Текст книги "Destined"

Автор книги: P. C. Cast

Соавторы: Kristin Cast,P. C. Cast
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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Thanatos nodded. “Tomorrow will be the fifth night since her death. I need to speak with your grandmother today.”

“Okay, well, I’d take you out to the lavender farm, but I know she doesn’t want anyone out there until it’s cleansed.”

“Zoey, does your grandmother not have a cell phone?”

“Uh, yeah. You wanna call her?”

Thanatos’s lips tilted up. “It is the twenty-first century, even for me.”

Feeling like a moron, I rattled off Grandma’s cell number while Thanatos put it in her iPhone.

“I will call her, but I would rather do so alone.”

Thanatos’s look said she really didn’t want me to hear the kind of questions she was gonna ask Grandma, and I quickly nodded. “Yeah, I understand. That’s okay with me. I need to get to sixth hour anyway.”

“May I ask your forgiveness first?”

“Yeah, sure. But what for?”

“I told an untruth earlier. I would ask your forgiveness for it, and I would also ask that you keep what I am about to tell you close to your heart. Do not even share it with your Warrior or your best friend.”

“Okay. I’ll keep it secret.”

“When Stark asked if I could see the Darkness that surrounds Neferet and Dallas’s red fledglings, my answer was a lie.”

I blinked. “You mean you can see Darkness?”

“I can.”

I shook my head. “You need to ask Stark and Rephaim and Stevie Rae for forgiveness, too. They’re the ones who can see Darkness with you—they’re the ones the lie would hurt most.”

“They cannot know. I have your word that you will keep this secret.”

“Why? Why should I know and not them?”

Instead of a clear answer, she just started talking. “I have lived almost five centuries. For most of that time I have dealt with death daily. I have seen Darkness. I have seen its carnage, its waste, its wages. I recognize its threads and shadows all too well. Perhaps it is because I have watched it for so long that I can also see that which is its opposite—that which causes the strength of Darkness to weaken, to falter.”

“What are you talking about!” I wanted to scream.

“You, Zoey Redbird. There is something about you that cannot be touched by Darkness; therefore, it is your fate to stand in the Light and lead the battle against evil.”

“No. I don’t want to lead any battle. You do it. Or ask Darius to. Or even Stark. Hell, get Sgiach and the Guardians! They’re all leaders. They’re all Warriors who know how to fight. I don’t know anything. I don’t even know what to do without my mom.” I ended up gasping for breath and pressing my hand against my chest. When Thanatos didn’t speak, when she just held me with her dark eyes I finally managed a less crazy voice and said, “I don’t want this. I just want to be a normal kid.”

“That may be part of why this has fallen on your shoulders, young High Priestess, because you do not want it. Perhaps the power that goes with the claiming of it will not be able to corrupt you.”

“Like Frodo,” I whispered, more to myself than to Thanatos. “He never wanted the damn ring.”

“J. R. R. Tolkien. Good books—excellent movies.”

I gave her a look and said, “Yeah, I know. It’s the twenty-first century. You probably have cable.”

“I definitely have cable.”

“That’s cool for you, but let’s go back to the Ring Bearer stuff. Uh, if I remember correctly, and I do ’cause I’ve seen the long extended version of the movies like a gazillion times, Frodo is basically destroyed by this ring he didn’t want to bear.”

“And thereby he saved his world from Darkness,” Thanatos said.

I felt a freezing shiver wash down my spine. “I don’t want to die. Not even to save the world.”

“Death comes to us all,” Thanatos said.

I shook my head again. “I’m no Ring Bearer. I’m just a kid.”

“A kid who’s already won her life back from Darkness, not once but several times.”

“Okay, if you get that—and if you get that Neferet is on the side of Darkness ’cause you can see it why are you pretending like you don’t?”

“I am here to settle the issue of Neferet and her true allegiance once and for all.”

“Then tell the High Council about the Darkness that surrounds her!”

“And have her admonished slightly only to return, perhaps stronger, to do more evil? What if she is really the Consort of Darkness? If that is truth, then the full might of the High Council must come against her, and for that to happen we must have unequivocal proof that she is forever lost to the Goddess.”

