Shannon had obviously not been content to wait in the car. She dashed up the steps toward Liv and Joe, with Merek and Kat close behind her.
“I’m so sorry, Liv,” Shannon started. “I was worried about you, and Joe kept calling and I’m so—”
Liv held up her hand. “It’s okay. You don’t need to apologize.”
“Great, so now will you please tell me what’s going on?” Shannon’s face was such a mixture of confusion and impatience that Liv nearly burst out laughing.
“You’re sure you want to know?”
Shannon raised her eyebrows. “Are you joking? You’re joking. You can’t be asking me that question in any kind of seriousness. When have I not wanted to know what’s going on?”
“Can she be trusted?” Kat asked.
“Excuse me? Can I be trusted? Who even are you?”
“Yes,” Liv said quickly, cutting off Shannon’s outrage. “She can.”
A shadow fell over her. She looked back up the steps and saw Cedric coming down.
“You must be Cedric,” Joe said, reaching out to shake Cedric’s hand. “I’m Joe.” Cedric nodded in response.
“How much did you hear?” Liv asked Cedric.
His eyes flicked over to Liv briefly. She tried to imagine what he was thinking, and failed.
“I heard that Joe can help us open the portal,” Cedric replied.
“Portal?” Shannon’s voice rose in pitch.
A couple passing behind Cedric on the steps looked over at them.
“Let’s move clear of the crowds, maybe,” Liv said, directing their small group to a small side lawn.
“I can open a portal,” Joe said once they were away from the tourists and schoolkids, “But my first priority is to protect Liv and her brother and sister,” Joe said. “Then we’ll figure out how to open the portal as safely as possible. Without anyone getting hurt.”
“And again, I say—portal?!” Shannon’s eyes were wide.
“Okay, calm down,” Liv said, putting a hand on her arm. “I’ll tell you everything. But you have to wait a few more minutes. Please?”
Liv turned back to Cedric and Joe. “We need to make sure Peter and Maisy are safe, that they know about everything so they can protect themselves.” Her eyes went to Cedric. “That’s the way it has to be.”
He nodded slowly. She wondered if he was thinking about Emme—did he understand why she was putting her siblings’ safety before his desire to go home, or did he resent that she was keeping him from his own sister with every passing second?
“Peter’s up near Fresno,” Joe said. “His life was a lot like yours, Liv. He moved from foster home to foster home. He graduated from high school this year, but I know how to find him.”
Liv’s insides swelled at the thought of her brother, grown up now. Quiet Peter with the serious, worrying eyes.
“You’re going up there?”
“Somehow I don’t think this is information to deliver over the phone,” Joe replied.
“And Maisy?”
“Your sister’s . . . much closer,” Joe said, hesitation in his voice. “I don’t think we need to worry much about her safety. She should be highly protected already. Peter’s more vulnerable. More alone.”
“What do you mean, Maisy’s highly protected already? Where is she?”
“Beverly Hills. Her adopted family lives there.”
“Wow. That’s . . . good for her.” Liv tried to keep the tinge of jealousy out of her voice. “Doesn’t really answer my question, though.”
Joe ran a hand through his hair. “Maisy’s family is a bit . . . high profile. She has lots of security. And another thing you should know . . . her new family changed her first name as well.”
“What?” Liv shook her head. “Why? How? You can’t just change a four-year-old’s name—she’s not a dog.”
“This family could. They only changed a letter, though.”
Liv couldn’t understand why Joe was being so cagey. Before she could think it over, Shannon burst out with a sudden yelp.
“Oh my God. Is your sister Maisy actually . . . Oh my God.”
“What?” Liv whirled on Shannon. “Out with it!”
“Daisy Ratner? As in the third adopted daughter of Michael Ratner and Shana Cole?”
Joe nodded.
“Oh my God,” Liv said.
“Who are they?” Cedric asked, brow furrowed. Next to him, Kat shrugged. Merek looked bored.
“Movie stars,” Liv answered, finally understanding Joe’s warning. “Very, very famous ones.”
