The last time I’d been alone with Cal, he’d kissed me. It had definitely been a kiss of the “We Might Die So This Is Just Us Saying Good-Bye (Maybe)” variety, but still. He was, technically, my fiancé (you know, as if Prodigium aren’t weird enough, they also have arranged marriages). Being engaged brought a whole new level of weirdness to my and Cal’s friendship.
Cal gave one quick glance back at me, and even though I couldn’t be sure, I thought his gaze fell on my mouth for just a second. I tried hard not to gulp, and when he left the room, I followed him.
Wow,” I said as we came to a stop. “These aren’t really tents. They’re more like cabins. Or like a tent and a cabin had a baby. A ‘tenbin.’”
It was a bad joke. A stupid one, and my heart wasn’t even a little bit in it. Archer would’ve laughed at it anyway, I thought, and once again, pain slammed into my chest, nearly leaving me breathless.
Cal didn’t say anything, so I just swung my arm out, gesturing to the tents. “Pick any of them. They’re all empty.”
Still not looking at me, Cal moved toward the tent directly in front of us, and pushed back the flap. It occurred to me that I probably should have just given him the lantern instead of following him inside, but by the time I’d had that thought, he was already in the tent.
I climbed the steps and ducked through the canvas doorway. “Wow,” I said to his back. “Not exactly the digs we had at Thorne, huh?
I thought about you. Every day.”
I froze, my hand still holding the canvas flap.
Cal’s voice was slightly hoarse as he continued. “Three weeks is a long time to wonder where someone is. All that time, I thought maybe I’d done the wrong thing, telling you to find the Brannicks.”
I turned around then. I wanted to make a joke, or say something sarcastic, anything that would cut the tension enveloping us. Instead, I said, “I thought about you, too.”
Cal glanced up, and I met his eyes. “Cal, you…you saved my dad’s life. You tried to save Archer’s.” My chest ached, saying that out loud, but I made myself go on. “That’s so huge, I don’t even know where to start. ‘Thank you’ doesn’t really cut it, you know? And I’m not sure there’s a fruit basket big enough to-“
He rose to his feet, and suddenly his arms were around me and my face was pressed against his chest. He smelled good, and familiar, and tears sprang to my eyes as I put my hands on his back and pressed him closer. He stroked my hair. “He might be okay, Sophie,” Cal murmured. “The Eye could’ve gotten him out.
I stared at our hands. “Am I ever going to see you again?”
“You better believe it,” he said. “Didn’t I promise you we could make out in a castle?”
Chuckling, I drew my hand back. “You did. And to take me on dates. Real dates with no swords or ghouls or angst.”
“Well, there you go,” he said. “As soon as we’ve saved the world from a demon invasion, it’s you, me, and Applebee’s.”
I rolled my eyes, but I was grinning now. “Oh, the romance.”
His smile slowly faded. “I will see you again,” he said, serious this time. “I promise.” He moved closer to me so that his translucent legs disappeared into the bed. “Mercer, I-“
And then, just like that, be blinked out and was gone.
Oh, good, it worked,” Archer said, his ghostly face relieved. Unlike Elodie, his voice came in loud and clear, and so familiar that my heart broke all over again.
I stood frozen, my back against the door. Even though he was faint, I could see him smirk.
“Um…Mercer? Haven’t seen you in nearly a month. I was expecting something like, ‘Oh, Cross, love of my heart, fire of my loins, how I’ve longed-“
“You’re dead,” I blurted out, pressing a hand against my stomach. “You’re a ghost, and you think-“
All the humor disappeared from his face, and he held up both hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not dead. Promise.”
My heart was still hammering. “Then what the heck are you?”
Archer almost looked sheepish as he reached inside his shirt and pulled out some kind of amulet on a thin silver chain. “It’s a speaking stone. Lets you appear to people kind of like a hologram. You know. ‘Help me, Sophie-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.’”
“Did you steal it from the cellar at Hecate, too?” Archer had collected all sorts of magical knickknacks back when we had cellar duty at Hex Hall.
“No,” he said, offended. “I found it at a…store. For magical stuff. Okay, yes, I stole it from the cellar.”
I rushed across the room and thrust my fist at his solar plexus. It went right through him, but it was still kind of satisfying. “You jerk!” I cried, striking at his head. “You scared me to death! Cal said The Eye probably had you, and I thought they’d found out about you and me working together, and killed you, you arrogant piece of-“
“I’m sorry!” he shouted, waving his translucent hands. “I-I thought the talking would give it away, and I didn’t mean to scare you, but I’m not dead! So would you please stop hitting me?”
I paused. “You can feel it?”
“No, but it’s still kind of unsettling to see your fist coming at my face.
I, uh, saw Archer last night,” I said, like I’d just bumped into him at Starbucks. “He used this communicating stone thingie to…drop by, and, um, say hello.”
“And you just now decided to mention this?” Dad asked.
“When I got here, you guys were already yelling at Torin,” I fired back. “I didn’t exactly have a chance to get a word in. Besides, Archer didn’t know anything, really. Or at least nothing more than we do. I didn’t think it was a big deal. He was only here for like, five minutes.”
“In your room?” Mom asked, eyebrows up.
“He was non-corporeal!” I cried. “And all…ghostly. Everything was totally G-rated, swear.”
“One of L-Occhio di Dio is your boyfriend?” Finley asked incredulously.
We were inches away from each other. I let my arms drop to my sides. “You’re not dead.”
“Not even a little,” he replied. And then he smiled, a genuine, happy smile, and my cheeks started to ache. That’s when I realized I was grinning, too.
“So hologram means-“ I finally said.
“It means non-corporeal, yeah. Which sucks seeing as how there are a lot of very corporeal things I’d like to do with you right now.
So the Casnoffs are at Hex Hall,” I said. “Probbaly with however many demons they’ve managed to create. What are they doing there? Throwing a hellacious slumber party?” When no one said anything, I added, “Get it? Hellacious? Because they’re all…Forget it.
Rachel HawkinsWe could go to Lough Bealach,” Aislinn answered.
“Is that a place, or are you choking?” I asked, earning me a glare in return.
Dad made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh. He covered it with a cough and said, “Lough Bealach is a lake in Ireland. It was once a very sacred place to the Brannick family, if I’m correct.”
“The most sacred place,” Aislinn answered. “It was once the Brannicks’ responsibility to guard it.”
“What’s there that needs guarding?”
“Supposedly, an opening to the underworld,” Mom answered.
“If we’re going to fight demons, it might be handy to have a lot of demonglass, seeing as how it’s the only thing that can kill a demon,” Aislinn said. “And the underworld is the only place we could get it.
“Like literally going to hell?” I asked.
Everyone ignored me.
The boy is right,” Torin said, even though he and Cal were probably close to the same age (well, plus or minus five hundred years, I guess). “And the sooner, the better. We’re in stasis now, but something is coming. I sense a-“
“Great disturbance in the Force?” I interrupted before I could stop myself.
Torin frowned. “I suspect you’re mocking me, but I don’t understand the reference.
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