The Ruby Circle Page 9

  I was reeling as the drive continued, still in awe at this new revelation that Zoe might be having doubts—if not about the Alchemists, then at least about what had been done to me. Once I recovered from my initial shock, I found myself feeling an emotion I hadn’t felt about her in a very long time: hope.

  Clouds were thinning out when we reached Ha Ha Tonka State Park, and the early morning temperatures were already promising a sweltering day ahead. We parked and stopped by the visitors’ center, clustering around a map of the park. Although there were extensive grounds and trails, we decided the ruins of the massive stone building—which even the park referred to as the “castle”—were the place to start, seeing as that’s what our clue directly connected to.

  No one else was out this early, aside from the staff at the visitors’ center. Ms. Terwilliger and I walked around the stone ruins, looking for signs of magic and occasionally casting detection spells. Eddie stayed near us protectively, doing his own searching as well, but mostly relying on us to find whatever it was we were looking for. The part of me that had long loved art and architecture couldn’t help but get caught up in the ruined grandeur around us, and I wished Adrian was with me. We hadn’t officially had a honeymoon after our wedding, but we’d often talked about all the potential places we’d like to go, if only we had the freedom. Italy was still high on my list, as was Greece. But honestly, I would’ve gladly settled for Missouri, if only Adrian could be with me, free from pursuit.

  After a few hours of searching, we were hot and sweaty but had yielded no results. Eddie, still not convinced of Zoe’s intentions, was growing nervous about us lingering and wanted to be on the road soon. As lunchtime neared and we contemplated calling a break, something flashed in my pe-riphery. I turned and looked up at one of the castle’s dilapidated towers and saw something small and golden shining in the afternoon sunlight. I touched Eddie’s arm and pointed.

  “What’s that gold thing?”

  He put a hand above his eyes and squinted. “What gold thing?”

  “On the tower there. Right below the top window opening.”

  Eddie looked again and then dropped his hand. “I don’t see anything.”

  I beckoned Ms. Terwilliger over and tried to show her. “Do you see that? Below that window on the tallest tower?”

  “It looks golden,” she said promptly.

  Eddie was incredulous and turned back to where we indicated. “What are you guys talking about? There’s nothing there.” I could understand his disbelief. Dhampir vision was superior to that of a human.

  Ms. Terwilliger scrutinized him for a moment before fixing her gaze back on the tower. “It’s possible we’re looking at something that can only be seen by those who perceive magic. This could be what we need.”

  “Then how do we get to it?” I wondered aloud. The tower itself was little more than a high stone wall, and I wasn’t confident it offered great footholds for climbing. It was also in a section of the castle behind a fence, warning visitors to stay on the outside. With a few more tourists wandering through, plus the occasional park ranger, I knew there was no way we could covertly jump the fence.

  Eddie surprised us both with a magical suggestion. “I could climb it. Can’t you guys do an invisibility spell?”

  “Yes . . .” I began. “But it won’t do much good if you can’t see what you’re looking for. I wish I could climb it . . . but I think it’s a bit beyond my abilities.”

  “Can we both be invisible?” he asked. “You stand at the bottom and spot me. Tell me where to go.”

  Ms. Terwilliger turned Eddie invisible, and I then cast the same spell on myself. It wasn’t a particularly strong invisibility spell, and anyone looking for us would be able to detect us. We didn’t want to cast a stronger spell, in case we had to defend ourselves later, and we were taking it on faith no tourist or ranger was expecting to find someone climbing the ruin walls.

  Unseen, Eddie and I easily hopped the fence and approached the tower in question. Up close, I now had a better sense for what the golden object was. “It looks like a brick,” I told him.

  He followed my gaze, still unable to see what I saw. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  The tower’s surface was rough and irregular, with erratic handholds and other openings left behind for long-gone windows. I wouldn’t have been able to climb it, but Eddie managed it deftly, the strong muscles in his body working as he grappled for places to rest feet and hands as he slowly made his way up. When he arrived at the top window, he at least had a place to rest and stand on the opening’s edge. Reaching up, he placed his hand on a brick at random. “Now what?”