“That’s why you’re here. To get that proof.”

“Yes.”

“I won’t say anything about you seeing Darkness. And I’m telling you the honest truth—get ready to see a whole bunch of it. Get ready to find your proof because I know with everything inside me that Neferet has gone over to it.” I almost added that she’s not even mortal anymore. But, no. That was something Thanatos needed to discover for herself. “Oh, and I forgive you. Just promise me you’ll keep your eyes open and when the time comes, you’ll make sure the High Council does the right thing.”

“I give you my oath on it.”

“Good,” I said. And then while Thanatos was calling Grandma I did finally return to sixth hour.

Shaunee

She hadn’t had any idea how much it would suck not to be Erin’s Twin anymore. It was like that one thing—not having Erin as her BFF—changed the whole blueprint of her life.

It was so damn confusing.

When had she lost Shaunee and become Twin? She really didn’t know. They’d been Marked the same day and arrived at the Tulsa House of Night the same exact hour. And they’d been friends right away. Shaunee had thought that had been because they were like soul sisters ’cause it hadn’t mattered that she was black and Erin was white. That she was from Connecticut and Erin from Tulsa. They’d been friends and all of a sudden Shaunee hadn’t felt lonely anymore. Especially ’cause she never had to be alone. Literally. She and Erin were roommates, had the same class schedule, went to the same parties, they only even dated guys who were friends.

By herself in her seat on the bus Shaunee shook her head. She could hear Erin laughing with Kramisha somewhere in the back of the bus. For a second a mean little thought snaked through her mind: guess she’s trading me in for another black girl BFF. But Shaunee stopped that crap right away. It wasn’t about skin color. It never had been. It was about not being able to be alone. Which was super ironic because figuring that out had somehow put her in a position where she was alone.

“Hey, can I sit here?”

Shaunee’s gaze shifted from staring out the window at the lightening pre-dawn sky to Damien standing in the aisle of the bus.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Thanks.” He sat beside her and dropped his heavy book bag between his feet. “I have soooo much homework. How ’bout you?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess. Hey, did you see Zoey sixth hour?”

“Not during sixth hour. She has Equestrian Studies and I have business class, but I saw her right after school. Why? What’s up?”

“Did she look okay to you?”

“Okay? Like physically okay or not-stressed-out okay?”

“She’s always stressed out. I mean physically.”

“Yeah, fine. What’s going on?”

“Nothin’,” Shaunee said. “It’s just that I, uh, saw her at the beginning of sixth hour. Me and her, we talked over here by the parking lot. Then we went back to class.” She studied Damien, wondering if she should tell him the truth. “Did you feel anything weird about the air tonight?”

Damien cocked his head to the side. “Nothing odd. Well, it was windy, but that’s not really odd for Oklahoma. You know we’re the state where the wind comes sweeping down the plain,” he sang.

“I know that, Mr. Broadway Musical. All I’m saying is the wind was blowing really hard when Z and I split up, and I thought I heard something about tree limbs falling and—”

“A tree limb did fall.” Stark butted in as he and Zoey slid into the seat in front of Damien and Shaunee.

“Yeah, it was all psycho-windy,” Stevie Rae said, sitting beside Rephaim in the seat across the aisle from Damien. “But tellin’ you that would be like tryin’ to tell white about rice.”

“What in the for-shit’s-sake is that supposed to mean?” Aphrodite forced Z to scoot over and perched beside her as Darius did a quick head count and then got in the driver’s seat and started the bus up.

“It means, Hateful, that Damien already knows it was windy today ’cause his affinity is wind. Just like rice is white. I don’t even know what was hard about that analogy,” Stevie Rae said.

“Just. Don’t. Speak,” Aphrodite told Stevie Rae.

“Rice is brown, too,” Shaunee said.

Aphrodite raised a brow. “Did you just make a snarky comment without your Twin?”

“Yeah,” Shaunee said, meeting her gaze steadily.

Aphrodite snorted and looked away, first saying, “It’s about time.”

