“He knows archaic languages,” Annabelle said. “That's all.” There was something in her tone that made me take a closer look at her face. Sensing my scrutiny, A-belle ducked her head and blushed.
OMG. This is a turn-on for you, isn't it? I kept the question silent to avoid embarrassing A-belle in front of the others.
Mayhaps, came the slightly abashed reply.
Annabelle Elisabeth Porter—you think linguists are hot!
Annabelle glared at me. Shut up.
Don't tell me you have a crush on Lionel …
“Bailey,” Annabelle yelped out loud. “Eww!”
“Do we want to know?” Delia asked.
Annabelle and I looked at each other. “Probably not,” we answered together. Lionel, a linguist who worked with Annabelle's mother at the local college, was eighty-some years old and had a great deal of affection for his “Annie.” Just not that kind of affection. I hoped.
Mmmmmmmmmm … chili.
I rolled my eyes at the stray Zo thought that entered my mind, and concentrated on turning my abilities off. At first, hearing thoughts, especially my friends' thoughts, had been as natural as hearing words, and I hadn't been able to control it at all, but it didn't take me long to realize that in high school, you never want to know what everyone else is thinking. For one thing it's too noisy, and for another, sometimes you hear the guy you like, the guy who's supposed to like you, thinking about other girls. And sometimes you hear those other girls thinking things about you that make your stomach hurt.
Long story.
Luckily, the more time I spent with Adea and Valgius, the more control I gained over my powers. Unlike A-belle, who'd had this particular ability during our tattoo adventure, I could keep my will from bleeding over onto others, and as a general rule, I steered away from pulling mind melds. As my control had developed, I'd become able to focus the ability, to hear an individual's thoughts, or a group's, or nobody's at all. Figuring out how to make other people hear my thoughts had come last, halfway through junior year.
“Don't you ever think about anything but food?” I asked Zo.
She held a french fry in the air, poised for a fight. “You know how much I'd hate to waste this fry,” she said, “but if you tempt me, make no mistake: I will throw it at you.”
I stuck my tongue out at her. “Make my day.”
Thirty seconds and one very brief food fight later, Zo and I were both a little worse for wear, Delia was shaking her head morosely, and Annabelle had an almost-smirk on her face because she'd managed to survive completely unscathed, despite the fact that she'd thrown a crumpled napkin at me in retaliation for the Lionel comment.
“I swear, you two,” Delia chided Zo and me.
I pointed a finger at Annabelle. “She did it, too.”
Annabelle sat there, looking angelically solemn, her best “who, me?” expression on her face.
“How many times do I have to tell you guys,” Delia continued, “French fries are not accessories.”
Because I could sense a conversation on what did count as an accessory coming our way, I changed the subject back to the guy from study hall. “So we've concluded that this guy has some major linguistics chops and that his hair may or may not be the good kind of mussy. You three have any other words of wisdom for me?”
Delia leaned forward, her expression earnest and intense. “If you had to rate him on a one-to-ten scale for self-deprecating sarcasm, what would he be?”
Zo narrowed her eyes at Annabelle. “You have got to stop teaching Delia words like self-deprecating.”
Without missing a beat, Delia and A-belle looked at each other and then both launched pieces of their lunch at Zo.
Number of food fights this lunch period: two.
Number of people at nearby tables who were giving the four of us sketched-out looks: seven.
Number of food objects Zo caught and subsequently ate with little or no ado: both of them.
“I'm going to miss you guys so much next year.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, and the others groaned.
“No moping.” The three of them spoke in perfect unison. We were only a month into senior year, and already my friends had made up a No Moping rule for me—no moping about ex-boyfriends, no moping about the fact that I didn't have a cabana boy, and especially no moping about the fact that life as we knew it was eight months away from over.
The punishment for moping varied, but based on the maniacal glint in Zo's eyes and the fact that I'd psychically teased Annabelle once already this lunch period, I could sense a tickling of epic proportions coming my way.
