Banishing the Dark (Arcadia Bell #4)(6)

My mind jumped back to the last time I remembered seeing him. The afternoon I’d been trapped by Dare. I’d confessed my real identity to Kar Yee and Jupe. Kar Yee had left angry. Jupe had stayed, interrogating me, until he found out I was planning to go to Florida alone. He didn’t take it well. And he let something slip that he shouldn’t have.

Lon had bought me an engagement ring.

“Oh, crap,” Jupe muttered, reading my face.

And judging from the way Lon shifted uncomfortably, Jupe must have told his father that he’d spilled the beans about the ring. My cheeks heated. Lon and I never had a chance to talk about it. I remembered that he’d given me plane tickets for Christmas, had wanted to take me to the French Alps. Pretty romantic for someone like Lon. Add on a ring, and you had a big step for two people who hadn’t been able to say “I love you” for the first several months of their relationship.

Our French Alps sex vacation was certainly not happening anytime soon. But did he still want to give me the ring? And did I want it?

“One thing at a time,” Lon said quietly.

I nodded and buried awkward feelings while Jupe quickly changed the subject. “Hey, like, you should be sleeping or something.”

“I’ve slept more than enough over the last month,” I assured him.

“No, I mean, it’s day. You’re supposed to be sleeping in the daytime. That’s what Priya says. Your mom uses moon energy to tap into you. I asked him if they had the same moon in the Æthyr, and he said they had three moons. Can you believe it? Three! So I asked him if your mom could use their moon energy or ours, and he said ours.”

I stared at Jupe for a moment. Then Lon.

“He’s been summoning Priya,” Lon said.

“So I gather.” I looked at Jupe. “How are you two getting along?”

“Someone needs to tell that guy to put a shirt on,” Jupe said. “Plus he’s kind of a dick.”

“That’s my guardian you’re talking about, you know.”

Jupe backpedaled. “It’s just that he’s so serious all the time. I don’t think he knows how to smile.” He did—it just didn’t look like much of a smile with all those pointy teeth. “And he’s always trying to boss me around, and he doesn’t look that much older than me. When I asked him his age, he said he was only three months old. He told me all about how Hermeneus spirits can reincarnate into new bodies when they die and that they usually reincarnate into babies, but sometimes they get lucky and can hop a ride on an older body. Which is what he did. Crazy, right?”

“Crazy.” And more than I knew about Priya’s new body. At least, more than I remembered knowing.

“But I asked him how long he had his previous body,” Jupe continued, “and he said he’d only had it for eighteen years. Is that true?”

“I never thought to ask him.”

Jupe looked at me as if I were nuts, but I wasn’t about to explain how Priya had once been a sexless, subservient projection with the personality of cardboard and that most magicians don’t make small talk with their guardians. But still, if Priya was eighteen, that meant he’d been all of ten years old the first time he’d attached himself to me. And that weirded me out.

“Priya will tell you almost anything if you ask,” Jupe informed me proudly. “And I asked him all kinds of shit.”

“Clearly.”

“Don’t worry. I reported everything Priya told me to Dad.”

I glanced at Lon. One quirking brow and the flare of his nostrils confirmed that his barely restrained impatience with Jupe’s energetic questions hadn’t changed. This made me simultaneously want to laugh and cry. In a good way. Lon’s eyes squinted at me in shared amusement while Jupe chatted on, oblivious to our silent conversation on the sidelines.

“Priya says you can’t fall asleep at night. Like Nightmare on Elm Street. Your mom is Freddy.”

But instead of killing me when I dreamed, she’d just puppet me into killing Lon. Or Jupe. Or whomever the hell else she wanted.

“He also says your mom is trying to do some complicated magick ritual in the Æthyr, and—”

“Jupe,” Lon said sharply. “Remember what we talked about?”

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” I looked at Jupe, waiting for an answer.

“Dr. Mick says not to bring up anything too upsetting until you’re on your feet again.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Go on, Jupe. What else did Priya tell you?”

Jupe glanced between us before continuing. “She’s undergoing some kind of purifying ritual, where she fasts for a week. Like, she only drinks water, and she does some sort of weird meditation. Priya wasn’t very good at explaining it,” Jupe said, assuring me the communication problem wasn’t on his end, which I didn’t believe for a second. “Anyway, your mom doesn’t know you’re awake. At least, Priya’s pretty sure she doesn’t know.”

That was something, I supposed.

“But don’t worry,” Jupe continued. “Priya figures you’ve got anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks before she finishes the ritual and crosses back over to earth to control you. So all you have to do is find the spell your mom used when you were born and reverse it. That way, you’ll break your connection with her, and she can’t get inside your body. You can do that, right?”