Lady Renegades (Rebel Belle #3)(36)

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.

“A book,” Blythe answered, and one of the chips cracked in my fingers.

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” I told her. “What with it being all book-shaped and such. What I mean is what does it say, and what was it this Dante person took—”

Blythe cut me off by raising a hand and giving me a firm “Shh!”

Had someone pulled that crap on me at cheerleading practice, I’m pretty sure I would’ve murdered her. As it was, I was coming very close to dumping my glass of sweet tea over Blythe’s head. But since a simple glance at the pages of Saylor’s journal revealed the same mishmash of Greek and English we’d seen in the books at David’s, I decided to let it slide so Blythe could keep reading.

I stirred a chip in the salsa while Blythe read, and at my side, Bee nudged me. “You okay?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. On the one hand, we’d found what we were looking for. On the other, I still felt weirdly . . . disappointed.

When Blythe had said she’d had a “sense” of where we should go next, I’d hoped it would be a direct line to David. That we could find him and . . . fix him. Whatever that meant. The waiting was starting to get to me, and even though we’d only been gone a few days, I was already starting to feel like we were running out of time. Two weeks didn’t seem long enough, but it was all we had, and while it had probably been a little na?ve to think there would be an easy answer at Saylor’s, I had hoped for . . . well, something.

Across the table, Blythe made a little sound of frustration, and I looked over at her. “What?”

She shook her head, dark hair brushing her shoulders. “I don’t know what Dante took out of this book,” she said. “But whatever it was, it was big. Saylor has all these notes about trying ‘something’ and reading about ‘the spell,’ but she never says what it is. And then right before the ripped pages, she’s all excited and saying that if this works, it’ll change everything and then . . .”

Blythe lifted the journal, letting it fall open wide so that the jagged edges of paper stood up slightly. “I always hated that dude,” she said with a sigh.

Frustrated, I snapped another chip in half, the sound of mariachi music seeming louder and more annoying now. “Okay, so as soon as Saylor dies, Alexander sends his lackey to find Saylor’s journal, but Dante doesn’t take the whole thing, just rips out the pages he needs. Why? It would’ve been easier just to take the book.”

“If someone took the whole book, Saylor would’ve known,” Blythe said, shrugging. “But ripping out a few pages wouldn’t have set off the magical alarm, as it were.” She frowned. “Which is weird, actually. Most of the spell stuff I’ve found of hers was a lot more careful and well-done. But the magical alarm she put on this thing? That was done in a hurry.”

I nodded, but thinking about that—Saylor knowing that once she took David, she could never go back home again, and doing a quick spell on her journal, thinking she was leaving it somewhere safe—just made me feel sad all over again.

“You know what?” I said, sliding out of the booth. “I’m not all that hungry.”

I wasn’t surprised that Bee followed me out of the restaurant, and when we stood in the parking lot, she looked over at me. Well, down at me. Bee really was freakishly tall.

“So I’m not sure if you know this,” she said, “but Blythe kind of sucks.”

I crossed my arms. “She’s not my favorite person, I’ll admit, but . . . I don’t know. She hasn’t been as bad as I thought.”

Bee shaded her eyes from the sun with one hand, squinting at me. “If you say so. You know, we could ditch her,” she suggested, and I wasn’t totally sure she was joking. “Let her find her own way back to wherever she came from.”