I shook my head and continued reading. “Three: I will only ask one question at a time. Four: I will not leave the freezer door open overnight and force my dad to throw away all the food inside and mop up the floor while I’m at school. Five: I will not call the dog a f**ktard.” Two bright red stars censored the word.

Jupe snorted loudly in amusement, and giddy peals of laughter incapacitated me for a few moments. He joined in halfway through, giggling like a fool. I had to force myself to stop.

“All right, all right, all right,” I said between breaths, fanning my face. After a brief string of hiccups, Jupe finally calmed enough for me to sign his cast.

I drew a circular, flat open rose with three tiers of petals and a crescent moon cradling it below. Jude watched in fascination and—miraculously—waited until I was finished to speak.

“What in the world is that?”

“It’s my personal symbol … as a magician.”

“You have a symbol?”

“Yep.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means Moon Rose. That’s my middle name, Aysul. It’s Turkish.”

“Whoa. Is that a Turkish symbol above the wheel thingy?”

“No, that’s my sigil. And it’s not a wheel, it’s a rose. See, these three inner petals in the inside represent alchemical elements. The seven petals around those represent the classical planets, and the outer petals contain the twelve signs of the zodiac. Twenty-two petals total.”

“Twenty-two,” he repeated, tracing the rose with his finger.

“It’s an important magical number. It’s the number of paths on the Tree of Life in Qabalah, the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and the number of cards in the Tarot’s major arcana.”

“Cool.”

“So, now you have my symbol, and that means you have my protection.”

“Whoa,” Jupe murmured.

“I’m real sorry about the mess that put you in that cast,” I said. “Your dad wasn’t being a dick about wanting to keep you safe. He had a right to be angry at me. It was my fault.”

“Don’t worry. I was never mad about that. You’re pretty strong. That was like an old-school wrestling move—you should be a luchadora!” An honest smile softened his face and lifted a huge weight from my shoulders.

I grinned back at him, suddenly much happier. “You, my friend, are insane.” Without thinking, I ran a quick hand through his springy curls. He leaned into my hand with the enthusiasm of a dog being scratched behind the ear.

“Will you teach me how you did that invisible spell? Because that was the best part of the whole night. I told Jack about it but he didn’t believe me. He thinks magick isn’t real.”

I tightened the cap on the marker and handed it back. The dread that I’d kept at bay in the hideout of Jupe’s room returned, bringing with it an aching sense of sadness. “To tell you the truth, Jupe, sometimes I almost wish it weren’t.”

35

The Big Sur region of California that borders Morella and La Sirena to the south is one of the most beautiful parts of the entire country. Rolling green mountains stretch across one side of Highway One, and the Pacific’s waves crash on the other at the bottom of craggy, lush cliffs.

Going this way, instead of taking Five—the faster route— added an extra hour or more to my drive, as Lon tried to point out to me, but I didn’t care. The mental serenity it provided was well worth it. It wasn’t a weekend, so there weren’t too many people slowing down traffic by constantly pulling over at scenic spots. I’d hit L.A. after rush hour and would still get to San Diego well before 11 p.m.

“Hard to believe it’s real, huh?” I said to Riley Cooper as I drove. “The view, I mean.”

She sat in the passenger seat smacking gum. “Fantastic. I’m kinda sorry you’re taking me home. I’ve never felt so calm and relaxed in my life.”

“Vacation can’t last forever.” And neither would my supply of the opiate elixir I’d been using to dose her.

She sighed. “True, true.”

“I’m sorry about the accident, Riley.”

She shrugged. “I feel much better now, no harm done. To tell you the truth, Jane, I’m really glad I came. It was nice to catch up after all these years.” The smile she gave me was so authentic that I almost believed we were old friends. Then I reminded myself that the real Riley had hurt Jupe.

A couple hours into our drive, I stopped at a gas station and called her father, Magus Zorn, in private on her cell phone, using up the last of her battery. He was alarmed and demanded to speak to her. I refused, but told him that she was okay and wasn’t hurt, except for the missing tooth. Like Riley, Magus Zorn denied knowledge of Caliph Superior’s whereabouts, but it was hard to tell if he was lying over the phone. Regardless, I told him to make sure his council was ready for me to prove my parents’ innocence at midnight. I figured that gave me time enough to talk to them beforehand.

I tried to keep my eyes on the road, but I had a terrible headache and was fighting constant nausea. A couple of times I almost blacked out, but it passed quickly. Of course I would manage to get sick during all this, probably from that stupid midnight dip in the ocean.

Early that morning, before I left Lon’s house, I scribbled a quick note to him and asked Jupe to deliver it. I made him swear not to read it, but I doubt those kinds of promises mean to much to a stubborn thirteen-year-old.