  “It’s three bricks to your left and two up,” I called.

  He counted and moved his hand, setting it on what I saw as a golden brick. “Is this it? It’s loose. I can pull it out.”

  “That’s the one.”

  I tensed as he pried the brick from the wall. I sensed no obvious traps from this distance, but for all I knew the entire structure would crumble down around us when he removed it. With a little wriggling, it came free. Both Eddie and I froze, waiting for a deadly fotiana swarm or some other disaster. When nothing happened, he tossed the brick to the ground beside me and began scaling his way down. Once he was safely back, we hurried out of the enclosed area and took the brick to Ms. Terwilliger.

  All three of us crowded around it, hoping for revelation—but got nothing. We cast more spells on it and tried pairing it with the original brick we’d brought from Pittsburgh. Still nothing. Wondering if there might be more gold bricks around, we did another search of the property but came up empty. Hot and hungry by this point, we decided to call a break and get some lunch. We went to a German restaurant and were surprised to see how crowded it and other restaurants in the park’s small town were.

  “There’s a fishing convention in town,” our waiter told us. “Hope you’ve got a hotel if you were planning on staying.”

  We hadn’t gotten one yet, actually, though we had been discussing staying overnight to possibly search the park again tomorrow. “Maybe we can find another nearby town,” I mused.

  The waiter brightened. “My uncle runs a campground that has vacancies right now. He’ll even rent tents and everything. Cheaper than a hotel.”

  Cost wasn’t an issue, but after a brief discussion, we decided to follow up on the offer and go out to the campground, simply because of its proximity to the park. We were able to rent what we needed, get set up, and then make another trip to Ha Ha Tonka before it closed for the night. Once more, we found no answers in either the park or the brick. We tried to tell ourselves that morning would bring fresh perspective, but none of us would give voice to the burning question hanging between us: What were we going to do if we weren’t able to find the gold brick’s secrets?

  I longed to discuss it with Adrian, but there’d still been no communication since my last update. Dutifully, I sent him another report about what was going on and then prepared for bed, unwilling to admit how much his radio silence bothered me. Exhausted from a long day, I soon fell asleep in the rented tent . . .

  . . . and was awakened a few hours later by a panicked Eddie.

  “Sydney! Jackie! Get up!”

  I opened my eyes and instantly sat upright. “What? What is it?”

  He was standing in the unzipped opening of the tent, pointing outward. Ms. Terwilliger and I scrambled to his side and looked where he indicated. There, out in the moonlight, a glowing puddle of what seemed like molten gold was oozing over the ground, coming toward us. Where it touched, it left scorched grass and earth behind.

  “What is that?” I exclaimed.

  “The brick,” said Eddie. “I was on watch inside and noticed it starting to glow. I picked it up, and it nearly burned my hand. I threw it outside, and it melted into that.”

  Ms. Terwilliger murmured a quick incantation as the blo
b nearly reached our tent. An invisible wave of power shot out and knocked the golden glob back a few feet. Then it began making its way back toward us.

  “Wonderful,” I muttered. She repeated the spell, but it was clear that was only a temporary fix.

  “Can we trap it?” I asked. “There are a lot of stones around. We could make some kind of enclosure?”

  “It’s burning right through the stones in its path,” said Eddie grimly.

  Ms. Terwilliger gave up on the force spells and cast a freezing spell similar to what she’d used in the robot museum. She directed a blast of bitter cold toward the molten puddle, which halted in its tracks. Half of the blob began to solidify, though the other half was still liquid and mobile and tried to wriggle away, dragging its frozen half with it.

  “Sydney, get to the other side!” Ms. Terwilliger said.

  I hurried to obey, running out of the tent and standing on the other side of the blob, which had liquefied now that she’d momentarily dropped the spell. The ooze moved toward the tent again, and Ms. Terwilliger held up her hands to cast. “On the count of three,” she ordered. “One . . . two . . . three!”

