“And yet you still found a reason to stay here half the night.”
“There was rain in the forecast. I needed to know she was safe.”
“Harpies, Haden. Sometimes rain is just rain. Come home. Unless you know something I don’t know?”
I hesitate for a moment. There was something—something I saw when we stopped for breakfast at that diner outside Vegas. The same one where Daphne, Garrick, and I had stopped for lunch on our way to find Sarah, the Oracle, and ended up meeting up with Tobin and Lexie. Thinking we were in the clear after we escaped the rain, we’d stopped for sustenance and to retrieve Lexie’s car. I hadn’t thought anything of the trucker who had been in the diner when we stopped there the first time—just a man in a hat with a scruffy beard who seemed to like pink, creamy looking drinks—but when I saw him there again, at four in the morning no less, I’d started to worry.
I watched him down two of those pink drinks while the others ate piles of what Daphne had referred to as “buttermilk pancakes,” then he threw a few bills on the counter and left without giving us a second glance. I’d let myself relax then, even grunted in response when Daphne dared me to try bacon dipped in maple syrup, thinking I’d been a complete lunatic for being anxious about the man—but then I could have sworn that, through the diner’s dirty windows, I saw the man’s truck rumble to life before he even got inside it. As if he’d started it with the brush of his hand over the hood. Like the way I could start my Tesla with my lightning powers.
Much to the others’ protests, I’d insisted we leave as soon as the trucker pulled out of the parking lot. I didn’t mention what I saw because I didn’t see the man or his truck on the road. He wasn’t following us, and he wasn’t up ahead. I’d convinced myself that having my soul fried less than twenty-four hours before, followed by the tense drive out of the canyon, was making my mind play tricks on me. (For all I knew, there had been someone else in the truck to begin with.) And I didn’t feel like contradicting my passengers, who were treating me like I was some kind of Hercules for successfully executing our daring escape from Ellis.
My pride had gotten the better of me then, but the more days that passed and the more rain that fell, I had started to wonder if we had really escaped at all.
“No … It’s just a feeling,” I say, my pride getting to me once again. “You know. As if I’m still being followed.”
“They didn’t follow us.”
“You’re the one who is always telling me to trust my instincts.”
“Right … But, you know, if someone were watching us, you sitting outside her house every night is pretty much the same as erecting a huge, Vegas-style THE CYPHER LIVES HERE neon sign, right?”
I hadn’t thought of that.
“And if you kill yourself via sleep deprivation, then you’ll truly be no use to anyone.” Dax places his hand on my shoulder, next to a now-sleeping Brim. “How about you let me take up the watch tonight so you can go home and sleep? There is that school thing tomorrow and all.”
I try to take a sip of my coffee but all I find are the scalded dregs in my charred cup. Brim’s purring snores next to my ear seem particularly hypnotic. My eyelids feel heavy as I look up at Daphne’s house. All the lights are out now. I’m not going to be much use at school if I fall asleep in class. With Simon gone and Daphne knowing the truth, I normally wouldn’t see the point in continuing with the school charade—except I don’t like the idea of leaving Daphne unprotected all day long. Besides, I welcome the excuse to actually be close to her, instead of sitting outside her house at night.
I look out over the lake across the street from Daphne’s quiet home and notice that the rain is finally starting to let up. I contemplate going home to sleep so I’ll be prepared for tomorrow. My fingers are on the ignition button, ready to start the car, when a bolt of lightning rips the sky above the lake. Rolling thunder explodes with it, causing me to flinch at the nearness. But in the half second before my eyes clamp shut, I think I see someone standing on the lakeshore. Staring at me. When my eyes open another half second later, no one is there.
I jump out of my car and run toward the lake. The wet sand on the shore grips at my shoes, slowing my pace. Dax follows, calling, “What are you doing, Haden?” as if he hadn’t seen anything. Brim yowls in protest over having been awoken so abruptly, sinking her claws into my shoulder.
