“Do you still like black licorice?” I ask suddenly.
He smiles. “Of course. It is the superior licorice.”
“Ugh. And I bet you still think yellow cake is better than chocolate.”
“Yeah, because it is.”
“Oh, come on,” I say. “Yellow cake? It’s the lamest of all cake. It’s like the cake that wasn’t cool enough to be banana. It’s just yellow. That isn’t a flavor—it’s a color.”
He snorts. “Look who’s talking. Do you still scrape the frosting off your cake before you eat it?”
“Yes, because the frosting is a distraction. I like to taste my cake, thank you very much.”
He shakes his head. “You are the only person in the universe who thinks that.”
We sit there, grinning at each other like idiots for a few long seconds. I bite my lip as I consider my next words. Even though I know I should keep them to myself, I can’t help but tell him.
“I thought I would die when you stopped visiting the Aerie.”
A shadow settles over his expression, and for a moment I regret bringing it up. But his next words change that. “I know. I know how you felt.”
“Why? Why did you guys stop coming to visit us?”
Tallon tugs on one of my curls, pulling it straight before letting it go with a sigh. “Your mom found out what I was, and she didn’t want me around you anymore.”
“What do you mean? That doesn’t make any sense.”
His dark gaze finds mine. “I’m a monster, Zephyr. Your mother never knew that, not until that day when you and Whisper dropped the eggs on me and Alora.”
I think back to that day, the last time Nanda came to visit with Tallon and Alora in tow. After that she came by herself a couple of times before she stopped visiting altogether. “I don’t remember anything.”
He smiles sadly and traces the dark lines on my arms. A chill runs across my skin. “I started to leak, like you sometimes do. I was so mad at Whisper, because I knew she put you up to it.”
“Please. I wanted to drop the eggs on Alora. You were just collateral damage,” I say, grinning and trying to lighten a conversation that’s gotten way too serious.
But Tallon shakes his head. “It didn’t matter. When I got mad, I lost control of the darkness in me. Your mom saw, and she went ballistic. She called me an aberration and told me I needed to get out before she put me out of my misery.”
I think of how Whisper freaked when she found out about my ability to use erebos. Now it makes sense. She wasn’t afraid of the Matriarch or any of the other leaders in the Aerie finding out what I could do. She was afraid of what my mother would do.
My heart aches for Tallon, for what he must’ve gone through when my mother yelled at him. I know how her insults made me feel, and I could convince myself that she was just saying those things because she wanted me to be a great Harpy. Tallon didn’t have that excuse. “I’m sorry. But you know you aren’t really a monster, right? Because if you are, what does that make me? And I’m too cute to be a monster,” I joke. I want to wrap my arms around Tallon and hold him. But I’m afraid. What if he pulls away?
Tallon shakes his head, as though he doesn’t believe we’re having this conversation. “You’re right—forget about it.” He raises his hand, his thumb tracing my lower lip. I freeze, afraid he’ll stop if I so much as breathe. “I wish you smiled more. I wish I could make you laugh like I used to.”
My heart shudders to a stop. When it starts up again, too fast and too hard, I feel different. Tallon’s confession makes me brave. I lean toward him. He meets me halfway, his lips touching mine hesitantly at first. The taste of him, orange and mint, unleashes a wildness in me. I grab his shirt and pull him with me as I fall back across the bed.
As he kisses me, as I kiss him, I think back to the night I found Whisper with her boy from town. No wonder she was so mad. I can’t imagine what I would do if someone came between me and Tallon. This thing between us, this hunger, it makes me feel murderous. I want him to be mine.
His hair tickles my cheeks, and I push it back as I open my mouth. I want to taste him, to feel him. My hands fumble for his shirt buttons even as his hand is snaking up under my shirt. When his fingertips brush across my stomach, I growl and wrap my leg around his waist. I break the kiss and nibble at his ear before kissing the hollow of his throat. His hands are splayed across my rib cage, warm and possessive. He suddenly pulls back, breathless.
“No, stop. We have to stop.”