  Simultaneously, we released freezing spells, attacking the molten gold from opposite sides. The mass wriggled and writhed in the grip of the magic but slowly began to solidify. I’d never sustained the spell for a long time, but Ms. Terwilliger wasn’t letting go of the magic. I followed her lead until, at last, the gold was still, completely solidified into an irregularly shaped puddle. We let go of the magic and carefully walked up to it. The gold stayed as it was.

  “That was weird,” I said. “Not quite as bad as the last attack.” I still had a few cuts from the little magical fireflies that had come after us in Pittsburgh.

  “Only because it didn’t get to us,” warned Ms. Terwilliger. “I hate to think what would’ve happened if we’d all been asleep in that tent when it liquefied.”

  I shuddered, knowing she was right. “But what does it mean?”

  No one had an immediate answer, but Eddie surprised us when he spoke a few seconds later. “I’ve seen this before.”

  “A golden brick that turned into a deadly, rampaging puddle of molten metal?” I asked.

  He shot me a wan smile. “No. Look at that shape. Doesn’t it seem familiar?”

  I tilted my head to study the golden form before us. There didn’t seem to be any design to the shape. It was an amorphous, vaguely ovalish shape that looked like it had hardened that way by coincidence. Eddie’s intense look of concentration said he believed otherwise. After a few more moments of concentration, revelation lit his features. He pulled out his cell phone and tapped in something. With shoddy coverage in the park, it took a little while for the phone to find what Eddie needed, but when it did, he was triumphant.

  “There, take a look.”

  Ms. Terwilliger and I peered at his screen and found a map of the greater Palm Springs area. Instantly, I realized what he’d tuned into.

  “It’s the Salton Sea,” I breathed. “Good recall, Eddie.”

  The Salton Sea was a saline lake outside of Palm Springs, and the metal puddle before us was exactly the same shape as that body of water. Ms. Terwilliger shook her head and gave a snort of dismay.

  “Wonderful. I left Palm Springs to warn you, got caught up in a magical scavenger hunt, and am now, after all that effort, simply taking you back home.”

  “But why?” asked Eddie. “Has Jill been there the whole time? And who’s the one pulling the strings behind all—”

  “Get back!” cried Ms. Terwilliger, holding her hands in a warding gesture.

  Not even Eddie could move fast enough from what she’d spotted. The golden blob had begun to tremble, like it was suddenly filled with energy that needed to get out. I tried to cast a shielding spell, but even as the words formed on my lips, I knew I wasn’t going to be fast enough. The blob exploded into a hundred little golden razor blades that came flying toward us—and then stopped. They hit an invisible barrier and fell harmlessly to the ground.

  I stared at where they lay, my heart pounding as I thought of the terrible damage they would have caused if Ms. Terwilliger hadn’t been fast enough. So it was a surprise to me when she said, “Excellent reflexes, Sydney. I couldn’t manage it in time.”

  I jerked my gaze up from the blades. “You didn’t cast that?”

  She frowned. “No. I thought you did.”

  “I did,” a voice behind us said.

  I spun around and gasped as, incredibly, Adrian emerged from the trees. Forgetting the tragedy that had nearly taken place, I ran into his arms, letting him lift me off my feet. “What are you doing here?” I exclaimed. “Never mind.” I kissed him hard, so overwhelmed that I didn’t even care that Eddie and Ms. Terwilliger were nearby. Being away from him these last couple of days had made my heart ache more than I’d expected, and I think we were both surprised when he was the one who finally broke the kiss off.

  “I told you I’d find a way to get here,” he said, grinning. His gaze fell on the blades, and his smile faded. “Not a moment too soon, I guess.”

  With his arm still around me, I turned back to the razors, which glittered ominously in the grass. A memory slowly surfaced within me. “I’ve seen those before,” I said, sounding much like Eddie had earlier.

  Ms. Terwilliger exhaled a shaking breath. “It’s a nasty spell. Not one to be cast lightly.”

  “I know,” I said softly. “I cast it once.”