“They adopted, like, all these kids, and then they named them after flowers,” Shannon continued, in a rush. She turned to Liv. “Didn’t you know that? Everyone knows that.”
Liv shrugged. “I mean, I know how their last two films did at the box office, but gossip stuff? I never really paid attention . . .”
“I told you to get that Us Weekly app. But no, you said it would clutter up your precious screen—”
“Shannon.”
“Sorry.” Shannon looked just a bit chastised. She pulled out her phone. “But if you did have the app, you would know Daisy’s not even in the country. Michael Ratner is in Nicaragua right now shooting a movie. And he always brings his family with him on location.”
Shannon turned the screen to Liv. She saw a small picture of the movie star Michael Ratner, all sunglasses and big teeth, moving through an airport. A group of people trailed him, but Liv couldn’t pick out Maisy, or Daisy, among them.
Liv took a deep breath, then forced herself to look away from the screen and toward Joe. “Okay, so Maisy’s safe for now. And you’re going to tell Peter what’s going on.”
“What about you?” Joe asked.
Liv looked past him to Cedric, who looked like he was still desperately trying to figure out what Us Weekly was. But even in his state of obvious confusion, his posture was all readiness. His shoulders were back, his fingers just inches from where his knife rested against the inseam of his jeans. Always prepared for battle.
“I’ll be protected, too.”
THE LAST MEAL
Joe offered to give Shannon a ride home from the observatory, but she insisted on staying with Liv and hearing the whole insane story.
“Shan, aren’t you still grounded?” Liv whispered to her as they walked to her car.
“Probably,” Shannon replied. “But Joe doesn’t know that.”
Before they parted ways, Joe pressed a few fifties into Liv’s hand and told her to stay near her phone. Liv used one of the fifties to buy some pizzas and take them back to the Echo Park house. She, Cedric, Kat, Merek, and now Shannon hungrily attacked the food while sitting around the table on the back patio.
Shannon had listened silently—well, mostly silently—as Liv caught her up on the main details of how she’d met Cedric and what her “tattoo” really was. She seemed skeptical, but at least she hadn’t run away screaming yet. Liv was glad to have her around, especially since Cedric and his friends were casting pointed looks in her direction every few moments or so while they discussed strategy over bites of sausage pizza.
Liv tried to pay attention, but her mind kept drifting to Peter and Maisy—or Daisy, now, as if she’d ever get used to that. She kept picturing them as she last saw them, tired and worn-looking in a temporary children’s home. For so long, thinking about her brother and sister had only brought up feelings of shame and fear—shame for what she thought she’d done to her parents, and fear of what her siblings thought of her.
It was difficult to replace those long-standing emotions with what she now knew. Besides, the fear was still there, only attached to new worries. What if Peter and Maisy-now-Daisy didn’t believe they were in danger? What if Joe couldn’t figure out a way to keep them safe? The questions were eating her up.
“This meal is not as good as yesterday’s,” Merek said, putting down a piece of pizza crust and dragging Liv’s attention from her thoughts.
“Yeah, LA is really more
of a burger town,” she replied, trying to force herself to pay attention to the conversation.
“Or kale, if you’re into that kind of thing,” Shannon said.
“What is kale?” Merek asked.
“It’s best you don’t know,” Liv said.
Shannon smiled, but briefly. She seemed to be handling this pretty well, Liv thought, although if this were any other day, Shannon would be taking this opportunity to list all the celebrities she knew of who were on all-kale diets.
Across the table, Kat put her slice of pizza down as well. “Enough nonsense. We need to determine what to do next. We should open a portal as soon as possible—”
“We said we’d wait for Joe,” Liv interrupted.
“Yes, but we should have a plan ready to put in action immediately upon his return.” Kat spoke slowly, as if to a small child. Liv pursed her lips to keep from saying something snarky.
“The next step should be to make sure Liv is safe from the wraths and the Knights of Valere before we leave for Caelum,” Cedric said.
“That could take days, or longer. We have nothing to do with these Knights. Meanwhile, our kingdom, our home, is under siege.” Kat looked back and forth between Cedric and Merek, her dark eyes alight with energy. “You know I am right. We have the scroll. We could be going home tomorrow.”
