Apparently I wasn’t going to escape weirdness no matter where I sat.
“I like your necklace, Chie,” I said, figuring flattery was always a good tactic. And seeing as how she was wearing a battered army jacket, an oversized black T-shirt, and a pair of leggings that I was pretty sure violated dress code, the necklace was about the only thing I could compliment.
But as Chie’s fingers trailed over the gold chain, her dark eyes regarded me suspiciously. “I got it at Walmart,” she said, almost like a challenge.
I nodded. “They have pretty stuff. Sometimes.”
David shot me a look that was part exasperation, part amusement, and I gave a little shrug in response. I was all for making an effort to be nice, but I wasn’t going to gush over Walmart. Come on, now.
After clearing his throat, David pulled an apple out of his bag, tossing it back and forth between his hands. “We were talking about what story the newspaper should tackle next.” He nodded at his friends. “Chie has this great idea about how few people in Pine Grove actually recycle, and then Michael wanted to investigate allegations that the cafeteria is still using foods with MSG even after the school board told them they couldn’t.”
I took a long swallow of Diet Coke, hoping that would give me time to think of some reply. In the end, all I came up with was “Okay.”
Chie flicked her bangs out of her eyes. She wasn’t exactly glaring at me, but I was clearly not her favorite person right now. “What, you don’t think those are valid stories?”
Next to her, Michael tugged his sleeves over his hands, his right foot jiggling. He was taller and skinnier than David, something that hardly seemed possible, and his dark hair was thick and shaggy, lying over his collar. In the few months I’d been working in the newspaper room, I wasn’t sure he’d said more than a dozen words to me. I got the sense that I might have scared him a bit.
“It’s not that,” I said to Chie, tucking my hair behind my ears. “But . . . both of those stories seem depressing.”
And boring, I thought.
David frowned and drew his knees up to his chest, circling them with his arms. “The news isn’t always cheerful, Pres.”
“I get that, but . . .” I looked around at the three of them, all regarding me seriously. “This is a tiny school paper read by a few hundred kids. If that. Gotta be honest, when y’all hand those things out, most of them end up in the trash can. Or the recycling bin,” I hastily added when Chie’s shoulders went up. “But my point is, maybe more people would read The Grove News if it were, like, cheerier. Funnier. When the SGA was doing a newsletter—”
“Maybe we should print it on pink paper,” Chie muttered under her breath, and David sat up straighter.
“Hey,” he said as he pushed his glasses up with one finger. “Harper is a member of our staff now, and she might have a point.”
Michael nodded but Chie rolled her eyes and stood up. “David, please. She’s on the staff because, for some reason none of us understand, she’s your girlfriend. So sorry if I don’t exactly feel like taking advice from her.” Leaning down, she scooped up her bag and jerked her head at Michael. “Let’s go, Mike,” she said. “We can let our fearless leader and his first lady debate the principles of journalism without us.”
Michael’s blue eyes darted back and forth between me and David still sitting on the ground and Chie looming over him. Eventually, he gave a mumbled “Sorry,” and the two of them walked back toward the building.
David and I watched them go.
“I’m sorry,” I said at last, picking an imaginary piece of lint off my skirt. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I mean, she’s right. I’m only on the paper to be closer to you.”
But David shook his head, his gaze still on his friends. “No, you have every right to an opinion. They shouldn’t have been jerks.”
Over at their table, Mary Beth and Ryan were laughing. As we watched, she rested her head on his shoulder and he slung an arm around her neck, pulling her in to kiss the top of her head.
“Get a room!” I heard Amanda cry as she tossed a napkin at them.
“It’s not like my friends would be that much nicer to you,” I reminded David.
The wind was blowing softly through the leaves over our head, and I remembered earlier this morning, thinking what a pretty day this was. It was still gorgeous, but I had to admit, my mood was not nearly as sunny.
Then the toe of David’s ugly shoe nudged my thigh. I glanced up and David leaned closer. “Our forbidden passion has transgressed social boundaries, and now we pay the price,” he intoned with a somber nod, and I giggled, batting his foot away.
