“Okay, okay, sarcasm earned on that one,” I said. “So can we get out of here?”

And then she focused her gaze on me again.

“What about you?” she asked me. “Did you feel anything?”

Turning, I ran my hands over a box of rocks, but there was nothing, and I shook my head. “Nope.”

Blythe frowned. “Nothing? No . . . pull to anything?”

I glanced back at her, and she was watching me in a way that made faint alarm bells go off in my head. “No,” I repeated. “Which clearly we wouldn’t have since you found whatever magic rock we need to do this thing.”

“Did you try the table closest to the weapons display?” Blythe pressed, and confused, I started to shake my head.

And then my head was splitting open.

Or at least that’s what it felt like.

But the agony was over quickly, and suddenly I was in a cave again, the damp, cool, earthy smell of underground surrounding me. This time, though, there was no hint of the sulfuric tang I’d picked up in the vision of Alaric.

And when I lifted my head, it wasn’t him standing in front of me.

It was David, and he wasn’t standing, but floating, the tips of his sneakers barely dragging against the rock. His chest was moving slowly, deep breaths that seemed to saw in my ears, breaths that I could feel in my own chest. The glow pouring from his eyes lit up his whole face.

In those moments, I felt like his breaths were mine, that our hearts were beating at the same time, and I could feel . . . anger. Hatred. Fear. His head was full of images: wards scratched into stone suddenly wavering into wards scratched into soft brick; people in robes milling around a dusty street suddenly becoming kids from Grove Academy. I recognized Ryan and Bee, saw the twins and Lucy McCarroll.

A beginning must end for a new beginning to start.

The words slid through my mind like smoke, and I could feel power in my—no, in David’s hands as he clenched them into fists.

I came back to myself all at once, shaking and sick.

“Harper!” Bee cried, and I raised my head to look at her. She seemed worried, her mouth turned down at the corners, her gaze intent, but not freaked out. Not like me.

“What was it?” Blythe asked immediately, and I shook my head, unable to talk right away.

The sun suddenly seemed to be too hot, too bright, and I stumbled away from them, moving toward one of the big white tents set up along the flea’s main thoroughfare. I pushed a flap away and moved inside, taking deep breaths, hoping I wasn’t going to throw up all over someone’s table of collectible shells.

But the tent was empty.

I stood there in the center of the tent, my breath rasping hard in my ears, trying to get my bearings and make sense of what had just happened.

“Harper,” Bee said, coming in just behind me, “are you all right?”

It was obvious that I wasn’t, but before I could say anything, the tent flap moved again. I was expecting Blythe, but instead, it was a taller girl with lighter hair, moving fast. She pushed Bee hard as she came in, and Bee immediately stumbled, falling to her knees with a soft cry.

And then the girl was on me.

Chapter 27

I FELL BACK, more from the surprise than anything else, but was able to recover fast enough, shooting to my feet and whirling around, not surprised at all to be confronted by another teenage girl.

Behind the girl, Bee was rising to her feet again, and I saw her hands flex at her sides, but she wasn’t making any move to jump in. That told me all I needed to know about just how great Bee’s powers were doing right now.

Sighing, I crouched a little, holding out my hands in front of me. This was the third girl I’d had to take on in a few days; while I’d managed okay with the other two, I wondered if there might be a better tack to try with this one. “What’s your name?” I asked as we circled each other on the stamped-down grass underneath the tent. “I’m Harper Price.”

“I know that,” the girl all but snarled. Her hair was the kind of blond sometimes called—not very nicely in my opinion—“dishwater,” and she was wearing a T-shirt with some boy band on it. I looked at all their disturbingly smooth-skinned faces, and really hoped I won this fight.

Getting my butt handed to me by a girl wearing that shirt was too humiliating to contemplate.

“We don’t have to do this,” I said. It seemed pretty clear that we were totally gonna do this, whether we needed to or not. Still, I’d hoped to get more of a chance to chat before she sprang at me.

But, nope, I’d barely drawn a breath to talk to her again before she was already flying through the air, knocking me to the dry grass with a surprising amount of force for someone so slight.

I landed funny, my elbow whacking the ground hard and a very unladylike sound exploding from my lips. Irritation flared through me. I’d told myself I’d just neutralize her as fast as I could before questioning her about David, but now I was frustrated and in pain, so I punched out as hard as I could.

Except it wasn’t as hard as I could. It was as hard as the me from before could, sure, landing on the girl’s shoulder with enough impact to make her wince, but she didn’t stumble, and she certainly didn’t go flying back like she should have after a punch like that.

I blinked, looking at my hand as if it had betrayed me, and then the girl was on me again, hitting with the kind of force I usually wielded. Which hurt.

Weakness coursed through me the same way adrenaline and power used to, and I felt the same panicked helplessness I’d felt that night at the pool. Only this time, there was no resurgence of my power, no last-minute reprieve.

Bee was closer now, though, grabbing at the girl with both hands, and even though she didn’t have her Paladin powers, she was still a good head taller than the girl.

Not that it mattered. One well-placed punch, and Bee was falling back to the ground again, crying out, one hand flying to her cheekbone.

Anger flared through me. Rage, really, and I went to get up again. No one hurt Bee on my watch, no matter how weak I felt.

Except that rage was no match for Paladin strength. Another kick, some jabs to my back, and I was down again, my breath wheezing in and out.

This girl was kicking my butt, and there was nothing I could do other than cover my face with my hands, still trying to punch and kick—I wasn’t going out easy—but knowing that it was almost totally ineffectual.

I’m not sure what would have happened if Blythe hadn’t come into the tent. Or rather, I’m too sure of what would’ve happened and I didn’t want to think about it.

This time, when Blythe did her mind-wipe thing, I just lay there on the grass, trying to breathe, trying not to let my panic show on my face.

Trying not to let Blythe know that as far as powers went, I was now useless.

• • •

Blythe managed to get some ice from one of the soda vendors, and when she handed me a freezing bundle wrapped in a paper towel, I pressed it against my lip. “I am so tired of this,” I mumbled around the swelling. “Just, like, phenomenally over it at this point.”

“Same,” Bee said. There was a bruise purpling her cheekbone, and she was holding her own soaking-wet paper towel of ice to her face.

Blythe looked between us for a moment, then rested her eyes on me. “So you had another vision.” She nodded at Bee. “But she didn’t.”