Lady Renegades (7 page)

“
D
ON'T YOU
HAVE
anything smutty on that cart?”

I blinked at Mrs. Morrison. It was Monday morning, which meant I was helping The Aunts with their volunteer work at the local assisted-living facility, Hensley Manor. They visited at least three times a week, sometimes arranging activities for the residents, sometimes just to chat or sneak in homemade cookies. My Aunts genuinely liked helping people, but they also liked to remind themselves that while they might be old, they weren't
that
old yet. I was usually too busy to help during the school year, but during the summer I tried to commit at least one day a week to being in charge of the mobile library, which was really just a rolling cart full of paperbacks.

Paperbacks that were not smutty enough for Mrs. Morrison.

I glanced back over the rows of spines, trying to find something that had the word “savage” in the title, finally settling on a bright pink book with half-naked people on the front, and a very alarmed-looking swan in the background. “Will this work?”

Mrs. Morrison's watery blue eyes went wide and she plucked
the book from my fingers. “You're a good girl, Harper,” she said, and I smiled as I stood up, pushing my cart toward the door.

“You're welcome!” I said sunnily, then headed out in the hall to continue my rounds. As soon as I was out of her sight, my smile dropped, and I had to fight back a sigh. It had been two days since we'd done the ritual in the field, and while Blythe had turned up, there was still no sign of David.

“Harper Jane, stop scowling!” Aunt May said, coming out of another room, stuffing her knitting in her bag.

I straightened up, trying to smile. “Sorry, Aunt May. Just thinking.”

She gave a little sniff. “You think too much and too hard. You get that from Jewel.”

I didn't think it was supposed to be a compliment, but that actually made my smile a little more genuine. There were worse things in life than being like Aunt Jewel, after all.

“I'll bear that in mind,” I said to Aunt May, pushing my cart farther down the hall.

I made a couple more stops—and a mental note to pick up some more “smutty books” at the local Goodwill—but then the soft chime sounded, signaling lunch. Stowing my cart away in the break room, I went in search of Aunt Jewel. We hadn't gotten a chance to talk after everything at the country club, and while Aunt Martha and Aunt May had grilled me about it on our way to the nursing home this morning, Aunt Jewel had been silent. Which, I knew, meant she was waiting for a chance to talk to me alone.

I finally found her having her lunch outside in the little courtyard between the buildings, and even though it was hotter than Satan's armpit out there, I went to sit next to her. Wordlessly, she handed me half of her sandwich. I peeled back the wax paper and took a little sniff. Aunt Martha's famous curry chicken salad with green apples, one of my favorites.

“I was hoping to get you alone,” Aunt Jewel said after I'd taken a bite. “And ask you just what in the Sam Hill all that stuff was at the country club on Sunday.”

I went to answer, but she held up one hand. “Don't talk with your mouth full, and also don't bother trying to tell me it wasn't important. Girl shows up and you go all ninja on her, I figure it has something to do with everything we've been talking about.”

I swallowed. “It does. That girl . . . her name is Blythe, and she's a Mage. It's a person who does magic—”

“To protect the Oracle,” Aunt Jewel said with a little nod, her silver curls quivering. “I remember what you told me, Harper Jane, I don't have Old Timer's just yet.”

“Alzheimer's,” I murmured, but she waved that off.

“I said what I meant, and meant what I said. So she's the same thing as Ryan, then?”

Nodding, I took another bite of my sandwich. Only when I'd finished did I say, “Yes, but evil. And also crazy. And potentially dangerous.”

Aunt Jewel took that in. “So why is she here, then?”

As briefly as I could, I filled Aunt Jewel in on everything that had happened. The fight at the pool, why I thought David was in
danger, the ritual we'd done trying to find him, and how that had summoned Blythe right to us. Finally, I told her about Blythe's plan to find David.

When I was done, she continued to eat while she watched a hummingbird flit around a bright red feeder. I picked a piece of apple out of the chicken salad and popped in in my mouth, waiting. Aunt Jewel liked to take her time mulling things over.

“Is there a chance?” Aunt Jewel asked at last, turning to look at me. The little rhinestones sewn on her shirt winked in the sunlight, and her eyes were sharp behind her glasses. “Any chance at all that with this girl's help, you could find David and stop him from sending people after you? Or whatever awful thing it is that's supposed to happen?”

Taking a deep breath, I fiddled with the wax paper around my sandwich. I wasn't hungry anymore, not even for Aunt Martha's chicken salad. “I think there might be, yeah,” I said at last, and Aunt Jewel gave a little nod before biting into her sandwich.

