Lady Renegades

  Whether he actually did give me a discount or not, I couldn’t say. It’s not like I’d ever priced swords or anything, and what he charged was enough to have me grimacing a little bit as I handed over the credit card Mom had given me for emergencies. (Which, okay, I knew she had meant for me to use it for food and shelter and stuff, but I think we can all agree that on this trip, a sword was a solid emergency supply.)

  But once that sword was in my hand, I knew that I would have paid anything to own it. It felt right clutched against my palm, and I gave a few experimental strokes, earning me some worried looks from all those people who did just want crappy jewelry or a puppy or a cassette tape from 1988.

  When we got back to the car, I grabbed an old backpack from the back of the trunk and a Grove Academy sweatshirt from beside the roadside kit my dad had given me last Christmas. Wrapping the blade gently in the shirt, I placed it in the backpack and wedged it carefully in the back of the trunk.

  But even once the sword was tucked away, I stayed there by the open trunk, one hand still holding the lid open like I couldn’t quite bring myself to stop looking at it.

  “Harper?” Bee asked. Blythe had already gone to sit in the backseat, so it was just the two of us out there, looking down into my trunk. “What do you need that sword for?”

  I slammed the lid shut. “Just in case.”

  Chapter 28

  WE DROVE for another few hours, heading north. Before Blythe had mind-wiped the girl at the flea market, we’d managed to learn she was from Tennessee, so we headed that way. We found another motel, this one not quite as dire as the one in Mississippi, but still no place I’d choose to stay for very long. Bee had curled up under the blankets after taking a few aspirin, but I was too restless. I felt like we were so close to David, but knowing he was already in a cave made it impossible for me to do anything but think about what we’d do when we found him there.

  Blythe was sure it was too late, but I couldn’t let myself think that. We’d come all this way, gone through so much, and now that we had Saylor’s spell, surely we could fix it?

  That thought in mind, I went looking for Blythe. I found her sitting on the edge of the pool, dangling her feet in the bright blue water. For a second, I thought about warning her that there were probably at least a thousand infectious diseases living inside motel pools, but then I decided that, hey, if Blythe wanted to catch syphilis of the foot, that was on her. Me, I was going to sit in one of the lounge chairs.

  The plastic creaked when I sat down, and Blythe glanced over her shoulder at me, still moving her feet lazily through the water. “You okay?”

  I sighed, unsure how to answer that. Technically, yes, I was fine. The fight today at the flea market had been tough, but the soreness had already faded from my muscles. I still felt like I was about to crawl out of my skin, though. The sense that David was close, but that we were already too late, was making me crazy. I’d wanted to keep driving through the night, but Bee and Blythe were both exhausted, and pointed out that facing David tired was probably not the best idea. Plus Blythe had been quiet all afternoon, and since we needed her at her best for the spell, I wanted to make sure she had enough time to get ready.

  Didn’t mean I liked it, though.

  “I’m not . . . ideal,” I finally said, and that made Blythe give a snort of laughter as she pulled her feet up from the pool and turned to face me. Drawing up her knees, she wrapped her arms around her legs. “Your Paladin strength is finally gone. For good, I think,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.

  With a sigh, I leaned back in the chair and looked up at the hazy sky. The air was muggy and thick, buzzing with the sound of insects and the hum of the overhead lights.

  “My powers are gone,” I agreed. “Like you said they would be. Guess I’ve finally been away from David too long.”

  Blythe was looking at me with something close to interest, but less than concern. That was kind of nice. Bee would’ve bitten her lower lip if I talked about this, a sure sign of worry, but Blythe? Blythe never seemed all that concerned about what might be bothering me, and that made it easier to actually say the things that were bothering me.

  “But maybe it’s not that,” I mused. “Could David be draining me?” I still didn’t look at Blythe but focused on a moth currently flinging itself at the nearby sodium lights. “He was able to take Annie’s powers away from her.”