“About the wind,” Zoey said. “Yeah, it was kinda crazy tonight, and it even broke a branch from one of those old oaks.” She shrugged. “Like Damien said—it’s windy in Oklahoma. Hey, speaking of, Damien, did you know Thanatos had a little wind affinity?”

“Ohmygod! I’m not surprised! Did you see how uber-scary she got today when Dallas said that stupid stuff in class? I couldn’t believe…”

Shaunee let everyone’s words flow around her, but she kept watching Zoey, waiting for her to say something—anything—about what had really happened when the tree limb broke. She knew. She’d seen the whole thing.

As they bounced and bumped their way back to the depot, Shaunee realized Zoey wasn’t going to say anything. Okay, well, maybe she just told Stark what had happened—how she would’ve been smashed under that tree limb if Aurox hadn’t saved her. During the next lull in the conversation, which happened when they paused at a railroad crossing like Super Giant Short Bus Dorks, Shaunee blurted, “Does anyone think it’s weird that Aurox goes to one class and then does nothing but patrol the school all android-like for the rest of the time?”

“There’s a lot that’s super weird about that guy,” Aphrodite said. “But that’s no surprise. He’s Neferet’s boy toy.”

“I don’t think they’re having sex,” Zoey said.

Shaunee studied Z. “Why not?”

“I dunno,” Z said way too nonchalantly. “I guess because Neferet doesn’t act like it. She acts more like he’s her slave.”

Stark chuckled. “Neferet acts like the world’s her slave.”

“I’ll bet Dead Fish Eye Lady really hates it that we’ve all been pulled out of her class,” Aphrodite said.

“You know she does, ’specially ’cause Thanatos is a real good teacher,” Stevie Rae said. “And by the way, I do not appreciate you bein’ so hateful about our very short, very unsexual Imprint in class today. It happened to me, too, and I can tell you that it was no pit bull at a cat party fun time for me, either.”

“Please tell me you didn’t just use another white trash analogy,” Aphrodite said.

Shaunee stayed out of the argument that went on all the way from then until the moment they pulled up in front of the depot. Instead of joining in, she watched Zoey. She also watched Stark. By the time she’d exited the bus she believed two things. One was that Stark had no clue Aurox had saved Zoey’s life that night. The second was that she would have never known about Aurox or Zoey or Stark if she’d still been Twin. Twin would have been too wrapped up in being the other part of someone else to really pay attention to anything or anyone else.

She didn’t know what the hell was going on with Zoey and Aurox, but she knew she was going to keep her eyes and her mind open, and if she could figure it out she would. All on her own. All by herself. Which was suddenly not such a terrible thing. And for the first time since she quit completing Erin’s thoughts, Shaunee smiled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Zoey

So, I hadn’t told Stark about Aurox and the tree limb thing. I mean, seriously, what was the point? Like Stark needs more stress in his life? He’s still not even sleeping well because he’s still having nightmares he refuses to tell me about but which I know about because I sleep next to him and I’m not stupid. Plus, the whole tree thing happened fast. No one was hurt. It’s over with. Period, the end.

Well, except for one little part. That part about me making the decision to look through the seer stone at Aurox. Okay, not this second I wasn’t going to. I mean, Aurox wasn’t even here. But I’d decided. The second he’d touched me I’d decided.

The second he’d touched me I wasn’t scared of him anymore.

I was still freaked, though.

I was silently arguing with myself about whether or not I should let Stark know I’d decided to peek at Aurox through the stone, and sorta half listening to Aphrodite and Stevie Rae arguing over tunnel renovation details (Aphrodite wanted lots of workmen and lots of glitz—Stevie Rae didn’t want anyone but our people to even come down to the tunnels. Sigh.) when the bus pulled up to the depot and Darius opened the door.

“I’m gonna call Andolini’s for a major delivery,” Stevie Rae said as she and Rephaim left the bus.