“Well,” she said after a moment, “then that's it, isn't it? Nothing else to be done about it.”

I squinted at her, and not just because of the sun in my eyes. “Aunt Jewel,” I said, setting my sandwich down on the bench beside me. “You know I can't just . . . frolic off around the country with Blythe and Bee. I'm not old enough to rent motel rooms, not to mention the fact that my parents would never sign off on some kind of epic road trip.”

“Don't you have some kind of magic for that?” she asked, waving one hand, her rings nearly blinding me. All of my aunts
loved their sparkles, but Aunt Jewel had especially glittery taste. I guess that's what happens when your parents name you Jewel.

Sitting back, I braced my hands on the warm stone beneath me. “Are you seriously suggesting I use magic to brainwash my parents?”

Aunt Jewel made a harrumphing sound. “I'm saying you be the girl you're meant to be,” she said. “I'm saying you have a duty and a destiny and a responsibility, and you are not a girl to shirk those things.”

“I'm not,” I said, and to my surprise, I felt tears sting my eyes. “But . . . this could be bad. Scary. If something happened to me, after everything with Leigh-Anne . . .”

We were both quiet for a minute. I felt like we had all started to come to terms with her death, but she was always in the back of my mind when I was weighing things like this. Yes, I had a duty to David to keep him safe. But I also had a duty to my parents not to do something stupid or reckless that could get me killed.

Aunt Jewel understood that, I knew, and when she looked at me again, her green eyes were bright. “Honey, you know you are just about my favorite thing in this whole world. If anything ever happened to you, I don't know what I'd do.” Her hands, when they reached out to cover mine, were papery and cool despite the heat. “But loving people means encouraging them to be their best selves. Fixing this, sorting it out, making it right . . . that's
your
best self, Harper Jane.”

It was a good thing to hear. Maybe a
great
thing. My heart
seemed to swell up in my chest, and I was suddenly afraid I might burst into tears right there in the Hensley Manor courtyard.

But, I reminded myself, Aunt Jewel didn't know how out of whack my powers had been lately. If she did, would she be encouraging me to go this strongly? I was pretty sure she wouldn't be.

For a second, I thought about telling her. She'd shared a lot of my secrets, after all. It would be nice to have her know this one, too. But this one felt too big, too . . . fraught, and besides, maybe, if I got closer to David, this whole thing with my powers would sort itself out. After all, wasn't it being away from him that was making me weaker? If you thought about it
that
way, wouldn't I actually be helping myself stay safe if I went after him?

Leaning forward, I threw my arms around Aunt Jewel in a hug that could've knocked her off the bench. “You're the best, you know that?” I said, breathing in her familiar perfume of baby powder and vanilla.

She hugged me back with surprising strength for a septuagenarian. “I take it that means you're gonna try?”

Pulling back, I looked at her face and smiled. “Not just try,” I told her. “I'm going to do it.”

Taking a deep breath, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed Blythe's number.

“
W
ELL?” I
SAID,
turning away from the whiteboard, a purple marker in my hand. The whiteboard had been a present from my parents last Christmas, and so far, it had definitely come in handy. Granted, they'd thought I was going to use it for studying or making college decisions, but it had its Paladin uses, too. Like this handy list of pros and cons I'd whipped up for Ryan and Bee.

Unfortunately, they did not look as impressed as I'd hoped. Bee frowned, a hand coming to her mouth. “Um. Harper. Under cons do you have, ‘Might get killed'?”

I looked back at the board, tapping that particular con with the end of my marker. “Well . . . yeah. I mean, it's a
possibility,
so it wouldn't be right to leave it off. Best we go into this thing with eyes wide-open, don't you think?”

Both Bee and Ryan nodded in unison, but slowly, and I got the sense that they weren't really listening to me. They'd both gone a little glassy around the eyes, and Bee was still staring at that one con, a deep V between her brows.

Turning back to the board, I put an asterisk next to “Might get killed,” and added at the bottom, “Extremely low possibility as we possess both magic and superstrength.”

When I looked back at her, eyebrows lifted, she just frowned more. “Your powers—” she started, but I waved a hand.

“For now, I'm fine,” I said. “Which of course means the sooner we find David, the better.”

I turned back to the board before she could say more about that. “Blythe said she can find David. That she has a plan,” I went on, “and while she's not exactly forthcoming about what that is, it's better than the plan we have.”