  “Maybe,” she replied, a little too quickly for my liking. She could’ve at least pretended to think about it for a sec.

  I sat up and scowled at her.

  “He’s clearly making new Paladins for some reason,” Blythe said. “And if he’s making new ones, makes sense that maybe he doesn’t want the old one around anymore. Especially when the old one is so determined to keep him from being an Oracle.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing,” I fired back. “I don’t mind that David can see the future. I do mind that seeing the future hurts him. I mind that it could potentially turn him all explode-y and evil, and that if he’s anything like Alaric, Pine Grove will be his first target.”

  Blythe kept watching me, not taking her eyes from my face even when she reached over to slap a mosquito on her arm. “Right,” she said. “But he’s already all explode-y. And possibly evil, for all you know. And”—she added when I opened my mouth to protest—“you have no way of stopping that. This isn’t some kids’ movie where the power of love is going to save him from what he really is, Harper. He’s a male Oracle. The only other one there’s ever been? Explode-y and evil. What makes you think this is something you can control?”

  “I can control anything I set my mind to,” I replied automatically, and Blythe tipped her head back and laughed, her bright white teeth gleaming. “Oh my God, that sounds like an answer you give to the Model UN or something.”

  Rolling my eyes, I settled back into my lounge chair. “Fine, make fun,” I said. “But it’s true. I don’t . . . Look, I’m not saying that love can save him, or that it will. I’m not saying he isn’t already gone. Not in, like, the physical sense.” I sighed and looked up at the sky. There were clouds overhead, tinted orange in the streetlights’ glow. “The person David was might be gone. I know that. But I have to try.”

  When I lifted my head, Blythe was watching me, one foot still trailing in the pool. “Can you get that?” I asked her. “That sometimes you have to try even if it seems doomed?”

  She looked at me and nodded. “That’s what I’m doing,” she said at last. “I’m trying something that I’m not sure will work.”

  “That spell clearly worked,” I reminded her. “Dante was powerless and couldn’t remember his past. So if we can just find David—”

  But Blythe shook her head.

  “I’m trying to redeem myself,” Blythe said, turning back to slip both feet into the water, kicking them back and forth, making little waves. Again, it was so easy for me to imagine the girl she must have been before.

  “I did this,” she continued, her tone matter-of-fact. “I made him into something unstable and dangerous. Sure, he might’ve gotten there eventually on his own, but let’s not pretend that I didn’t speed things up a bit.”

  She had a point there.

  “So, what?” I asked, coming to sit by her and slipping my sandals off. I still wasn’t so sure about the less-than-clear aquamarine water of the pool, but I’d take my chances. Sitting next to her, I mimicked her position, hands braced on the concrete, feet dangling in the water. “You think by doing this spell on David and making him not an Oracle anymore, all your sins will be forgiven or something?”

  Blythe turned her head and smiled at me, but it was sad. “A spell that has maybe a twenty percent shot of working,” she said. “You saw what happened with Dante. You saw how badly that went, and he wasn’t some scary, juiced-up super being. Just a boy.” She shrugged. “If you still had your powers, maybe I could’ve pulled it
off. Maybe. Or if we’d gotten to him before he went in that cave . . .”

  I blinked at her. “The spell,” I repeated, almost dumbly. “We found the spell that can drain his powers.”

  “A spell I might not be able to do,” Blythe said, “which means this is going to fall on you in the end.” She sounded so calm, so certain, that despite the muggy night I suddenly felt cold.

  “What does that mean?”

  But I knew the answer before she even spoke.

  “You’re going to have to kill him.”

  Chapter 29

  “KILL HIM?” I repeated, my voice shooting up about half an octave.

  “Mm-hmm.” She gave a little nod. “It’s our best shot now that he’s already in the cave.”

  For a long moment, I just stared at her, wondering if she was screwing with me. But, no, the moment stretched on without her giving a little wink or breaking at all, until finally I said, “We brought you on this trip to help us.”