“We cannot ask Liv to help us get home and then leave her in danger. We wait—just until we know she is safe,” Cedric said, definitively. “That is final.” Kat flared her nostrils, but didn’t respond.
“Not so fun when he does that to you, is it?” Merek asked Kat with a smug smile.
“And there is more to consider,” Cedric continued, ignoring Merek. “We want to go home as soon as possible, of course. But think about it . . . what are we going back for, if not to fight Malquin? Yet we still know so little about him.”
Kat leaned back and crossed her arms, but didn’t argue.
“Always know your enemy,” Cedric continued. “My father always said—says—that. Know not just your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, but their desires. And right now, all we know is that Malquin invaded the palace and he wants Liv. But we do not know why.”
“And that matters?” Merek piped up.
To Liv’s surprise, it was Kat who responded, though she still sounded pissed off. “We cannot defeat him if we do not know what he wants.”
“Why he aligned with wraths to invade our castle in the first place, and what he wants with Liv—they might be connected,” Cedric added.
“So what do we do?” Kat asked.
Cedric let out a relieved sigh, like he’d just won a fight he’d been dreading. “We have to figure out what the wraths want with Liv, and what their ultimate goal is. And we have to act before they make their next move.”
“We take the fight to them,” Kat said, nodding.
“And they lead us to Malquin, or at least whoever he has in charge over here,” Cedric responded. “Tonight.” He leaned forward, his determined eyes meeting those of everyone at the table. Liv thought he suddenly looked like a general during the inspirational monologue scene of a war movie—an effect that was only slightly hampered by the sausage grease stain on his T-shirt.
“We should return to the area around the museum again. It’s the last place we knew for sure the wraths were tracking us,” Kat said.
Cedric nodded. “If the wraths are still looking for us there, it should not be too difficult to find them.”
“Did you know the word ‘Malquin’ brings up thirty-three thousand hits online?” Shannon interrupted, looking up from her phone and around the table. “I mean, I don’t think any of them are relevant to you guys, but . . .”
Everyone stared.
“Just trying to be helpful,” Shannon said, shrugging. Liv smiled, for what felt like the first time in hours. She was so happy Shannon was here.
“Anyway,” Cedric said, “the wrath Kat questioned before did not know where Malquin is or what he is planning, but one of them has to. We just have to keep looking until—”
“Oh my God.” Shannon shot up in her chair, hand gripping her phone.
“What is it now?” Kat asked, exasperated.
Shannon turned to Liv. “It’s your sister . . . Daisy. Maisy. I assumed she’d be in Nicaragua with her parents, but I just checked her Instagram, and . . . she’s here. In LA.”
“Are you sure?” Liv reached out and took Shannon’s phone. On the screen was a sun-drenched image of a tennis court, an image posted by one “daisystar02.” The text below the image read #Saturday #bored.
“That’s the tennis court in the Ratners’ backyard. I saw an aerial shot of it in Life & Style.”
“Shan, your borderline stalking abilities are finally paying off.”
“It’s not stalking. She’s got, like, forty thousand followers.”
“What does all of this mean?” Cedric asked.
With difficulty, Liv pulled her focus away from the screen. More than anything, she wanted to keep scrolling through Maisy’s pictures to get a better sense of her life. But the utter confusion on Cedric’s face forced her to be in the present moment.
“Mai—Daisy is here, in LA,” Liv said.
Kat shook her head. “What does that matter?”
Shannon’s mouth dropped open. “What do you mean, what does that matter? Do people not have hearts on whatever planet you’re from?”
Kat raised one cool eyebrow. “We have more heart than the people here, I assure you.”
“Not as far as I can tell, Ice Queen,” Shannon shot back.
Merek laughed, but Liv just rubbed her temples. A plan was swirling around in her head, a crazy plan. One that would go against everything she’d promised Joe. And would surely piss him off.
Not to mention how much it would piss off everyone at this table.
