use poetic rules to decipher it.'
'Okay, sounds logical,' I said.
'Poetic stanzas are roughly synonymous to paragraphs in prose—each one being self-contained with its own subject, even though it has to fit together as a whole.'
'That's my boy!' Jack said, grinning and hugging Duchess.
'Damn, the kid is
'Seriously a brainyack,' Erin said.
'Just watching him gives me a headache,' Aphrodite said.
'And it means we need to look at the stanzas separately at first,' I said. 'Right?'
'It can't hurt,' Damien said.
'Read it out loud,' Aphrodite said. 'It was easier to understand when Zoey read it out loud.'
He cleared his throat and read the first stanza in his excellent reading voice.
'Well, it's obvious that the ancient one it's referring to is Kalona,' Damien said.
'And Aphrodite and I already decided that the earth bleeding could come from someone being killed, like Professor Nolan.' I paused and swallowed. I should have added Loren, but I couldn't make myself say his name.
'When I found her, there was—there was so much blood all over the grass that it—it hadn't soaked in, so it really did look like the earth had been bleeding.' Aphrodite's voice was shaky with the memory.
'Yeah, it definitely could have been described as the earth bleeding,' I agreed. 'And if the person or vamp who had been killed was powerful, that would fit with the reference to power.'
'Okay, that works, especially when you add the next two lines. Obviously this Queen Tsi Sgili devises the whole thing.' Damien stopped and squidged his forehead, then added, 'You know, it could be a trick reference. Tsi Sgili devises, or brings about what happens, but it's her powerful blood that makes the earth bleed and washes him from his bed.'
'Ugh, nasty,' Shaunee said.
'So who's the Queen of the Tsi Sgili?' Erin asked.
'We don't know for sure. Grandma had no idea. Actually, she doesn't know much about the Tsi Sgili, except that they are dangerous and feed off death,' I said.
'All right, then we need to keep our eyes open for a potential queen,' Damien said.
'Even though we don't have a clue who she or he could be?' Shaunee said.
'We do have a clue,' Erin said. 'Zoey's grandma said the Tsi Sgili feed off death, so it has to be someone who gets stronger after someone dies.'
'Also Zoey's grandma said that often the Tsi Sgili have something called . . . uh . . .
'Neferet,' Damien whispered.
'Okay, we know that she's not what she appears to be,' Erin said.
'But does that mean that she's as evil as it sounds like a Tsi Sgili has to be?' Shaunee said.
Aphrodite and I exchanged a look. I made the decision and nodded.
'She's chosen a different path from Nyx,' Aphrodite said.
The Twins gasped. Jack hugged Duchess, and I swear he made a little doggy whining sound.
'You know that for sure?' Damien said, his voice sounding shaky.
'Yes. We know it for sure,' I said.
'Then chances are Neferet is the queen the prophecy refers to.'
I felt my stomach turn as more pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. 'Neferet has been different ever since the deaths of Professor Nolan and Loren.'
'Oh, Goddess! Are you saying she had something to do with those horrible murders?' Jack gasped.
'I don't know whether she had something to do with them, or whether she just fed off their effects,' I said. And I remembered the scene I'd witnessed between Loren and Neferet shortly before he was killed. They'd been lovers—that had been obvious. And he'd been in love with her, but she'd used him to get to me—used her lover to seduce and then Imprint me. How could she really have loved him and sent him to do that?
What if her version of love was as twisted as she had become? Did that mean she could murder what she professed to love?
'But we all thought the People of Faith had something to do with those killings,' Shaunee was saying.
'Maybe that's what the Tsi Sgili queen wanted us to think,' Damien said, avoiding the use of Neferet's name, which I thought was smart.
'You're right. First those murders, then Aphrodite has a couple whammy visions one right after another about me being killed—and Neferet was definitely involved in at least one of those, and then another vision and this prophecy surfaces? It's too much of a coincidence. Maybe it was supposed to look like a religious hate crime,' I said, thinking about the really nice nuns I'd just met who had definitely made me think twice about believing all Christians were narrow-minded jerks out to get anyone who believed differently.
'When really it was a power crime,' Aphrodite said. 'Because Neferet wants Kalona to rise.'
'Uh, let's just call her the queen for right now, okay?' I said quickly.
Everyone nodded—Aphrodite shrugged. 'Okay with me.'
'Wait, the prophecy could mean that the queen's death makes it possible for Kalona to rise. Let's just say we might know this queen, and if she's who we think she might be, no way do I see her sacrificing herself for someone else to come into power,' Damien said.
'Maybe she knows only part of the prophecy. I mean, Grandma said that no one had written the Raven Mockers' song down—that it's remembered only in little tiny bits and pieces, so it's basically been lost for a zillion years.'
'Uh-oh,' Aphrodite said.
We all looked at her. 'What?' I said.
'Okay, I might be wrong, but what if Kalona is somehow reaching out from his grave or whatever you want to call it? He's been there a long time. What if the earth that has been holding him is losing its grip? He's an immortal. Maybe he can reach from where he is and get inside people's brains. Nyx can do it. She can whisper things to us. What if he can, too?'
'Whisper! That's what Nyx said—that Neferet was listening to the whispers of someone else.' I shivered at the thought and at the gut feeling that told me we were on to something.
'It would be logical that the people whose minds he could reach easiest would be those who were open to death and evil,' Damien said.
'Like the Tsi Sgili,' Erin said.
'Especially their queen,' Shaunee said.
'Ah, crap,' I said.
CHAPTER 24
'Okay, let's go on to the next stanza,' Damien said. Then he read:
'Then, of course, the couplet at the end concludes it.' Damien finished it by reading:
