When I was eleven, my family was visiting my uncle’s farm and Leigh-Anne dared me to touch an electric fence. It had been stupid, but I did what my big sister asked. The shock had blown me off my feet and made my whole arm numb for nearly an hour.
What happened in Saylor Stark’s dining room felt a lot like that. Power surged through me, and every nerve in my body screamed. Saylor’s rings felt almost unbearably hot against my skin, and for one dizzying second, I thought I could smell something burning.
A screen dropped in front of my eyes, just like that day behind the church with David and Ryan. But this time, I couldn’t make any sense of the images. Girls in white dresses, a pool of red liquid on a hardwood floor. Chunks of glass—no, ice—flying through the air. And over the hum of whatever power was linking me and the Starks, the sound of screams. So much screaming.
Almost as suddenly as they’d begun, the images stopped, and suddenly, my hands were at my sides and I was staring at Saylor’s dining room table, my breath sawing in and out of my lungs.
“What—” I said, but Saylor was already getting up, moving so quickly her chair slammed into the wall, scuffing a black mark into the wallpaper.
“David!” she cried, and I turned to see that he was slumped on the floor, head in his hands. I thought the lights were reflecting off his glasses, but then I realized that that wasn’t it. His eyes were solid white.
As Saylor crouched next to him, cradling his head, David began to speak. “The night of the swans,” he muttered. “Power restored, a new era rises, but one must fall. One must give everything. Night of the swans . . .”
“Shhh,” Saylor murmured, smoothing his hair away from his face.
My own face still felt hot and when I glanced down, I saw that all the hairs on my arms were standing up.
David’s eyes fluttered shut, and with a sigh, he sagged against the carpet. As he did, Saylor gently pulled her hands back and rocked on her heels.
Saylor Stark had always been one of the most beautiful women I knew, but now, she looked old and almost . . . haggard. And her eyes, when they studied my face, might have been the same warm blue as David’s, but they were steely and hard and full of something I didn’t have a name for.
“You’re our new Paladin,” she said, and despite all the awfulness of what had just happened, relief so intense it nearly took my breath washed over me. After all this time waiting for my Professor X, it was Saylor Stark. We were going to be fine.
“Well.” Saylor rose to her feet. “We are totally effed.”
Chapter 15
SHE SAID the actual word. Saylor Stark said the F-word.
From his place on the carpet, David started to stir. “What happened?” he muttered, trying to sit up. As soon as he did, he flinched, lowering his head back into his hands. “Did I have a stroke? Is that why I think you said what I think you just said?” he asked Saylor.
“You know,” I said, ignoring David. “You know what I am.”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she walked into the kitchen. I heard the rattle of ice, then a cabinet opening and closing.
David still sat on the carpet, knees drawn up to his chest.
“Are you okay?” I asked, sliding out of my chair and onto my knees. The thick carpet scraped my skin as I edged forward.
“No,” he replied. “I feel like my head is about to explode.”
I moved a little closer to him. He looked so pale and wretched that I was tempted to smooth his hair back the way Saylor had. Instead, I fisted my hands in my skirt. “I know that was intense, but hey—your aunt knows what’s going on. That’s awesome, right? We can get some answers.”
David raised his head. His pupils were so huge his eyes looked almost black. “Actually, Pres,” he rasped out, “my aunt being in on this makes it a hell of a lot weirder.”
Saylor came back in, holding a small glass full of a dark amber liquid. She sat down at the table, threw back the drink, and then looked at the two of us again.
Then she got up and made another drink.
Once that one was down, she finally said, “I’m not really your aunt, David. If that makes things easier for you.”
David went very still, and for a moment, everything was so quiet, I could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.
Then she turned to me. “I thought it might be you. I knew that Christopher was gone, I . . . I felt him go. And then you and David both looked so shaken up yesterday that I wondered if maybe . . .” Sighing, she set her glass down. I stared at the perfectly set table, the silverware still in neat rows, napkins folded, and fought the urge to burst into hysterical giggles. Or tears.
Shutting my eyes, I tried to focus. “Christopher?”
David murmured, “Mr. Hall. That was his first name.” When I opened my eyes, David was still looking at the ground, arms encircling his knees.
Saylor tipped her head back. The light from the chandelier caught her earrings, sending scattered rainbows across the shiny surface of the dining room table. “What happened?”
I told her about the night of the Homecoming Dance as briefly as I could. When I was done, a single tear trickled out from under Saylor’s closed eyes. “It’s my fault,” she murmured. “I knew the wards needed to be stronger the closer we got, but I couldn’t think of a way to do it. And I hoped . . .” She opened her eyes then, focusing on David. “I hoped,” she said again, and then she was standing up.
I half expected her to go make another drink. Instead, she wandered to the window, hands braced on her lower back. “I’m guessing you two will want the whole story, then.”
David was still grayish, but when he rose to his feet, there was steel in his voice. “You think? If you’re not my aunt, then who the hell are you? Why do I live with you?”
Saylor took a deep breath. “Technically, I kidnapped you.”
I felt David jump at that, and wasn’t sure anything had ever been more painful than watching him try to think of some way to respond. “My parents?” he asked, his voice strangled.
“Dead,” Saylor replied, blunt. “Murdered by the same people who are after you now.”
She dropped her head, pinching her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “I’m messing this up. There’s so much to tell you, and I don’t even know where to start. Christopher would’ve been better at this, Christopher was—” Saylor broke off. “It doesn’t matter. The point is you’re an Oracle.”
“But that’s impossible,” I said. “Everything I read said that Oracles are always girls.”
Saylor whipped her head around to me. I think for a second, she’d forgotten I was there. “You’ve already started researching this?”
“A-a little,” I told her, standing up. “Dr. DuPont used the word Paladin, so I started there. Then when I talked to David, he mentioned his . . . his dreams, and we started putting things together.”
The look Saylor gave me was part pride, part appraisal. I’d seen it before at Cotillion practice. “Clever girl,” she said in a low voice. “Maybe you’ll be better at this than I thought.”
Then she heaved another sigh and came back to the table, bracing her hands on it. “But what you read was wrong. There can be male Oracles, although there’s only been one besides you, David. In the eighth century, there was one named Alaric, and—”
David gripped the back of a chair, his jaw set. “I don’t want a history lesson,” he ground out. “You’re telling me you’re not my aunt, my parents are dead, and I’m an Oracle. The eighth century doesn’t really mean shit to me right now.”
“David,” I said, tugging his jacket.