“I’m trying to redeem myself,” Blythe said, turning back to slip both feet into the water, kicking them back and forth, making little waves. Again, it was so easy for me to imagine the girl she must have been before.
“I did this,” she continued, her tone matter-of-fact. “I made him into something unstable and dangerous. Sure, he might’ve gotten there eventually on his own, but let’s not pretend that I didn’t speed things up a bit.”
She had a point there.
“So, what?” I asked, coming to sit by her and slipping my sandals off. I still wasn’t so sure about the less-than-clear aquamarine water of the pool, but I’d take my chances. Sitting next to her, I mimicked her position, hands braced on the concrete, feet dangling in the water. “You think by doing this spell on David and making him not an Oracle anymore, all your sins will be forgiven or something?”
Blythe turned her head and smiled at me, but it was sad. “A spell that has maybe a twenty percent shot of working,” she said. “You saw what happened with Dante. You saw how badly that went, and he wasn’t some scary, juiced-up super being. Just a boy.” She shrugged. “If you still had your powers, maybe I could’ve pulled it off. Maybe. Or if we’d gotten to him before he went in that cave . . .”
I blinked at her. “The spell,” I repeated, almost dumbly. “We found the spell that can drain his powers.”
“A spell I might not be able to do,” Blythe said, “which means this is going to fall on you in the end.” She sounded so calm, so certain, that despite the muggy night I suddenly felt cold.
“What does that mean?”
But I knew the answer before she even spoke.
“You’re going to have to kill him.”
Chapter 29
“KILL HIM?” I repeated, my voice shooting up about half an octave.
“Mm-hmm.” She gave a little nod. “It’s our best shot now that he’s already in the cave.”
For a long moment, I just stared at her, wondering if she was screwing with me. But, no, the moment stretched on without her giving a little wink or breaking at all, until finally I said, “We brought you on this trip to help us.”
With a roll of those big brown eyes, Blythe turned to look at me again. “Which I am, duh. Have you missed the part where David is trying to kill you?”
“He isn’t,” I answered, but that just made her laugh.
“Okay, sure. All those Paladins he’s sent after you are the Oracle version of the singing telegram. Got it.”
It was beginning to dawn on me that Blythe was most definitely not kidding, and I stood up so fast I nearly slipped on the edge of the pool.
Blythe, however, stayed right where she was, looking up at me like she was legitimately confused. “Harper . . . you knew this was a possibility. At Alexander’s, when Bee asked why they didn’t just kill Alaric, I saw your face.”
She said it so easily that I felt like she had to be right, almost. Like I was the one being irrational here. But I wasn’t the one who was calmly talking about murdering someone, and I backed up another step, my heart pounding.
Pulling her feet out of the water, Blythe turned to face me more fully. “Honestly, I thought you got this,” she said. “Why else did you buy that sword today?”
The sword. I’d almost forgotten about it, still wrapped in a sweatshirt in the trunk of my car. I couldn’t deny the pull I’d felt toward it. Alexander had said that my vision from the fun house—the one where I’d stabbed David—was just what I feared most, not an actual thing that might happen. But facing Blythe now, I felt sick as I wondered if that were the truth.
Blythe must have seen some of that on my face because she leaned in a little, head cocked to the left. “It’s the reason I took you to the flea market in the first place.”
I shook my head. “No, you said we were looking for some magical rock so you could do the spell Saylor found, and . . .”
The words trailed off as soon as I realized what I was saying. “Magical rock,” I scoffed at myself. “Stupid. And it didn’t bother you at all that we never found it.”
Blythe gave a little shrug. “Because it never existed. I wanted you to find the sword. The one you needed. I thought we might need it just in case, but now that you’ve seen him already in the cave, I understand why you had to have it. Why I wanted you to find it.”
When I didn’t answer, she kept going. “Did you ever think that you were losing your powers not because you were away from him, but because the more dangerous he got, the more you’d be needed to put a stop to him?”
I shook my head, my thoughts whirling, and Blythe crossed her arms over her chest. “Your powers meant you could never hurt the Oracle, only protect him. If you can’t protect him anymore, it’s because he’s become such a danger that he has to be dealt with, Harper. I wasn’t sure of it until today, but seeing him in the cave? Your powers going out for good? Those things are connected.”