“Shut up.”
But David only released his knees and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me sideways. “We shall be shunned!” he continued, squeezing me tight. “Driven from the lands of our birth, forced to wander the wilds—”
I was laughing now, even as I reached down to keep my skirt from riding up my thighs. “You are insane,” I informed David, twisting in his embrace.
He grinned at me, and in that moment, there was no gold in his eyes, no feeling of danger. No prophecies or powers or magic. Just us, laughing under a tree in the courtyard.
My laughter faded and I reached up to push a lock of hair off his forehead. “I like you kind of a lot,” I said quietly, and David’s arms tightened around me.
“You’re not so bad yourself, Pres,” he said, and I wondered when the nickname that used to annoy me so much had started sounding so sweet.
I was still pretty firmly anti-PDA, but when David kissed me—quickly, but firmly—I decided that every once in a while, it wasn’t so bad.
I was still smiling when I saw Brandon come out the front door, Bee right behind him. “Oh, there she is,” I said, standing up. I walked quickly toward the sidewalk where they were standing, and only then did I realize how pale Bee had gone, how big her eyes were.
And Brandon was staring at her in obvious confusion.
“Brandon, it’s me,” she said. “Why didn’t you wait when I called you?”
He flicked his hair out of his eyes, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “Um, because I don’t know who you are?”
Chapter 8
BRANDON WAS BLINKING at Bee, his handsome face scrunched up in a puzzled frown, one hand running over the back of his neck. “I mean, you’re pretty hot,” he said with a shrug, “so I’d think I’d remember you, but . . . yeah, not ringing any bells.”
David had jogged up beside me, and I could hear him blow out a long breath. “Crap,” he muttered.
People were starting to stare. There was a group of freshman girls sitting at a nearby stone table, clearly paying a lot of attention to what was going on right now. All three had dark, shiny hair, and I watched one lick yogurt off her spoon before leaning in to whisper something to her friend.
Taking Bee’s elbow, I tried to draw her back from Brandon a little bit. “It’s okay,” I said in a low voice, but she looked at me and shook her head.
“It’s not okay, Harper. Mrs. Carter in English didn’t recognize me either. That didn’t seem like such a big deal, but then on the way to lunch, Lucy McCarroll stopped to welcome me to Grove Academy.” She reached out, wrapping her fingers around my wrists, her grip tight enough to hurt. “It’s like I never existed.” Her voice wavered on the last word, and there was real panic in her eyes. I stood there, helpless, and wondered where the heck Ryan was. This was his spell, after all. Maybe there was something he could do, some way to—
“Be a real shame if a girl as fine as you didn’t exist,” Brandon practically leered, and Bee whirled on him.
“God, shut up, Brandon!” She was scared and hurt and frustrated, and I think she only meant to swat at Brandon’s shoulder, like she’d done a thousand times before. Trouble was, all those other times?
She wasn’t a Paladin.
Her hand connected with Brandon’s collarbone, and he went flying backward, tripping over his backpack and landing hard
on the grass with a startled yell.
“Brandon!” she cried as I squawked, “Bee!”
If only a handful of people had been watching this scene play out before, I was now pretty sure that every single person in the courtyard was paying rapt attention to what had just happened. I could hear voices not even bothering to whisper. One very loudly asked, “Who is that girl?” and Bee visibly shuddered.
David stepped forward, offering a hand to Brandon, who shook it off with an irritated glare before rising to his feet. “What the hell, crazy chick?” he asked Bee, who could only shake her head, and stammer, “I—I didn’t mean to.”
“Whatever,” Brandon said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He was a good-looking guy, all blond hair and cutest-boy-on-the-basketball-team face, but in that moment, his expression was one of the ugliest things I’d ever seen. He brushed past Bee without a word, and when she took a step after him, I pulled her up short.