“For once we can agree on something,” Aphrodite said, moving over to sit on Darius’s lap while the rest of us started to shuffle off the bus. “Order me one of their Santino pizzas. It’s totally worth the calories. Plus, it goes perfectly with that bottle of Chianti I took from the cafeteria when I was cutting fifth—”

It happened just like that. Aphrodite was in the middle of talking about something as totally normal as cutting class and her whole body seized up. She got rigid. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she started to cry tears of blood. It was like she went from gorgeous, perfect girl to someone who looked barely human. Barely alive.

Darius didn’t hesitate. He picked up her stiff, bloody-eyed, unseeing body and carried her from the bus. I put aside my ohmygod internal reaction and stood up, turning to the rest of the kids who were either gawking open-mouthed, or covering their eyes looking like they wanted to cry.

“Aphrodite’s having a vision.” My voice seemed to come from someone else. Someone who was calm. Stark took my hand, lending me strength. “She’s gonna be fine,” I continued, clinging to Stark.

“Actually, she’s gonna be super pissed and mean when she comes to ’cause she really hates it when this happens to her in public,” Stevie Rae said. She’d climbed halfway up the bus stairs. I noticed her eyes were kinda extra wide, but her voice also sounded totally calm and cool.

“Yeah, Stevie Rae’s right,” I said. “So there’s no need to make a big deal out of this—now or after she comes to.” I paused and, feeling like a moron, added, “Okay, I don’t mean her visions aren’t a big deal. I just mean she won’t want to hear a bunch of ‘hey, are you okays’ from everyone.”

“I’ll go ahead and order the pizzas. Do ya think Aphrodite’ll be hungry later?” Stevie Rae asked.

I thought about the last time she’d had a vision and how awful she’d felt afterward. I wanted to say what Aphrodite would really want would be a Xanax and a bottle of wine, but thought that would probably set a bad example. So I settled for, “Uh, why don’t you get her one and put it in the fridge. We can nuke it later if she’s hungry. Right now I’ll just go check on her. She’ll want water and quiet for a while.”

“Okie dokie.” Stevie Rae smiled and, acting absolutely normal, told the rest of the bus, “I’m takin’ pizza orders from up here. Cell phone reception is crap in the tunnels. So before y’all scatter for downstairs let me know what you want, and ya better hang around so that I get it right. Speakin’ of, Kramisha, could you write down what everyone wants for me, please? That’d help.” She glanced at Shaunee, who was looking especially lost, and added, “Hey, do you think we could use your card for the order this time? Z and I’ll be sure you get paid back.”

Shaunee frowned. “Swear? Last time I totally got stuck with the bill from Queenies. Those Ultimate Egg Salad Sandwiches are awesome, but not a couple hundred dollars’ worth of awesome.”

“I swear.” Stevie Rae narrowed her eyes, skewering the rest of the bus with the stank eye. “Y’all will pay her back.”

“Yeah, okay, fine,” chorused from the back of the bus.

I could have kissed my BFF. She’d totally distracted everyone from Aphrodite’s horrendous and unattractive vision, and she’d made sure they’d be up here deciding on pizza and payback versus down in the tunnels gawking and talking about Aphrodite.

Meanwhile I pulled Stark from the bus. “We’ll take a large combo,” he said as we passed Stevie Rae.

“Pizza? Really?” I whispered to him, feeling like he’d just said, “Let them eat cake!” or whatever super inconsiderate thing that woman said to the masses when really important stuff was going on back in the day.

“I thought you wanted to act normal,” he whispered back.

I sighed. Well, he was right. So, I told Stevie Rae, “With extra cheese and olives.” Then, under my breath I added, “And thanks.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re ready to talk,” she said just as quietly, then she very loudly and very normally starting asking, “So, how many pepperonis?”

“Let’s go through the depot so we can grab some water bottles from the kitchen on the way to Aphrodite’s room,” I told Stark when he automatically headed for the basement entrance to the tunnels. He changed direction, but still I explained (probably more to hear my calm-sounding voice than anything), “She’ll be thirsty. We’ll also need to grab some washcloths. I’ll soak them in water and put them over her eyes.”

“Do they always bleed like that?”

