“It’s CeCe’s—I mean, Abbie’s—diary from before she ran away.”
“Really?” Tobin and Dax say almost in unison.
“Look at this,” Daphne says, handing the book to Tobin. “She talks about the grove in here.”
Tobin takes the book from her. He stares at the lined pages for a moment, as though seeing his sister’s handwriting is like looking at a ghost. He clears his throat and reads the passage Daphne indicates out loud: “ ‘I feel as if the grove was created for keeping secrets. It’s like I can feel them buried here. And it holds so many of mine. I tell everyone I go there to rehearse my lines for drama class, but that is only half the truth. I’ve been practicing using my powers. With Dax’s help, I managed to create a few sparks in the palm of my hand last night. I wish I could tell Tobin—he’d probably think I’m like a character in one of his comic books. A superhero. He’s the only one in my family who would get it—who gets me. He’s not like Mom or Dad or Sage, who are so practical and analytical all the time. They have absolutely no imagination. But I can’t tell Tobin, either. I just don’t think he’s old enough to understand what it all really means. He won’t understand why I have to leave.…’ ” Tobin’s voice catches, and it takes him a moment to go on. His eyes scan the page, and it seems as though he’s skipped forward when he starts reading again. “ ‘For now my secrets will have to stay buried in the grove with all the others.’ ” Tobin closes the book as if it pains him to read any more.
“You see, the grove,” Daphne says quietly, giving Abbie’s words reverence. “I’m telling you, that’s where this town’s secrets lie. The Key is there.”
“That sounds like a pretty big reach to me,” Garrick says, covering his head with his crossed arms. “So some half-Skylord chick used to go there to keep her dirty little secrets; doesn’t mean the key is hidden there, too.”
“That half Skylord is my sister. Don’t talk about her that way,” Tobin says, and I can practically feel anger rolling off him. I cannot help but worry that with all the new, not-exactly-pleasant information he’s had to absorb in the last few weeks, Tobin is like a hellcat ready to “Hulk out” (as Daphne put it) if he gets pushed one too many times.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence.” Without any hesitance, Daphne places her hand on Tobin’s shoulder as if she could sense him about to snap. Actually, knowing Daphne, I bet she could probably hear the notes of Tobin’s anger filling the room. I still don’t understand her ability to hear the tones and emotions that living things put off, but I do know that she’s used it three times to save our lives, so I’m not going to question its oddness. But I also don’t need to linger on the sight of her touching his shoulder.
I look away, clutching my own hand behind my back. Dax catches my eye and gives me a look like I should make some sort of decision. “Lead,” he mouths, reminding me that I am supposed to be in charge of this bickering group. They’d all left the safety of Ellis in order to follow me.
“Daphne is the Cypher,” I say in a tone befitting a captain. “She’s the one who is supposed to be able to find the Key, so if she thinks it’s in the grove, then we must have missed something.”
Daphne smiles at me, and Tobin and Dax both give me nods. Even Garrick deigns to uncover his face. Lexie takes a sip of coffee, but at least she seems to be listening.
I stand up straighter, ready to lead the charge. “I say we go to the grove now and we don’t stop looking until we find something.” I smack the desk beside me for emphasis.
“Um, now?” Daphne says, sinking back into her chair. “Class is about to start. You know Mr. Morgan is kind of insane about attendance.”
“Who cares about Mr. Morgan?” I ask.
“Um, me,” Lexie says.
“Me, too,” Tobin says.
“Especially me,” Daphne says.
“You were the one who was insisting that we needed to search the grove again,” I say, my frustration edging into anger.
“Yeah, but not this second. I told you I’d help you find the Key, but I’m not jeopardizing my standing in this program because of it,” Daphne says. “I’ve told you before, I’m helping you because I want to go back to my normal life. Well, as normal as it was before I found out I’m the Cypher.”
I want to argue with her, but I know it’s pointless. I turn to Dax instead. He was the one who had wanted me to step up and take control. He was the one who declared, back in Ellis, that he would follow my lead anywhere.
