The Eternity Key (8 page)

Instead of welcoming us into his office, Dax instructs us to head to our next classes as usual. I’m sitting in US history, my knee bouncing up and down uncontrollably, when a text from Haden finally pops up on my iPad. It’s a group text, addressed to me, Dax, Tobin, Garrick, and Lexie.

Haden:
Go to all the rest of your classes like normal. Lexie, stick with your dealership research, the rest of you, meet me in the grove after school. Everyone should go there separately. Make sure you’re not being followed.

Me:
What happened? Are you okay?

Haden:
Everything is fine. I’ll tell you when I see you at the grove.

I don’t realize how few breaths I’ve taken in the last half hour until I read that Haden is okay. My lungs ache as I sigh with relief.

Dax:
I’ll be there.

Lexie:
Will do. Glad you’re not dead.

Tobin:
What are you guys going on about? I’m in the middle of a chem quiz. Oh and btw, freaky new chick in my class keeps checking me out.

Garrick:
Stop with the texting. I’m trying to nap.

Haden:
Grove. After school. And, Tobin, DON’T bring the scary new girl with you.

Tobin:
Bro, you can’t try to keep all the new girls to yourself.

For some reason, I blush. And then duck my head, even though none of them can see me.

Me:
Tobin, he’s serious. Make sure she doesn’t follow you.

Tobin:
All right. GTG.

Haden:
One last thing. If you see me in the halls, pretend you don’t know me. We should all be seen together as little as possible for the time being. For Daphne’s protection.

Time passes at a snail’s pace until the last bell of the day rings. I get waylaid by Mr. Morgan, who wants me to bring some line notes to Joe for the opera’s libretto, and I don’t see anyone else around by the time I leave the school. I hop on my lemon yellow cruiser bike, make sure no one is watching, and pedal off toward the grove as fast as I can. The grove had been the first place I’d explored when I moved to Olympus Hills, its ethereal lullaby drawing me to it. But ever since Tobin and I had found Pear Perkins unconscious on its shore, and Lexie and I had been attacked by a Keres nearby, I haven’t exactly enjoyed being here during our little treasure hunts. I have to admit that I’m glad when I hear the others’ voices in the grove as I approach. I don’t know that I would have had the courage to go in alone.

I get off the bike, look around again, and then wheel it between the tall poplar trees that surround the grove in a perfect circle, and find the others waiting for me. Haden stands in the center of a group that consists of Dax, Tobin, and Garrick. The latter of whom I am surprised to see, considering his blowup at Haden earlier.

Haden looks up when he hears me approaching. I notice a particularly relieved tone swirl about him. Like he was worried about me. I smile, feeling that tightness in my chest finally loosening at the sight of him safe and sound. The urge to hug him grips me, but I look away instead.

I wouldn’t want to lead Haden on.

I’d never been into the idea of dating. My music and my goals had always come first, and having a mother who had been royally screwed over by the only guy she’d ever loved, I never saw all that lovey-dovey stuff as anything other than a distraction.

Until I met Haden.

Or I guess I should say until I got to know him—I’d hated him at first. But once he’d started to open up to me, I’d started to try to picture how he might fit in with my future plans. But now, with everything that is happening, I don’t know what that future holds. With all the dread and searching, and not even knowing how all of us—especially me, who according to a somewhat sketchy prophecy was supposed to use my heart and soul to unlock the Key—are going to come out of this unscathed. I don’t even have the emotional capacity to entertain the idea of a relationship at the moment. And depending on how all this shakes out, I’m not sure if there really is a place for Haden in my future. We’re too different—we’re literally from two completely different realms, after all.

It would never work.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself, despite not being able to breathe properly when I don’t know if he’s okay.…

I take a few measured breaths as Haden passes out shovels. There are holes in the ground that make it look like the place has been attacked by Godzilla-like gophers, large rocks turned over,
and little saplings pulled up by their roots. They lie, shriveled and songless, strewn across the ground. I can hear the aching pulse of the grove’s pain. I know some of this damage was done before we started looking for the Key—Haden had reported that he’d found the grove trashed when he came back to investigate the night Lexie and I were attacked—but guilt still pulls at me for our contribution.

