“I believe you knew him as ‘Dr. DuPont’?” Alexander’s manner was still casual as he tugged at his cuffs, but there was a hard glint in his eyes.
Oh, right. The history teacher turned assassin who I’d killed. I glanced at Ryan. He’d heard the story—I’d told him everything once he became the Mage—but I knew this was the part he still had a hard time with. It had to be weird, knowing your ex-girlfriend killed somebody, even if it was in self-defense. But he was still watching Alexander, a wrinkle between his auburn brows, his leg jiggling up and down.
Alexander continued, “We don’t doubt your Paladin . . . prowess, Miss Price. But you have not yet earned the right to call yourself by that name.”
I didn’t like the sound of that one bit, and I crossed one knee over the other as I leaned in toward Alexander. “I gave up a lot to protect David. I lost my best friend, I lied to my family, and I watched a woman I loved and admired die right in front of me. So don’t tell me I haven’t earned being a Paladin. I’ve more than earned it, buddy.”
“Hear, hear,” David muttered next to me, and I felt his hand land on mine on the arm of my chair. I glanced over long enough to smile at him, and across the desk, Alexander sat back in his chair.
“So,” he said, nodding at our joined hands, “is that how things are?”
I jerked my hand out from underneath David’s, although I couldn’t have said why. It was like . . . I didn’t want this guy knowing about us. But obviously, it was too late for that.
David shot me a glance that was either pissed or wounded or both before facing Alexander. “What¸ is that not allowed?”
Alexander gave an elegant shrug, still kicked back in his chair. “It’s not officially against any rule I’ve heard of. But it’s never been an issue in the past.”
Curiosity got the best of me, and I shifted in my seat. “Why?”
Drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair, Alexander looked up, like he was trying to think of the right words. “Oracles are usually very . . . dedicated to their duties. Having constant visions leaves little time for personal relationships.”
I thought of how David was when he was in the grips of a vision. I couldn’t imagine him being like that all the time. I didn’t want to.
When I looked over at David, his face was almost blank, his eyes fixed straight ahead. His foot was bouncing, which meant that he was thinking hard, but about what?
“But what do you mean about Harper not being a Paladin?” Ryan asked. He was slouching again, but he tugged at his sleeves, his eyes never leaving Alexander. “Does that mean I’m not a Mage? I mean, Oracles are born, I got that, but if we were both made into . . . whatever it is we are—”
The Ephor held up a hand. “Every point on the triangle is different, comes with different responsibilities and duties. A Mage, once powers have been transferred, is a Mage, fully and completely. All the knowledge the previous Mage contained is passed on. But a Paladin is a horse of a different color, as it were. Paladins have a sacred duty. As do the Oracle and the Mage, of course, but the Paladin has an especially challenging role. To be sure Miss Price is up to the task, she would have to go through the Peirasmos.”
The word rolled off his tongue in a pretty way, but there was power in those three syllables. I could feel it, and even David shuddered a little bit.
“Do you know what that is, Miss Price?” Alexander raised his eyebrows at me, still totally pleasant, and I hated to have to shake my head.
“No.”
Alexander made an exaggerated moue of disappointment. “What a shame. I hoped Miss Stark would have completed that part of your training.”
“Things were a little rushed,” I told him, scowling, “what with you people and your crazy Mage trying to kill us all the time. We didn’t have time for . . . whatever that word was.”
“Peirasmos,” he repeated. “And in all fairness, Miss Price, we were using the Mage to kill you, not the Oracle.”
“David,” Ryan interjected, and I glanced over at him, throwing him a quick smile.
Now all pleasantness disappeared from Alexander’s face, and he sat up in his chair. “Oh, for the love of the gods. Is it like that, too?”
My cheeks flamed red, and I looked away from Ryan, back toward the Ephor. “None of that is any of your business.”
Alexander only wrinkled his nose, bracing his elbows on the desk. “Teenagers,” he said on a long sigh. “Well, what can one expect, I suppose. In any case.” He steepled his long fingers. “When Saylor Stark and Christopher Hall broke away from us, they rejected many of our traditions, it would seem. Which is a shame since the Peirasmos is vital.”
