That errand done, I went back to my house—Ryan had driven Bee home—and changed into a sundress. No chance of my T-shirt riding up so they could see the bandage.

Mom got home around four, Dad an hour later, and we had dinner outside. It was still hot, but the deck was shaded by big trees, and besides, once May first hit, Dad was all about grilling. That night’s offering was steak-and-vegetable kabobs, and I waited until we were nearly done—and until both my parents had had two glasses of wine, not that I’m proud about that—to tell them about the road trip plan. While I kept my hand from straying to the mark on my hip, I leisurely applied the rose balm to my lips, then made sure to touch Mom’s hand as I said something, to let my fingers brush Dad’s when I brought him a glass of iced tea. I used words like “college” and “bonding experience” and “totally supervised.” I made sure to tell them how there were already three other girls on the waiting list for my job at the pool. But I didn’t give any details, and as I finished up, I waited for them to say some variation of “Hell to the no.”

No matter how often I’d seen magic work like this, I never fully believed it would. So once my little spiel was done, I was one hundred percent prepared for this to blow up spectacularly.

Instead, to my surprise, they both smiled at me in a slightly dazed way that had nothing to do with the wine and everything to do with Ryan’s balm.

“That sounds nice,” Mom said.

“A really good idea,” Dad agreed, nodding.

It was what I’d wanted, obviously. The last barrier to finding David, gone.

So why did I feel so guilty?

But before I had time to stew in too much angst, my phone chimed in my pocket, signaling a text from Blythe. There were logistics to figure out and discussions to have.

And one truly terrifying road trip to plan.

Chapter 13

WE LEFT early in the morning, wanting to get as much time on the road as we could. The sooner this whole thing got started, the sooner it would be over.

Still, even though I wasn’t looking forward to two weeks in a car with Blythe, there was a part of me that was actually . . . excited? A road trip after months of sitting at home seemed like just the thing I needed, and after so long just waiting, it felt really good to be doing something.

So, yeah, I had felt a little giddy as I’d packed last night and possibly made a few mixes for Appropriate Quest Music.

Blythe met us at my house. I had no idea where she’d come from or how she’d gotten there, but she was wearing a loose sundress, an admittedly super cute bag at her feet. Big sunglasses covered her face, and she gave me a tight smile as Bee and I made our way to her.

“You two ready?”

Bee and I had matching Vera Bradley bags—gifts from our parents for 4.0 GPAs sophomore year—we’d picked them out together. I pressed a button on my key fob, opening the trunk. “Ready as we’ll ever be,” I said, tossing my bag in. Bee followed suit, and after a pause, so did Blythe. To anyone passing by, we were just three girls headed off somewhere. Probably Panama City Beach, where we’d wear bright bikinis and try to con older guys into buying us drinks. Instead, we were two Paladins and a Mage, going on a quest to save an Oracle.

Despite how scary this whole thing was—and trust me, it was way scary—I mean . . . come on. It was kind of awesome, too. And really, how often do you get to actually quest in this day and age? And I’d have Bee with me, which meant everything. There had been a time I’d been afraid I’d never see Bee again, and yet here she was, at my side.

Of course, the reason I’d almost lost Bee forever was standing right in front of me, which made it harder to believe this was a good idea. But it was the only idea we had, and I was determined to see it through.

I’d said good-bye to Mom and Dad inside, and I was in a hurry to get going. So was Blythe, I thought, watching her drum her nails on the roof of my car.

But Bee was still standing there, stretching up on her tiptoes to look down the street. “Ryan said he was coming,” she explained, “and I told him to be here early.”

“Ryan’s ‘early’ is a little different from how the rest of us would define it,” I told her, trying to stamp down my impatience.

Last night, I had met Blythe back at the Waffle Hut, and we’d gone over where we were heading. She’d unfolded a map on the table, ignoring the sticky spots where syrup hadn’t been totally cleaned up, and pointed to a spot in north Mississippi. “Here first,” she said, tapping a place so tiny it didn’t even have a name.

I had taken a sip of Coke—the regular kind this time. Planning requires both sugar and caffeine. “What’s there?” I asked.

Blythe had wrinkled her nose at me and tapped the spot again. “Trust me, okay? We can talk about it when we get there.”

“Why not now?” I’d asked. “Because you feel like being mysterious, or because you know that I won’t want to go if you tell me?”

This time, I got an eye roll in addition to the nose wrinkle. “Can you just trust me?”

“No,” I’d replied immediately, and to my surprise, she’d smiled.

Sitting back in the booth, Blythe had watched me for a long moment. Her dark hair had been loose for once, and it made her look younger. I had to remind myself that I hardly knew anything about her. Maybe she was my age. Another teenage girl caught up in something she didn’t understand, but one who, I think we can all agree, had really run with it.

“Has it occurred to you,” she asked, leaning forward to rest her arms on the table, “that I’m putting a lot of trust in you, too? I mean, I’m getting into a car with a Paladin and her best friend, both of whom have more than enough reasons to want to hurt me. So can we just make a deal to trust each other the best we can, and stop thinking the other is looking for a backstabbing opportunity?”

“Literally,” I’d quipped, and while she hadn’t exactly offered her hand for us to shake on it, I felt like a deal had been made.

So I hadn’t pressed her any more. It was my car we were taking, after all, and while I wasn’t sure I believed that Blythe wanted to help out of the goodness of her heart, I believed that she wanted to undo what she’d done the night of Cotillion.

I was distracted from that line of thinking by the sound of a car turning down our street. It wasn’t Ryan’s SUV, though. It was Aunt Jewel’s massive Cadillac, and I grinned to see it. I’d hoped to get a chance to say good-bye to her, and when I saw that Ryan was in the passenger seat, I smiled even more. She must have gone by to pick him up on her way over.

The giant Cadillac careened to a stop at the end of the driveway, and I grimaced as Aunt Jewel’s bumper took out one of our trash cans.

The car parked, she got out, wearing yet another rhinestone-studded sweater, this one in a pale pink with matching slacks. She was holding a plastic Piggly Wiggly sack, and I went around to her side of the Cadillac, giving Bee and Ryan a little bit of privacy on the other side.

“I knew that boy would be late if left to his own devices, so I decided to swing by and get him myself,” Aunt Jewel said, taking my proffered hand and hefting herself out of the driver’s seat. “I can still do that, right? Even though y’all aren’t together anymore?”