When Haden told me about what he’d found here that night, I’d thought maybe it was the Keres that had caused the damage, but now that we’ve landed on our theory about the grove, I’m starting to think maybe someone else had been digging around here on purpose. Looking for the Key.

It’s a plausible and extremely freaky prospect since we already knew the Motorcycle Man had been following us before we left for Vegas. And now he has the Compass. Or perhaps the Skylords arrived in Olympus Hills earlier than today.

What if either party finds the Key before us?

“So what’s going on?” Tobin asks. “Why are we being so clandestine? Nobody in town ever comes to the grove anyway.”

“There’s been an incursion,” Haden says. “That new girl in your class, Terresa; another student named Calix; and our new humanities teacher, Ethan Bowman, they’re all Skylords.… I …” He seems to have something more to say but hesitates, like he doesn’t want to.

“Whoa, that Ethan guy is a Skylord?” Tobin asks. He has humanities last period of the day. “He did seem a little too suave for a substitute teacher.”

“So … there’s something else you should know about Ethan,” Dax says, looking at Tobin. “He’s Abbie’s fiancé.”

“Wait, what?” Tobin says, dropping his shovel. “She’s engaged to a Skylord?”

“I thought she was in love with you?” I ask Dax. CeCe—I mean, Abbie—hadn’t struck me as the “get engaged before you graduate high school” type. Then again, I’d had no idea she was a half Skylord in a self-appointed witness relocation program, either.

“She is in love with me. Or at least she was when we parted ways.” An unsure tone flows under Dax’s words. “I guess her
betrothed
is a better title than
fiancé
. Important Skylords pair their children off before they are even born. Political alliances, that sort of thing. Abbie’s biological father is named Taran, the son of a pretty high-ranking Skylord official. He went through a bit of a rebellious stage during his youth, fathering Abbie with your mother before returning to the Sky Court to take over his father’s position. Abbie was all but forgotten until Taran got word that the Underrealm had made a deal with your mom to make Abbie a Boon—and suddenly Taran remembered that his firstborn daughter had already been promised to someone else. And not just any someone, but the eldest grandson of the Sky King himself.”

“You mean Ethan isn’t just any Skylord, he’s a Sky Prince?” Haden asks.

“Wait, Ethan is Zeus’s grandson?” I ask.

“Zeus is the Sky
God
,” Dax says, “but if you’ve read the myths, he prefers spending his time on
other
activities than actually managing the day-to-day dealings of his realm. He leaves that to his adopted son, Life, the very first Skylord—or the Sky King, as he prefers to be called.”

“You mean Life is still alive? How old would that make his grandson?” I say.

“The Skylords are immortal under Zeus’s protection. Just
as the Underlords would be if Hades’s Kronolithe had not been stolen,” Dax says. “Ethan could be the age of twenty-three that is listed in his school file, or a millennium and a half, for all we know.”

“So my sister was not only promised to the Underrealm as breeding stock but was also betrothed to some possibly super-old prince from the Skyrealm?” Tobin asks.

“You see why she needed to go into hiding?” Dax says.

“And you didn’t think this betrothal business was pertinent information to share before now?” Tobin asks, clenching his fists. “For all we know, either group has her.”

“Or she could have just found a better spot to hide after she recognized Marta,” I say, trying to calm Tobin down. The angry notes that have been tumbling off him today are so thunderous, I don’t get how nobody else can hear them.

“So what do the Skylords want?” Garrick asks.

“The Key, I assume,” Dax says.

“So what do we do?” I ask.

“We find it first,” Haden says, handing me the last shovel.

“Okay. But please be mindful of the trees,” I say, listening to the worried little tones they put off.

We search until the sun starts to go down and my arms ache so much, I can barely lift them to wipe the sweat from my face. My throat is so dry, it feels like sandpaper. I reach for the water bottle I’d bought from one of the school vending machines after class but find that I’ve already drained it. I groan.

“Here,” Haden says, holding out his own bottle. “Take mine.”

