Chapter 27
1782 Words
Chapter 27
I flee the infirmary, leaving Cassie behind, determined to go straight back to the Wall of Weeping and search some more. Unfortunately, I run smack into Greg. Like, literally.
“Hey, Edie,” he stares at my face. “Did I do that?”
“What?” I reach up and touch my cut. I forgot to get it healed. “No, I crashed in flying class. Wait…” I search my bag and find the magic spray I swiped the first time I was injured.
“I can help you,” Greg offers and takes the can from me. He studies the wound and sprays it gently. It stings at first, then takes away the pain. I wish I could spray it on my life.
Greg hands me back the can. “So you and Val, huh?”
“It’s complicated,” I tell him. “But you and I were only ever going to the dance as friends—you know that, right?”
He looks hurt but it’s important he knows. “Yeah, sure, of course. Friends with an option to procreate.”
I shake my head and he offers a small smile, one that makes me think maybe all of his mating jokes might actually be his horrible attempt at humor. I manage to smile back.
“But we’re still going together, right?” he asks. “You’re not going to ditch me, are you?”
“I wouldn’t do that to a friend,” I assure him.
“Where are you off to now?” he asks.
“I was going to…” What? Try to find answers that never seem to come? Stare at the picture of my dead mother? Try not to run into any blood thirsty vamps? If only Ocypete would give me the answers I need.
An idea hits me like a bolt of action. “Greg, can you shift like me?”
“Uh…” His stricken look clearly says he doesn’t think of what I do as shifting.
“Can you pop out just your wings?” I clarify.
“Yes, since I was like, two,” he huffs.
“And if you’re in human form they’re…” I don’t know how to be kind about it. “Regular size?”
“Yes,” he says, stiffening a bit. “I’m big where it counts.”
I’m beyond caring if he thinks I’m making d**k jokes. “I need you to give me a ride.”
He raises his eyebrows.
“Not a s*x ride. A flying ride…like a winged Uber!”
“A ride to where?
“Ocypete’s nest.”
“Oh hells no.” He shakes his head. “Not happening. She is super scary.”
“I just need you to get me there. You don’t have to stay.” In fact, I really don’t want him to. “Please?”
I try to turn on the charm. I am a horrible person. After relegating him to the friend zone I’m using my wiles to convince him to help me. But awful or not, it’s working.
“I guess.”
I jump toward him and grab his hand. “Great! Let’s go.”
“Now?”
“No time like the present.” I look him up and down. He’s fit but not like the vamps. More in a sinewy kind of way. “Are you going to be able to carry me?”
“Oh ye of little faith.” He sweeps me up in his arms and his large black wings unfurl around him. I have to admit that the dip in my stomach isn’t entirely because of the sudden ascent. Greg is surprisingly strong, and there’s a confidence to him in the air that he doesn’t have on the ground.
I try not to look down as we fly over the school, pass into the swamp and head toward the biggest Cyprus tree I have ever seen in my life. Greg circles twice, and I know he’s checking for Pity before he sets me on the edge of her “nest.”
It’s more like a treehouse, with molted feathers and mud filling in the cracks, but I can see well-worn perching spots on a branch outside the door where my flying instructor must spend most of her time—her equivalent of the front porch rocking chair. The deep claw marks are unmistakable.
“You alright?” Greg asks, putting me down on the large branch. I turn back to him, suddenly grateful for this weird little guy.
“Yes, thank you.” I give him a hug, safely friend-zoning him by not adding a squeeze or letting our chests touch. He takes the hug—and the hint—before he soars off, and there’s a little bit of envy in it as I watch him go, wings spread fully as he heads back to the school. There’s a familiar tickle in my back, and I give in to the pressure that had been begging to release while we were in the air. My wings stretch out behind me, brightly magenta today.
Ocypete is nowhere in sight, but I’m not tempted to snoop. I might not have had enough lessons to know how to fly, but I learned quickly enough how silently she can swoop through the air, and how sharp her talons are. No, whatever secrets Ocypete has, I’ll need to come by them honestly. Well, somewhat honestly. ’Cause I am totally lying about how I got here.
I’ve wandered out as far as I dare go, only treading on the thickest parts of a branch and barely screwing up the courage to glance at the ground—easily a hundred feet below—when there’s a slight sway under my feet, and Ocypete is behind me. My wings automatically adjust, like a tightrope walker’s bar, and I keep my balance with surprising ease.
“Well,” Ocypete says, eyeing me. “Look what the cat dragged in. Sorry,” she says, spotting my confusion. “That’s an old harpy joke. I shouldn’t have taught it to you. Don’t ever say it to another harpy, or you’ll be in for it.”
