Page 37 of Lost

“I don’t need to go to the infirmary. I’m fine. Really,” I insisted.

“And it wasn’t something Z did to herself,” Stark said. “It was something that happenedtoher.”

“That don’t make no sense,” said Kramisha.

“Or, said correctly, that doesn’t make any sense. Grammar—incorrect. Sentiment—correct,” Aphrodite quipped.

“It does make sense,” I said quickly, before Kramisha could verbally skewer Aphrodite. “Stark means there’s nothing wrong with me. That whatever he and I felt, it was something happening outside me. And it was more strange than scary.”

“Hey, what’s going on out here?” Damien said as he and Other Jack joined their group. They were each carrying perfect white pillar candles that they were obviously intending to light at the feet of Nyx. “Z, are you okay?”

I sighed. Sometimes it was seriously like I had zero privacy. “I’m fine. It was nothing.”

“Don’t say that.” Stark spoke earnestly as he sat beside me, putting his arm protectively around me. “You feel fine now—wefeel fine—but it wasn’t nothing. Something happened. Something that touched you or me or both of us.”

It was Damien’s turn to crouch before me. “Tell me what it felt like.”

I described the sudden heat to him and watched Damien get paler and paler as Stark nodded in agreement with my description, but before Damien could say anything Aphrodite spoke up.

“Oh, for shit’s sake, morons! It’s obvious what it is.”

“Aphrodite, it’s super offensive to call us morons,” said Stevie Rae.

“Bumpkin, this is just a guess, but before I joined this little impromptu group I’d bet you made at least one awful comparison that either had to do with your mama or with ticks. Am I right?”

“Almost,” Kramisha said. “It had to do with a buzzard on a meat wagon, which is nasty.” She glanced at Stevie Rae and sent her an apologetic smile. “I’s just tellin’ the truth.”

“Right,” said Aphrodite. “And that’s offensive, but you’re going to keep on with the bumpkin analogies, and as long as you do I’m going to call a moron a moron when I see you guys acting moronic.”

“Oh, my Goddess, stop bickering!” I felt like my head might explode. “Aphrodite, did you actually have a point?”

“Of course,” she said. “It’s Old Magick. And that slapping sound you metaphorically hear is all of you face-palming as you realize I’m right.”

“Sheisright,” Damien said as he stood and took Other Jack’s hand again. “It’s what I was thinking too.”

I just sat, unable to say anything because I was remembering… the time I spent on the Isle of Skye… the talisman of Skye marble that I brought back to Tulsa… the heat and power of that magick… and how it almost engulfed me and turned me into someone too similar to Neferet to be allowed to live.

“Z?”

I could feel Stark’s worry, and I let it pull me out of my head.

“Aphrodite and Damien are right,” I said. “I didn’t realize it at first because it was only a distant echo of how Old Magick actually feels to wield.”

“So, that must mean someone is usin’ Old Magick again,” Stevie Rae said.

“And that’s bad,” Rephaim said.

“Real bad,” Kramisha said.

“You should call Queen Sgiach,” Aphrodite said. “She’s the Old Magick expert.”

“I’d love to,” I said. “But she’s in mourning, which means she’s cut herself off from the outside world. I know. I’ve been checking on her once a week, and this week’s checkup was yesterday. She’s still totally off-line and her phone just rings and rings and rings.”

“She’sstillnot taking calls? What’s it been now, almost a year since the White Bull attacked Skye the same night Neferet attacked us here? You’d think she’d at least check her Facebook,” Aphrodite said.

I looked up at her. She was my friend, a powerful Prophetess of Nyx, and with her new red and blue Mark, an adult vampyre—but she could still sound like a selfish brat. “She and Seoras were mated for centuries. I think a year of mourning isn’t much in comparison. Would you have moved on already had Darius been killed that night?”

Aphrodite paled and leaned into Darius. “No. No, I would not. You’re right, Z. I apologize for sounding like a moron.”