“No moping,” I agreed quickly. “I just love you guys.”
“Awwwwwwww,” they chorused, but Zo wasn't looking any less evil.
“You're going to torture me no matter what I say now, aren't you?” I tried to resign myself to this fate.
“Yup.”
“Totally.”
“Indeed.”
“Ack!” That last one was me as Zo started their collective tickling onslaught. Two minutes later, they finally decided I'd had enough.
“You're sadists,” I said. “All of you. I see pop quizzes and awkward blind dates in your future.”
Since they knew as much about my visits to the Nexus as I did, they took my threats somewhat less than seriously. After all, if I'd actually been able to change their fates—or mine—we wouldn't have needed a No Moping rule in the first place.
“So,” Delia said, content to change the subject now that I'd paid for my moping crimes, “anybody else have a geek sighting to report?”
Zo glanced pointedly at Annabelle.
“Oh, you,” Annabelle replied with a faux chuckle. “That's one of those witty insult things, isn't it?”
Delia let out an exasperated sigh. “Focus, people. Annabelle isn't a geek, and more important, she isn't male.”
“Thanks,” A-belle said. “I think.”
“So far we have Cryptic Geek Guy,” Delia continued, “and I've identified a possible Musician Geek Guy in my math class, as well as a geek of unknown categorization who looks exactly like that guy from that one show.”
Specificity wasn't Delia's strong suit.
“That's three geeks, and there's four of us, so we need at least one more.”
“How egalitarian of you,” Annabelle said, a wry smile playing across her lips.
“You know, Queenie, this is going to be really hard, but I think I can do without my own geek.” Zo did her very best to look self-sacrificing.
Delia snorted. “Nice try.”
It would have taken a braver person than me to tell Delia that she couldn't just assign each of us a personal geek the way we sometimes let her play dictator with our wardrobes. As far as I'd been able to tell, the boy in study hall wasn't interested in me at all. He'd just been interested in my tattoo.
And that led me back to the thoughts that I'd been dwelling on all morning. Who was this kid? Why hadn't I ever seen him before? Our school was big, and I wasn't exactly observant, but shouldn't I have noticed him at some point over the past four years? And how in the world had he recognized the symbol? Oakridge High didn't even offer Latin, let alone more esoteric dead languages.
And yet …
If there was one thing I'd learned from being the Third Fate, it was that there was no such thing as coincidence. The pattern was what it was, and everything happened for a reason.
“You think we have time to run by Escape before fifth period?”
Zo groaned at Delia's question. Shopping wasn't Zo's cup of tea any more than chili cheese fries were Delia's. I glanced down at my watch. “Maybe,” I said, offering Zo an apologetic smile.
Et tu, Bailey? came the silent remonstration.
“We've got seven, seven and a half minutes tops before we need to leave.” Annabelle provided a more definitive answer. “Escape is a two-minute walk, so you wouldn't really have time to look at anything …”
Delia was not dete
rred in the least. “Sold!”
We bused our trays, and the rest of us followed Delia, whose mall sense of direction was so honed that she could have made it to Escape blindfolded. We were halfway there when, all of a sudden, I felt a familiar tingle at the back of my neck.
Sidhe.
The feeling caught me totally and completely off guard. It was subtle, the kind of thing you might not notice if you hadn't felt it before, but I couldn't ignore it. It was a feeling of sameness, of innate recognition. It was the kind of feeling you get when you meet someone's eyes and, for a split second, you know that they're thinking the exact same thing you are.
It was a feeling I'd only had in this world once before. At this mall. The day we'd bought the tattoos.
“OMG.”
“Delia, if we stop anywhere else, we won't even make it to Escape.”
“No, A-belle, like seriously—OMG. Look.”
There, directly in front of us, was a small kiosk filled with accessories.
“Is that … ?” Zo trailed off.
