Everyone snapped to. Lenobia hesitated, and then kinda nodded to herself, changed direction, and disappeared into her office.
Huh. So now with the approval of a tougher-than-tough vampyre professor a human cowboy was telling an ex-Raven Mocker, some undead guys, and a bunch of fledglings what to do. Huh.
By the time we rounded up all the kids, got on the short bus, and drove back to the depot it was just a little before six A.M. Even I was tired and unbelievably glad it was the weekend. I swear I didn’t want to do anything but sleep, watch trash TV, and maybe do a little decorating of the tunnels. I was just thinking about my thick blue blanket (that I’d grabbed when I’d crammed my clothes and stuff from my dorm room into a cardboard box), and how nice it would feel to be curled up under it with Stark and Nala when Stevie Rae rained on my parade.
“Okay, we gotta hurry.” She motioned to me, Rephaim, Stark, Darius, Aphrodite, the Twins, and Damien. “It’s gonna be dawn in about an hour and a half. Rephaim and Zoey have Kalona stuff they need to tell us.”
I sighed. “Okay. In the kitchen.”
It took even longer for us to get the kitchen cleared of hungry fledglings and sent off to their rooms.
“This ain’t gonna work good for long. We need us a place where we can have our own Council Meetings without morons all up in our business,” Kramisha said, as she frowned at Johnny B who was trying to see how many Cheetos he could cram in his mouth at one time.
“Muh uh mu,” Johnny B said around the Cheetos.
“Just take your silly ass outta here. We got things to discuss.” She shook her head and finished shooing him and the last of the red fledglings from the kitchen. Then Kramisha faced the rest of us. “No. I ain’t leavin’.”
“Oh, for shit’s sake, you have another poem?” Aphrodite said.
“I read in
“Latin? Seriously?” Aphrodite said. “Your English isn’t even that great.”
There was a giant silence, then Stevie Rae said, “Dang, Latin always sounds so smart. Good job, Kramisha.”
“Thank you. It nice to be ’preciated by my High Priestess. Anyway…” She dug around in her gihugic bag until she found her purple notepad, then she pulled it out, came over to the table, and slapped it down in front of me. “This one’s for you.”
“Why?” I said before I could make my mouth stop.
Kramisha shrugged. “Don’t know, but you’re supposed to read it.”
“It would really be more helpful if you could get a little more info when these poems ‘come to you,’” Aphrodite air quoted sarcastically.
“Wrinkles,” Kramisha said without looking at her.
“Fine, I’ll read it.” I took the paper and then glanced at my gawking group. “Yes, out loud.” And I read:
As I read the last two lines my stomach squeezed. I glanced up at Kramisha. “You were right. I was supposed to read this.”
“How do you know?” Stark asked.
“The last lines—the part that starts with Darkness—it’s what Nyx said to me right before she kissed my forehead and filled in my crescent the day I was Marked.”
“Does the rest of it mean anything to you?” Damien said.
“Well, I dunno. We all know why Dragon would be crying.” Rephaim hunched his shoulders and I gave him a quick apologetic look. “The years and fears part could have to do with Dragon, too. Clearly we’re gonna have to get Shaylin involved ’cause of the True Sight part, and I’m not even sure what a paradox is.” I sighed. “So, in other words, no, I’m clueless about the rest of it.”
“A paradox is a statement or a situation that is contradictory, but true,” Damien said.
“Huh?” I said.
“Okay, an example: the paradox of war is that you have to kill people in order for people to stop being killed.”
“God, I hate figurative language,” Aphrodite said.
“But you are smart, my beauty. When you put your mind to something you figure it out,” Darius said.
“The paradox could have something to do with Kalona and Rephaim,” Shaunee suddenly spoke up.
“What do you mean?” Stevie Rae asked.
“Twin?” Erin said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Shaunee told her and then continued. “What I mean is that it’s a paradoxical situation, isn’t it? In order for Rephaim to prove he’s changed sides and is being good now, he has to turn his back on his dad, and that’s something that would usually be considered bad.”
“You may have something,” Damien said.
“She is fire,” Aphrodite said.
I blinked. “And Kalona is ice.”
“But my Twin doesn’t have anything to do with Kalona,” Erin said.
“Yes, she does,” Rephaim said. “She understands how I feel about him, especially after today.”
“Rephaim, I know you want your daddy to be a good guy and love you, but you just gotta give up on that,” Stevie Rae said. I could hear the frustration in her voice.
“Please tell her about today,” Rephaim said to me.
I stifled a sigh. “Kalona wants a truce with us.” After the commotion of everyone being all “no way” and “oh please”—well, everyone except Shaunee and Rephaim—I went on to explain exactly what had happened between Kalona, Rephaim, and me, and summed up with, “So, no, I don’t think we can trust him, but having a truce with him isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
“Rephaim needs to keep our business to hisself,” Kramisha added, giving Rephaim a hard look.
“Yeah, we’ve already talked about that. Right, Rephaim?” I said.
“I won’t tell Father our secrets,” Rephaim said.
“It’s more than that, though,” Stark said. “It’s not a secret that we’re living here, but that’s something Kalona didn’t need to know.”
“If it’s not a secret Father could have found out anywhere,” Rephaim said.
“Yeah, maybe. But did ya ever think that maybe if he really had left Tulsa and was out west somewhere and he thought you were at the House of Night surrounded by Sons of Erebus he would have kept flying west and we’d be rid of him?” Stark said.
“That wasn’t going to happen. Father wasn’t going to leave me.”
“He already did!” Stevie Rae suddenly blew. She stood up and wrapped her arms around herself as if she was trying to physically hold her emotions in check. “He left you when you made a choice for good. He’s only come back now ’cause your brothers couldn’t get you to spy for him. So now he’s tryin’ for himself.”
“Spy?” Darius said.
Rephaim was looking at Stevie Rae as if she’d slapped him, but he answered Darius. “Yes. That is what my brothers came to ask of me. I refused right before Dragon and the Aurox creature found me.”
“Okay, look, like I already said, it’s clear that we shouldn’t trust Kalona, but I do think that he made a valid point today. If Neferet is immortal and can only be destroyed by herself, then we definitely need help in figuring out how to push her in that direction.” I paused and then added, “I also think we can trust Rephaim, even though he
