I realized that Jonas was looking at me. “We’re not going to get any help, are we?”
“Not from my parents. What help they could give us, they already have. This is our fight, Jonas.”
We listened to sparks ping off the inside of the Dumpster for a while. “I wanted to thank you,” he finally said.
“For what?”
“Your warning. About the Black Circle. Caleb arrived with it just before they hit. If we hadn’t been prepared . . .”
“I didn’t send him with a warning.”
“I beg your pardon?”
I took a breath. “I sent him to steal from you. The potion, if he could get it, or the recipe if he couldn’t. I guess he decided to talk to you instead.”
He bowed his head. “How did we get here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were right. I haven’t been treating you as a Pythia. It’s difficult to see anyone in that role . . . besides her.”
“I know.”
“But you are Pythia.” He shot me a glance. “And you’re going back.”
I nodded. “To find a weapon of the gods, and a man who knows how to wield it.”
“And the potion . . . the bottle I found, is it enough?”
“No. But a full one wouldn’t be, either. I’m too tired. I barely got us here.”
“Then how?”
I looked at the house. “There’s another way.”
Chapter Forty-six
The woods were lovely, dark and deep.
And then we shifted in.
I hit the ground with Hildegarde on top of me, and then Abigail slammed into her. And finally Rosier appeared out of nowhere and collapsed on top of us, and I started seeing stars. Only no: the silvery trails through the trees were something else.
“Grab her!” I wheezed, and another ghostly presence shot off through the branches, but it wasn’t Billy Joe.
He was too busy bitching at me.
“I told you . . . this was a bad . . . idea!”
“Why are you . . . breathless?” I gasped, because I was the one with six hundred pounds on top of me.
“Because that . . . was the most insane thing . . . I’ve ever done!” he screeched, spectral hat tipped back on his head, hazel eyes huge. “What the hell?”
He was talking about our trip through the Badlands, which we’d reentered in order to take a shortcut to the past. Dad had lent me his two ghosts, and with Billy Joe hopped up on Rosier’s power, we’d been able to carry four: me, Rosier, and my two new acolytes, who were looking like they very much regretted the trip.
But we’d managed it, although we’d had to exit a few years early in self-defense. And then immediately shift away from the tide of hungry spirits that had poured out after us. It had been like somebody rang a dinner bell—thanks to Daisy, who had wandered too far out and brought something back with her.
Something huge.