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Arden’s low hum is more aggravating than the crow that screeches at us from overhead. “Lovely to see you too, Circe.”
She sends him a withering look. Then, all too quickly, she swings the glare at me. “What’s going on? You’re supposed to be resting.”
Only now do I detect what her urgent tone is truly about. She’s not being a nagging proxy for Hecate. She’s being herself, looking at me with a full-blown case of gut-deep fear. There’s so much intensity in her eyes…
Does she alreadyknow?
“Hey. Kara? You’re really scaring me. What is going on?”
When she issues that last part at Arden as well, I have my answer. She doesn’t know and is now unsure if she wants to. It’s embedded in her energy worse than a wad of gum in her hair.
I use my free hand to reach for hers. “My family is in trouble,” I explain. “The underworld took my sister. She’s trapped in Rerek Horne’s holding hex along with my brother.”
“The new expiration is at midnight,” Arden adds, now blessedly serious.
The irritation fades from Circe’s irises. Her skin, milky as it is, blanches by a number of shades.
“And you think you can break the curse?”
“No. Maybe just pause it,” I say. “Long enough to get Kell and Jaden out.”
But she’s already shaking her head. “Impossible. Not even with the incubus’s help. You’ve only had one day of enlightenment, Kara.”
Arden steps up and around. “And when you first came into your powers, there was no such thing as that training.”
“Training.” Maximus jabs a fast but celebratory fist. “Right?”
Arden doesn’t waver his regard at Circe. “Yet you persisted and learned, did you not? And you were brilliant, were you not?”
The enchantress spears Arden with an unsteady glower but ends it like a lightning bolt to a dry tree. Between blinks, she shoves a good eight feet away from him—before redirecting her punishing stare at me.
“Please, Kara. You can’t run off and try this right now. This is not going to end well.”
I square my shoulders. “What do you think will happen to Jaden and Kell if we don’t try?”
She squirms. “Fine. Then I’m going with you.”
My shoulders dip beneath the weight of yet more shock. “I can’t ask you to—”
“You’re not asking. I’m volunteering. Besides, I can also distract Hecate with a story and cloak our passage past the perimeter.” She adopts a regal pose, as if she’s just hauled a sword out of its scabbard. “You know…I’d venture to say you need me.”
I squeeze her hand, but the gesture isn’t enough. Even yanking her into a fervent embrace feels like a small plop in the ocean of my gratitude. “Thank you,” I whisper. “I don’t know how I’ll make this up to you.”
“A stress to strike from your mind this instant.” She soothes a firm hand up and down my back. “A diamond of Iremia never struggles alone—even if it’s for a mission of utter insanity.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MAXIMUS
The last time I stood on this spot along the Coast Highway, my heart was somewhere in my throat and my legs had turned into in concrete. It was a dark night, bested only by the dread that threatened to eat me alive.
The situation’s only marginally better now. At least Kara’s by my side, and the fading purples and peaches of the sunset do amazing things for her classic dark beauty.
But now’s not the time for odes and poetry. Though we’ve still got hours to spare, the hex’s ticking time clock isn’t far from my mind. Or nervous system.
“So…plan of attack, anyone?” I mutter, not bothering to lock the dinged old ranch service van that Circe rounded up from some obscure corner of Iremia for our transport out of the canyon. But even if it were a stagecoach and some tired Clydesdales, I’d be grateful to her for not defaulting to her powers and zapping us here. Between my field trip to Labyrinth with Z and my zip through the underworld with Gio, supernatural teleportation isn’t high on my bucket list anymore.
“Please don’t call it that,” Circe responds. “Starting a war isn’t our intention. Not here. Not now.”
