by Gabby Fawkes
Finally, I proposed an actual meeting meeting in the Flying Narwhale. And now, here we were, a bunch of Olympians and three unsure girls. We’d already killed time by reading the latest article in the Papery Spoon (a newspaper that folded, amusingly enough, into the trim shape of a spoon if you so desired). It had summarized our destructive break-in at the DSA base in a small paragraph on the front as ‘groundless rumors that will not be mentioned here except to debunk them.’ But now it was becoming increasingly clear that whoever Kian had invited wasn’t showing up – or was majorly late.
“You are certain we’re awaiting someone else?” Aphie said dubiously, sitting in her chair daintily like she might get herpes from the seat.
“Yes,” Kian said shortly. She glared at Aphie with a challenge-me-bitch-I-dare-you look.
“Fine,” Aphie said. “Only I have an opera in two hours, so if they don’t show up soon, I’m gone.”
“What opera?” Dion said, looking crestfallen.
Aphie didn’t deign to even glance his way. “I told you, if you can’t confirm in advance what date and time you can go to a show with me, I’m not rearranging my schedule around you.”
At the sound of people approaching, Axel’s chair scraped along the floor.
“You didn’t,” he said, glaring at Kian.
“This must be who Kian was waiting for,” Artemis said brightly, nodding at the three women who’d approached our table.
I recognized them, of course. The three red-haired witch sisters, although for the life of me, I couldn’t remember who was who.
“Of course we didn’t let one of our own go with you without any method of communicating with us,” the straight-haired one said stiffly to Axel.
They had drawn their wands, while Axel looked like he was ready to throw a punch. Considering that the last time we’d been in this same room with them, they’d sent cutlery barreling toward him, I could hardly blame him.
“I invited them here to help with the rescue,” Kian said. “We’ll be needing all the help we can get.”
This seemed to come as something of a surprise and disappointment to the sisters.
“We supposed you had decided to leave,” the short-haired one said, “after observing how Ares and Olympus is…”
Apollo twirled a fork on the center of his palm, saying coolly, “Are you suggesting that all Olympians behave how my brother used to?”
“No, of course not,” the curly-haired sister said quickly, her wand wavering. “Only that… witches belong with witches.” She cast a firm look and nod at Kian.
Sitting down and linking her arms in Demi’s and mine, Kian said fiercely, “I belong with my friends.”
The witch sisters’ gazes flicked to me uneasily. How far exactly had word reached about my violent transformation, and what I was? Right now, the cracks in the mismatched wood floor looked awfully appealing.
“This is more important, anyway,” Kian said. “Helping free my classmates from… here, let me tell you.”
Kian waved a hand, and a chair inched forward uneasily. Looking a bit pleased at this demonstration of her magic, one witch sat down and the other two waved up some chairs they sat on too.
But as Kian filled the witch sisters in on everything Jeremy had told us, their unconvinced faces didn’t change. Even after, there was a long unpromising pause, while each sister tapped something different – the short-haired sister her foot on the floor, the curly-haired sister her pinky finger onto a shredded-looking coaster, the straight-haired sister her pointer finger on her lip.
She was the one who spoke. “You procured all this information from the boy responsible for the Times Square attack?”
Axel let out a snort. “There you have it,” he told Kian. “Why there’s no point in bothering with witches.”
“Give them a chance,” Artemis argued. Although her dark almond eyes were still narrowed from the straight-haired sister’s question.
“A chance to what?” he said. “Show that they’re as much the prejudicial bitches as they’ve always been?”
The short-haired sister rose, her purple glittery robes swishing as she did so. “Our kin’s loyalty amongst ourselves and distrust of those who are genetically hardwired to commit atrocities” –her glare travelled from Axel to me –“doesn’t make us prejudiced.”
“Meaning?” Kian demanded, her coral lips a frustrated gash. “You don’t believe us? Don’t believe our friend?”
“Has it not occurred to you that this could be a trick, a trap?” the short-haired sister said.
As protests rang out, the curly-haired witch rose too, plowing on. “Your friend could’ve had a powerful spell put on him, or worse.”
“No,” Apollo said, standing up too. “I healed him myself. I would’ve known.”
“Perhaps,” the short-haired witch said, rising. “Yet there’s no way of telling for certain what to believe.”
“You’d risk some innocent kids being tortured just to save your own asses?” Kian demanded. Cheeks flushed, Kian whipped her gaze from one sister to the next, like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“I said nothing of the sort,” the straight-haired sister replied stiffly. “Only that requesting our help in a plan you seem more than equipped for, with individuals we don’t trust…” She tapped her finger on her frowning lip.
“So you won’t help, then,” Kian said dully.
“When the time comes, we will,” the short-haired one said, already rising to go. The others followed suit, and the next second, they were gone.
“When the time comes,” Kian muttered to herself as she sat back down. “Thanks for nothing.”
“Well, that was fast,” Aphie said airily.
“Don’t take it personally,” Dion consoled Kian. “Witches are an extremely close-knit community, and loath to trust outsiders.”
“They’re selfish bitches, you mean,” Kian clarified, prompting appreciative chuckles from the rest of us.
