Miss Mayhem (Rebel Belle #2)(24)

“Are you weirded out by Ryan and Mary Beth?” Bee suddenly asked, and I glanced over at her.

“Why would I be?” I asked, and she cut me a look.

“Okay,” I acknowledged, turning right so that we could take a shortcut through downtown, “it’s a little weird, sure, but . . . not necessarily the bad kind of weird.”

“Mary Beth hardly speaks to you.” Bee twirled one long blond curl around her finger, still watching me, and I rolled my eyes.

“She barely spoke to me before except to be rude, so her dating Ryan isn’t making much of a difference. And why does this bug you so much anyway?”

Bee shrugged, pulling up one leg so that she could wrap an arm around her knee. “Doesn’t bug me. I’m just . . . curious. And an invested party, what with being your best friend and all.”

That made me glance over at her. “Ryan, David, and I are all superheroes—as are you, I might add—and it’s our romantic entanglements you wanna talk about?”

She laughed a little, more a huff of breath than a real chuckle. “I’m starting small.”

“Are you sure things are—”

“They’re fine, Harper,” she said, and then shrugged, pulling her knee in tighter. “As fine as they’re going to be, I guess.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so instead of saying anything, I turned up the radio.

We were rounding the main square when Bee suddenly sat up in her seat, pointing to the statue of Adolphus Bridgeforth, one of Pine Grove’s founders, that looked out over downtown. “Oh, man, someone vandalized poor Mr. Bridgeforth!”

I glanced over quickly, then did a double take, slamming on the brakes. Someone hadn’t vandalized the statue. Someone had gouged marks into the stone around the base.

Wards. Right next to the other ones, the ones Saylor had put up to keep David safe.

My heart pounding, I turned the car so that we were heading toward Magnolia House.

“Harper?” Bee asked, twisting in her seat. “We’re going the wrong way.”

“Tiny detour,” I promised.

Magnolia House, the huge mansion where Cotillion had been held, stood on a shady, oak-lined lane, but as we passed, I was able to see more marks on the wooden columns of the front porch. Another place where Saylor had her wards. They were still there, but now there were new ones next to them.

It had to be Alexander, or whoever he had working for him. But what did those wards do?

? ? ?

An hour or so later, I was the owner of two new pairs of shoes, a dress for Spring Fling, some new jeans, and a gorgeous Lilly Pulitzer skirt. Too bad none of that made me feel much better.

“You’re making that face again,” Bee said, nodding at me over a rack of cute rugby-striped shirts.

I shook my head, like that would somehow change my expression. I’d explained to Bee about the wards, but they were still on my mind. When Saylor had talked about the Ephors, I’d always pictured them in this more . . . administrative role, I guess. Guys in suits, pulling the strings, not guys with actual powers of their own. But Alexander had somehow managed to blow through the wards we’d put up, and now he was apparently setting up the Peirasmos all on his own. Were the new wards to help him, then? Or could wards, like, cancel one another out?

Adding to my irritation, I’d texted Ryan like five times about it, and had yet to get a reply. Funny how the one time I needed him to step up to the plate, he was missing in action.

“Lots on my mind,” I told Bee.

She gave a sympathetic frown. “Nothing new on the trials?”

“Nothing,” I said on a sigh. It had been a few days, and I knew we only had twenty-eight days—one full moon cycle, Alexander had said—to complete the Peirasmos, but other than Ryan’s false alarm, nothing weird had happened at all.

Which felt weird in and of itself.

Now, I walked around the rack of clothes and looped my arm through Bee’s, tugging her out of the store. “Come on. I have an angst only Cinnabon can cure.”

When we got to the food court, Bee went off in search of drinks while I grabbed us a couple of cinnamon rolls.

By the time I got back, Bee was already at a table near the carousel, two Diet Cokes in front of her, and she pushed mine toward me as I sat down, along with a pale pink flyer.

“Look what I found!”

I took the flyer from her, raising my eyebrows. “The Miss Pine Grove Pageant?”

Bee took a sip of her drink and nodded. “We should do it.”

Blinking, I chewed on the end of my straw and tried to think of the best way to answer that. A group of girls I recognized from school walked by, their arms laden down with bags, and Bee watched them pass with a wistful expression on her face.

But then she shook her head quickly, and turned back to the flyer, tapping it with one manicured nail. “Look at the date.”

I did. “May first?” I read, and Bee nodded. “Last day of this moon cycle. Didn’t Alexander say that the trials would take up one full moon cycle?”

He had, but all that had meant to me was that we had a nice timeline—almost a month. I hadn’t considered what might be happening on any of those days.

“The Ephors are big drama queens, right?” Bee said, still looking at the flyer. “Look at what happened on the night of Cotillion.” When she lifted her head, her eyes were brighter than I’d seen them in a long time. “The trials are going to be connected to you, which makes me think they’ll be at school, or involve the town somehow. Stuff like that since that’s, like, your whole wheelhouse.”