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“Okay, we need to use one of the doors in the Odyss. You ready?”
I nod. Noah takes my hand, summons a door, and together we step through it. We fall to the ground in the Odyss, but thanks to all the practice I’ve had, I manage to stay on my feet. Noah reaches out and pulls another door toward him. At first glance, it looks unremarkable: dark brown wood, a plain knob, and patches of mildew.
Noah opens it, I follow him, and to my surprise we find ourselves on top of a hill. We appear to be several miles from San Francisco – I can only just make out the city lights from here. The city lies like a shimmering sea in the distance, looking really peaceful with its warm glow.
Noah turns to face the other way. Surrounding the hill are woods and fields that look almost black in the pale moonlight. But Noah’s not interested in the landscape. He’s looking up at the starry sky as he takes the comb out of his pocket.
“You were right, turns out it’s a constellation. At first, I assumed the big hole was for the moon. But it’s not, as I found out when I did some research. It’s Jupiter. Which is why we had to come here tonight at this particular time. Jupiter currently rises at around twenty past nine, and the increasing daylight makes it harder to see each day.”
I’ve been staring up at the sky for a while too, looking at the stars and trying to figure out which of these twinkling lights is Jupiter. The longer I look, the more points of light I see, but I have no idea which one is the planet that we’re looking for.
Noah stands close beside me and points. “See? That one.”
I follow his arm and then nod. I gaze with awe at the radiant light.
Noah hands me the comb. “You do the honors.”
“Thanks,” I say, hesitantly taking the comb from him. I take a deep breath and hold it so that I can see Jupiter through the largest hole. I have to rotate it back and forth for a while before I find a position where each of the smaller holes has a star shining through it.
I hold my breath and wait for something to happen. I’m not exactly sure what. I don’t see any thread of light to guide me nor any other kind of glow.
I slowly lower my arm and turn the comb over. What went wrong?
“Maybe I was wrong,” says Noah, running his hand pensively through his hair. “But I was so sure. I checked out loads of constellations and planets. This is the only one that fits.”
I’m still turning the comb over in my hands, inspecting every corner of it, every tooth. But there’s still nothing to see. Or is there? I frown. Am I imagining it, or is that a faint light on the handle? I look closer at the spot, run my fingers over it, and feel a tiny hole there. My finger is too big to fit into it, but when I touch it, it’s as if the light clings to my finger. I pull it back, and a glowing thread forms between my skin and the metal. I keep moving my hand back, and then something white falls to the ground. The light vanishes into the night, leaving behind a piece of paper lying in the grass.
I cautiously pick it up and look at it with Noah, whose mouth is hanging open in astonishment. But it appears to be totally ordinary paper. It doesn’t look particularly old or unusual in any way. I turn it over in my hands, and to my enormous disappointment, there’s nothing on it. Out of some desperate hope, I hold it up to the sky, but still nothing.
“I don’t get it,” I mutter to myself.
Noah runs his hand through his hair again – a sign that he’s clueless too. “I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean. But there must be more to it. Shit!” He sighs. “I was really hoping we’d make some progress.”
Disappointed, I look down at the comb and the piece of paper. “Me too. What do we do now?”
“I’ll go back to the books and look up the constellation. Maybe there’s some clue there that’ll give me an idea.”
“Thanks,” I say, looking up at him. He’s bathed in moonlight, making his face look soft and beautiful. He looks away, and I see his expression darken. It turns hard and cold. The disappointment of this newest setback is really getting to him, and there’s nothing I can do to cheer him up.
Chapter 14
Hey, that wasn’t bad at all,” says Ayden.
He extends his hand to help me up. Breathing heavily, I grasp it and let him pull me to my feet. Once again, I was no match for his attack, and landed hard on the floor. I suspect he doesn’t want to make it too easy for me, but he’s still holding back. And that makes it clear how hard it’s going to be for me to stand up to several hunters who won’t pull any punches.
“Your attack was solid. You just need to react faster. Try to maintain a steady flow of odeon throughout the fight, so you don’t have to start from zero every time you want to send some to Yoru.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” I retort, rubbing the hip that I just landed on.
Ayden smiles in that inimitable way that makes him look totally sexy, and I mentally roll my eyes at myself. Now is really not the time to be thinking about that. I need to figure out how to hold my own in this fight.
“Try to stabilize your odeon at a slightly higher level,” he suggests.
He raises his hand again, and Snow launches another attack. The two of them are not merged enough for Ayden to turn into the fire-being. I know how much stronger that would make him, and I’m also aware that the other hunters will probably use that technique to test me. They’re supposed to push me to my limits.
I dodge a fire ball that Snow has hurled at me. The next attack follows immediately. This time, Yoru intercepts it with his body. I’m about to send my fox the command to attack when I feel a breath of air behind me. I quickly leap aside and just manage to evade it. But the next attacks are already flying at me. I run and duck hectically, meanwhile trying to get Yoru to launch counterattacks. It’s so exhausting that within minutes the sweat is pouring down my back.
“Okay, you’re exerting yourself and slowly running out of steam,” Ayden observes as he lunges at me and tries to grab hold of me.
