scowls at her.
“He could wear heels!” Lexie says. “My mom has huge feet. I bet she has a pair that would fit him.”
Garrick’s scowl turns into a full-on glower. “First, you want to put me in a dress and now a pair of heels. What makes you guys even think I want to help you?”
Brim growls at him. I want to growl also, but I realize I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s being so difficult. Frankly, I’m surprised he even showed up today after what happened between us after the rendezvous with Rowan.
“Because the plan doesn’t work without you, Garrick,” Dax says.
“And then what are you even going to do with the Key?” Garrick asks. “Stick it up your a—”
“Garrick!” Dax snaps at him.
“We’ll go through the gate without Ethan,” I say. “And kill the Keres on our own.”
“Say what?” Tobin asks.
“We don’t need Ethan and his lackeys to do the job, and we certainly don’t need to open the Pits to the outside world while they’re still a threat. We can do it from the inside. Kill the Keres where they sleep, shore up the locks to the Pits so the Court can’t bust through, and escape with the Key. That way, the Skylords can’t get in and the Underlords can’t get out; the war stays at a stalemate; and nobody else gets hurt.”