He shrugs. “There’s a new teacher starting today. I’m supposed to give him the grand tour and all that this morning. We can go after school.”
I purse my lips and resist the urge to throw my hands up in the air. That would be expressing too much emotion.
“Wherever it’s hidden,” Dax says, “it’s been there for a few millennia, and it will still be there in a few hours.”
“Fine, after school, then. But nothing is stopping us.”
“I’m out,” Garrick says. “I’ve got plans to watch the cheerleaders practice after school.” He jumps up from where he’s been lying, with a newfound energy, and heads for the door.
“Garrick, wait. I’m not done—”
He reels around. “You’re done as far as I’m concerned. You’re not a Champion anymore, which means I don’t have to listen to you anymore. I’ll do whatever the Tartarus I want with my time. And breaking my back with your fool’s errand doesn’t fit into my schedule today.”
I make a move to stop him—rebuke him for his disrespect—but instead I let him open the door to leave. He’s right. I don’t have any real authority over him anymore.
“Have any of you idiots stopped to consider that we can’t find the Key without the Compass? Isn’t that what the Oracle said?” Garrick says this like it’s supposed to be a slap in the face and then goes, leaving the door wide open behind him.
“He’s a real gem,” Lexie says. “Remind me why we brought him back from Ellis with us?”
“I’m beginning to wonder that myself,” I mumble.
“He has a point, though,” Daphne says. “I’ve considered that possibility every waking moment since the Compass was stolen.”
“Sarah didn’t give you any clues as to how to get it back?” Dax asks.
“What she said is that I will get it back and that I will use it to seek the Key. But she didn’t tell me how.” Daphne sighs and stares out the window. Other students are starting to pull into the parking lot. We don’t have much time left to ourselves. “Ever since the Compass was stolen from me, I’ve had this hollow ache gnawing at my heart. Like I lost a piece of myself when the Motorcycle Man stole the Compass. And how am I even supposed to find it when I have no idea how to find him?”
A similar feeling fills my chest as I think of her pain. I realize now that we’ve all been dancing around that issue—trying to ignore the hydra in the chamber—until Garrick threw it in our faces. That without the Compass we will fail.
“I wish I’d gotten a look at that motorcycle’s license plate,” Daphne says, “but I never saw it from behind because it was always chasing us. All I know about it is that it was a black, shiny bullet bike.”
Lexie laughs. “That was not a bullet bike. Do you even know what you’re talking about?”
“Isn’t that what you call bikes with a weird racer front that really douchey guys drive?” Daphne asks.
“Um, I’m not sure what you’re describing, but that motorcycle was a Ducati Superbike 1199 Panigale. That’s, like, a thirty-five-thousand-dollar bike.”
I blink at her.
“What? I’m a poor little rich girl with daddy issues. I have a thing for hot, douchey bad boys with motorcycles. Can you blame me?”
“Um …” Daphne makes a look like she’s actually considering answering that question but then reconsiders.
“And it wasn’t just ‘shiny’—that thing was in mint condition. Brand-new, if you ask me.”
I stand up straighter. “As in recently purchased? Prob
ably from a dealer nearby?”
Lexie nods. “I don’t know how nearby, but there are probably only half a dozen dealerships between here and LA that sell that kind of bike.”
“Do you think if we found the right dealership, they might tell us who bought it?” Daphne asks.
“We could try,” Lexie says. “I’ll have one of my Sopranos research it during lunch and draw up a list of Ducati dealerships in the county. I’ll visit a few after school to see what I can find out while you all go and dig around in the mud.”
“You really think you’ll get them to hand over someone else’s personal information?” Tobin asks, sounding incredulous.
Lexie puts her hands on her hips and gives him a little wink. “I do have a way of getting what I want.”
Tobin’s cheeks darken again, and I wonder if there’s a story behind Lexie’s insinuation.
“Sounds like it’s at least worth a try,” I say. “We’ll go to the grove after school; you’ll work on tracking down that bike.”