  With a roll of those big brown eyes, Blythe turned to look at me again. “Which I am, duh. Have you missed the part where David is trying to kill you?”

  “He isn’t,” I answered, but that just made her laugh.

  “Okay, sure. All those Paladins he’s sent after you are the Oracle version of the singing telegram. Got it.”

  It was beginning to dawn on me that Blythe was most definitely not kidding, and I stood up so fast I nearly slipped on the edge of the pool.

  Blythe, however, stayed right where she was, looking up at me like she was legitimately confused. “Harper . . . you knew this was a possibility. At Alexander’s, when Bee asked why they didn’t just kill Alaric, I saw your face.”

  She said it so easily that I felt like she had to be right, almost. Like I was the one being irrational here. But I wasn’t the one who was calmly talking about murdering someone, and I backed up another step, my heart pounding.

  Pulling her feet out of the water, Blythe turned to face me more fully. “Honestly, I thought you got this,” she said. “Why else did you buy that sword today?”

  The sword. I’d almost forgotten about it, still wrapped in a sweatshirt in the trunk of my car. I couldn’t deny the pull I’d felt toward it. Alexander had said that my vision from the fun house—the one where I’d stabbed David—was just what I feared most, not an actual thing that might happen. But facing Blythe now, I felt sick as I wondered if that were the truth.

  Blythe must have seen some of that on my face because she leaned in a little, head cocked to the left. “It’s the reason I took you to the flea market in the first place.”

  I shook my head. “No, you said we were looking for some magical rock so you could do the spell Saylor found, and . . .”

  The words trailed off as soon as I realized what I was saying. “Magical rock,” I scoffed at myself. “Stupid. And it didn’t bother you at all that we never found it.”

  Blythe gave a little shrug. “Because it never existed. I wanted you to find the sword. The one you needed. I thought we might need it just in case, but now that you’ve seen him already in the cave, I understand why you had to have it. Why I wanted you to find it.”

  When I didn’t answer, she kept going. “Did you ever think that you were losing your powers not because you were away from him, but because the more dangerous he got, the more you’d be needed to put a stop to him?”

  I shook my head, my thoughts whirling, and Blythe crossed her arms over her chest. “Your powers meant you could never hurt the Oracle, only protect him. If you can’t protect him anymore, it’s because he’s become such a danger that he has to be dealt with, Harper. I wasn’t sure of it until today, but seeing him in the cave? Your powers going out for good? Those things are connected.”

  “You don’t know that—” I started, even though everything she was saying made a terrible kind of sense.

  And she knew it, too, because she lifted her hand to cut me off. “You and I, we do what needs to be done, Harper. It’s who we are. Did you know that back before all this happened to me, I was SGA president at my school, too? We didn’t have cheerleaders, but I was first-chair flute in the school symphony, and I was on just about every committee there was. Prom, Students Against Drunk Driving, the Big Sisters program . . .” She ticked them off on her fingers. “And commitment like that is what makes both of us so good at this stuff. It’s why we were chosen.”

  I shook my head, not wanting to have anything in common with her right now. “No,” I said. “Those powers . . . they were forced on me, and I’m guessing they were forced on you, too.”

  She just shrugged in that way she did, tilting her head to the other side. “Forced, fated . . . all works out the same. Point is, we’re the type of girls who do what they have to do, and stopping David is what I have to do. You know what Alaric turned into. And now we know that not only is David following in his exact footsteps, they’re also the only two Oracles ever born to Oracles. That means David is more powerful than any of us thought. More dangerous.”

  Once again, her voice was so even and calm, her face almost eerily placid, that I felt like I was the one who was nuts. Still, I heard myself say, “This isn’t what you have to do.”

  “Of course it is. I told you,” she said slowly and patiently, the way you talk to really little kids or people who speak a different language. “I’m. Redeeming. Myself.”