The darkness rises all around us, and it doesn’t want to stop. I know what it wants, and I want the same thing. I want to understand the mystery of it all. I want the answer to why my sister would give herself to an Æthereal when she knew it would never amount to anything except her death. I want to understand what kind of emotion is strong enough to make Cass kill her father and wage a battle against an Exalted, a battle she knew she would never win. I need to know what it’s like to love, to feel something that strongly.
I want to know it all. And I want Tallon to show me.
The darkness wraps around him, rising off my arms. My hands reach for Tallon’s waistband, and he suddenly lurches back and away from me. I sit up. My lips tingle, and I feel cotton headed and confused. “Tallon?”
“I’m sorry, Zeph. We can’t. It’s just . . . no. I’m sorry. I won’t ruin you.” Before I can say anything else, he flees the hotel room, the door slamming behind him. I stare at it a long time before I realize that he isn’t coming back.
I hug my knees to my chest, the ache of want still thrumming through me. The darkness tries to comfort me, but it can’t. Because everything I want right now has just fled.
I consider going to him, asking him what I did wrong. What did he mean “ruin” me? What, like I’m some maiden to be delivered to an altar as a sacrifice? The whole idea is silly, even among the vættir. We stopped sacrificing virgins at least a thousand years ago. He had to have meant something else.
Maybe I just scared him. I know it’s too soon, that the feelings between us are too new. Maybe he still sees me as that little girl, tagging along behind him, begging to be carried when my legs got tired. Maybe I need to give him more time to really see me, for him to know me as more than just his childhood friend.
But I don’t want to wait. I’m not sure how much time I have left, after all. Tomorrow I go to see the Oracle.
And after that? Well, I’ll most likely die heroically in a climactic battle. Isn’t that how it always goes?
I stay up for a little while, waiting for Tallon to come back. But he doesn’t. Whatever I did wrong is enough to make him spend the rest of the night somewhere else. I eventually take a hint. I turn off the TV, turn out the lights, and lie on the bed until I finally cry myself to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE ORACLE LIVES IN A trailer park and not a nice one. Blue navigates the car down a narrow gravel road while Alora directs him past the run-down mobile homes. Tallon and I sit in the backseat, ignoring each other. I think we’ve pretty much agreed to pretend the incident in the hotel room didn’t happen.
That’s unfortunate because it’s all I can think about.
When I woke up this morning, Blue was banging on the door, yelling at me to hurry up so we could get back on the road. My magic hangover was gone, but my eyes were all puffy and my nose clogged from crying myself to sleep. I didn’t even bother taking a shower, just grabbed my backpack from where it sat on the floor and walked outside. Blue paused mid-knock, his eyes wide. I didn’t even have to sniff the air to sense his curiosity.
“What happened to you?”
“Magic hangover,” I muttered. What I should’ve said was, I’ve never had a boyfriend and Tallon’s a tease and now I’m all confused so I slept like crap. But I didn’t. It’s old news. Plus, it isn’t Blue’s fault his brother runs hot one moment, cold the next.
Blue watched me and shook his head. “Something’s going on with you, Zeph. You seem to be really on edge. Just watc
h it, okay? I mean, yesterday with Alora was kind of . . . alarming.” His expression turned pensive, and I knew he was remembering the incident at the pond.
I didn’t say anything after that, just followed him to the car where everyone waited. Tallon was stuck in the backseat with me again. He didn’t even look at me as I got in, just kept staring out the window like the hotel parking lot was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. The cold shoulder shouldn’t have hurt, but it did.
I force Tallon from my mind and look out the window as we roll slowly through the trailer court. It’s better than sneaking glances at him out of the corner of my eye like I have for the past hour. The houses are only ten or twelve feet apart from each other, sardine cans that are sardine close. The sad patches of land that separate the mobile homes range from bare dirt to overgrown weeds. Grimy little kids play in between the houses, some game that involves running and screaming at high decibels. A woman sits on the steps of one of the houses, smoking a cigarette as she bounces a baby and talks on the phone. I’m disgusted even as I’m impressed by her multitasking.
