“We will,” Chancey promised, taking his coat back. “Let’s go, babe.”
Ava lowered her voice as their footsteps retreated. “Something’s going on. Did you find Takahashi?”
Kallie cleared her throat. “Not here. Come on.”
She led us down the hall to a secluded alcove. “Marcus and I found letters in Hemlock’s desk,” she whispered. “She concealed them with illusion magic, but I broke the spell.”
My blood turned ice cold. There was something in Kallie’s tone that worried me. “What did they say?”
Marcus audibly swallowed. “She’s calling a secret meeting… with our parents.”
“Ourwhat?” Ava cried, so loud anyone down the hall could’ve heard her.
We couldn’t have heard Marcus right. “She’s calling a secret meeting with who?” I asked.
“Our parents,” Kallie repeated. “Mine, Marcus’, and Ava’s. They’re all coming here.”
Ava gasped. “What for?”
I felt her unease through our bond. This couldn’t be good.
“She’s going to tell them we’re demigods, and she’s invited Professor Takahashi to be there,” Kallie said.
“She can’t do that,” I hissed. “The Warden could find out.”
“She has a secret illusion room,” Kallie told us. “She mentions it in the letters. She can’t leave the prison because she might be discovered, so she’s bringing our parents here. She’s going to duplicate herself with an illusion, like I did for us that time in the mines. She’s practically a prisoner here herself, but she’s found a way to hide it from the Warden. In a few weeks, our parents will be here. Whatever she says in that meeting could change the course of our future.”
“And the prophecy,” Ava breathed.
“So what do we do? Stop her?” I asked.
“No,” Ava said firmly. “I want to hear what she has to say.”
“What’s so important that she thinks our parents need to know, but she and Takahashi are keeping us in the dark?” Kallie asked. “We’re the subject of this meeting. Why don’t we have the right to know what’s going on in our own lives?”
“I don’t know, but one thing’s for sure. Hemlock has important information she’s not sharing with us,” Marcus pointed out. “There’s only one thing we can do.”
“Exactly,” Ava agreed. “We’re going to find out what Hemlock knows. When our parents get here, we’ll be listening in on that meeting.”
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
AVA-MARIE
The meeting was set to take place a few days before the start of the next Darke Games. Ivy, Chancey, Alistair and Scarlet were getting ready to participate, but as for me and my friends, we were concentrating on how to sneak into Hemlock’s secret gathering without getting caught.
On Saturday evening the day of the meeting, we were pretty sure we had a good plan.
“Do you know where the room is for certain?” I’d asked Kallie the same question a million times, but it was a valid one— illusion rooms could move, you know.
“Yes. It’s at the back of her classroom, concealed by a door that looks like a closet,” Kallie said. “She has a million wards around the place.”
“Which I can break,” Marcus offered. “I’ve been practicing with them all semester, and I think I can sever them now, long enough so we can sneak in.”
“And I’ll put them back up again with my own magic once we’re inside,” Kallie stated. “Hopefully my magical signature will be strong enough that Hemlock won’t notice it wasn’t her own magic that put the wards up.”
“If Marcus can break wards, we need to use it to get into the Warden’s office,” I said.
“This isn’t like the Warden’s office. We have to reinstate the ward if we don’t want to get caught,” Kallie pointed out. “I can replicate Hemlock’s spell because hers is fae magic. The Warden’s office is protected by something else— I’m not sure what. Besides, the point of this meeting is to overhear as much as we can, so even if Hemlock finds out we were there later, it doesn’t matter, because she can’t take back what we learned. If we get caught doesn’t matter in the long run.”