I cast about in the rain, but I don’t see anyone. I start to think I’d imagined seeing someone—perhaps I’d drifted momentarily asleep—but I make out what looks like a pair of boot prints in the sand before the lapping water of the lake washes them away.
“There,” I say, pointing to the now-gone prints. “Didn’t you see him?”
“Him?” Dax shakes his head. “I saw lightning, but nothing else.”
I stand on the beach, frantically searching the shoreline with my eyes, that creeping feeling that I am being watched plaguing me. The rain, lighter than before but still a steady downpour, soaks through my thin shirt. Brim jumps from my shoulder and bounds back to the car, seeking shelter from the rain.
“Come on,” Dax says. “It was just lightning. You don’t want to be standing in the water if it strikes again.”
I cross my arms for warmth and turn back toward Daphne’s house, watching for any signs of trouble. Any thoughts of leaving, and any sleepiness, have vanished. I don’t care if I have to stand in the rain all night; I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Daphne safe.
chapter two
DAPHNE
I ask the raindrops on the windowsill to dance, and they listen. Four little drops pucker and roll along the painted wood to form a circle of dots just below my fingertips. They twist and twirl, like they’re performing a miniature ballet to the tune I hum. I raise my fingertip, along with my pitch, and one of the drops lifts off the sill and quivers and swirls in midair, following my command. I concentrate harder as I sing a high note, and the other three drops follow the first, leaping up into the air at my will.
I’ve always been able to hear the tones and melodies that every living thing puts off—like the world is a symphony that only I can hear—but learning that I can use those tones to influence the elements is a new and exhilarating feeling. A warm, pulsating sensation encircles me, and I feel calm, in control, for the first time since I was awoken by a crash of thunder in the middle of the night.
It’s even more reassuring than knowing that Haden was standing guard outside during the night. I’d seen him sitting below my bedroom window, settled into one of the deck chairs beside the pool, when I’d gotten up to get a glass of water about an hour after the lightning crash had woken me. Only a few weeks ago, I would have called him on it—but the almost constant evening rain since we escaped the Skylords has me on edge.
Which is why being able to manipulate these raindrops makes me feel more in control. Like if I practice this newfound power enough, I’ll be able to protect myself.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate Haden’s efforts—the boy sleeps in the rain for me, after all. It’s not that I doubt his abilities. And it’s certainly not that his mere nearness doesn’t make me acutely aware of his … prowess.
Maybe it’s because of what happened with Joe. Maybe it’s because I still don’t understand the why of it all—why Haden would chose me over his father. Or maybe it’s because I still have a hard time accepting the concept of fate. Even though Sarah had said that Haden’s and my destinies were irrevocably intertwined, I don’t want to rely on the idea that someone will always be there for me.
Even if part of me wants him to be.
The water droplets’ dance slows with my lack of concentration. Returning my focus to them, I lift my voice in a few high, staccato notes, and raindrops jump along to the sound, almost as if I’ve given them life. A smile spreads across my face.
Yeah, I could get used to this.
“Oi, Daphne?” Joe says in his British accent from behind me.
I startle. The water droplets splat onto the
sill, lifeless once more. I spin around, afraid I’ve been caught, and try to come up with an explanation for what he may have just witnessed. Whatever this new power is, whatever it means, I’m not ready to share it yet. Especially with someone I don’t know how to trust anymore.
But Joe doesn’t seem to have seen anything out of the ordinary. Instead, he’s standing half in and half out of my bedroom doorway, looking down at the large package in his arms.
“I called up the stairs but you didn’t hear me,” he says, as if he’s apologizing for invading my wing of the mansion. We’ve pretty much been keeping to our own parts of the house since we returned from Ellis. “My courier just dropped this off. It’s the package from your mother. I thought you’d want it right away.”
“Oh yeah, of course,” I say, pulling the window shut, like I’m afraid the raindrops are going to start spontaneously dancing again behind me. “Bring it in.”
Joe takes a few apprehensive steps into my bedroom and sets the hefty box on my bed. He backs away, wringing his hands as I approach, and stands again in that noncommittal fashion in my doorway. He acts like he isn’t watching as I open the box.