“We still have a good amount of people helping us,” I pointed out. “Why don’t we get on with figuring out how to get in?”
I figured the faster we got on point, the less chance we had to find something else to argue about.
“Fine. I’ll go first,” Kian said.
She waved her fingers and several small figures appeared on the table. One of the standing group held a small paper-looking something. On closer inspection, I saw who Kian had conjured was… us. One miniature figure had Demi’s butt-length curls, while mine had its hair in my signature ponytail. I stifled an impressed gasp. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had been practicing my powers. Clearly, Kian had improved her magical capabilities even more.
“My idea is simple, though it won’t be simple to do,” Kian was saying. “I perform a tracing spell, with the use of our wristbands.” One of the small figures lifted its arm, which had a wristband, then waved its hand. Next second, an X appeared on the piece of paper. “Then, a cloaking spell for us to get into the school itself.” The same little figure waved its hands again, and they all disappeared.
“Ooo, good idea,” Demi said appreciatively.
“Cool figures too,” I said.
“There’s just one problem,” Aphie said flatly.
I turned to glare at her. “Which is?”
Her mildly contemptuous look was on Kian. “You found out you were a witch, what – a few weeks ago?”
“Yeah, why?” Kian said.
“There’s no way you could’ve mastered those spells yet.”
A disappointing silence reigned, as Aphie looked to Axel. “Isn’t that right?”
He responded with a frowned nod.
Kian sighed. “The witches were supposed to agree to help…”
“It’s okay,” I said, squeezing her hand. “It’s not your fault they chickened out. Anyone else?”
“Yeah, I have a plan,” Axel said.
Kian waved her hands and the figures appeared once again.
“What?” s
he said, at Dion’s bemused smile. “It adds to the theatricality.”
“I say we kidnap one of the DSA higher-ups,” Axel said. With another wave of Kian’s hands, the small glowing figures ganged up on another one. “Force them to tell us what they know.” They pinned the one figure to the ground. “Then we go to the school and storm it.” The glowing figures all massed together and ran with weapons raised.
“That’s an idea,” Apollo said in an unconvinced tone.
“You got any better ones?” Axel growled.
“No.”
They glared at each other.
Inside my head, my PV was what felt like hopping up and down saying, Me, me, me, I have one!
-Don’t want to hear it, I told her.
Why don’t we burn the liars, burn it all?
I sighed.
-You’re really a one-trick pony, aren’t you?
When it didn’t respond, I responded in my head, in the most patient voice I could muster: Because my friends are in the same building too.
Details, details.
“I have an idea,” Demi said.
“Since when?” I asked, a bit irked.
Kian had already told us her plan days ago, so there were no surprises there. Even Dion had told us his ludicrous and definitely biased plan (to reasonably explain our situation to the DSA, make the necessary bribes and enlist their help) beforehand.
“For a few days now,” Demi admitted. “I didn’t want to tell anyone until I was sure.”
That made sense. Demi was careful – although she wasn’t the planning type. In all the years she’d been my friend, I’d never heard her make a plan on anything, not even what time to meet in the library to work on projects.
“I’m not sure how to get into the school without being seen,” she was saying now, “other than maybe the gods doing the whole mind-control thing to the guards, if that’ll work.”
“If the DSA are involved, I doubt it,” Artemis said.
“As for finding the school,” Demi continued. “My plan is we go back to Area 51, where we were when we got out of the school zone. And then I grow a field of corn.”
“A field of corn,” I said, sure I’d heard her wrong.
“Yes,” she said serenely, while the faces around us ranged from incredulity to hilarity to despair. “I can grow an awful lot at once now, and if there’s a spot the corn doesn’t appear….”
“You mean like our footsteps,” I said, remembering the way they’d disappeared into thin air in the dirt. “How they just disappeared at one point.”
Kian grinned. “That might actually work.”
“That would call a lot of attention to the area,” Apollo said. “Growing a bunch of corn in the desert plains. Unless you grew them and then ungrew them.”
“Never,” Demi retorted fiercely.
He shrugged, looking to Kian.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I can hardly magic one corn to wiggle, let alone make a whole bunch of them disappear.”
I eyed Demi. I’d known her powers were progressing quickly, but had they really progressed enough for her to make plantlife spring forth from the desert?
“Persephone says my powers are returning so quickly because they were simply lying dormant in me all this time,” Demi said pleasantly.
“Why doesn’t Persephone grace us with her presence in person?” Aphie sneered.
“Because she doesn’t feel welcome here,” Demi replied. “Most on Olympus see her as no better than her husband. As you know.”
“Anyway,” I said quickly, before Aphie could land the retort I could see she was just itching to, “it’s still worth a try.”
“We could use the flying horses to get to Area 51,” Apollo said.
“Or my jet,” Dion said, his face lighting up.
Apollo shook his head. “It’ll attract too much attention. Unless…” He turned my way. “How many students would you say there are at your school?”
“A couple hundred,” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah, no way we’ll be able to transport anywhere near that many on the horses. Dion, you can stay behind and bring the jet after we’ve landed.”