A few students enter the classroom through the door that Garrick left open. Class is starting soon.
“Gotta go,” Dax says, checking his watch. The group disperses, with Dax heading to the counselor’s office, and Tobin, Daphne, and Lexie going to the back of the room to check their cubbies for the new sheet music Mr. Morgan had promised before Christmas break. I collect the maps and stick them in my bag for safekeeping.
A sharp scream goes up in the back of the room, and I expect the worst, but find Lexie with a gaggle of her Sopranos. From the squealing and exclamations that follow, I gather there had been a note in Lexie’s cubbie indicating that she had landed a choice role in the musical written by Daphne’s father. Fittingly, it is about the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, of Orpheus’s journey into the Underrealm to retrieve his wife. Risking everything for the one he loves …
Daphne and Tobin had already been chosen to play the roles of Orpheus and Eurydice last fall, but I knew Lexie had been campaigning for Persephone’s. Sounds to me like she’s gotten it.
“Settle down, settle down,” Mr. Morgan says, coming into the room. “I see that a few of you found your belated Christmas presents. If you didn’t get a note in your cubbie, don’t despair; there are still a few parts left to assign. I’m still looking for a Hades, a handmaiden, and the Three Sisters Fate. I’ll be hosting one last round of auditions next week, so if you’ve been holding out on me, be sure to bring your A game. After that, rehearsals will begin in earnest. We’re only eleven weeks out from curtain.” He sits at the piano on the small stage at the front of the room and hits a key. “Daphne, will you lead the class in our vocal warm-up?”
Daphne takes the stage, and the others follow her lead. I’m not in the mood for singing, but I still watch as she sings a scale of notes from high to low. She looks so natural up there, calm—not on edge like she was only a few minutes ago when we were discussing the Key. Part of me gets why she didn’t want to skip music class, but her insistence on clinging to normalcy concerns me. We shouldn’t be singing warm-up notes when our time to find the Key is wasting away, but she is so stuck on her plan for her future that I am afraid she doesn’t realize that particular future may never come. What if her life never goes back to normal—how will she handle that?
And if by some miracle we do find the Key, stop the Keres, and escape the Court, will she really just go back to her regular-life plan? Forget about everything that has happened to her?
And what about us? Where do I fit in her grand plan? Will she even want anything to do with me when this is all over? Or will she walk away from me, too?
You should tell her. I haven’t been able to get Dax’s words out of my head since last night. Maybe if Daphne knew what she was walking away from, she’d reconsider.
Mr. Morgan catches my eye and gives me a cross look for not participating in the warm-up. I join my voice with the others, but I can tell mine sounds unsteady. The idea of telling Daphne about my feelings has me shaking again.
Between that and having lost control of that so-called strategy meeting, I’m not exactly feeling like the fearless leader that I need to be.
When class ends, I wait for Daphne, ready to escort her to our next class. Tobin stops her. He has the green diary in his hands. I realize now that he’d been holding it all through class.
“Can I keep this?” he asks Daphne.
“Of course,” she says, placing her hand on his arm. “You have more right to it than anyone.”
I know Dax would probably like to have a look at the diary, too, but I don’t say anything. Tobin squeezes Daphne’s hand and then takes his leave with the book.
Daphne lets me walk beside her on our way to humanities. My thoughts drift to when she held my hand before we left Ellis. The way her skin felt pressed against mine …
Daphne comes to a sudden halt in the classroom doorway. I hear a quick intake of breath through her lips. “What is it?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says, and quickly takes her seat. She almost seems embarrassed. I take my seat in the back of the class, wishing, not for the first time, that my desk were closer to Daphne’s. But being in the back at least means I might be able to sneak in a few minutes of sleep. Ms. Leeds has proven herself to be somewhat nearsighted when it comes to my faults.
