“Easy there,” she said, and her voice sounded exactly the same. “I like my ribs.”
That’s what did it for me, hearing her sound so normal, so Bee, and then I was across the room, too, shamelessly using my Paladin strength to push Ryan out of the way and throw my arms around her.
“You’re okay,” I said, squeezing my eyes against the sudden stinging there. “You’re okay, you’re okay . . . wait.” I pulled back, held her at arm’s length. “Are you okay?”
There were tears in her big brown eyes, but she laughed shakily, nodding. “I am. I totally am.”
“Miss Franklin was never mistreated in our care,” Alexander said, and it was like I’d forgotten he was there. I turned to look over my shoulder.
“That doesn’t exactly make up for kidnapping her,” I said, and he gave another one of those rolling shrugs.
“She was not meant to be taken. That was all Blythe’s doing, and I assure you, she was punished for it.”
Something about the way he said “punished” made my skin crawl, but for right now, Bee was here, and she was fine, and she was smiling at me, and I didn’t care what the Ephors wanted, so long as she was here.
But then I remembered what he had said, about how if I died during the trials, they’d made “provisions.”
The night of Cotillion, David had transformed all the other girls into Paladins, too. He’d undone the spell on everyone else, but Blythe had taken Bee before then. Which meant that Bee—
“Miss Franklin is a Paladin as well,” Alexander said, finishing my thought for me. “She’s been with us, training, being very well cared for, as you can see.” He gestured to Bee, and I had to admit, she didn’t look terrible. Her cheeks were full, her skin was as clear and bright as it had always been, and while there was something in her eyes that I couldn’t quite name, she seemed . . . fine.
“Should you fail in the trials, Miss Franklin will be here to take your place as the Oracle’s Paladin.” He lifted his shoulders. “Easy as can be.”
It didn’t sound all that easy to me. In fact, it sounded like a lot of BS. There were no Paladin powers racing through me, so I figured the prickling at the back of my neck was good old-fashioned anger.
“So you’re using my best friend as my understudy in case I get killed?” I said.
Alexander sat back behind his desk, taking a sip of his tea. “When you put it that way, it sounds a great deal more mercenary than it actually is. We simply want to . . . hedge our bets, let us say.” He nodded at Bee. “And Miss Franklin has been very well prepared for this.”
When I turned back to Bee, she was looking at Alexander, but her gaze slid to me. She tried to smile, but it was shaky and I reached out to hold both her hands in mine.
“They did tell me about all this,” she said, taking a deep breath. “That’s why they took me, so that they’d have a . . . a spare, I guess.”
“You’re no one’s spare,” I told her, squeezing her hands. Relief and anger warred inside of me, along with a fair amount of confusion. I was so happy to have Bee back, but the last thing I’d ever wanted was for her to get involved in this, too. Bad enough that Ryan had been dragged in, but—
Suddenly David was at my side, taking my hand from Bee’s. “What the—” I started, but he only shook his head, pressing his palm to Bee’s. I saw his brow wrinkle in confusion, and he glanced over her shoulder at Alexander.
“That mind-reading trick. Why won’t it work on her?”
Alexander lifted both eyebrows. “Oh, did I not mention? Once the Paladin begins the Peirasmos, the Oracle is stripped of her—well, his, in this case—powers. Can’t have you looking into the future to help Miss Price face her trials.”
David’s hands clenched into fists. “You can’t do that,” he said, but Alexander only shrugged.
“I already have.”
“And I didn’t begin anything,” I argued, dropping Bee’s hands. I noticed Ryan moving a little closer to her as David and I approached Alexander’s desk.
“You said that I have to do these things or die. It’s not like there was a starter pistol or a ready-set-go that happened, so how—”
“They began the moment I summoned David,” Alexander interrupted, giving me a smile that showed too many teeth for my liking. “Congratulations.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, you don’t get to come here and tell us what to do. We were getting along fine without you.”
“Were you?” Alexander rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling as though he were thinking something over. “David was squandering his godlike power while the two of you scrambled to keep the people in your lives from figuring out what had happened to you. You threw up wards around your town to keep people from remembering what happened the night Blythe performed the ritual. You acted like children, hoping pebbles would hold back the sea. And Miss Franklin,” he finished, inclining his head toward Bee, “was missing—for all you knew, never coming back. And now we have come to help you.”
He kept saying “we,” but the house was empty except for him, as far as I knew. But then, as far as I knew, there hadn’t even been a house here a few weeks ago.
I didn’t like it. No, more than that, I hated it. Saylor would have known what to do here. The weirdest thing was that parts of it sounded okay. It sounded right. And there was Bee.
“I understand why you hesitate to trust us, Miss Price, I honestly do,” Alexander said. “But right now, we are all you have. And believe me when I say we need you as desperately as you need us.”
“What for?” David asked, but Alexander only shook his head.
“All in good time. Now, Miss Price, the Peirasmos began as of midnight tonight. There are three trials you will undergo before the end of this moon cycle. The trials may be physical in nature, or perhaps tests of the mind, of your spirit. You will not know when they are coming, and you will not receive any assistance. To do so violates the laws of the Peirasmos, and would be considered a failure of the tests. At the end of the trials, you will be stronger, quicker, better at being a Paladin, and Miss Franklin”—another nod at Bee—“will lose her own Paladin powers and return to life as before. Have I made myself clear?”