  Everyone turned to me in astonishment. “When?” she asked. “Where?”

  “At your house . . . your old house, before it burned down,” I corrected. A thousand memories crushed down on me, and the world swayed a little as I suddenly made connection after connection. I’d thought I didn’t know anyone capable of using this kind of human magic—anyone who’d want to come after me, at least. I’d been wrong. I met my friends’ expectant gazes. “It’s the spell I used to kill Alicia,” I explained.

  CHAPTER 7

  ADRIAN

  ALICIA DEGRAW WAS ALIVE.

  It was shocking to me, so I could only imagine how Sydney must feel. She thought she’d killed Alicia. Alicia had been the apprentice of Jackie’s sister, Veronica, but had gone rogue. That was no small thing, seeing as Veronica herself was certainly no role model. She’d been obsessed with stealing youth and power from other witches, effectively leaving them in comas for the rest of their lives. Alicia had turned on her mentor, taken her power, and then gone after Jackie. Sydney and I had been involved in a showdown at Jackie’s house at the end of last year—a showdown that had resulted in said house burning to the ground. We hadn’t known for sure if Alicia had made it out, but now we had our answer.

  “I’m kind of torn,” Sydney admitted, stirring the coffee she had yet to drink. We’d left the campground to go discuss matters in a twenty-four-hour restaurant, and it was a sign of her worry that the coffee was untouched. I was pretty sure I’d never seen her pass on caffeine in all our time together. “Part of me’s relieved I didn’t actually kill someone. On the other hand . . . well, this kind of complicates things.”

  “You’re certain?” Jackie asked from across the table. “Those are the same ones?”

  Sydney held up a golden razor blade, the only one she’d saved from the campsite. The rest had been destroyed. “Positive. You don’t forget something like that. That night I fought her, I transformed some perpetual-motion balls into blades just like these.”

  “I remember those,” Jackie murmured, almost wistfully. “They were an end-of-the-year gift from a former student. I think he hoped I’d raise his grade.”

  Sydney seemed not to have heard. There was a haunted look in her eyes. “I sent the blades toward Alicia. It was just instinct. She fell down your basement stairs, and I couldn’t stick around to see what had happened—not with everything on fire.”

 
; I put my hand over hers. “You did what you had to do. It was the right thing. She was—is—an evil person.”

  “I suppose,” Sydney said with a sigh. “And I guess this answers our questions. We’ve been trying to figure out who would have a vendetta against me and could use human magic. She’s the perfect fit.”

  “Now that we know she’s behind this, let’s go after her and get Jill,” growled Eddie. This life on the road had made him shave even less, and he was well on his way to a beard. “She left that clue: She’s in Palm Springs. She needs to be stopped once and for all.”

  “Agreed,” Sydney said, snapping out of her earlier malaise. “We need to finish this and get Jill. None of us are going to sleep anytime soon—we might as well hit the road now and go to Palm Springs.”

  “Not you,” said Jackie. “I don’t want you anywhere near Palm Springs right now.”

  “What?” exclaimed Sydney. Her intensity was a match for Eddie’s. “But that’s the next piece of this! Alicia all but told us.”

  “And that’s why we’re not going to rush into this—at least not right away.”

  “But Jill—” Eddie began.

  Jackie shook her head. “We don’t yet know the extent of Jill’s involvement in this. What we do know is that Alicia is baiting Sydney and wants her to come to Palm Springs, where there’s probably a very neatly laid trap. Alicia’s also following her old pattern of wearing out an enemy first. This ‘scavenger hunt’ wasn’t just for her amusement. It was to weaken Sydney magically. If you run off to Palm Springs now, after the magic you’ve wielded these last few days, you might very well succumb to whatever she has in store. Then we lose you and never find out what’s become of Jill.”

  I felt conflicted and tightened my hold on Sydney’s hand. I could understand why Jackie wanted to keep Sydney away from danger. I wanted that too. But I also felt the increasing pressure that everyone else did. Each passing day put Jill at greater risk. How could we not take action when we had a lead?