Evertrue

TWENTY-SIX

NOW

The Surface. The hotel.

Will met us on the Surface at our hotel room. At the sight of me, he gasped.

“Have you been through a combine?” he asked, and I knew he wasn’t being flippant.

“No,” I said. “A sea of beetles.”

“Long story,” Jack said. “But Becks was amazing. And she got the Sickle of Cronus. Any news from the professor?”

“Yeah,” Will said. “He says the Shade network, that egg-shaped ball you described, is a sacred stone called a baetylus. And he says you need one more thing, in addition to the sickle, to destroy it. That is, if you want to escape with your lives.”

Knowing we had to do one more thing was too much for me at that moment. I collapsed against the bed.

My eyes closed involuntarily, and within moments I was gone.

When I woke, I saw Jack, Cole, and Will poring over documents at the desk next to the bed.

“What’s going on?” I said.

Jack came over to the bed and sat down beside me. “Hey, Becks. How are you feeling?”

I nodded. “Fine. Tell me.”

He lay down next to me, facing me. “The professor thinks that the Shade network has a fail-safe attached to it, where if we destroy it, it will set off an alarm and basically trap us in the Underworld. Like a lockdown. To give us time to escape, he thinks we need to track down the Helmet of Hermes. Sound familiar?”

“The pendant that Cole was supposed to give the guy with the big head in exchange for that memory?”

Jack nodded. “I think so. It will supposedly mask our presence until we’ve had a chance to get out.”

I looked at Cole. “You’d told the guy you would get the pendant. Do you have it? Do you know where it is?”

Cole shook his head. “I can’t remember.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. “I can’t swim a sea of beetles again.”

Jack smoothed my hair gently with his hand. “You don’t have to. Mrs. Jenkins’s papers contained a log sheet that shows the chain of custody for the pendant. The last name on the list is a woman named Mildred Dorrity. She lives in Roy. We just tracked down her phone number. We’re about to call her.”

I squinted. “So, this random woman has a pendant that will keep us out of an Everneath prison,” I said.

“Yes,” Jack said.

I nodded. “Let’s get to it.”

Jack put his phone on speaker and dialed her number. After several rings, a woman answered. She sounded old, her voice frail.

“Is this Mildred Dorrity?” Jack said.

She paused. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.”

“I’m not selling anything. I was just wondering if you know a Kathleen Jenkins?”

Another pause. “Kathleen Jenkins is dead.”

With that I knew we’d found the right person.

“I was friends with Mrs. Jenkins,” I said.

“Kathleen didn’t have friends,” Mildred said.

“We’re looking for a pendant,” I blurted out. “Please. We got your name from a log sheet listing possession of the Helmet of Hermes. Do you still have it?”

A longer pause.

“Please, Mrs. Dorrity. Please help us.”

I could hear her breathing, even though she wasn’t answering. Whatever we were saying, it wasn’t working.

“Mildred,” Jack said, his voice amazingly calm. “Have you ever loved someone?”

Now it was his turn to pause as we waited for an answer.

“Yes,” she said.

“So you know that feeling.” Jack was being so tender, so sincere. I didn’t know how Mrs. Dorrity wouldn’t be swayed. “The entire reason we’re calling is because of love. Please. Do you have the pendant?”

“No,” she said. “I passed it down to my granddaughter, but it was stolen by the Delphinians.”

Delphinians. This was the second time I’d heard of the exiled group.

“The Delphinians want all the sacred artifacts for themselves,” she continued. “Devon stole it back for us, but then he disappeared.”

Beside me, Cole tensed. I could feel a distinct wave of anxiety roll off him. Maybe it was because he was the only person I could feed off. Whatever the reason, his reaction was strong enough that I could taste it in the air.

I turned toward him and whispered, “Does this sound familiar?”

“I’m not sure,” he said.

I turned back to the phone. “Who was this Devon?”

“Millie—my granddaughter—her boyfriend.”

“Where’s Millie now?” I asked.

“She’s dead.”

I glanced at Jack. For a moment there was only the sound of some quiz show on the television in the background.

“She was named after me, you know,” Mildred said.

“Thank you,” I said. Jack hung up.

As we stared at the phone, a new despair blanketed our souls. Yes, she’d known about the pendant, but we were no closer to getting it.

I reached over to adjust the thermostat on the wall. Jack glanced at my hand and grabbed my arm.

“What?” I said, startled.

“Your wrist. The shackle.”

I looked down. The faint line had become darker. Almost as dark as the other shackle. I pulled down my sleeve. “We already knew we had to hurry. Doesn’t change anything.”

But it felt as if it changed everything.

I turned to Cole, anxious to take the focus off of my wrist. “When Mildred mentioned that Devon guy, it triggered something in you. What was it?”

Cole shook his head. “I don’t know. Nothing specific. Just a feeling, but then it went away.”

He didn’t look me in the eyes when he spoke. The emotions I’d sensed coming from him during the phone call with Mildred seemed to indicate it was something more than just a feeling.

“Are you sure that’s all it was?”

“Yeah.”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Something told me he was holding back. I was walking a fine line. On one hand, I wanted him to remember things that could possibly help us destroy the Everneath. On the other hand, what if he remembered his true desire? His longing for the throne?

If it came back to him, would he betray us?