Destined

give you my oath I will cut it down.”

Zoey

“Are you sure we shouldn’t ask Shaylin to come?” Stevie Rae asked. She was sitting with Rephaim in their usual place on the bus while we waited for Thanatos to join us.

“I really think it’s not right for her to come,” I said. “She’s only been Marked for just a few days. She hasn’t had time to even settle in as a fledgling, let alone figure out her True Sight thing.”

“Plus, we’re not advertising that she has True Sight,” Aphrodite said. “The less people know about our business, the better.”

“She was part of Kramisha’s poem, though,” Stevie Rae said.

“We don’t know that for sure. The poem said”—I squinted, like that could help my memory and then, mostly accurately I recited—“the poem said, ‘Seen with True Sight, Darkness doesn’t equate to evil, and Light doesn’t always bring good.’ What if the True Sight part is the same as most of Kramisha’s poems—meant to be symbolic and not literal?”

“Goddess, I hate poetry,” Aphrodite said.

“Kramisha’s not comin’, either?” Stevie Rae said, sounding weirdly whiny. “Shouldn’t we get her?”

“No, Stevie Rae, we need to stick with our circle—our core group,” I said.

“The Herd of Nerd, plus the guys and moi,” Aphrodite said. “Bumpkin, what’s your issue? It’s not like we haven’t taken on the world before and come out mostly ahead.”

“You sound scared,” Damien said.

Stevie Rae glanced behind me where Damien was sitting midway back with Erin.

“I am scared,” she admitted softly.

“Do not be scared.” Rephaim slid his arm around her. “Aphrodite’s vision has forewarned us. Nothing will happen to me.”

“Uh, I’m not so sure being scared isn’t smart.” I spoke up, letting my gut help me reason through my thoughts. “I’m gonna see how my mom was killed. That scares me, so I know I’m gonna have to be ready for something terrible and super hard to watch. Aphrodite had a vision of Rephaim’s death, probably during the ritual we’re getting ready to go do. I think it’s okay if Stevie Rae is scared, you should be scared, too, Rephaim—just enough so you’ll both be prepared and ready for bad stuff if it happens.”

“I’m frightened,” Damien admitted. “Jack’s death is still too raw, too close, and thinking about seeing another death frightens me.”

“We’ll all be with you,” I told him. “We’re all in this together.”

“I’m scared. I’ve never circled without being a Twin,” Shaunee blurted.

There was a very uncomfortable silence, and then from the middle of the bus Erin said, “I’m still here. I’m still water to your fire. You won’t be alone.”

“We all need to be scared safe, not scared stupid,” I said, feeling incredibly relieved that the Twins were kinda sorta talking.

“Fear can be beneficial if it is tempered with common sense and courage.” We jumped as Thanatos seemed to magickally appear in the front of the bus. She was holding a ginormic spellwork basket and wearing a long, hooded cloak that was a beautiful sapphire blue color. She looked powerful and ancient and scary. Then she smiled, and her scary changed to somehow include us and I relaxed just a little bit.

“We’re all here,” I said after I swallowed down the heart that was in my throat. “We’re ready.”

“You are almost ready. Before we leave campus I have to task each of the five circle members. Because it is a reveal ritual, and the spell I cast will allow those present to see that which has been hidden, each of you must bring to the altar something that reveals a truth about yourself that is usually hidden.”

“Oh, boy.” I sighed.

“Take a moment to think about what it is you need to reveal about yourself, and then go collect something to symbolize it. Quickly. We must complete our ritual and set the spell this night, before it passes midnight and a new day begins.”

Shaunee was the first of us to get up. She looked determined as she hurried off the bus. Damien followed her. Then Stevie Rae. Then Erin. I had a sudden thought, and dug through my purse. In the bottom of it, with the used Kleenexes, topless ChapStick, and purse crud, I found it. Satisfied, I looked up to see Stark, Darius, Rephaim, and Aphrodite all gawking at me.

“Do you need help figuring out this assignment?” Aphrodite said, only semi-sarcastically.

“Zoey already has what she needs with her,” Thanatos said.

“Yeah. She’s right. I do.” I had the very immature urge to stick my tongue out at Aphrodite, which I didn’t do (of course). Instead I settled for crossing my arms and looking smug.

We didn’t have long to wait for my circle to come back. Stevie Rae was first. She looked unusually frowny. She wasn’t carrying anything, but when she sat down I saw her rest her hand over one of her front jeans pockets, as if she was protecting something there.

Damien left with his man purse and came back with it. He gave Thanatos an overly perky smile and said, “Mission accomplished!”

Shaunee came back next. She didn’t say anything. She just went back to her seat and resumed staring out the window.

Erin finally came back. She was carrying a little thermal sack. The kind high-end grocers (like Petty’s at Utica Square) give you to carry home ice cream and frozen stuff. “What?” She snapped at us. “I’m back. We’re ready. Let’s go.”

Thanatos quelled Erin’s outburst with one hard look, which sent the half of an ex-Twin skulking to the back of the bus. Then she told Darius, “Take us to the lavender farm of Sylvia Redbird.” Darius pulled the short bus out of the House of Night campus. I expected Thanatos to sit down (uh, like a normal teacher) and bounce along with the rest of us. Instead she took a firm hold of the handicapped (sigh) rail with one hand, and with the other she reached into her super-loaded spellwork basket and pulled out a big bundle of something that looked like a bunch of weeds that had clusters of little white flowers just like I’d seen at the side of the road and in Oklahoma fields and ditches about a thousand times.

“As you all know, we are going to perform a reveal ritual, and I am going to cast a spell invoking death that will, hopefully, illuminate images from the past, specifically those of Zoey’s mother’s murder. It is a difficult ritual and a complex spell.” Thanatos had been speaking to all of us, but now she turned her attention to Stevie Rae. “As I mentioned before, earth is the key to unlocking this spell. The success of the vision rests on the power of your connection to the earth, as well as the commitment of the circle to bringing alive the images of the events of the past.”

“I’m real connected to earth. Promise,” Stevie Rae said.

Thanatos’s lips tilted up. “That is an excellent beginning.”

“I think my circle is real committed to this ritual, too,” I said.

I heard my friends around me echoing my words with yeses and uh-huhs.

“What’s with the weeds?” Aphrodite asked.

Thanatos shook one plant free of the others and held it up so we could see it. Like I’d thought to begin with, it was just a plain old weed that had a bunch of ordinary, but kinda pretty, white flowers clustered at the end of it, a little like baby’s breath.

“This is not a weed. It is a wonderful wild flower called angelica. Its properties are unusually strong and pure. It is a flower of communication. When used in spellwork its nature is to reveal what is hidden to the conscious eye. During tonight’s ritual you, my young Red High Priestess, are going to wear a crown woven by your friends of this magickal flower.”

“Ooooh! That’s super cool!”

Thanatos handed the bundle of wildflowers to Stevie Rae. “Pass these out. The rest of you braid the plants you get together into a circle. Stevie Rae will stack the circles on her head before the ritual.”

“Braid?” Stark muttered.

Stevie Rae dropped a bunch of flowers in our laps. I raised my brows at Stark. “Yep,” I said. “Braid. Death orders it.”

“Well, in that case…” He sighed and started to awkwardly braid the long stems together.