“Greetings, class,” a voice rings out just as I lay my head on my humanities book for a pillow. The voice is booming and male. A strange yet familiar energy buzzes in the air, sending an ominous shiver up my back. I snap upright, clenching the sides of my desk, as if bracing myself for a blow to the face. A very tall, very tan man with a close-trimmed beard stands at the podium where Ms. Leeds usually begins the class lecture. Tingling electric heat shoots through my arms.
I’ve seen him before.
“My name is Ethan Bowman. But you can call me Ethan. I don’t care for formalities. Your regular teacher has come into an unexpected … windfall. I will be teaching this class for the remainder of the year.” He looks through everyone else in the class and locks his eyes on me. A slight smile plays on his lips, like he’s letting me in on a joke. “I hope we can all get along just fine.”
His beard is shorter, his hair has been cut, and he’s dressed in crisp slacks and a button-up shirt rather than the grungy hat and coveralls that had been his disguise the last time I saw him.
He’s the trucker from the diner outside Vegas.
chapter five
DAPHNE
I can’t take my eyes off the girl sitting in the front row of my humanities class. She’s new—I know I’ve never seen her before, but when I first walked into the classroom, I thought for almost a full three seconds that CeCe—oh yeah, Abbie—was sitting right in front of me. I almost dropped my tote bag and sprang at her for a hug before I realized how mistaken I was. The hair is totally different. Abbie’s hair was flame red and curly as could be, while this girl’s hair is a dark brunette, almost black, and her skin is a deep olive complexion. Not to mention that her tone is all wrong. CeCe had a jazzy, friendly tone like Tobin’s (when he isn’t angry), while this girl puts off a jumbled mesh of notes that sounds chaotic.
But everything else about her, from her face to the way she sits in her chair with both legs crisscrossed on top of the seat to the way she tugs on her hair while she reads, is so much like Abbie that for another two seconds I thought she was in some sort of elaborate disguise. But watching the girl now from my seat in the second row, I realize that she is far too young and too tall to be Abbie.
I am so distracted by the girl that I don’t notice the new teacher until he starts talking. I stare at him and notice that he has almost the same look as the new girl. A connection that makes sense when after he finishes introducing himself, he says, “And one of the perks of being a teacher here is that I get to spend more time with my niece and nephew, who just started attending today. Both of whom happen to be in our class.” He indicates the girl. “This is Terresa Gordan.” And then he points
to a teenage boy near the windows, whom I also hadn’t noticed before. “And this is her cousin, Calix.”
The boy scans the classroom with his dark eyes. The hair stands up on my arms, as if there’s an abundance of static electricity in the air. I look at Haden, but it’s like he’s intentionally not looking at me. A thought starts to form in my head, but before I can finish it, a silent message pops up on the iPad that sits on my desk with my textbook cued up. I keep my phone turned off at school but forgot that my texts get sent to my iPad when it’s left on. I figure the message is from Joe, wanting to see if he can bring me lunch like he used to before winter break—before I knew the truth—and almost dismiss the text without reading it. Then I notice it’s from Dax.
Skylords, the text says. There are Skylords in your classroom.
I almost jump out of my seat when I read it, but a second text pops up almost immediately. This time, it’s from Haden: Do not react.
I start to look at him, but a barrage of further messages stops me:
Haden: Don’t look at me.
Don’t acknowledge me.
Pretend you barely know me.
I nod slightly, even though I know Haden isn’t looking at me. My first thought is that we should try to run, but then I realize that with Terresa by the door and Calix by the windows, they’ve got all the exits covered. We’re basically trapped.
My second thought is to play sick and ask for a hall pass, or maybe to text Dax to call us down to the office.… But, no, both of those would look suspicious. And what if they tried to stop us? That would be three against one. Well, two, if you count me, but it’s not like I know how to use my burgeoning powers for anything more complex than making raindrops dance. Maybe I could will chalk dust to fly in their eyes?
Yeah, that would be really useful against demigods who can wield lightning and thunder. In a room full of mortals no less. I have a feeling Skylords don’t have much of a problem with the concept of collateral damage.