“It’s yours. I couldn’t take it from you.”

He shrugs, and I notice that even though he’s dug three times
as many holes as I have, he’s barely broken a sweat while I feel like a dripping, dirty mess. “You need it more than I do.”

The tone coming off him is so earnest; I know he isn’t being rude. His concern makes me hesitate. “I don’t need—”

“Don’t be addled,” he says, pressing the water bottle into my hand.

I’m careful not to let my fingers brush against his as I take it, but as the cool water soothes my parched throat, I can’t help lingering on the thought that my mouth is pressed where his warm lips had been only moments before.

Heat rushes into my cheeks as I finish off the water and set the bottle aside.

I wipe my neck where water has spilled over my lips and run down to my collarbone in my exuberance in quenching my thirst. Haden glances away as if he weren’t watching.

“This is stupid,” Garrick says, collapsing against one of the larger trees. “How are we even supposed to know if we find the Key? Nobody even knows what we’re looking for. Is it large or small? Are we looking for a box that it’s hidden in? I am supposing it’s locked up somehow, considering Daphne’s supposed to use her heart and soul to open it up? What does that even mean?”

“I have no idea on any of those,” I say, because even though his attitude stinks, his words echo the thoughts that have been running through my head for the last two weeks. I sit on the ground and use my foot to push dirt back into one of the holes I’ve dug. I hate the idea of leaving the grove ripped up, but I know I don’t have the energy to clean up all of this mess today. “I can only hope Lexie has had more luck. Speaking of which …” I reach for my tote bag and dig my phone out. There are two texts from Joe, who’s wondering when I’ll be home, and a voice mail from Lexie.

I hit the speaker button and play the message out loud. “So it turns out there are eight dealerships that sell Ducatis between here and Redondo Beach. I emailed you a copy of the list. I only had time to make it out to the closest one.… And this is going to be harder than I thought. I even flashed around my dad’s black AmEx and said I was trying to buy him a special birthday present, and I couldn’t get anyone to give me the time of day. It doesn’t help that most of the sales staff are female. Anyway, got to get to my Pilates class. Talk at you tomorrow.”

I delete the message and rub my hands over my face, forgetting they’re wet and dirty until it’s too late.

“I’m guessing teenagers aren’t worth their time,” Haden says.

“That’s what I thought,” Tobin says, kicking a pile of dirt.

“I can give it a try,” Dax says. “Clean me up enough, and I could look like an up-and-coming starlet.”

I crook a smile. “Starlets are girls … but that gives me an idea.…” It just involves bringing in the one person I was hoping to leave out of my life at the moment.

I dial Joe.

“Daphne?” he asks. “What’s wrong? Where have you been? Are you okay? Do you need help?”

“Nothing is wrong,” I say, realizing with a pang of guilt that Joe thinks that’s the only reason I would call him on my own accord. “I do need your help with something, though. How much do you know about motorcycles?”

“Not a bleeding thing. But my drummer has one.”

“How do you feel about looking into one for me?”

“Um … I guess. What kind did you have in mind?”

“A black Ducati Superbike 1199 Panigale.”

Joe sounds like he’s choking on his own spit. “Right, I know
enough about motorcycles to know that your mum is going to kill me if I get you one of those.”

“It’s not for me. It belongs to your new bass player—or at least the one you want to hire.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We have a theory that the Motorcycle Man may have recently bought his bike from one of the nearby Ducati dealerships. I’m thinking that if
the
Joe Vince goes swaggering into the dealership looking to find the name and address of someone who purchased a black Ducati Superbike in the last three months—say, because you recently saw that person play at an open mike night and you want to hire him for your band, but all you got was the make of his motorcycle, and you just happened to be offering a finder’s fee—they might be more willing to give his personal information to you rather than a bunch of teenagers.”

“Sounds like a decent theory,” Joe says, his voice much brighter now. “I’ll give it my best shot.”

I tell him that I’ll send him the list of dealerships, and then hang up the phone, hoping he means it, because this shot may be the only one we’ve got left.

chapter eight