“This is it right here,” Alora says, pointing to a dilapidated green-and-white trailer. Blue parks the car and we get out.
“Is this a vættir neighborhood?” I ask. The feeling here is very different from the Aerie, where everything was orderly and regimented. It’s even different from Nanda’s neighborhood, which had a feeling of community, with an undercurrent of fear. Here there’s a sense of desperation, and as we walk up the sidewalk, the neighbors watch us with suspicion in their eyes. I’m starting to realize how good I had it, growing up in the Aerie.
Alora shakes her head. I don’t know if she senses that something happened between me and Tallon or she saw it in her Strands. Either way she’s been super polite to me today. I’ve been trying really hard to be equally civil. “No, just a regular place. Oracles can’t live around vættir. Our æther tends to cloud the View,” Alora says, refusing to meet my gaze. Even though we’re playing at being nice, she hasn’t looked me in the eye since I hit her. The bruise on her jaw has faded since yesterday, but my anger at her for not revealing what she knew hasn’t. Now I really don’t trust her.
Blue raps on the trailer’s screen door. From inside come the sounds of the TV, and there’s a creaking as someone gets up to answer the knock. A huge woman appears behind the screen. She’s wider than the doorway, her flowered purple dress blocking out any view of the house.
“Yeah?” she says.
Alora clears her throat. “Parnassus,” she says, which I’m guessing is some sort of password.
“What?” the lady barks out.
Alora shifts from high heel to high heel. “Um, Parnassus. I was told to come to this address and say the word ‘Parnassus.’ ”
The large woman stares at us a moment longer before turning her head and yelling, “Jimmy! There’s a bunch of kids here to see you.” She waddles away, and a hyper skinny guy takes her place. A dark scruffy beard covers his cheeks. He wears a white T-shirt and chinos that hang low on his hips. With the bright red bandanna wrapped around his head he looks like a cheap Hollywood version of a drug dealer.
The only giveaway that he’s more than he seems are his deep violet eyes. They’re the color of grapes with a lavender sheen. I smell nothing from him, probably because of the high concentration of Æthereal blood.
Even though we’re supposed to be here to see a woman, I’m willing to bet my new boots that this guy is the Oracle.
“Yeah?” he says, slouching and giving us a look like we’re all wasting his time.
I sigh, because I’m tired of this game. I push Alora, who looks confused, to the side and stand in front of the door. “Look, we’re here to see the Oracle. And since that’s you, I’m guessing you knew we were on our way before we left an hour ago. So are you going to talk to us or not?”
The guy glares for a moment longer before his face splits into a wide grin. “Yeah, come on in. I should’ve known I couldn’t fool a Harpy.” He pushes open the screen door, and I walk into the house, Blue and Alora following closely behind. Tallon stays outside.
“I’ll keep an eye out for trouble,” he says. Blue shrugs and lets the screen door slam shut behind him.
A skinny black girl sits on the couch, her hair a riot of blue curls. Just like mine. It takes me a moment before I realize that she is me. My copy winks. “Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. Wanted to take you for a test drive.”
I’m not offended. It’s actually kind of cool being able to see what I look like from this angle. The black swirls on my arms are kind of badass. “Shape-shifter?”
She shakes her head. “Nonesuch.”
“What’s the difference?”
She stands, and it’s a little surreal to see a mirror image of myself holding out a hand to shake. The only difference between the two of us are the eyes. The Nonesuch’s are a pale green, only the faintest hint of a metallic sheen. “Shape-shifters can turn into anything they want. I’m pretty much stuck with humans. Females, to be specific.” She winks and holds out her hand. “I’m Ricki.”
“Zephyr,” I say. It’s strange, because I thought I’d learned everything I needed to know in the Aerie. But I’m realizing that I know less than I thought the more time I spend in the real world.
We follow the Oracle, Jimmy, to the bedroom in the back. Heavy-metal posters decorate the wall, and the room has a smell to it that I can only describe as burning foliage. He gestures for us to take a seat on the unmade twin bed, and we sit down. Alora grimaces at the dirty sheets and smoothes her skirt before perching daintily on the edge. I actually feel kind of sorry for her. I’m sure she didn’t think her precious Oracle was a stoner in a trailer.
