“Training?” Issie’s eyebrow lifts up.
Callie says it for me. “There’s no option, is there? You’ll have to train us to fight.”
“Not just us. Giselle too,” Paul says. “She’d want in on this, and Andrew and Brad and Tyler and Blake …”
His list goes on for a while and Devyn starts typing the names into a file. I lean back and close my eyes. Fate feels like it comes spiraling in on me. I want to know where Astley is.
“Do we start today?” Callie interrupts Paul’s never-ending list of names.
“Tomorrow,” Nick says. “We’ll start tomorrow afternoon, meet at the Y. They have free gym time at one. Nobody’s ever in there.”
And so our army begins.
We’re gathering our things together when Becca explodes into the Grind and runs to me, looking like a frightened cheerleader, not the killing machine she is.
She grabs me by the arms. “It’s Astley.”
“What’s happened?” I knew it. I knew something was wrong.
“They’ve poisoned him.” Her face breaks into tears. “He’s bad, really bad.”
Running toward the doors, I yank her along with me, demanding, “Where? Where is he?”
“At the birds’.”
WEEKLY REPORT: 12/14 TO 12/21
TROOP/UNIT: Troop J
ITEMS OF INTEREST TO LOCAL AGENCIES:
12/16: The Holiday Inn staff reported suspicious activity outside one of their guests’ ground-floor bedrooms. A woman was reportedly standing in the snow, laughing for twenty minutes. Failed to locate upon arrival.
Becca gives me the lowdown as we rush to the car. She and Amelie had gone to meet Astley in his hotel room. He didn’t answer when they knocked, but they could smell him inside, so they busted down the door and found him, unglamoured and unconscious on the floor.
“How did you know he was poisoned?” I ask, turning on the truck and yanking my seat belt into position.
“There was a note.”
“A note?” I pull out of the parking space way too quickly and swerve on the slushy road. I just want to get to Devyn’s house, get to Astley, find out what happened. Devyn is flying there. I wish I could turn bird and do that. It would be so much faster.
“Taped to the outside window. It said, Poison is a fitting way for a weak-hearted king to die.”
“Weak-hearted?”
She rubs at her eyes and says in a voice choked with venom, “Isla, his mother, always thought he was weak. Too willing to see the good in people, too hesitant to use his power, his authority on his subjects.”
“So basically, he’s not an evil tyrant.” My foot pushes harder on the gas pedal and part of me wishes it was Isla’s face.
“Exactly.” Her tone is heavy and she presses her palm against the glass pane of the window like she is trying really hard not to break it.
The truck skids over the snow-slick road as I turn onto a side street. I ask, “And she’s the one who poisoned him?”
“The note wasn’t signed but the word choice makes it look that way.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Million-dollar question,” Becca says. “Can’t you drive faster?”
I do, zooming dangerously over the freezing roads, passing a city plow truck. I think my questions are frustrating her, or maybe it’s my ignorance plus the situation. I don’t know. All I know is that Astley is hurt, really hurt. Maybe Astley is the key to everything somehow.
“If he dies—” Becca starts.
“He can’t die,” I blurt.
“If he dies, you will be our queen.”
The thought of it makes me cringe. “A queen doesn’t usually rule alone.”
“Some do. You would.”
There’s a pause in her voice. “But?”
“But,” she says, “I think this is part of the plan. Other than a few weres, we are the only ones protecting this town from Frank. If Astley is gone we weaken, especially if you are not strong enough to rule alone. If you are gone, then Astley weakens. It works either way. So, then there is an opening—”
“For an evil pixie king named Belial, also known as Frank.” I pull into Devyn’s driveway. “Not going to happen.”
I shut off the truck, fly out, and race up the stairs. Becca rushes right behind me.
She grabs my arm just as I push open the door. “Promise me.”
Even though it kills me to hesitate, I take the second required to appease her because that’s what a leader does: she takes care of her people. “I promise. We won’t let him die.”
The house is full of noise and the agitated sound of intellectual scientists in crisis mode. I follow the debating voices to Devyn’s bedroom, where they’ve laid Astley out on the twin bed. He’s blue, but a horrifyingly pale blue that’s turning white. His face is puffy and he’s gasping for air. Devyn’s mom stands over him with some sort of breathing tube. My heart stops for a moment, just stops, and breaks as I stare at him.
“Astley,” I say his name in a whisper.
Nobody hears. I bolt forward, the pain in my stomach exploding, my own breath twirling around, gasping to get out. I feel what he is feeling.
“Put the tube in,” I shout. “Get a shot of Benadryl. It’s like asthma. Like shock. Trust me. It will help.”
Devyn and his parents stop for a moment and then his dad nods and races out of the room. His footsteps thunder down the staircase.
Devyn says, “A couple months ago, you panicked when Nick had an arrow in him, and called Betty, now you’re giving commands.”
“Maybe I have changed,” I say, grabbing Astley’s hand. It’s limp in mine. “Someone talk to me.”
Devyn swallows hard and pushes his glasses up his nose. I wonder why he’s wearing them today. His voice is a worried monotone as he says, “It’s bad.”
Bad. The word just barely registers. There is no time to let it register.
“No death. You are not allowed,” I order, and my voice is both frantic and strong. I turn to Becca. “Text Cassidy to come now. Tell Amelie to get the food in his room, anything near where you found his body. His toothbrush. Anything that could enter his mouth. Anything that could be poisoned. Bring it here. Maybe we can isolate what it is and get some kind of antidote. You can do that, right?”