“Another harpy…like my grandma?” I ask.
“Ah,” Ocypete raises her head an inch higher, looking down her nose at me. “Yes,” she admits.
“My grandma who isn’t actually my grandma by blood?” I push.
“Perhaps we should sit,” Pity says, folding her wings away and gesturing me to do the same. We go into her house, which is full of wicker furniture. I settle myself into a chair, only to have her hop onto the arm, her talons dangerously close to my leg.
“What do you know?” she asks, as if resigning herself to filling in the blanks.
“I know that my parents are not who I thought they were,” I tell her. “They adopted me. Took me and my sister from here. I know that my biological mother was Adrianna Apos—”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Ocypete says, unfurling her wings in irritation and gliding over to a couch, where she neglects the cushions to perch on the back. “What do you know that actually matters?”
“Excuse me?” I sputter, and she rolls her eyes. “My entire life being a lie doesn’t matter?”
“Oh, you thought it was all about you, right? Thought I was going to reveal that you were some amazing key to a magical puzzle, a spectacular gift that we’ve been searching for since you left?”
“I…” Okay, well yeah, maybe I was thinking something like that. “Val did say—”
“Val?” Pity’s thin eyebrows go up halfway to her hairline—and that’s receding so her surprise is palpable. “A little interspecies love in your future?”
“My past, maybe,” I mutter to myself, embarrassed all over again that I actually thought Val really liked me.
“What did Val say?” Ocypete prompts me to continue.
“Not long after I got to the school, after he saw my wings he said, ‘No wonder they were looking for you’.”
“Hmmpphh.” She nuzzles in her armpit for a second, idly spitting out a stray feather. I’ve been around shifters enough by now to realize that sudden grooming is usually a sign of stress.
“They were looking for me? And who are they anyway?”
“The gods,” she admits. “You’re a pawn being used to play a game much more dangerous than you can ever imagine. Who your mother was, who your father is, that’s all inconsequential.”
My face burns. Inconsequential? What could be more important to me than that? I lean forward. “You told me if I made it to your nest, I’d be ready for the truth. I’m here—so tell me.”
“Alright, little girl.” Ocypete lets out a cackle. “You think you’re ready, that you’re a hero, ready to avenge the deaths of the people you love, isn’t that so?”
I nod solemnly, fingernails cutting into my palms as I make fists. Ocypete’s head bobs as she talks, warming to her speech.
“And what side do heroes fight on?” she asks.
“The side of right,” I tell her, conviction in my voice.
She hops from the back of the couch to the cushion, her talons making skittering noises as she moves onto another chair, eyes fastened on mine as she comes closer, her voice almost a whisper now.
“But what if you’re wrong about who is right?”
I’m out of my chair in a moment, hands still in fists, anger making my voice wobble. “I’m not wrong. Monsters killed my father!”
“They killed a man who posed as your father,” Pity corrects me. “And why do you suppose they did that? Who was your adoptive father trying to protect you from?”
I think of the panicked voicemail on Dad’s phone, Mom’s voice saying, they’re here, the face of Leviathan as he swept over my father.
“Levi,” I tell her. “And his kind.”
“His kind? You know, I’m technically a monster…”
“But you’re different!”
“Am I? I’m tolerated here because I serve. But I’m not treated as an equal to the gods.”
“You’re saying that Dad wasn’t trying to protect me from the monsters?” I don’t bother to hide my skepticism.
Ocypete nods as if she’s agreeing with me, but then her brow furrows in fake concentration. “Then why would he take you away from a school where entire armies are trained to fight monsters? Wouldn’t that be the safest place on earth for you?”
“I… I…” My hands are unclenching, my conviction faltering.
She wobbles closer. Her mouth is only inches from my ear when she asks, “Why would he run away from the gods?”
“And why would he send me back?” I yell at her, latching onto the thought. “The password was one of the last things he said to me. He said I should go with—”
“Ichor,” Ocypete says calmly. “The password was ichor. Your father wanted you to come with me, not Hermes. Unfortunately, he found you first, and brought you here. Right where the gods want you.”
I slump, all of my conviction gone.
Ocypete moves closer to me, suddenly quiet and cautious. “What are you thinking, child?”
“I don’t know,” I suddenly scream, all my frustration escaping me as my wings unfurl, darkly scarlet with rage. “I don’t know anything,” I yell at her, tears rolling down my cheeks. “I don’t know who to trust or what’s going on here, I just… I just…” I stop, choking on a sob. I’d been about to say, I just want to go home.
But I don’t have one of those. Not anymore.
- Writer