“Which is?” Ryan asked, eyebrows raised.

“Nothing,” I reminded him. “Our plan was basically nothing.”

Ryan took a deep breath, his chest expanding. “You've got me there.”

Uncapping the marker again, I drew a line between the list of pros and cons and the blank part of the board. “I talked to Blythe on the phone this afternoon and told her that our main challenge is time. We don't have an indefinite amount of it to spend chasing David all over the country. School starts in four weeks, which means this road trip can take two, tops.”

“Why not the full month?” Bee asked, but before I could answer, she lifted one hand. “Right, because you need two weeks to get ready for school to start.”

As SGA president, I had certain school responsibilities that had to be dealt with before the year started. Helping with assigning textbooks, situating lockers, that kind of thing. Not even
tracking down David could derail me from doing my duty to Grove Academy. A girl has to have balance, after all.

“So two weeks,” Ryan said, his eyes moving over the whiteboard. “That seems . . . doable.”

And then he took a deep breath and rose to his feet. “I can keep an eye on things here for two weeks, I think.”

Bee looked up, blinking. “What?”

Ryan huffed out a breath and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I'm not coming with you.”

“What do you mean?” Bee asked, standing up. “Ry, we need you.”

I used to call Ryan “Ry,” too, and it sounded strange hearing it from Bee's mouth. Once again, I was reminded that this was from kind of a weird situation we'd all found ourselves in, even if you took the magic stuff out of it. And right now, I almost felt like I was intruding on something I wasn't supposed to be part of, which was stupid, of course. This was totally something that involved me. And yet, I found myself stepping closer to my desk, fiddling with the big calendar.

I was staring hard at July 31 as Ryan said, “You need a Mage, and you'll have one with you.”

“A crazy one,” Bee countered, and I had to admit she had a point there.

“Someone has to stay here,” Ryan said, and when I looked up, he had his arms folded over his chest, palms cupped around his elbows. He'd lifted his chin just enough to let me know that this was one of those hills he was going to die on. He and David
could go toe-to-toe in the Most Stubborn Guy I Know competition. “David made one Paladin, but he could make more. That one is gone, but who's to say another one won't come after Harper? And if she's not here? What happens then?”

I had to admit it wasn't something I'd thought about, and I was suddenly grateful for Ryan and really liked having him on my team. It was a nice thing to know, actually, that you could break up with someone and maybe like them more.

“Bee,” I said, hoping I came across as gentle and not condescending, “that makes a lot of sense. I'd feel better if Ryan were with us, too, don't get me wrong, but . . . someone has to keep an eye on things here, and we need Blythe to come with us.”

I was a little afraid that Bee might offer to stay with Ryan in that case, and the idea of being trapped alone in a car with Blythe for two weeks kind of made me want to die. But thank God, Bee proved, once again, that she was the best friend a girl could have.

“Ugh!” With both hands, she shoved her hair back from her face, and even though she was clearly frustrated, it was equally clear that she was coming with me. She looked at Ryan and reached out, lightly punching his arm. “Fine. Be right.”

With a grin, he slung an arm around her neck and pulled her in so that he could kiss the top of her head.

“Another girl who says I'm right like it's killing her,” Ryan said with a lopsided grin. “What is my problem?”

“You have excellent taste as far as I can tell,” I told him briskly as I re-capped my marker. “But while you staying here is probably a good idea, I'd be lying if I said I was completely down with it.”

“Because you'll miss my face?” Ryan teased, and I acted like I was going to throw my marker at him, making him laugh and jokingly duck.

“No, because we'll miss your
magic,
” I replied.

“That's a good point,” Bee said, chewing on her lower lip. “Blythe has some, sure, but it's not like we can trust that.”

Ryan scrubbed one hand up and down the back of his neck, nodding. “Yeah, that's the only thing. I almost wish . . .” He sighed, dropping his hand. “It's stupid.”

“Stupider than going off on a road trip with a girl who tried to kill me?” I asked, drumming the marker on my desk, and Ryan huffed out a laugh.

“Fair point. Okay, what I was going to say is that I wish there were some way to put a ward on the two of you. A . . . a protection mark or something.”

Bee had sat back down on my bed, one leg folded beneath her. “Can you do that?” she asked. “Ward a person?”

“A magical tattoo,” I mused, and Bee's head whipped toward me, eyes wide.

“Whoa, you mean like a permanent ward?”

Ryan shrugged. “Don't see why not. At least there's nothing I've ever seen saying you can't.”