“Yeah, ever since she lost her Mark. Last time she had a vision she told me the pain and the blood keep getting worse and worse.” I glanced at Stark. “It looked bad, didn’t it?”

“She’ll be okay. Darius is with her. He won’t let anything happen to her.” He squeezed my hand before letting me climb down ahead of him through the old ticket booth entrance to the tunnels.

“I don’t think even her Warrior can protect her against this kind of stuff.”

He smiled at me. “I figured out a way to protect you in the Otherworld. I think Darius can handle some visions and a little blood.”

I didn’t say anything else as we hurried through the kitchen, grabbing water and washcloths.

I wanted Stark to be right. I really, really wanted Stark to be right, but I had a bad feeling, and I hated it when that happened. It always meant something was going to go horribly, awfully, terribly wrong.

“Hey.” Stark took my arm and gently tugged me to a halt just outside the glitzy gold curtain that was the latest door to Aphrodite’s room. “She needs you to be okay.”

“I know, you’re right. It’s just that the visions really hurt her, and that makes me worry.”

“But they’re also a gift from Nyx, and they’re information we need, right?”

“Right again,” I said.

His grin turned cocky. “I like it when you say I’m right.”

“Don’t get too used to it. You’re a guy. You have a limited number of ‘I’m rights’”—I air quoted—“allotted to you.”

“Hey, I’ll take what I can get,” he said. Then he went back to serious face. “Just remember, you need to be her High Priestess now, and not her friend.”

I nodded, drew a deep breath, and ducked under the gold curtain.

Okay, Aphrodite’s room kept changing and getting more and more like Kim Kardashian meets Conan the Barbarian every time I went in it. This time she’d added a gold chaise lounge. No, I had no clue where she got it or how she’d gotten it down here. On the rough cement tunnel wall behind the chaise she’d hung part of Darius’s throwing knife collection as decoration. She’d also hung gold beaded tassels from each of the knife hilts. Seriously. Her bed was big. Really big. Tonight the duvet was purple velvet with gold flowers stitched into it. She had millions of fluffy pillows. And her terrible Persian cat, Maleficent, had a matching cat bed that sat beside hers. Only at this moment Maleficent wasn’t in her bed. She was curled protectively on Aphrodite’s lap. Aphrodite was propped in the middle of her millions of pillows looking scarily pale. Darius had put a folded wet paper towel over her eyes, and it was already pink. I felt a little better when I saw that she was petting Maleficent, which meant she was conscious. But my better feeling went away as I approached the bed and the horrid cat started to yowl at me.

“Who is it?” Aphrodite’s voice sounded weak and uncharacteristically frightened.

Darius touched her face. “It’s Zoey and Stark, my beauty. You know I wouldn’t allow anyone else within.”

Stark squeezed my hand, then let go. I sent a quick, silent pray up to Nyx, please help me be the High Priestess Aphrodite needs, and then I stepped into the role that still felt too big a job for me to fill. “I brought some washcloths and cool water,” I said briskly, moving to the side of the bed and dampening one of the cloths. “Keep your eyes closed. I’m gonna change this paper towel.”

“Okay,” she said.

Her eyes did stay closed. But they were still weeping blood. The scent of it came to me, and for a moment I thought I was gonna have an ohmygod-yummy-I-want-to-eat-that reaction. I didn’t.

Aphrodite didn’t smell like a human. I tried to remember how her blood had smelled last time she’d had a vision, and I drew a blank—which meant it probably hadn’t been normal then, either.

I pushed that knowledge aside and sat on the bed next to her.

“I brought a bottle of water, too. Do you want a drink yet?”

“Yes. Wine. Red. Darius has it.”

“My beauty, please drink water first.”

“Darius, the wine helps the pain. And bring me a Xanax out of my purse while you’re at it. That helps, too.”

Darius didn’t move. He just looked at me.

“Uh, Aphrodite, how about you choose between the Xanax and wine? Both together just don’t seem healthy,” I said.

“My mom does them both all the time,” she snapped. Then her lips pressed into a line. Aphrodite drew a deep breath and said. “Point made. I’ll stick with wine. I. Am. Not. My. Mother.”