Liv looked back down at the screen in her hand. A piece of her sister, so close. It felt impossible, to finally know where she was, after all these years. Liv could just go over to Maisy-Daisy’s house, introduce herself, and explain everything. . . . How could she not do it? She looked up at Cedric and Kat.
“It matters because I thought my sister was safe, and now we know she’s not. She’s here, in LA, where any wrath or Knight can find her. We need to warn her.”
Cedric shook his head, and Liv’s stomach sank. “We have already decided on a plan,” he said carefully. “To track down the wraths tonight and finally determine what Malquin is after. Why his wraths are after you.”
“And if they get to my sister first? She is a scroll just as much as I am, you know. And if you’ve vowed to protect me, you should protect her, too.”
Cedric sighed. “It is unlikely the wraths will find her.”
“Unlikely? I don’t want to bet my sister’s life on ‘unlikely.’”
“And we cannot bet our lives for hers,” Kat said. “Every day we stay here is dangerous. We need to use the knowledge we can get from the wraths to go home and free our parents.”
“But you need me for that, don’t you? I’m the scroll.” Liv dropped her voice low, wanting to make her point very clearly. She knew this was the one card she had left to play. “And I won’t help you get home unless I know my sister’s okay first.”
Kat’s eyes flared with anger. Merek looked at Liv with an appraising stare. But it was Cedric’s reaction Liv dreaded most.
“If that is what it will take,” he finally said.
“This is not a good idea—” Kat started.
“We need Liv’s help,” Cedric said. “Now she has asked for something in return.”
“And what is to stop her from asking for something else?” Kat asked.
“I won’t,” Liv said.
Cedric nodded. “We can still move forward with our first plan. Kat, are you up for taking another trip to the museum to see if you can track any more wraths?”
Kat looked at Liv with eyes that could spear right through her. “Of course.”
“Merek
can go with—”
“Merek can speak for himself, thank you,” Merek replied. He looked to Kat. “I assume you do not need my help?”
She shrugged. “I can track perfectly well on my own.”
“Good,” Merek replied. “Because I would very much like to see more of this ‘Beverly Hills,’ where an orphan girl of low birth might rise to live in a palace.”
Cedric looked confused, but Liv smiled, remembering their conversation at the observatory. “I think you’ll be impressed. And I’ll just ignore that ‘low birth’ comment.”
With everyone’s part in the plan sorted, Liv stood up to collect the pizza boxes from the table. Her entire body felt heavy and slow, as if she’d just run a marathon on three hours of sleep.
Liv headed toward the house with the trash in her hands. Without saying a word, Shannon got up and followed her. As soon as they were safely alone in the kitchen, Liv collapsed against the counter.
“So . . . rough week?” Shannon asked, leaning up against the wall across from Liv.
Liv shook her head and managed a half-laugh.
“How are you doing, really?” Shannon asked.
“You’re the one who just found out about other worlds and killer demon creatures. How are you doing?”
Shannon gave an exaggerated shrug. “Oh, you know me. I like to roll with the punches.”
“Oh yeah.” Liv laughed. “That’s definitely your reputation. Shannon ‘Taking-It-Easy’ Mei.”
“Are you being sarcastic? Because I am easygoing. Sometimes.” Shannon grinned. She looked so much like a part of Liv’s regular, familiar world, with her chunky wedge shoes, hot green nails, and wide smile, it almost hurt.
“Seriously, though,” Liv said. “How are you handling all this?” She motioned at the window behind her, toward where Cedric, Kat, and Merek were probably cursing her name in new and creative ways. “I know it’s a bit . . . insane.”
“Seriously?” Shannon said, winding one short strand of black-and-red hair absentmindedly around her finger. “I don’t know. I mean, yes, on the one hand it’s completely insane. But on the other . . . it doesn’t seem that strange at all. All those years we spent watching movies about zombie apocalypses and alien invasions or whatever . . . it’s like, it prepared me, in a way? Like, I spent so many hours training for crazy without even realizing, and it would almost be weirder if something like this didn’t happen at least once in our lives. You know?”
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