I didn't exactly relish the idea of getting a tattoo, trust me. It was right up there with blue hair.

“Do it,” I said, holding my arm out to Ryan, whose auburn eyebrows had disappeared under his shaggy hair.

“For serious?”

Taking a deep breath, I looked at the unmarked, pale skin of my inner wrist. My parents were going to lose their minds over this, but if Ryan couldn't come with us, it made sense to at least bring the best part of him, aka his magic. Okay, maybe not the
best
part of him—that wasn't exactly fair. But the most useful part for sure.

Ryan paused for a moment, then turned to get one of the Sharpies from my desk.

“You sure about the arm?” he asked. “Might make sense to get it somewhere harder to see.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh my God, I am not getting a tramp stamp. I would literally rather die.”

Ryan snorted softly at that and then tapped the end of the Sharpie against the back of my hip. “Here, then. Not right in the middle, still easy to hide with clothes.”

Downstairs, I could hear my parents watching TV, the distant sound of a tennis match drifting up to my room. Next to me, sitting on the edge of the bed, Bee was fiddling with the hem of her shirt, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.

“All for one, one for all?” I suggested, and after a moment, she nodded.

“Might as well.”

Ryan drew the looping mark on my back, a series of whorls and twists that didn't mean anything to me. But while I might not have been able to recognize what he was drawing, I could feel the power coming off the mark. If it felt like this when it was drawn in bright pink marker, how would I feel when it was permanently tattooed on my skin?

“This is for protection against Blythe,” he said as he drew and I tried not to feel embarrassed, “and I'll give you my rose balm. For when you need to be . . . persuasive.”

“We'll get these in white ink,” Bee suggested as Ryan moved on to draw the mark on her hip. “The power would still be the same even if it doesn't show too much, right?”

Ryan nodded, his wavy hair falling in his eyes a bit. It was cute, and I could tell Bee thought so, too. It was there in the little smile that spread across her face, the way her eyes crinkled at the corners. Once Bee's mark was done, Ryan sat back, my desk chair creaking slightly under his weight, and the three of us looked at one another.

Smacking both palms flat on my thighs, I stood up with all the forced cheer I could manage. “Well, shall we hit the tattoo parlor, y'all?”

• • •

Just over an hour later, Bee and I left the Ink Pot with white bandages on our backs and little foil packets of ointment clutched in our hands. Underneath the bandage, the wards Ryan had made throbbed under my skin, both from the pain of the needle— seriously, that was going to be the last tattoo this gal
ever
got, ouch—and from the magic in the mark. If I'd had any doubts about this idea working, I was over them now. No matter what else, Bee and I were definitely warded, both from anything that might hurt us and from Blythe's magic, just to be on the safe side. Still, I couldn't escape the feeling that this was a little bit like putting a Band-Aid over a bullet hole. If more Paladins came after
me, and if my powers stayed . . . blinky, I wasn't sure just how well a tattoo was going to protect me.

That errand done, I went back to my house—Ryan had driven Bee home—and changed into a sundress. No chance of my T-shirt riding up so they could see the bandage.

Mom got home around four, Dad an hour later, and we had dinner outside. It was still hot, but the deck was shaded by big trees, and besides, once May first hit, Dad was all about grilling. That night's offering was steak-and-vegetable kabobs, and I waited until we were nearly done—and until both my parents had had two glasses of wine, not that I'm proud about that—to tell them about the road trip plan. While I kept my hand from straying to the mark on my hip, I leisurely applied the rose balm to my lips, then made sure to touch Mom's hand as I said something, to let my fingers brush Dad's when I brought him a glass of iced tea. I used words like “college” and “bonding experience” and “totally supervised.” I made sure to tell them how there were already three other girls on the waiting list for my job at the pool. But I didn't give any details, and as I finished up, I waited for them to say some variation of “Hell to the no.”

No matter how often I'd seen magic work like this, I never fully believed it
would.
So once my little spiel was done, I was one hundred percent prepared for this to blow up spectacularly.

Instead, to my surprise, they both smiled at me in a slightly dazed way that had nothing to do with the wine and everything to do with Ryan's balm.

“That sounds nice,” Mom said.

“A really good idea,” Dad agreed, nodding.

It was what I'd wanted, obviously. The last barrier to finding David, gone.

So why did I feel so guilty?

But before I had time to stew in too much angst, my phone chimed in my pocket, signaling a text from Blythe. There were logistics to figure out and discussions to have.

And one truly terrifying road trip to plan.