“You’re definitely not your mom,” I agreed. Darius looked relieved and began to open the wine. “Okay, so, while your man is letting your wine breathe I want you to drink some of this water.”

Her lips curled up in what was almost her familiar sneer. “What do you know about letting wine breathe? You don’t even drink.”

“I watch TV. Jeesh, everyone with half a brain knows wine needs to breathe,” I said, guiding her hands to the open bottle of water and helping her drink it. “How was it this time? As bad as the last?”

When it was obvious she wasn’t going to answer, Darius did for her. “Worse,” he said. “Maybe you should come back after she’s rested.”

The Zoey who was Aphrodite’s friend totally agreed with him. But the Zoey who was High Priestess in Training, knew better. “She’ll be drunk and exhausted for the rest of tonight and probably into tomorrow. I need to hear about this vision before she’s too out of it to talk.”

“Z’s right,” Aphrodite said before Darius could protest. “And anyway, this one was short.” I was glad to see she’d drained the water bottle, but she reached out a blind hand and said, “Water’s gone. Where’s my wine?”

Darius brought her a wineglass that looked super simple, just crystal and a pretty shape, but it had a little Riedel mark written on the bottom, so I knew it was nice stemware from Williams-Sonoma. I knew that because Aphrodite had lectured me when I’d almost broken one a few days ago. (Like I care?) Anyway, Darius helped Aphrodite take a very long drink from the crystal glass. Then she exhaled slowly. “Get another bottle ready. I’ll need more.” He didn’t even glance at me for confirmation; he just looked defeated. “And tell Stark to quit lusting after your knives. He’s bowboy, not knifeboy.”

“Are they super heroes now?” I asked, trying (probably unsuccessfully) to be funny.

Her lips turned up in satisfaction, and for a second she looked way too much like her cat for comfort. “Well, mine’s a super hero in lots of ways. You’ll have to decide about yours on your own.”

“Vision,” Stark mouthed to me from across the room where he was, indeed, checking out the ornamental knives.

“Okay, so tell me what it was about this time,” I said.

“It was one of those damn death visions again. One where I was inside the guy getting killed.”

“Guy?” I felt a little bubble of panic build. Was it Stark?

“Relax, it wasn’t your guy or mine. It was Rephaim. I was inside him when he was killed. And, by the way,” she hesitated, taking another long drink of wine. “Birdboy has some weird shit in his head.”

“Give me the basics now. We’ll talk about the gossipy part later,” I said.

“Well, as per usual when I’m inside the person who’s getting slaughtered, the vision was confusing,” she said, pressing her hand over the washcloth and grimacing with pain.

“Just tell me what you remember,” I prompted. “How did he die?”

“Sword almost sliced him in two. Totally gross, although his head didn’t come off like yours did in that other vision.”

“Well, that’s nice for him,” I said, not sure if I was being serious or sarcastic. “Who did the cutting in half?”

“That’s where the confusion kicks in. I’m not sure who actually kills him. I am sure Dragon is there.”

“Dragon kills him? Ugh. That’s awful.”

“Well, like I said, I’m not sure of that. I can tell you that I remember the look on Dragon’s face just before the sword sliced me. He was totally shut down. He looked even worse than he’s been looking recently. It’s like there was no hope or light or happiness anywhere in his life, and he was crying—really bawling, like with snot and everything.”

“Then Rephaim gets killed by a sword,” I said.

“Yep,” she agreed. “I know. Should be a no-brainer. Seems like Dragon did it, but it just doesn’t feel one hundred percent to me, especially when you add in the bawling part and all the other confusion.”

“Other confusion?”

“Yeah, bizarre shit kept flashing all around. There was something white that looked dead. There was ice that was burning a circle. There were blood and boobs everywhere, and then I—meaning Rephaim—was dead. The end.”

I rubbed my temple where I felt a headache brewing.

“Boobs?” Stark perked up at that word.

“Yes, bowboy. Boobs. Like there was a naked woman hanging around. Literally. I didn’t see her face because Rephaim was predictably mesmerized by her boobs, but I do know she had something to do with the blood and the white dead thing.”