“Morgan.” I said the name softly, my eyes meeting hers across the room. She had bicolored hair and unearthly blue eyes the exact same crystalline shade as Adea's. Two years ago, this woman had sold us the tattoos that had changed our lives, then unceremoniously disappeared. She was Sidhe, one of the oldest, and she was here.
Again.
I stood there, frozen, even as my own thoughts came back to haunt me. There was no such thing as coincidence, and if Morgan was here, this whole Reckoning thing was much, much bigger than Adea and Valgius had led me to believe.
Of the four of us, Annabelle was the only one who didn't go into some state of shock. Instead she just calmly appraised the situation, taking in every last detail and, more likely than not, attempting to categorize it and commit it all to memory. Zo, Delia, and I were momentarily silent, each of us staring at the familiar face.
“Hello, girls.” Morgan's voice was hypnotically musical. That, more than anything, identified her as something greater than she appeared.
“Hello.” Annabelle's voice was soft, respectful but cautious, as she returned Morgan's greeting. Zo didn't bother with pleasantries and instead just grunted. As for Delia, she completely recovered from her shock, and the shopping genes that dominated her DNA took over. “So what do you have for us this time? Because personally, I've been looking for some kind of locket. Preferably a very classic style, but with some small, modern twist. And if it could give me my transmogrification back, that would be awesome.”
“Hello, Bailey.” Morgan somehow managed to say those words without seeming like she was ignoring Delia altogether.
As hard as I tried, I couldn't quite bring myself to respond. This was crazy. Morgan. Here. She was Sidhe. She was Poseidon, Neptune, whatever, and she was here. First Adea and Val put the whammy on me during study hall, and now Morgan reappeared after a two-year absence, with nothing more to say than “Hello, Bailey.” And the crazy just kept on coming.
Morgan reached out and put her fingertips beneath my chin, lifting it up and angling my eyes toward hers. “You've grown up.”
Somehow, I didn't think that one of the oldest and most powerful Sidhe in either world had come to the mortal realm to channel my aunt Margie and her trademark “Bailey Marie, look how you've grown!”
Zo, sensing that I wasn't exactly jumping for joy at this turn of events, took a step forward and narrowed her eyes at Morgan, the implication clear. Zo had no powers, and Morgan was probably the most powerful being any of us had ever met, but Zo wasn't about to shy away from kicking some fairy butt if she thought she could protect me by doing so.
“I wanted to see you,” Morgan told me, ignoring Zo as easily as she had Delia, “before you met the Others.”
“To warn me?” I couldn't help the question.
“No.” Morgan's voice was high and clear, so pure that it almost hurt to listen to it, but at least this time I was able to resist the thrall of her unearthly blue eyes. “To give you something.”
The last time Morgan had “given” me something, I'd wound up with a tattoo on my back and the world's most unusual part-time job.
“You may be Adea and Valgius's blood, Bailey, but don't forget who it was that brought that blood to this world. I watched your family for centuries, waiting. You carry my name.”
Was it weird that it had never occurred to me that my last name was her first? It was right there, plain as day. Bailey Morgan.
Seriously, though, I was already dealing with an übermother, an earthly father, two mystical parental types, and three best friends who wouldn't let me mope, even when a good moping was really and truly called for. I didn't exactly have a lack of guidance in my life, and the last thing I needed was a fairy godmother.
“So.” Delia tried a second time to get Morgan's attention. “Got any hoop earrings?”
If Morgan heard Delia, she didn't give any indication of it, which was an even bigger clue to her nature than the voice or the eyes, because there wasn't a human being alive who could resist, let alone ignore, Delia Cameron.
“I have something for you.”
It would have been so easy to allow the sound of her voice to overwhelm me, but I nibbled on my bottom lip, trying not to give in to the depth of her tone.
“I don't give gifts lightly, Bailey,” she continued. “Things are changing, and they will continue to do so whether you consent to the changes or not. It's only natural that you'd be thrown off balance.”