“Says who?” I asked, crossing my legs at the ankle. “And why? I mean, I’m clearly a Paladin, I have all the . . . the . . .” I waved my hands in the air. “Superpowers or whatever. What would this Peirasmos change?”
Alexander sniffed, resting his elbows on the desk. “What would they change? For starters, by completing these trials, you get to live. Is that enough of a reason for you, Miss Price?”
It had been a long night. I’d had to go into possibly the grossest frat house in Alabama, I’d watched my boyfriend go all mega-Oracle, and I’d gotten my ex-boyfriend to wipe my friends’ minds; my life being threatened was the icing on a seriously crappy cake.
“So that whole ‘Hey, we want to help you and be besties’ thing lasted what, five minutes?” I asked. Next to me, I could feel Ryan go tense, and I nudged him with my elbow. I appreciated the chivalry, but dealing with death threats was kind of my area of expertise.
Alexander sat back in his chair, eyes narrowing even as he smiled. “You certainly have enough spark to be a Paladin. I can appreciate that. But let me make myself very clear, Miss Price. We are offering our assistance because you need us, and I think you know that. Work with us, and David stays safe and protected, as well as extremely useful as an Oracle. I think it should be clear by now that our powers are greater than yours. After all, I was able to penetrate your wards with hardly any trouble at all.”
“Please don’t say ‘penetrate,’” I muttered, but once again, Alexander ignored me and kept going.
“You and Mr. Bradshaw here have some of the weight taken off your shoulders. But if you choose not to follow our rules, then you declare yourselves our enemies, and we will spend however long it takes to eradicate all three of you. Should the Oracle die, another will be called. Another Paladin will be created, and another Mage.”
Leaning forward, he pressed his palms flat on the desktop. A strand of hair fell over his forehead, marring that whole men’s-magazine thing he had going on. “You are expendable to us.”
My heart was pounding, my mouth dry. On one side, Ryan was breathing hard, his fingers clenching and unclenching. On the other, David was glaring at Alexander. He wasn’t jiggling his foot anymore, and had gone so still it was almost unnerving.
“Then why not kill us all now?” I asked Alexander, trying to keep my voice steady. “I mean, we’re all here. It wouldn’t be hard.”
“Harper, could you not?” Ryan muttered, but Alexander only smiled.
“Because that’s not what we want. It’s true we can replace you, all three of you, but that’s not ideal. Much easier to simply welcome you all back into the fold.”
“I am not in your fold, buddy,” I said, standing up. “And neither are Ryan or David.”
On my left, Ryan rose to his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Damn straight.”
But David sat in his chair, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped tightly in front of him. He was looking at the ground, a muscle working in his jaw. “David?” I asked, hating how unsure I sounded.
“It’s just . . . Pres, we need help. I need help.”
“But,” I faltered, “you have help. You have me and Ryan.”
He nodded, almost too quickly. “I do, and you’re great, both of you, but . . . Harper, if my powers could actually be used to help people, if this guy”—he nodded at Alexa
nder—“can help me do that . . . it kind of seems worth it, don’t you think?”
I stood there, my stomach twisting, my skin suddenly cold. “Saylor and Christopher gave up everything to protect you from these people. They tried to kill you, David. They took Bee.”
“I know,” David said, “but, Pres, I looked into this guy’s mind. He’s not trying to hurt me, and what he said adds up. The Ephors only wanted me gone when they thought I was a crappy Oracle. Now that the ritual has worked and it didn’t kill me, they need me again. Hell, maybe . . .” He trailed off, tugging at his hair. “Maybe the world needs me. And it’s not worth your lives”—he gestured at me and Ryan—“if I’m not doing something important. Plus, I’m . . .” Another hair tug. “I’m sick of running from this. Aren’t you?” Behind his glasses, his eyes were very blue, and I could hear the plea in his voice.
“He’s got a point, Harper,” Ryan agreed, and I turned, surprised.
