“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.”
“And that’s why we’re not going to rush into this—at least not right away.”
“But Jill—” Eddie began.
Jackie shook her head. “We don’t yet know the extent of Jill’s involvement in this. What we do know is that Alicia is baiting Sydney and wants her to come to Palm Springs, where there’s probably a very neatly laid trap. Alicia’s also following her old pattern of wearing out an enemy first. This ‘scavenger hunt’ wasn’t just for her amusement. It was to weaken Sydney magically. If you run off to Palm Springs now, after the magic you’ve wielded these last few days, you might very well succumb to whatever she has in store. Then we lose you and never find out what’s become of Jill.”
I felt conflicted and tightened my hold on Sydney’s hand. I could understand why Jackie wanted to keep Sydney away from danger. I wanted that too. But I also felt the increasing pressure that everyone else did. Each passing day put Jill at greater risk. How could we not take action when we had a lead?
“But,” continued Jackie, as though reading my mind, “that’s not to say I have any intention of just abandoning Jill. I want to conduct a search in Palm Springs—specifically the Salton Sea area—but I plan on doing it with appropriate backup.”
Eddie and I were both confused, but Sydney, as usual, caught on fastest. “The Stelle,” she said, referring to the coven of witches she’d joined.
Jackie nodded. “Them and others. Alicia isn’t just your problem—she represents a problem for the entire magical community. And so the entire community will deal with her. I’ll get them together, and we’ll conduct a search, using magical and conventional means. You, meanwhile, will stay somewhere safe—somewhere far away.”
“And I’ll stay with you,” I said, feeling a little bit better knowing that Jill wasn’t being abandoned. It was tough, almost like I had to choose between Sydney and Jill, but it sounded like Jackie wouldn’t be sitting around idly.
“I’ll go with you,” Eddie told Jackie. Then he turned to Sydney and me. “That is . . .” The conflict on his face mirrored what I felt inside.
“Go,” I said. “We’ll be okay. No one knows we’re gone yet. We’ll disappear somewhere and be fine.”
Eddie hesitated again. He hated to have his loyalties torn, but at last he nodded. “As long as you think you’ll be okay. How did you get away without anyone knowing?”
“I’ll tell you some other time,” I said.
I could tell from Sydney’s expression she was interested in that story too. She looked at Jackie instead. “But I want you to call me as soon as you and the other witches have things secure. As soon as you think it’s safe, I want to be a part of the hunt for Jill.”
“Unless we find her first and defeat Alicia,” insisted Eddie.
Sydney gave him a small smile that suggested she didn’t think it’d be that easy. “I would love that.”
The four of us hashed out a few more details before finally parting ways. I could tell it still bothered Eddie to be leaving us, and he was full of advice on how we should lie low and not attract any attention. He also wanted to send for Neil to guard us, but Sydney dismissed that idea, saying it’d be easier for us to just slip away now. We all agreed Neil might be handy in Palm Springs when we closed in on Alicia, so Eddie promised to make that happen.
“Don’t worry,” I assured Eddie, clapping him on the back after a few more of his well-intentioned pieces of caution. “I have no intention of doing anything that’s going to let Alchemists or Moroi know we’ve left Court. You go do your thing, we’ll do ours, and then you can let us know when it’s safe to join you.”
Jackie and Eddie both agreed they didn’t want to know where Sydney and I were going. The less they knew, the less they could accidentally reveal to others. They were both filled with advice on the kinds of places we should go, however, and I finally had to send them both on their way and tell them we’d be fine.
That left Sydney and me in our rental car, suddenly faced with infinite possibilities. It was also the first time we’d truly been alone in a very long time.
“It’s a little overwhelming,” she admitted to me as we sat in the restaurant’s parking lot. “It’s like we could suddenly live out any of our escape plans.”
“Well, not any,” I remarked. “We’re in the middle of the United States and need to be safely lodged somewhere in five hours so that I can, um, meet up with Nina in a dream.”
Sydney’s eyes widened. “What?”