Jimmy sits on a beanbag chair across from the bed and lights a cigarette. Blue grimaces. Jimmy blows the smoke right at him. Blue says nothing, just waves it away. I have to admire his restraint.
There’s something about the Oracle that makes me want to slap him silly.
Alora coughs a little. “Oracle, we’re here because we believe Zephyr is the Nyx. We know that Hera’s going to use the shades of vættir that she’s been gathering to draw the remaining shadow vættir to the Paths and into a trap.”
Jimmy leans back with a grin. “Wow, really? That’s pretty messed up. Like genocide, you know?”
I glance over at Blue, and from his expression I know that he’s thinking the same thing I am: This guy’s supposed to help us?
Alora clears her throat and nods. “Yes, um . . . that’s why we’re here. We need to know where and when she’ll strike.”
“Oh, the when is easy.” His eyes glaze over and then snap back into focus. “Looks like it’s going to be during the new moon.”
Blue nods. “Makes sense. That’s when the erebos is the highest. You do a spell that big when the æther is down.” I’m impressed by Blue’s knowledge of magic theory, but thinking about magic reminds me of Cass. The hollow feeling in my middle reopens, gaping wide with loss. I stare down at my hands in my lap and vow not to let her death be in vain.
The Oracle clears his throat. “As for where . . .” He drops his cigarette in a soda can and cracks his knuckles. “Let’s see if we can find out.”
Energy crackles through the room, and the Oracle gets a far-off look. His eyes glow a royal purple, and I realize how much stronger he is than Alora. Lavender smoke leaks from his eyes and wreathes his head, and when he speaks, his voice is much lower.
“The end of the vættir, bright and shadow, will come at the strongest Node. The crossroads of the realms.”
I lean over to Alora, who watches the Oracle while gnawing on her bottom lip. “Do you know where that is?”
She shakes her head. Jimmy continues.
“There’s more there. I see Exalteds, all of the bright, and a great approaching army. Clad in the plumage of a peacock.”
“The Acolytes,” I mutter.
Alora leans forward. “What are we supposed to do?”
&nbs
p; The Oracle looks at her, his head turning oddly. “Do?” His voice has changed. It sounds feminine, and the purple drains away from his eyes. Suddenly they’re a reddish brown, the same rust color as the blood on Cass’s toga so long ago. The voice clicks into place, and I jump to my feet.
“Hera,” I growl.
The Oracle turns to me, his expression smug. “There is nothing you can do, Godslayer. You think you can defeat me and my army of Acolytes? I’ve been planning for this day for centuries, and you are not going to stop me. You will be dead by nightfall.”
Just as quickly as it appeared the rust color bleeds away. Jimmy blinks at me, his deep purple eyes back to normal. “Um, I think you should run,” he says, color draining from his face.
“What? Why?”
He doesn’t answer me. Instead the trailer shakes, and there’s the screech of metal giving way as something tears through the side. From where I stand in the bedroom I can see all the way to the living room, so I’m the first to see the cerberus push through the newly widened front door.
“Gah!” I slam the bedroom door closed and look around the room for a weapon.
Blue is already on his feet. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yeah. Hera knows where we are, and now so does the High Council. I’m still supposed to be a prisoner. They must’ve sent it after me.”
“So she gets you out of the way without lifting a finger or endangering any more of her Acolytes.”
I nod. From the other side of the door comes screaming, and too late I remember Ricki in the living room. “Dammit, we have to help her.”
Blue manifests his giant sword with a grin. “Leave this to me.” I open the door, and he dashes down the narrow hallway to the living room. I close the door behind him. Jimmy and Alora both gape at me.
“We need to get out of here.”
Alora stands and tears off the miniblinds on the room’s lone window. She struggles to open it before she swears and kicks it out. It gives way with a crack. I can’t help but grin at her. “I’m impressed.”
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