  My shoes dangled from my fingertips, and one dropped to the concrete with a muted thwack. “But this isn’t redeeming yourself,” I argued. “Redeeming means . . . it means fixing what you did wrong, not stabbing what you did wrong in the face. Okay, wait, that didn’t come out right, but you know what I mean.”

  I pointed one sandal at her, and Blythe finally got to her feet, swatting my shoe out of her face. “Harper, this is how we fix this, don’t you get that? What do you think all this journeying around has been about?”

  I shook my head, not getting it. “Finding David. To make him stop, not to murder him.”

  Blythe took a step forward, and when I moved backward, she lifted her hands in entreaty. “I didn’t want it to come to this either, Harper. When I found that spell, I thought we had the answer. Killing him was always . . .” Trailing off, she looked up at the low clouds, tinted orange by the lights around the motel. “A last resort, I guess. It’s just that it’s too late now.”

  “I don’t believe anything you say,” I muttered, and took another step back.

  But Blythe kept coming, her dark eyes bright in the glow from the sodium lights above the pool. “I was looking for another way. But there isn’t one.”

  “What about the other spell?” I asked, and she blinked. “The one that Dante mentioned,” I said. “Whatever it was that was darker and scarier than the power-wipe spell. What about that one?”

  Blythe sniffed, shaking her head. “It won’t help,” she said, her voice tight.

  “You’re always going on about what a badass Mage you are,” I said, shaking my head, “and now you’re telling me you can’t do one simple spell?”

  “It’s not simple!” Blythe shouted, her hands clenched into fists, her voice tight. “Alexander managed it on Dante, but Dante had hardly any powers. Just some Mage skills he picked up from the internet. Trying to do this to a full-blown Oracle who’s gone rogue?”

  This time when she looked at me, I could see tears in her eyes. “I. Can’t,” she said again. “It’s too dangerous. For you, for me, for Bee. What if it just amps him up more? I gave Dante powers he never even really had, and we saw how that went.”

  “Ryan,” I said, grasping for anything. “If you can’t do it, we’ll let him try.” But Blythe just shook her head.

  “We don’t have time. Now that your powers are gone, now that he’s in the cave, the only way is to kill him. Put this behind us once and for all.”

  For the first time, something sparked in her eyes. In anyon
e else, I would have said it was anger, but in Blythe, it was that tiniest hint of crazy that I knew all too well could blossom into full-blown whackjobbery. “Your last duty as his Paladin is setting him free.”

  And then she frowned a little. “Although, I guess . . . without powers, you’re not actually his Paladin anymore.”

  The words stung.

  But my voice was as steady as hers when I replied, “I don’t think it’s the powers that make the Paladin, to be honest. I think it’s the determination.”

  Blythe smiled briefly at that, which just intensified the whole crazy-eyes thing she had going on. “And how determined are you, Harper Price?”

  By now, she was very close to me, hands on her hips. Through the triangles made by her elbows, I could see the bright turquoise water of the pool behind her, and I didn’t let myself think. I might not have superstrength or superspeed anymore, but I still knew how to Mean Girl when the situation called for it.

  “Hella,” I answered, and with that, I charged forward, shoving with all my might.

  I’m not a big girl, but Blythe was even smaller and more delicate, plus, as she’d said herself, her school didn’t have cheerleading. Plus I’d caught her by surprise.

  She shrieked as she fell backward into the water, her hands grabbing at me, but I was too quick, moving out of her embrace before she could tug me in, too. She was light enough (and I’d pushed hard enough) that she went out near the middle of the pool.

  I didn’t see her hit the water, only heard the splash as I bolted from the pool, running down the cement sidewalk in my bare feet, sandals abandoned on the pool deck. Luckily I still had tennis shoes in the room.

  Even more luckily, I had barely unpacked today, so when Bee let me in after I pounded on the door, it was an easy thing to just grab my bag.

  Bee, unfortunately, was not as organized.

  “Um, what are we doing?” she asked, her phone still held near her jaw as I started throwing her things in her Vera Bradley tote. “Where’s Blythe?”