Snorting, Blythe moved over to the dresser. “If I had to guess, whatever it was had to do with David, and with her being worried about his powers. Think about it. She’s gone for years, then suddenly turns up last summer, just when things started getting intense. Right before the Ephors found him. And besides, it’s here. I can feel it.”
“How?” I asked, picking out an old, well-thumbed copy of Jane Eyre, flipping through the pages. “You’ve said that a couple of times, but you haven’t mentioned exactly what you’re feeling or how you’re feeling it.”
Blythe paused, one hand still stuck in the dresser drawer, and I realized that she was actually attempting to formulate a serious answer rather than some mumbo jumbo or another reminder that I was totally stupid where all this stuff was involved.
“It’s like . . . a homing beacon,” she finally said. “Or the black boxes they put on planes. You know, like there’s something . . . beeping in my head, only it’s magic, not electrical.” She frowned, her cherubic face wrinkling. “Does that make sense?”
I thought about the way I could still feel David, just the vaguest sense of him. Or how I’d been able to feel that he was in danger, that sensation of Pop Rocks deep in my chest.
“Yeah,” I replied, sliding Jane Eyre back into its space. “It does, actually.”
Pleased, Blythe smiled and then turned back to her rifling while I did my best to help. I definitely wasn’t feeling any kind of “homing beacon,” but maybe it was just a Mage thing. I’d always wished that Ryan were the Mage here with us, but, watching Blythe move around Saylor’s old bedroom with the kind of efficiency usually limited to worker ants, I had to admit that she seemed pretty dedicated.
“Bob said she was just seventeen when she took off,” I said as Blythe continued her search. “Same age as me.”
When Blythe didn’t look up, I pressed a little more. “Same age as . . . us?”
She still didn’t lift her head, but her hands stilled. “Not quite. I’m nineteen.”
“How long has the Mage thing been happening for you, though?” I said, leaning back against the dresser.
Blythe heaved a sigh that just ruffled her bangs, but seemed deep enough to make the curtains flutter. And then she shut the drawer, looked at me, and said, “You really want to do this now?”
I shrugged. “Why not? Seems relevant to the task at hand and all.”
Blythe sighed, then shrugged herself, and said, “Fine. We can talk while we search.”
Feeling more pleased with myself than I should have, I sat down on the edge of the bed. “So how long have you been a Mage?”
“I’m not one, exactly.”
That startled me, although I guess it shouldn’t have. The previous Mage usually has to die before another one can take over, and Blythe had powers long before Saylor had died. Ugh, this was way too much rule-breaking to take in, honestly.
“Do you have hobbies?” Blythe asked, pulling me out of my thoughts, and I shook my head, confused.
“Okay, for one, I have, like, a thousand, and two, way to change the sub—”
“Magic was my hobby,” Blythe said, acting like I hadn’t even spoken. “All types of magic. The traditional witches-and-broomsticks kind, the weird hippie-herbal kind . . . and then one day, I came across the Greek kind. The Mage kind. And”—she gave a little shrug, moving over to Saylor’s closet—“that was clearly the most powerful kind, so that’s what I wanted. Why do anything if you can’t be the best at it, right?”
I really didn’t like how familiar that sounded, and I fidgeted, clutching the edge of the bed. “Was that the deal with that other guy, too? This Dante kid who was here?”
Blythe nodded. “I was better, so I was the official Mage for the Ephors, but Dante wasn’t . . . untalented, exactly.” She flashed me a brief smile. “Just not as good as me. By that time, the Ephors needed all the help they could get, so they weren’t about to let a perfectly-good-if-not-great Mage slip through their fingers.”
I wanted to ask more about that, but before I could, my fingers brushed something underneath the mattress.
Dropping to my knees, I reached, my hand almost immediately touching something hard.
I tugged and was aware of Blythe coming up to stand behind me as the book slid out from between the mattress and the box springs.
Glancing up, I looked into Blythe’s bright eyes and asked, “Is this what we’re looking for?”
“Oh, thank God,” she breathed, taking it from me.
Her fingers flew as they paged through the book, her face practically glowing.
And then, just as abruptly, her smile dropped.
There, toward the back of the book, were the jagged edges of several ripped-out pages.
Seemed Dante had found what he was looking for after all.
Chapter 19
AFTER ALL the taxidermy at Saylor’s old house, I didn’t think I’d ever want to eat again, but Blythe and Bee were both hungry, so we stopped in a Mexican place in the middle of what passed for “downtown.”
As soon as we were situated with sweet tea and chips, Blythe pulled the journal out of her bag, and I tried not to wince as the leather hit a drop of salsa on the laminate table. “What is it?” I asked, and Bee leaned farther over the table, trying to see what Blythe was reading.