Was she trying to make me mope?
“Take these.” Morgan held out four chains, each with a single pendant on the end. The four pendants were identical, tiny circular mirrors surrounded by a thin ring of metal.
“Not exactly what I had in mind …” Delia mused.
“What do they do?” Zo phrased the question bluntly. “Because if these things do something, I want the one that does something cool.”
Two years post-tattoos, Zo was still complaining about how everyone else had gotten a cool power, while she'd been stuck with something as passive as premonition.
“Bailey.” Annabelle said my name. “She's waiting for you to take them.”
Part of me wanted to say no to the gift. The other part of me realized that was stupid. If it hadn't been for Morgan and the tattoos, Alecca would have destroyed the world, and we wouldn't have been able to stop her. As far as fairy godmother types went, Morgan had already proven her bibbidi-bobbidi-boo chops. At the same time, taking the necklaces felt like saying yes to something, like if I took them, I was giving the world/my destiny/whatever permission to change.
You don't have to take them if you don't want to.
Zo's thoughts penetrated my shields. I could keep the rest of the world out, but my friends' thoughts had a way of sneaking past the barriers, even when I wasn't listening for them. Something about Zo telling me that it was okay to say no to Morgan's offer gave me the last push I needed to say yes. Things were changing, and this time, I was going to be ready.
I expected images to flash through my mind when my hand closed around the chains, but instead I was rewarded with a single moment of pure, peaceful nothingness. No worries. No thoughts. Silence.
“Wear them,” Morgan said, her musical tone never changing. “Always.”
With shaky hands, I turned to the others and held out the necklaces. One by one, my friends took them until each of us was holding one. Silently, we undid the clasps, and then we stood there, staring at one another. Their thoughts came into my mind without words, and as I clasped the necklace firmly around my neck, I knew that whatever happened, there wasn't a force in either realm that could tear my friends from my side. They put on their necklaces, willingly accepting whatever risk came along with entering the magical world once more.
As we stood there, Delia verbalized what we were all thinking, in her own uniquely Delia way. “One for all, and all for accessories.”
Zo snorted.
Annabelle smirked.
I smiled.
And Morgan disappeared.
“I can't believe she just disappeared,” I grumbled as the four of us headed back to the food court en route to my car. “I mean, who does that? Seriously, who lays in wait for someone at the mall, tells them stuff that makes absolutely no sense, thrusts jewelry into their hands, and then disappears?”
“I like her,” Delia said decisively. “And if you're actually complaining about free jewelry, I may have to disown you as a friend. At the very least, there's going to be some kind of intervention.”
Zo shuddered. As the recipient of more than one fashion intervention over the past few years, she recognized the validity of Delia's threat.
“It's not that I mind the necklaces,” I amended quickly. “It's just …”
That I didn't like what these gifts represented? That I hated that Morgan had come right out and told me things were changing and there was nothing I could do to stop it? That I was starting to suspect that the chance of death involved with being Reckoned might actually be a nonzero number?
“It's unsettling,” Annabelle said, vocalizing what I could not. “Not the jewelry per se,” she amended quickly, lest she incur Delia's wrath, “but that the very idea of Bailey meeting the other Sidhe seems to have provoked a visit from Morgan.”
“What about the fact that we have no idea what these suckers do?” Zo offered, hooking her pinkie through the chain around her neck. “If that isn't disturbing, I don't know what is.”
“Argyle socks with plaid minis?” Delia suggested, straightening her own necklace so that the pendant was dead center, just above the neckline of her low-cut top.
The conversation continued as we walked toward the food court, but I found myself falling uncharacteristically quiet. We'd all spent so much time together over the past few years—heck, over the course of our lifetimes—that my friends were very good at reading me, but somehow none of them had caught on to what bothered me the most about Morgan's words, and these gifts.
It wasn't the nonzero chance of death.
It wasn't the fact that cryptic and Sidhe were practically synonymous.
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