If ever there was an appropriate moment for swearwords, this was it. We were halfway up a mountain in Tennessee, going after my magical ex-boyfriend, a guy who had sent superpowered assassins after me. We had ditched the one person who could’ve maybe helped us in all of this because I hadn’t wanted her to hurt David, but what if he was going to hurt me?

Lowering my head to my hands, I took a deep breath through my nose. “Bee,” I said, my voice wavering, and to my horror, I could feel stinging at the backs of my eyes, a thickness in my throat. “I effed this up.”

I did not say “effed.” I said the actual word. And it felt so good that I thought maybe I needed to say it again. Lots.

Lifting my head, I looked at Bee and tears spilled down my cheeks. “My effing powers are effing gone, and now I’ve got us into this effed-up situation, and I have no effing clue what the eff I’m going to do once we find David. Not a single. Effing. Idea.”

Bee’s eyes had gone wide, but I wasn’t sure if it was from my confession or the fact that I had just used that word so many times. And honestly, whichever it was, I did not give an eff.

I was openly crying now, and I shook my head. “I don’t think I can do this,” I said, and I wasn’t sure if I meant I couldn’t save David or that I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him if it came to that. Honestly, it could have been both. Earlier today, when we’d left the car, I’d almost left the sword behind. Sure, if there ended up being other Paladins in the cave, I might need it, but there was always the thought at the back of my mind that I might have to use it on David.

Rising to her feet, Bee crossed over to me and took me firmly by the shoulders. “You can,” she said, squeezing for emphasis. “Harper, listen to me. Your powers are great and all, and I’m not going to pretend I don’t really wish they were working about right now, but . . . being a Paladin isn’t what’s going to save David. You can save him because he loves you. Because you love him.”

Sniffling, I rolled my eyes. “That’s very Disney-movie of you, Bee.”

I’d meant to make her smile, but she just gave me another little shake. “I’m serious. Even if your powers had been gone before we started on this whole thing, I would’ve gone with you.”

She said the words so quietly, so simply, that something in my chest seemed to give way. My becoming a Paladin had hurt Bee. It had gotten her kidnapped and superpowered and nearly killed. But she was still looking at me like she believed in me, and that gave me the strength to nod, reaching out to rest my hands on her forearms.

“Okay,” I said. “You’re right. I can do this.”

I repeated the words, almost like a mantra. Satisfied, Bee gave a little smile and stepped back, hoisting her pack.

“So how much farther, do you think?” she asked.

I turned to jerk my chin at the trail winding its way up to a wall of stone and green above us. “Not much farther at all,” I told her, and took a deep breath. “We’re here.”

Chapter 32

HERE IS A THING you should know about me: I really hate caves. Maybe it’s the damp and the dark, maybe it’s the thought of being underground. Who can say? The point is, I’ve always avoided them, not even going on my class field trip to DeSoto Caverns in the third grade. I’d missed underground mini-golf and a laser show because I hated caves so much.

Which meant that walking into the mouth of that huge fissure in the rock was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Bee and I made our way up the hill, and even though the air was loud with the sound of buzzing insects, the breeze through the leaves, and our own breathing, it seemed weirdly quiet and still.

The cave was nearly hidden behind a wall of branches and vines, but I pushed those aside, staring into the darkness in front of me. Bee stepped forward, too, shifting her backpack on her shoulder, but I stopped and turned toward her, taking a deep breath.

“I know you’re not going to like this,” I started, and she immediately shook her head, almost glaring at me.

“Harper, no,” she said firmly, but I reached out and wrapped my fingers around her biceps, making her look down into my face.

“This is something I have to do alone,” I told her. “You’ve come all this way with me, and I couldn’t have done any of it without you, you know that, but this—” Breaking off, I turned to look over my shoulder at the gaping mouth of limestone behind me. “This is on me.”

Bee blinked a few times, and her eyes were bright, her face pale. “You don’t have your powers anymore,” she said, and her voice trembled.

“Neither do you,” I reminded her, giving her arms a squeeze. “And I can’t risk you getting hurt. Not again.”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop feeling guilty for what had happened to Bee the night of Cotillion, and while I knew I could never make it up to her, this at least let me feel like I was trying. I remembered the way Blythe’s eyes had shone as she’d talked about “redeeming” herself, and while she and I might have really different ideas about what redemption meant, I understood why it was so important to her.

“I’ve screwed up a lot of things,” I told Bee now. “I’ve lied and I’ve hurt people I’ve cared about, and I’ve made some less-than-stellar decisions about, like, everything, basically. But this?” I nodded back toward the cave. “This I can do. This I have to do. And I need you to wait out here.”

Despite that rousing speech, I could tell Bee still wanted to argue. But then, I would’ve argued, too. That’s what best friends do.

But then she looked past me up at the wall of stone, and took a deep breath. “I hate this,” she said. “Like, more than I hate snakes or humidity or AP Calculus.” And then she looked back down, our eyes meeting. “But if this is what you have to do, it’s what you have to do.”

My throat felt tight as I reached down and took her hands, squeezing them. “Best squire ever,” I said, and she tried to laugh, but the sound was kind of choked, and then she was hugging me hard.

“Ten minutes,” she said.

“Fifteen,” I countered, and she rolled her eyes.

“Fine, fifteen, but any longer than that, and I’m coming after you.”

Nodding, I turned back to the mouth of the cave. The air wafting out was cool, and goose bumps rose up on my arms. I reached over my shoulder, my fingers finding the hilt of the sword, still wrapped in its towel, and I took some comfort from the weight of it.

I gave one last look to Bee, who gave me a tight smile, and then, taking another deep breath, I stepped forward.

The rock was slick underneath my feet. Tennis shoes were not exactly the best footwear for this kind of thing, I thought, and I felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in my throat. Man, it seemed like a lot of this Paladin business came down to the right shoes.

Almost a year ago, I’d lain on the floor of the school bathroom, my pink heel clutched in my hands, waiting for someone to kill me. He hadn’t. I had killed him. I had won.

If I killed David today, it wouldn’t feel the slightest bit like winning.

The cave I found myself standing in wasn’t nearly as big as I’d thought it would be, and I took a moment getting my bearings and really wishing I’d gotten a rabies vaccine before I’d left for this trip. While the ceiling of the cave was lost to the darkness, I couldn’t help but envision roughly a million bats overhead, and it made me shudder.