House of Royale (Secret Keepers #4)(49)

Xander’s palm was warm as it caressed my back. “Go,” he whispered. “Swim. The legretos mix perfectly here, and the colors are brightest right in this spot. This is where you were born.”

There was no way in hell they got my mother under here without some sort of hardcore drugs. She was not big on sacrifice, that was for sure. I guessed duty forced her hand. No wonder she was so ready to bail on me when I was old enough to look after myself.

My stomach started to roll as I moved forward, gliding because I didn’t want to kick and disturb the amazing rainbow. I gave myself a quick pep talk. “It’s going to be fine, Ava. You got this. It’s just rainbow water, and you need this map to save the world. You’ve always wanted to save the world, remember. Like … a masked vigilante.”

“You’re going to be fine, Avalon.”

I snapped back to reality, letting out a groan as I realized they’d all heard me. I’d totally forgotten about that. “Right, I know that.”

One day I’d stop making a fool of myself in front of people I cared about.

The brightness started to overwhelm me when I got closer. I shut my eyes for a moment, moving toward the sacred waters.

I didn’t expect it to feel different, but it was icy cold, shocking me enough that my eyelids flew open. A kaleidoscope of bright colors filled my vision, and it took longer than I expected for my eyes to adjust. Reaching down, I lifted my shirt up to find just my normal tanned skin.

“Lift it higher, Ava!” Emma shouted, and I winced as her voice echoed around my bubble. I wasn’t the only one, either. “Oh, sorry,” she said at a much lower decibel. “I just thought I saw something on Ava’s back.”

Turning, I kept my back to them while I lifted my shirt all the way up and over my head. “Anything?” I asked.

There was an extended pause, and I was just pulling my shirt down again, planning to turn and make sure they hadn’t all been eaten by a meglam, when a warm body pressed against my spine, the heat very noticeable against the chill of the waters. “I got you, Avalon,” he whispered. And for that instant in time, I let myself believe that he did.

“What does the map look like?” I asked him.

His hand traced across my back, almost reverently. “There isn’t a map. It’s a circle of eight figures, and there are coordinates right in the center. Spread across the center of your back.”

“Eight,” Maya repeated. “That’s the eight of us. We’re joined, and only together will we find the stone. That’s what it means, right?”

“Are we all in the stream?” I asked.

“Yes,” Xander said. “When we moved closer to you, the coordinates appeared.”

Emma let out the hugest of joyful sighs. “God, that makes me so happy. I knew we were eternally bonded. The eight of us. We’re the best family anyone could wish for. I promise I will always have your backs. Always.”

“Same,” Callie said, quietly. “Now let’s go save our worlds.”

“Does everyone have the coordinates memorized?” Lexen reminded us of the reason I was in a freezing stream with my shirt over my head. “We can’t use the network to figure out where it is, so we’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

“Google!” Maya and Emma shouted at the same time.

“The first part is easy enough to remember,” Daniel said with a laugh. “I volunteer to remember the zero.”

Callie actually laughed out loud. “Always lazy at school, Dan. That’s the latitude,” she told him. “The equator is the center of the earth, so it’s always zero. The other coordinates are the important ones.”

“Definitely need Google for this,” Maya said. “Nobody knows coordinates off the top of their head.”

Xander gently pulled my shirt down and I turned to face them. “Got the numbers memorized?”

Lexen nodded. “Don’t worry, Daelighters have excellent memories. We won’t forget.”

Awesome. Time to go.

My emotions were mixed in that moment. Leaving House of Royale was hard. I’d only been here for such a short time. But it wasn’t as devastating as I expected, maybe because I had recently learned the most important lesson of all. Home was people, not places. It all made sense to me now.

Xander recruited some Royales to help us back to the round disc between the houses, and in no time at all we were standing on the edge of this water world, lacing up our shoes.

We weren’t the only ones on the disc either, preparing to cross to Earth.

The warriors had come.





17





We made our way through the crowds toward the center of the disc. There were two small groups waiting there, one with Lexen’s dad and sister, along with another dark-haired male who bore a scar down one side of his face. They were chatting with a pair of regal Daelighters. When Chase and Maya crossed straight to them, I figured they were Chase’s parents, the overlords of House of Leights.

Lettie and Tristall were also in that overlord group; they must have come up while we were in the sacred waters. Lettie had changed from her casual attire and now wore a floor-length dress of seaweed green, its lengths trailing across the ground behind her. The crown on her head was coral-like in structure. The protruding sections that weaved between her hair were in shades of purple and blue.