“Before I agree,” I say to him, “I want you to tell Daphne what happened to your Boon.”

Dax’s face goes ashen, confirming what I’ve suspected for some time now. Ever since I found out that Tobin’s sister went missing. Ever since Simon insinuated that Dax tried to run away while he was here last—and how unpleasant it would be if he had to send someone after me.

“You know I can’t say anything about that,” he says.

“Then I’ll say it for you. She died, didn’t she? You fell in love with her. You didn’t want to take her back to the Underrealm, so you consulted this other Oracle for help. But you didn’t like what she said, so you tried to run away with your Boon.… But something went wrong. And she died.”

“That’s the basic gist of the story,” Dax says, his voice barely audible.

“Was her name Abbie?” Daphne asks.

He nods.

A small sound escapes her lips. It almost sounds like a sob.

“You still want to go find this other Oracle?” I ask her.

“Yes,” she says, sounding more determined than before.

“Then we can leave in the morning.”

“No,” she says.

“No? I thought you—”

“We don’t know how long it’s going to take to find this Oracle chick, and reviews for finals start on Monday,” she says. “And I have rehearsals with Joe’s band, and stuff for the music department. I can’t just push pause on my life right now and go.”

“Then when?”

“The semester ends on December eighteenth. I wasn’t going to head back to Ellis Fields until the twenty-first, but I’ll tell Joe that I decided that I want to fly home early. That’ll give me two days that I don’t have to be accountable to anyone. We’ll go then.”

I nod, trying to appease her in some way, but I wish I could get this over with right now. The sooner she realizes her destiny is to go with me, the better.

I insist on driving Daphne back to her house. She may not like it, but I plan on sticking close to her for the next three weeks because now that we’ve made our plan, I don’t like the idea of letting her out of my sight. It feels like tempting fate. Or at least tempting Simon. If he were to get wind of how many rules I’ve broken or find out that I am planning on leaving town with my Boon, taking an unprecedented detour on my quest … I don’t like to think about the endless possibilities of what he might do.

Chapter forty-six

DAPHNE

The next three weeks pass too quickly and yet at the same time feel like they couldn’t go any slower. I find myself avoiding Tobin and Joe as much as possible, and pour myself into studying for finals, as if my life depended on how well I do on those tests. It’s too hard to be around people I have to pretend to be normal with. To pretend like everything is okay. But I don’t talk to Haden, either, even though he always seems to be close by. Like he’s afraid to take his eyes off me.

He probably thinks I am going to run.

If I were smart, I probably would.

My seventeenth birthday passes with little fanfare. Joe offers to throw me a “birthday party to end all birthday parties,” but I can’t muster the energy for such a thing, so instead I opt for eating a bowl of ice cream and a cupcake in front my MacBook while on a Skype call with my mom and Jonathan. I open the packages they sent while they watch. Mom’s gift is a painting of the view of Ellis from the front windows of Paradise Plants that she’d done with oils on Masonite board.

“Hang it over your bed so you’ll dream of home,” she says.

I smile even though Ellis has never been what I want my dreams to be made of.

Jonathan’s gift is a collection of romance novels. “You’re lacking a mysterious man in your life,” he says. “I was hoping we’d get a lot more juicy stories after shipping you off to that fancy-schmancy school. You haven’t dated any celebrities or kissed any princes and neglected to tell us, have you?”

It takes all of my control not to tell them right then and there what is going on with Prince Haden, and our plans to sneak out of town to consult this Oracle lady. But I can’t. Because when I get all this Cypher crap straightened out, and send Haden packing to the underworld on his own, I’m going to go back to my life in Olympus Hills and follow my plan to become a music star. But if my mom gets one whiff of any of this underworld business before I can squash it, any chance of my having a life outside Ellis will be over. She’d probably lock me up in our house until I’m old and gray. And I am not going to let that happen.

“No interesting encounters to report,” I lie through my teeth.

“Well, get on it, girly,” Jonathan says. “Some of us have to live vicariously through you.”

I laugh uneasily, but my mom punches him playfully on the arm. “Don’t encourage her,” she says. “We want Daphne to come back, remember?”

I smile, tears pricking at my eyes, and I wish there was a way to hug them both through the computer.

The night after my last final, I pack my bag as if I am headed for Ellis Fields instead of some undisclosed location with a supernatural boy I barely know. I’m worrying about how I am going to convince Joe when I come down for breakfast that I don’t need a ride to the airport—I’ll pretend to take a cab—and get to Haden’s house instead, but it turns out I don’t have to.

There’s a note in Marta’s handwriting explaining that she and Joe have gone to LA so Joe can lay down some more tracks for a new album. It says not to expect them back before I have to leave, and that a car service will take me to the airport. Even though it makes sneaking away easier, I admit that I am hurt that Joe didn’t bother to see me off. It feels like I’ve barely seen him since the festival, what with all my studying and all the trips into LA he’s been taking to work with his band. Maybe I should have let him throw me that party.

I call the number for the car service on my itinerary and cancel the driver.

With that obstacle down, I make a piece of toast and shove a couple of water bottles into my bag. I don’t know where we are going yet, but Dax had alluded to the fact that the trip might take more than a full day. I’ve got enough packed, but the idea of staying overnight in some strange town with Haden makes me shiver.

My phone rings. It’s Tobin once again. He’s been so busy researching the names of the different Lords who have lived in Olympus Hills—to little avail—that he hasn’t really noticed that I’ve been avoiding him. As much as I want to answer and tell him everything I’ve learned since the night of the festival, I don’t. Number one, because then it would make all of this seem real and not just like a crazy fever dream I’ll wake up from. And number two, because it means I have to tell him what I’ve learned about Abbie, and I’m just not ready to do that yet. I can’t, because then that will be real, too.