“Okay, what happened to ‘damn straight’?”
Ryan gave one of those easy shrugs, and it was the weirdest thing, seeing such a familiar gesture in such a bizarre setting. “Our job is to protect David, right? If this is what David wants, it seems like we should go with it. If the alternative is us looking over our shoulders forever, this seems a hell of a lot better.”
I had plenty of experience getting girls in line, but it seemed like boys were a way bigger pain in the butt. I couldn’t believe I was being overruled by my boyfriend and my ex-boyfriend in front of a guy I was already pretty sure I hated.
Still, I wanted to present a united front. “Let’s go home and talk about it,” I said, smoothing my hands over my skirt. In the soft golden lamplight of the study, I could make out a little stain at the hem. Ugh, Spencer must have spilled beer on me when I grabbed him, and I suddenly felt exhausted. “No decision needs to be made tonight, and, hey, not to be rude, but it’s not like either of you have to go through some kind of crazy Greek trials if we say yes.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alexander said, his brows drawing together with what had to be fake concern. “I don’t think I was clear. There’s no ‘deciding.’ You are already in the Peirasmos, Miss Price.”
I turned to look at him. “What?”
“The moment I arrived here, the Peirasmos began. It’s not a choice you get to make, but rather a duty you must fulfill.”
If I hadn’t been so tired and rattled, I probably could’ve managed something better than “That’s not fair!” But that’s exactly what I said, and I sounded petulant even to myself.
Alexander only shrugged. “Has any part of this been fair to anyone?” he asked, and I realized I couldn’t argue with that. Everything about this had been unfair from day one, but this seemed particularly awful. I was getting sick of not being offered a freaking choice in things.
“The Peirasmos have begun,” Alexander continued. “And either you will pass, or you will die.”
That seemed like a pretty steep grading curve, and for the first time in a long time, I felt something like real fear. Not the adrenaline spike I got when I was fighting bad guys or keeping David safe, but the scary kind. It was a cold, kind of sick feeling that made me want to go home and put my head under the covers, maybe forever.
But I couldn’t do that right now, so instead, I stared Alexander down and said, “That seems kind of stupid. If I fail the trials, I die, and then David doesn’t have any kind of Paladin, official or not, and how—”
“Ah,” Alexander interrupted as he drummed his long, elegant fingers on the desk. “That actually brings me to my next point.”
“I wasn’t finished,” I said, turning a glare on him, but he was already rising from the desk.
“We’ve made provisions for those circumstances.” He lifted a hand and nodded at the doorway behind him. “Thanks to you, David, we have a spare.”
I turned, my heart in my throat.
There, in the doorway of Alexander’s study, was Bee.
Chapter 6
I’D THOUGHT ABOUT seeing Bee again for so long, but now that she was actually there, standing right in front of me, I felt frozen. Paralyzed.
I think I was afraid to believe she was actually there.
Ryan apparently did not have that fear, though, because he crossed the room in a few strides, swooping her up into a big hug. “Holy crap,” I heard him say, and her hands came up to rest on his shoulder blades, hugging him back. Bee was only a few inches shorter than Ryan, so I could clearly see her heart-shaped face over his shoulder. Long blond hair pulled back in a braid, dressed in a simple black T-shirt and jeans, she looked so . . . normal.
“Easy there,” she said, and her voice sounded exactly the same. “I like my ribs.”
That’s what did it for me, hearing her sound so normal, so Bee, and then I was across the room, too, shamelessly using my Paladin strength to push Ryan out of the way and throw my arms around her.
“You’re okay,” I said, squeezing my eyes against the sudden stinging there. “You’re okay, you’re okay . . . wait.” I pulled back, held her at arm’s length. “Are you okay?”
There were tears in her big brown eyes, but she laughed shakily, nodding. “I am. I totally am.”
“Miss Franklin was never mistreated in our care,” Alexander said, and it was like I’d forgotten he was there. I turned to look over my shoulder.
“That doesn’t exactly make up for kidnapping her,” I said, and he gave another one of those rolling shrugs.