Dion grinned.
“When are we going?” Artemis said.
“Why not tomorrow?” I said.
“So soon,” Apollo said, hand to his brow. “Then again, our plan is fairly simple, only…” He swung a glance to Artemis. “Those walky-talkies work, right?”
Her smile was abashed. “Yeah, I’ve been tinkering with them…”
“Your useless little hobby,” Aphie said coolly.
“I got that hair straightener working for you, didn’t I?”
Axel was the only one who looked thoroughly pissed now. “The plan is simple, but incomplete, chancy.”
“Yours wasn’t much better,” I pointed out.
“I never said we should be charging ahead with it. Not before…” He trailed off.
I leaned it. “What is it?”
He shook his head. “Not here.”
I glanced over to the side, by the window, and we went over there, not escaping Aphie’s ice-cold glare.
“You’re not ready,” Axel said. “If you waited another week or two-”
“My classmates might not have another week or two,” I said. “And we might not either. The more time we give for the DSA to investigate us, the more time they have to figure out what we’re doing and get prepared. Plus, Hera could come back… We can’t wait.”
“But your shifting, it’s still unpredictable.”
“I can handle it,” I said, already heading back to the group.
“Tala,” he said, but I didn’t respond.
Back at the table, Kian was drawing something on a placemat-sized brown napkin.
“Why are the napkins so big here anyway?” she asked as she sketched out a shape that looked vaguely familiar.
“You don’t want to know,” Dion said darkly.
Actually, I did, but I let it be.
“That’s the school, isn’t it?” I asked Kian.
She nodded. “This way, everyone can have a rough idea of where we’re going. Since we’ll obviously have to split up. I’ll have to be the one to charm the teachers’ doors’ locked.”
“Not just you though,” Demi said, looking horrified.
“Nah.” Kian grinned as her hand moved across the page lithely. “Apollo and Artemis will be there.”
“I will too,” Aphie said stiffly.
“Good idea,” I said. Though really, I was happy Axel’s bitchy ex wasn’t going to be on our team. “That way our classmates will recognize Demi and me and trust us – hopefully.”
“Oh come on, now,” Demi said, putting her hands in a V shape to frame her face. “What are you guys always saying about my face?”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ve got the face of an angel,” Kian muttered.
“One more thing,” I said. “If we pull this off, I say we go to that lab too.”
“Fine,” Apollo said. “Some of us should go back with the kids to ensure we get them to Olympus safely. The others can venture on to the lab.”
Axel looked displeased, but said nothing.
Maybe he was right, and maybe we were rushing things, but we had to. Lives were at stake.
We went back to Olympus for the night. I couldn’t sleep. After all the arguing and plan finalizing, we’d gotten back late, with my head still buzzing.
As I tossed and turned and counted the seven trillionth sheep, I heard footsteps.
“Tala?” Kian whispered.
I sat up, smiling at the sight of my friends in the dark. “You guys can’t sleep either?”
“Nope,” Kian said.
“I can’t believe we’re really going back there,” Demi said quietly.
They sat down on my bed on either side of me, their warmth reassuring.
“Was bound to happen eventually,” I said glumly.
“I know,” Kian said. “Just hoped it would be later rat
her than sooner.”
We all had. But circumstances had forced our hand.
Who knows how long we sat there, or at what point we finally sank onto my bed and drifted off. My PV had the last say, Fear not, we’ll burn the liars, burn them all….
It didn’t understand. That was exactly what I was afraid of.
34
We woke up to Dion singing, strumming on a stringed instrument I was pretty sure was a lyre.
“Rise and shine, lovely ladies
Now is the day of reckoning
Let us go rescue your friends
Put your school to an end”
My PV snorted.
“Ooo,” Demi said as we roused ourselves.
I grinned at Kian, who was blushing. She glared at me. “Don’t.”
“Whatever do you mean?” I asked innocently.
Minutes later, we were hurrying along to the winged horses, eating some plums Dion had brought us. We met up with the others, who were all geared up – wearing spiffy-looking Olympian armor and outfitted with swords and weapons.
“Everyone remember what their job is today?” Apollo asked, as though we could have forgotten the plan in just a night. Let alone a sleepless one, spent going over the details over and over again in our minds.
“Bodyguard duty, how marvellous,” Aphie said flatly.
“You don’t have to help me,” Kian said, with a cutting glare. “Or come at all, for that matter.”
“Why are you?” Artemis asked Aphie, looking genuinely interested, as she turned from patting the white horse’s muzzle.
Aphie’s cheeks pinked before she could turn away. “I can’t just want to help like the rest of you?”
Artemis and Apollo exchanged a knowing glance that slid Axel’s way.
I swallowed heavily. Great, looked like Aphie really was on a Get My Ex Back mission.
I pushed the worry out of my cluttered mind. I had way bigger things to worry about today. Like how we were actually going back to the School for the Different. The place that had once been my home – the hellhole that had almost destroyed my friends and me.
But now? It was time for some good old vengeance – magic-style.
As we walked toward another small herd of winged horses a little further away, Axel caught up to me. “About today – don’t go being the hero, okay?”