Inside are two presents wrapped in red paper—the Christmas gifts from my mother that I never got to open—and a third present in sparkling silver paper, done up with more ribbons than should be legal (a gift from Jonathan, I know without even looking at the card). Tears prick at the backs of my eyes, and I set those aside, waiting to have my own private belated Christmas when Joe isn’t watching.
The rest of the box is filled with stacks of papers and a few books and a small, carved wood figurine of a rose. They’re all things that my Ellis Fields best friend, CeCe—who, it turns out, is really my Olympus Hills best friend, Tobin’s long-lost sister, Abbie—left behind in her apartment before disappearing from Ellis. It makes me shudder as I think that the five years of her life she’d spent in Ellis Fields could all be fit inside this box.
I’d left Ellis with Haden and the others in such a hurry, I hadn’t thought to look through CeCe’s things, so when I got home and started kicking myself for the oversight, I convinced Jonathan to send whatever he could find of hers. I was grateful that he agreed, especially since my mom hadn’t been responding to any of my texts or messages since she’d returned from Salt Lake City with Jonathan to learn from her shopgirl, Indie, that I had returned to Ellis with some friends for only a few hours and then taken off again before even seeing her, and that I wasn’t going to be there for Christmas break, after all.
That had been one of the two promises I had made to her when I chose to move to Olympus Hills with Joe: that I would be home for Christmas—the other promise being that “I cross my heart and hope to die, I won’t go running off with some guy.” And now after fleeing Ellis with Haden to go looking for the Key, I felt I’d broken both of those promises to her.
At the time, it had seemed vitally important that we leave Ellis immediately. The fate of the whole world seemed to rest on our quest to find the Key. But two weeks later, with nothing but raw fingers from flipping page after page in the town archives; newly healing blisters on my palms from digging up the grove—the place we had all thought to be the most likely candidate for where Orpheus had stashed the Key of Hades—and aching feet from walking every inch of Olympus Hills, searching out alternative possible hiding places; I was beginning to think I had broken those promises for nothing.
At least Joe had taken the bullet for me over the Christmas thing. When my mom found out I was skipping out on the holidays with her, the phone call that followed can only be described as epic. Luckily, Joe had taken the phone from me and informed her he’d become lonely without his only child around the house and ordered me back to California on the next flight out of Utah, or else he was going to revoke my tuition to Olympus Hills High. I could hear her screaming through the receiver from the next room. The fact that he had just stood there, taking the verbal beating, had almost made me soften toward him.
Almost.
There’s no time to really get into CeCe’s things before leaving for school, but I give the box a cursory search, wishing for something—anything—that I might be able to offer Tobin when I see him at school. Something to give him hope that his sister can be found. Searching for the Key is proving more impossible than I could have imagined, which makes finding CeCe all the more important. Like it’s something I can actually do.
Joe clears his throat. It almost sounds like he’s choking. “I made breakfast,” he says. “I even managed not to burn a couple of pieces of bacon. They’re yours … if you want to join me?”
I look up from the box and meet his eyes just long enough to read the real question behind his words: Have you forgiven me yet?
I drop my gaze to the box again and see a green leather-bound book sticking out from under a stack of receipts. I pull it out, open it, and find pages filled with CeCe’s flowery handwriting. I scan a couple of pages and realize it’s a diary. This could actually be helpful.
Joe shifts heavily in the doorway, waiting for my answer about breakfast.
“I’m not hungry,” I finally say, but the growl from my stomach at the smell of bacon wafting up the grand staircase gives away my lie.
Still, even if I could stomach a home-cooked meal—more like a home-destroyed meal when it comes to Joe—I’m not ready to share a table or a real conversation with my father.
As much as I would like to forgive him, I can’t. And I’m afraid if we even talk about what happened, I’ll feel just like I did when I first heard his confession. When the music in my head stopped and all I could feel was sorrow.