“She was not meant to be taken. That was all Blythe’s doing, and I assure you, she was punished for it.”
Something about the way he said “punished” made my skin crawl, but for right now, Bee was here, and she was fine, and she was smiling at me, and I didn’t care what the Ephors wanted, so long as she was here.
But then I remembered what he had said, about how if I died during the trials, they’d made “provisions.”
The night of Cotillion, David had transformed all the other girls into Paladins, too. He’d undone the spell on everyone else, but Blythe had taken Bee before then. Which meant that Bee—
“Miss Franklin is a Paladin as well,” Alexander said, finishing my thought for me. “She’s been with us, training, being very well cared for, as you can see.” He gestured to Bee, and I had to admit, she didn’t look terrible. Her cheeks were full, her skin was as clear and bright as it had always been, and while there was something in her eyes that I couldn’t quite name, she seemed . . . fine.
“Should you fail in the trials, Miss Franklin will be here to take your place as the Oracle’s Paladin.” He lifted his shoulders. “Easy as can be.”
It didn’t sound all that easy to me. In fact, it sounded like a lot of BS. There were no Paladin powers racing through me, so I figured the prickling at the back of my neck was good old-fashioned anger.
“So you’re using my best friend as my understudy in case I get killed?” I said.
Alexander sat back behind his desk, taking a sip of his tea. “When you put it that way, it sounds a great deal more mercenary than it actually is. We simply want to . . . hedge our bets, let us say.” He nodded at Bee. “And Miss Franklin has been very well prepared for this.”
When I turned back to Bee, she was looking at Alexander, but her gaze slid to me. She tried to smile, but it was shaky and I reached out to hold both her hands in mine.
“They did tell me about all this,” she said, taking a deep breath. “That’s why they took me, so that they’d have a . . . a spare, I guess.”
“You’re no one’s spare,” I told her, squeezing her hands. Relief and anger warred inside of me, along with a fair amount of confusion. I was so happy to have Bee back, but the last thing I’d ever wanted was for her to get involved in this, too. Bad enough that Ryan had been dragged in, but—
Suddenly David was at my side, taking my hand from Bee’s. “What the—” I started, but he only shook his head, pressing his palm to Bee’s. I saw his brow wrinkle in confusion, and he glanced over
her shoulder at Alexander.
“That mind-reading trick. Why won’t it work on her?”
Alexander lifted both eyebrows. “Oh, did I not mention? Once the Paladin begins the Peirasmos, the Oracle is stripped of her—well, his, in this case—powers. Can’t have you looking into the future to help Miss Price face her trials.”
David’s hands clenched into fists. “You can’t do that,” he said, but Alexander only shrugged.
“I already have.”
“And I didn’t begin anything,” I argued, dropping Bee’s hands. I noticed Ryan moving a little closer to her as David and I approached Alexander’s desk.
“You said that I have to do these things or die. It’s not like there was a starter pistol or a ready-set-go that happened, so how—”
“They began the moment I summoned David,” Alexander interrupted, giving me a smile that showed too many teeth for my liking. “Congratulations.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, you don’t get to come here and tell us what to do. We were getting along fine without you.”
“Were you?” Alexander rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling as though he were thinking something over. “David was squandering his godlike power while the two of you scrambled to keep the people in your lives from figuring out what had happened to you. You threw up wards around your town to keep people from remembering what happened the night Blythe performed the ritual. You acted like children, hoping pebbles would hold back the sea. And Miss Franklin,” he finished, inclining his head toward Bee, “was missing—for all you knew, never coming back. And now we have come to help you.”
He kept saying “we,” but the house was empty except for him, as far as I knew. But then, as far as I knew, there hadn’t even been a house here a few weeks ago.
I didn’t like it. No, more than that, I hated it. Saylor would have known what to do here. The weirdest thing was that parts of it sounded okay. It sounded right. And there was Bee.
“I understand why you hesitate to trust us, Miss Price, I honestly do,” Alexander said. “But right now, we are all you have. And believe me when I say we need you as desperately as you need us.”