Page 127 of Lost

“No! No, not Neferet!” I could barely contain my excitement. “Red vampyres! Her Red Army is an abomination of nature—a twisting of us, of blue vampyres. That’s good. That’s really,reallygood.”

“Your sister is making no sense,” Dragon said to Kevin.

“Yeah, she is!” Stevie Rae’s blue eyes were sparkling with excitement. “You’re thinkin’ ’bout what the sprite said about Old Magick, aren’t ya?”

“Yes!” I tried to explain. “I’m no expert in Old Magick, but I’ve wielded it successfully and I do know some truths about it. First, it’s capricious—changeable. Old Magick doesn’t take sides. It didn’t just work for me because I’m one of the good guys, same as it didn’t work for Kev because he is too. It worked because they recognized our ancient blood and because we gave them acceptable payments.”

Grandma Redbird nodded. “Old Magick works for Neferet, and she is definitely not good.”

“Exactly. Somehow it recognized her,” I said.

“That probably happened when she was a young girl and was somehow tied to the abuse she suffered at her father’s hand,” said Anastasia.

“And who knows what horrible price she pays them,” Kevin said.

“Right. Neferet just followed their rules, and because they don’t take sides in the struggle between Light and Darkness, they have no ethical problem helping her. That’s how Old Magick works—unlessan abomination of nature has occurred and needs to be put right. I know this because Oak made me cleanse a tree on our school grounds that had been ruined by Darkness. Oak said it then. She wanted it cleansed because sprites will not tolerate something they consider an abomination of nature.”

“Oak? My Oak, the earth sprite? You know her?” Kevin asked.

“Yes, and don’t call her yours. Don’t ever forget that she’s dangerous—they all are. Everyone here needs to understand this—wielding Old Magick changes the user. It’s addictive. It’s destructive. Theonlyvampyre I know who has done so successfully is Queen Sgiach on the Isle of Skye, and I’m pretty sure she isn’t really a vampyre anymore.”

“Queen Sgiach is in this world as well,” Anastasia said. “Though no one has spoken to her or entered her island for more than a century.”

“That’s how it was in my world too, before I went there.”

“She allowed you on her island?” Dragon sounded incredulous.

“More than that,” Stevie Rae said, smiling proudly at me. “She and Z became good friends, such good friends that Sgiach named her a Queen as well.”

“That is truly amazing! Perhaps we should get you to Skye,” Anastasia said. “We could definitely use Sgiach’s help.”

“I’d be happy to go and talk with her,” I said.

“There’s no time for that,” Aphrodite said. “Not before tomorrow night’s slaughter.”

“I can’t go to Skye in time to stop that, but I can call on Old Magick. All I have to do is to convince the sprites that red vampyres in their present state are an abomination of nature and get their help putting them to right.”

“Won’t using that much Old Magick change you?” asked Kevin.

“No. I won’t actually be wielding it. The sprites will be on their own—not working through me.”

“But they will still require a payment,” said Rephaim. “Old Magickalwaysrequires a payment.”

“I’ll pay them.”

Everyone stared at Aphrodite.

She shrugged. “What? The other me did it in Zoey’s world. Why the hell wouldn’t I do it in this world?” Aphrodite met my gaze. “Your Aphrodite lost her Mark when she saved the red vampyres, right?”

“Yes, she did.”

“But she wasn’t a fully Changed vamp, like me. Right?”

“Right again,” I said. “She was still a fledgling, though she was already having visions.”

“Well, then, I’ll probably lose part of my Mark. It didn’t hurt your Aphrodite, and she eventually became a High Priestessanda Prophetess of Nyx with special powers, didn’t she?”

“Well, yes,” I said. “But it wasn’t that simple. Our Aphrodite had to go througha lotto become that. There is really no way to know what it will cost you.”