“Hey, wait,” I said. “Didn’t Kramisha’s last poem say something about fire and ice?”

“Hmm, I’d forgotten about that. Easy for me to do because, well, fuck poetry.”

“Don’t be so negative,” I said. “And it’s not just poetry. It’s prophetic poetry.”

“Which makes it worse,” she said.

“I remember. The poem also said something about Dragon’s tears,” Stark said.

“Maybe he weeps because he kills Rephaim, even after he was tasked to be his protector because he is Sword Master of our House of Night,” Darius said.

“But he’s not,” I said. “We have our own House of Night over here, so he’s not technically our Sword Master. Maybe that’s how he rationalizes being able to kill Rephaim.”

“All that sounds logical, but there’s still a piece missing. That’s what my gut says. I just can’t see that piece. Everything except Dragon kept fading in and out of my vision, mostly because Rephaim was super focused on Stevie Rae, who was super focused on the ritual she was performing.”

“Ritual? Was I there?”

“Yeah, the whole nerd herd was there. A circle was cast. You were leading things, but the ritual itself was earth centered, so Stevie Rae was playing the major part.” She sucked in a breath. “Holy shit, I just realized where we were—at your grandma’s lavender farm.”

“Ah, hell! The cleansing ritual I’m supposed to do in a couple days. Or maybe not. Thanatos was calling Grandma about us doing something early—something that might reveal what actually happened to Mom.” I paused, feeling overwhelmed by the thought of the dead white thing, the blood, and the boobs, all in the context of my mom’s murder. “Does this mean I wasn’t meant to find out and I shouldn’t do anything at all?”

Aphrodite shrugged. “Z, I know you’ll find this hard to believe because you’ve been Miss Front and Center in a bunch of my visions, but in this one you barely made an appearance. I just don’t think this is about you at all.”

“But it’s at Grandma’s farm.”

“Yeah, but it’s Rephaim getting carved up this time and not you,” she said.

“Wait, isn’t this good news?” Stark said, coming up to me and taking my hand.

Aphrodite snorted. “Sure, unless you’re Rephaim.”

Stark ignored her comment and continued, “You’ve seen Rephaim killed. You know where and you know who has to be there. So what if we’re sure those elements don’t all come together? That’ll stop the death, won’t it?”

“Maybe,” Aphrodite said.

“Hopefully,” I said.

“We need to be sure Dragon stays away from Rephaim,” Darius said. “Even if he didn’t actually kill him, you know for a certainty that he was present when Rephaim was killed.”

“That much I do know,” Aphrodite said.

“Then that’s it. We keep Dragon and Rephaim separate, even if that means Rephaim doesn’t come with the rest of us when we go to Grandma’s farm.”

“If I go, Rephaim goes.”

Stark, Darius, and I turned to see Stevie Rae and Rephaim ducking under the blanket and coming into the room. Aphrodite frowned, but kept the washcloth on her eyes.

“Her vision was about Rephaim.” Stevie Rae didn’t say it like a question, but I answered her anyway. “Yeah. He dies.”

“How? Who does it?” Stevie Rae’s voice was hard. She looked ready to take on the world.

“Not sure,” Aphrodite spoke up. “It was from birdboy’s point of view, which means the whole damn thing was confusing.”

“But we know it happens at Grandma’s farm and that Dragon is there,” I said. “Which is why we were saying Rephaim should stay here when we all go out there, if we all still go out there.”

“We will,” Stark said. “You can’t let this stop the ritual you were going to do for your mom.”

“It’s not for her,” I said miserably. “She’s dead. That won’t change.”

“That’s right,” he said. “It’s for you and your grandma, which is more important than doing something for a dead woman.” He glanced at Rephaim and Stevie Rae. “The ritual needs to happen, but Rephaim doesn’t need to be there and be in danger. It would be smartest if, like Z was saying, he stayed here.”

“So that someone, like Dragon, can sneak up on him when he’s all alone? I don’t think so,” Stevie Rae said.