“So what’s in North Mississippi?” I asked, changing the subject as I opened the chips. They were slightly stale, and I felt like they might have been in that Chevron since the Reagan administration, but I was hungry, and salt and vinegar can cover a lot of flaws.

“It’s where Saylor was from,” Blythe said, still sitting on the bed in that weird yoga position, her legs folded, eyes closed.

Startled, I nearly dropped the bag of chips. “What?”

Blythe opened one eye, squinting at me. “She had to come from somewhere, you know. It’s not like she just appeared, being David’s Mage and stuff.”

“I know that,” I snapped in reply, but the truth was, I hadn’t thought much about where Saylor had come from. I knew she’d kidnapped David when he was a baby, saving him from the Ephors who wanted to kill him, but I’d never wondered about who had made Saylor a Mage in the first place. Like Paladins, Mages passed down their powers, which meant there had been someone who had passed his or her powers to Saylor. Blythe had willingly taken those powers on, but had Saylor been like me? Wrong place, wrong time, suddenly all magicked up?

And why had I never asked her?

“Don’t look like that,” Blythe said on a big sigh, stretching out her legs. “It’s not like you and Saylor had a lot of bonding time before she was killed.”

“Thanks to you,” I couldn’t help but point out. Blythe’s mind control potion was responsible for turning Bee’s dim bulb of a boyfriend, Brandon, into a killer. I hadn’t forgotten that, either, and from the way the corners of her mouth turned down a little bit, I’m guessing Blythe hadn’t.

“Collateral damage,” she said, and I crumpled the bag of chips in my hand.

“Really?” I said, my voice nearly cracking with anger. “That’s all you have to say about that?”

Now Blythe opened both eyes, staring at me. Her face was so innocent and sweet, but those eyes were old. They always had been.

“Would it do any good for me to say that I was sorry? That I was caught up in doing what I thought was the right thing, and that I couldn’t let myself think about the people who got hurt? Would that make you suddenly trust me?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. Or at least not one I wanted to say out loud. The truth was, this whole thing was so confusing that it would’ve been nice to trust Blythe. To put the past behind us and try to understand why she’d done what she had.

Instead, I threw the now-crushed chips into the trash can and picked up the ice bucket, needing to be anywhere that wasn’t this room with this girl right now.

“If Bee gets back, tell her I went to get ice,” I said, without looking at Blythe, but before I got to the door, she slid off the bed, coming to stand between me and escape.

“We’re more alike than you want to admit, Harper,” she said, reaching out to poke me in the sternum. I swatted her hand away but didn’t try to push past her.

“I am sorry, for whatever it’s worth,” she said, and I felt my heart pounding in my ears, remembering Saylor lying on the floor of Magnolia House, her blood slick on the tile of the kitchen. Blythe might not have wielded the knife, but Saylor’s death was still on her hands.

“I was trying to do the right thing,” Blythe said again, and there was something in her voice that made me pause. God knew I’d screwed up enough trying to do what I thought was the right thing. No one had gotten killed, but that might have just been a matter of luck at this point.

“And yeah,” she continued, “maybe I was trying to help myself, too, but aren’t we the same there?”

When I just looked at her, Blythe lifted her eyebrows and said, “Think about it, Harper. Is it David you’re trying to save with all of this or yourself?”

The words made my mouth go dry, and I just shook my head at her, muttering, “Whatever.”

There was another pause, but after a second, she moved out of the way, and I opened the door, stepping out into the night.

Chapter 16

THE MOTEL BREEZEWAY was dim, fluorescent lights overhead buzzing as I made my way toward the vending machines, ice bucket in hand. I tried not to think too much about the stains on the concrete or where they might have come from. We had enough money—and enough magic—to stay somewhere nicer, but when you’re in the middle of nowhere Mississippi, you take what you can get, and this was the only motel for miles. Still, between the patches of darkness from blown bulbs, the persistent hum of traffic from the interstate, and the stifling heat of the night, it felt like I’d stumbled into a bad horror movie. If my mom or, God forbid, The Aunts, could see me now, I’d be on the way back to Pine Grove before I could so much as spit.

David, I reminded myself. You’re doing this for David.

But was I really? Blythe asked if this was about saving David or saving me. But weren’t they one and the same?

The fact that I was having trouble answering that question bugged me more than it should have, and even though the night was sticky hot, I wrapped my free arm around myself like I was cold.

It was just the first day, though, and I’d been driving for hours. Of course I was tired and out of sorts. Anyone would be, and I’d never been the type to do well without sleep. The sooner I got some ice and got back to the room, the sooner I could sleep and reorientate myself.

I moved faster, passing my car. Bee was in there, sitting in the passenger seat, her feet braced on the dashboard, a big smile on her face.

So Ryan was okay, then. I waggled my fingers at her as I passed, but she didn’t see me.

The vending machines were in a dim alcove past the creepy police-tape rooms, and I made my way there as quickly as possible, wishing I hadn’t stormed out so quickly. Blythe was irritating and all, but surely no more irritating than getting horribly murdered would be.

“Stupid,” I muttered to myself. “You are not going to be murdered unless it’s death by giant mosquito.”

Placing the bucket under the little plastic funnel, I pressed the button for ice. It rattled down and all that noise had to be why I didn’t hear her coming. All I had was the sudden sense of someone to my right and then a blur of motion.

But this time, unlike the night at the pool, my powers were strong as ever. Grabbing the edges of the bucket, I flung the contents at Shelley—of course it was freaking Shelley, Shelley with her billionaire romance novels and that look I knew I’d felt.

The ice hit her directly in the face, slowing her down just enough for me to drop and sweep out a leg, catching her under the ankles. It was a move I went to a lot, and one that, in my experience, almost always worked. Sure enough, she hit the pavement hard.

This is one of the most important parts of a fight, gaining the higher ground, and because I was short, I always had to get higher ground as fast as possible.

But there is one problem with gaining the higher ground, and that’s that you make a fairly easy target.

Shelley had barely landed when she lashed up and out with one leg, kicking me so hard in the thigh—the same spot Annie had hit that night in the locker room—that my leg threatened to buckle under me.

I gritted my teeth, falling back on my stronger leg, and . . .

Look, I’ve done a lot of things in my job as Paladin. I’ve head-butted dudes and fought while wearing formal gowns and nearly jujitsu-ed my then-boyfriend into an early grave. But kicking someone in the ribs while she was down?