“Wait,” I told her. “We can . . . We’ll talk to Ryan, and—”
Luckily, Ryan was already walking over to us, Mary Beth trailing in his wake. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“It’s your sp—” I started, only to stop when I realized Mary Beth was right there. “Your spectacularly dumb friend upsetting Bee,” I covered as quickly as I could, then jerked my head toward the building. “Can we go inside and talk for a minute? All of us?”
“About what?” Mary Beth asked, and I practically groaned. I was getting used to the idea of her and Ryan together, but that didn’t mean I liked having to factor her into things like this. Right now, my main priority was getting Bee out of the courtyard and somewhere private. Tears were leaking down her cheeks, carrying a fair amount of her mascara with them, and I didn’t like the way that table of freshman girls was still watching her.
I nearly had to go up on tiptoes to wrap my arm around Bee’s shoulder, but I did it anyway, tugging her close. “It’s nothing,” I told Mary Beth, then flicked my gaze up at Ryan. “Can we?”
With that, I started pulling Bee toward Nash Hall. Maybe it wasn’t nice to let Ryan deal with getting rid of Mary Beth on his own, but that wasn’t my problem.
As we walked back into the school, a blast of air-conditioning washed over us, making Bee shiver, and I chafed my hand up and down her arm. “It’s okay,” I said again. It was becoming my mantra, no matter how untrue it was. Bee only sniffled in response.
“The newspaper room,” David said from behind us, and I started steering Bee that way. We were still getting a few confused looks, and I wondered if that was from Bee crying, or from no one remembering who she was.
I was going to throttle Ryan. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t entirely his fault, and the spell was bigger than he’d thought, but I needed someone to be mad at, and he’d do.
• • •
Michael and Chie were in the newspaper room, but when David asked if we could have a second, they cleared out. Chie glared at me as she picked up her bag, but I ignored that. I had bigger things to worry about right now than one of my boyfriend’s besties being hostile all the time.
Bee was still shaky when she sat down in one of the rolling chairs at the back counter, and David watched her with a slight frown, taking a seat on top of a desk. I went over to sit by Bee as Ryan walked into the room, closing the door behind him. He leaned against it, arms folded over his chest, the sleeves of his T-shirt tight over his biceps.
“Is there anything you can do?” Bee asked, raising her head to look at Ryan. She wasn’t crying, but she was still kind of sniffly, and I got up to go get the box of tissues on Mrs. Laurent’s desk.
I handed it to Bee as Ryan sighed and said, “I don’t know. This Mage stuff . . .” Trailing off, he opened and closed his hands. “It’s like I know how to use it, but it’s all instinct or something. Not real knowledge. I can do spells, but undoing them, or fixing them when they get screwed up?”
Reaching up, he scrubbed a hand over his auburn hair. I wondered if that was a habit he was picking up from David. “That I’m not so sure about,” he said.
Wiping her nose, Bee shook her head. “My parents remembered me. Not at first, but then after a minute or so, it was like I’d never been gone.”
“Maybe that’s because they’re your parents,” I suggested, leaning forward to rest my hand on her knee. Her skin felt clammy and cool. “You’d have a stronger bond with them than—”
“Than with my boyfriend?” she asked, her head jerking up. None of us said anything for a while, and the only sound was Bee’s harsh breathing and the rattle of David jiggling his leg up and down on the desk seat.
Finally, Bee wadded up her tissue. “I thought once I was back, everything would be fine. That’s all I thought the whole time I was with Alexander. That if I could get back home, this would all be over.”
She looked at me then, and I felt a lump rise in my throat. “But it’s not, is it? Hardly anyone can remember me, you’re a superhero who has to go through these . . . these things that might kill you, and if you do die, not only will I have lost my best friend, but I’m stuck protecting him.” Bee gestured toward David and then added, “No offense.”
“None taken,” he replied quietly. “Trust me, I’m used to being a pain in the ass.”
“You’re not,” I said automatically, but even as I did, I was remembering how I’d felt when Saylor had told me that my sacred duty was to protect David. I’d told her that I didn’t want to screw up my life to save someone else.