“Are you sure? I made blueberry pancakes. Well, I ran out of blueberries because I forgot to put eggs in the first batch and kinda scorched the second batch, so I had to use some strawberries to beef up the third. But they smell pretty good. Marta even tried one, and she’s not dead yet, so …” He smiles, looking so hopeful, I almost don’t want to burst his bubble.
“But I would die if I ate them,” I say, tucking the diary into my tote bag. “Or at least get all puffy and need to go to the emergency room. I’m allergic to strawberries.”
Joe goes from hopeful to crestfallen to panicked in a matter of a second. “What? I’m so sorry, Daph. I didn’t know.”
“How would you?” I zip up my bag and hitch it over my shoulder. “You sold my soul to the Underrealm in order to become a rock star. It’s not like you’re going to be up for any Father of the Year Awards anytime soon.”
“Right,” he says, going back to crestfallen. He wipes his hands on his apron and moves like he’s going to leave me in peace. Reconsidering, he turns back. “Yesterday was New Year’s, Daphne. Can’t we leave the past in the past and start over fresh?”
I pick up my phone and send a text to Tobin, who’s been in mother-imposed lockdown since we returned from Ellis.
I’ve got something you need to see. We’re all meeting in the music room @ 7 a.m. Hope you can make it.
I slip the phone in my back pocket and glance at Joe. “I need to meet the others before class.”
“It’s been two weeks …,” Joe starts, but I lift my hand in a stop gesture.
“Two weeks isn’t long enough in the past to leave it there,” I say, and then bite my tongue. I am not going to talk about this. I can’t talk about this. “I don’t want to be late meeting the others. I need to go.”
With school starting again today, we all know it is only going to get harder to find the time to look for the Key, so Haden called a “war meeting” of sorts before class so we can report back on the different angles we’d all been investigating over the break.
There was a part of me that had believed we would find the Key before winter vacation was over—that all this Underrealm-Cypher-Compass-Kronolithe craziness would be solved before classes started up again—but I realize now that had been a completely naïve notion. None of us even knows what the Key looks like—is it as big as a staff or as small as a car key? And
without the Compass …
A hollowness fills me when I think of the Compass. Sarah had said that the Compass had been meant for me—that she had been waiting centuries to hand me my destiny—but it had been ripped away from me only minutes later.
I hadn’t wanted it when Sarah had first offered it to me, but ever since the mysterious “Motorcycle Man” stole it during the fight with Simon at the hospital, I felt like a piece of me had gone with it.
And without the Compass, I fear we will never find the Key.
Joe gestures at the box of papers and scraps. “I can help you with your research.”
“I don’t need help.”
Another lie.
“Play rehearsals start up again this week, Daphne,” Joe says tentatively. “If you’re going to continue in the part of Eurydice, you can’t avoid me forever.”
I sigh.
“That is, if you intend to keep the part?”
Once again, I catch the real question in his eyes. Will you ever be able to forgive me?
“We’ll see,” I say, heading for the door.
He steps aside and lets me go.
chapter three
TOBIN
Relief fills me when I find the house strangely empty this morning. Usually, on a school day, when I come down for breakfast, there’s already a house full of maids, our latest cook trying to follow Dad’s clipped instructions on how to make a proper vegan omelet (I have no idea what is in that shiz—and my dad isn’t even a vegan) while my mother, Madam Mayor, sits at the table with an espresso and gluten-free toast, going over her schedule with her assistant, or squeezing in a FaceTime call with my brother, Sage, before he leaves his penthouse apartment for class at MIT. I used to love our morning routine. It was the baseline of normalcy to me. But I wouldn’t be able to sit through it today, knowing it’s all a lie.
Mom hasn’t come out of her room yet even though she’s usually up at the crack of dawn. I thought I heard her on the phone, or at least engaged in an exasperated one-sided conversation, when I passed her door. I definitely heard her say the name Simon before I ducked away. If she’s trying to locate him, she’s going to have a hell of a time. The house staff must not be back from their holiday vacation, and I have no idea where Dad is but he doesn’t seem to be home, so my timing couldn’t be better.