I hurried to obey, running out of the tent and standing on the other side of the blob, which had liquefied now that she’d momentarily dropped the spell. The ooze moved toward the tent again, and Ms. Terwilliger held up her hands to cast. “On the count of three,” she ordered. “One . . . two . . . three!”
Simultaneously, we released freezing spells, attacking the molten gold from opposite sides. The mass wriggled and writhed in the grip of the magic but slowly began to solidify. I’d never sustained the spell for a long time, but Ms. Terwilliger wasn’t letting go of the magic. I followed her lead until, at last, the gold was still, completely solidified into an irregularly shaped puddle. We let go of the magic and carefully walked up to it. The gold stayed as it was.
“That was weird,” I said. “Not quite as bad as the last attack.” I still had a few cuts from the little magical fireflies that had come after us in Pittsburgh.
“Only because it didn’t get to us,” warned Ms. Terwilliger. “I hate to think what would’ve happened if we’d all been asleep in that tent when it liquefied.”
I shuddered, knowing she was right. “But what does it mean?”
No one had an immediate answer, but Eddie surprised us when he spoke a few seconds later. “I’ve seen this before.”
“A golden brick that turned into a deadly, rampaging puddle of molten metal?” I asked.
He shot me a wan smile. “No. Look at that shape. Doesn’t it seem familiar?”
I tilted my head to study the golden form before us. There didn’t seem to be any design to the shape. It was an amorphous, vaguely ovalish shape that looked like it had hardened that way by coincidence. Eddie’s intense look of concentration said he believed otherwise. After a few more moments of concentration, revelation lit his features. He pulled out his cell phone and tapped in something. With shoddy coverage in the park, it took a little while for the phone to find what Eddie needed, but when it did, he was triumphant.
“There, take a look.”
Ms. Terwilliger and I peered at his screen and found a map of the greater Palm Springs area. Instantly, I realized what he’d tuned into.
“It’s the Salton Sea,” I breathed. “Good recall, Eddie.”
The Salton Sea was a saline lake outside of Palm Springs, and the metal puddle before us was exactly the same shape as that body of water. Ms. Terwilliger shook her head and gave a snort of dismay.
“Wonderful. I left Palm Springs to warn you, got caught up in a magical scavenger hunt, and am now, after all that effort, simply taking you back home.”
“But why?” asked Eddie. “Has Jill been there the whole time? And who’s the one pulling the strings behind all—”
“Get back!” cried Ms. Terwilliger, holding her hands in a warding gesture.
Not even Eddie could move fast enough from what she’d spotted. The golden blob had begun to tremble, like it was suddenly filled with energy that needed to get out. I tried to cast a shielding spell, but even as the words formed on my lips, I knew I wasn’t going to be fast enough. The blob exploded into a hundred little golden razor blades that came flying toward us—and then stopped. They hit an invisible barrier and fell harmlessly to the ground.
I stared at where they lay, my heart pounding as I thought of the terrible damage they would have caused if Ms. Terwilliger hadn’t been fast enough. So it was a surprise to me when she said, “Excellent reflexes, Sydney. I couldn’t manage it in time.”
I jerked my gaze up from the blades. “You didn’t cast that?”
She frowned. “No. I thought you did.”
“I did,” a voice behind us said.
I spun around and gasped as, incredibly, Adrian emerged from the trees. Forgetting the tragedy that had nearly taken place, I ran into his arms, letting him lift me off my feet. “What are you doing here?” I exclaimed. “Never mind.” I kissed him hard, so overwhelmed that I didn’t even care that Eddie and Ms. Terwilliger were nearby. Being away from him these last couple of days had made my heart ache more than I’d expected, and I think we were both surprised when he was the one who finally broke the kiss off.
“I told you I’d find a way to get here,” he said, grinning. His gaze fell on the blades, and his smile faded. “Not a moment too soon, I guess.”
With his arm still around me, I turned back to the razors, which glittered ominously in the grass. A memory slowly surfaced within me. “I’ve seen those before,” I said, sounding much like Eddie had earlier.
Ms. Terwilliger exhaled a shaking breath. “It’s a nasty spell. Not one to be cast lightly.”
“I know,” I said softly. “I cast it once.”
Everyone turned to me in astonishment. “When?” she asked. “Where?”
“At your house . . . your old house, before it burned down,” I corrected. A thousand memories crushed down on me, and the world swayed a little as I suddenly made connection after connection. I’d thought I didn’t know anyone capable of using this kind of human magic—anyone who’d want to come after me, at least. I’d been wrong. I met my friends’ expectant gazes. “It’s the spell I used to kill Alicia,” I explained.
Chapter 7
Adrian
ALICIA DEGRAW WAS ALIVE.
It was shocking to me, so I could only imagine how Sydney must feel. She thought she’d killed Alicia. Alicia had been the apprentice of Jackie’s sister, Veronica, but had gone rogue. That was no small thing, seeing as Veronica herself was certainly no role model. She’d been obsessed with stealing youth and power from other witches, effectively leaving them in comas for the rest of their lives. Alicia had turned on her mentor, taken her power, and then gone after Jackie. Sydney and I had been involved in a showdown at Jackie’s house at the end of last year—a showdown that had resulted in said house burning to the ground. We hadn’t known for sure if Alicia had made it out, but now we had our answer.
“I’m kind of torn,” Sydney admitted, stirring the coffee she had yet to drink. We’d left the campground to go discuss matters in a twenty-four-hour restaurant, and it was a sign of her worry that the coffee was untouched. I was pretty sure I’d never seen her pass on caffeine in all our time together. “Part of me’s relieved I didn’t actually kill someone. On the other hand . . . well, this kind of complicates things.”
“You’re certain?” Jackie asked from across the table. “Those are the same ones?”
Sydney held up a golden razor blade, the only one she’d saved from the campsite. The rest had been destroyed. “Positive. You don’t forget something like that. That night I fought her, I transformed some perpetual-motion balls into blades just like these.”
“I remember those,” Jackie murmured, almost wistfully. “They were an end-of-the-year gift from a former student. I think he hoped I’d raise his grade.”
Sydney seemed not to have heard. There was a haunted look in her eyes. “I sent the blades toward Alicia. It was just instinct. She fell down your basement stairs, and I couldn’t stick around to see what had happened—not with everything on fire.”
I put my hand over hers. “You did what you had to do. It was the right thing. She was—is—an evil person.”
“I suppose,” Sydney said with a sigh. “And I guess this answers our questions. We’ve been trying to figure out who would have a vendetta against me and could use human magic. She’s the perfect fit.”
“Now that we know she’s behind this, let’s go after her and get Jill,” growled Eddie. This life on the road had made him shave even less, and he was well on his way to a beard. “She left that clue: She’s in Palm Springs. She needs to be stopped once and for all.”
“Agreed,” Sydney said, snapping out of her earlier malaise. “We need to finish this and get Jill. None of us are going to sleep anytime soon—we might as well hit the road now and go to Palm Springs.”
“Not you,” said Jackie. “I don’t want you anywhere near Palm Springs right now.”
“What?” exclaimed Sydney. Her intensity was a match for Eddie’s. “But that’s the next piece of this! Alicia all but told us.”