Once again, this helpless, choking feeling rose up in my throat. I wanted to pass the Peirasmos because I didn’t want to die, obviously, but looking at Bee, who, even though she was more than half a foot taller than me, looked so small and scared sitting in that chair, one knee drawn up under her chin, her eyes still red, I realized there was more than just my life at stake.
I hadn’t been able to protect Bee the night of Cotillion, but if I managed to survive the Peirasmos, she would be free from all of this.
“We’re going to get through this, Bee,” I said, and her head shot up. She’d rubbed off most of the mascara with the tissue I’d handed her, but there were still dark flecks around her eyes, and her face was splotchy and damp.
“You can’t promise that, Harper,” she said, and then, as the bell signaling the end of lunch rang, she stood up, rolling the chair underneath the counter.
“I just . . . I thought you’d all know what you were doing,” she said at last, and with that, she walked out of the room, leaving me, Ryan, and David in silence.
Chapter 9
“THAT IS RUDE, Harper Jane.”
I glanced up guiltily, lowering my phone back into my lap. “Sorry, Aunt Jewel.”
After school, I’d decided to run by The Aunts’ house. Bee had gone home early, so I’d gotten David to drive me to my house to pick up my car. After everything in the newspaper room, I hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to Bee again, and while I was worried about her, I thought maybe she needed a little space. Plus, I wasn’t sure what to say. She was right that Ryan, David, and I hardly knew what we were doing, but it had still stung.
So off to The Aunts’ I went. I hadn’t done the best job being a good niece over the past few months, and as Mom always reminded me, The Aunts were the closest things to grandparents I had, so I needed to appreciate them.
And that meant that when I went to see them, I shouldn’t be messing around on my phone. But I hadn’t been able to resist poking around the internet a little bit to see if I could pick up any information on the Peirasmos, especially since The Aunts had been distracted by discussing whether or not Jell-O salad was still a thing you could take to a church potluck. Preparation was the key to any test, after all, and even if Alexander had said that the whole point was for me to be caught unaware, I didn’t think that had to mean, you know, going in completely blind. But it wasn’t like it mattered. Google seemed to think I might have some kind of stomach issue, but there was nothing on the internet about Peirasmos, the trials. I had
been fixing to text David to see if he’d found anything in Saylor’s books yet, but from the way Aunt Jewel was looking at me, that was no longer an option.
Aunt Jewel was only a year older than Aunt May and Aunt Martha, but she took her role as the eldest sister very seriously. She regarded me now through pink-rimmed glasses fastened on a sparkly chain around her neck. All three of The Aunts were decked out in pretty pastel sweaters, the pale green of Aunt Jewel’s almost matching her eyes.
My purse was sitting beside my chair, and I slipped my phone into it.
“Oh, leave her be, Jewel,” Aunt May said, not glancing up from her own cards. “The children today need their technology.”
“That’s true,” Aunt Martha said, nodding. She’d been to the beauty shop that morning, obviously, since her steel-gray curls were tight against her head. “I read it in the New York Times. People Harper’s age are actually in love with those fancy-schmancy phones of theirs. Activates the same chemicals in the brain.” Sighing, she discarded a card. “I went to look at one of those phones at the Best Buy, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.”
“You can’t make heads or tails out of your cordless phone, Martha,” Aunt May said, picking up the card Aunt Martha had put down. All three had skin that still glowed despite their age, and green eyes like mine.
Before they could get into too much of a fuss, Aunt Jewel gave a little smile and said, “Well, I don’t think it’s her phone Harper is in love with, so much as the boy at the other end of it.”
Aunt Martha gave a happy grin at that, tugging at the lace collar on her lavender sweater. “That Ryan sure is pretty.”
Both Aunt Jewel and Aunt May gave identical sniffs of disgust. “They’re broken up, silly,” Aunt May informed Aunt Martha. “Have been for ages.”
“Four months,” I clarified, getting out of my chair to grab the pitcher of sweet tea on the kitchen counter. As I refilled The Aunts’ glasses, I added, “Remember, Aunt Martha, I’m dating David Stark now.”