Nick glares at me.
“What? I’m just wondering.”
“Because I didn’t know what to smell for then,” Nick explains. He pulls in a breath. It’s obvious he’s trying to calm himself down. “Now I know. It smells like Dove soap.”
“The problem,” Devyn says, “is that a lot of non-pixies use Dove soap. The smell isn’t a sure bet. It’s ridiculous, actually. Dove soap . . .”
I gently extract myself from Issie and open the passenger-side doors of the car. “Why don’t we get out of the cold and then I’ll tell you what happened, okay?”
Dev’s and Nick’s eyes meet. I wish I knew what they were thinking, but finally Nick nods and at least his hand trusts me enough to brush the hair out of my face. “Okay.”
Nick speeds so fast that the trees just blur by us and I tell them what happened with me and Astley.
“Astley? That means ‘star,’ ” Devyn announces from the front seat.
“How do you know that?” Issie leans forward, then thinks better of it and comes back.
“He’s a genius. Devyn, my man, you are a genius,” Nick says. He reaches over and ruffles Dev’s hair. It is the first hint that Nick might not explode.
“I’m not a genius. I just retain things, mostly useless things,” Dev says, but he’s smiling and not bothering to fix his hair.
“So, what do you think this all means?” Nick asks as he yanks the car around a hairpin corner. Is and I sway in the backseat.
“Me? I don’t know,” Dev says.
“Well, he’s the king Zara’s father talked about,” Issie says, trying not to slam into me by hanging on to the seat back. “Gold dust. Spidery feelings . . .”
“What I’m wondering is why was he so insistent that he wasn’t like Zara’s father?” Devyn asks. His words come out slowly. “You know? Why he’s so . . . Does it seem to you like he was trying to say something but not saying it? Did you tell us everything, Zara?”
He turns so our eyes meet. I am annoyed. “Of course I told you everything.”
“Okay, okay! But you and Is weren’t exactly forthcoming about the little excursion with your dad,” he replies somewhat snidely. Issie seems to fold into herself.
Nick snorts. “Forthcoming?”
“Shut up.” Dev punches Nick in the arm. “I aced my Critical Reading SATs. It is nothing to feel humiliated about.”
“Be proud, Linguistic Acuity Man,” Is fake cheers. Her words fall into emptiness.
“Linguistic Acuity Man?” I echo, trying to make it better.
“Oh, Is . . .” Devyn turns to look at her.
“It can be your superhero name,” I say.
We drive along in awkward silence. The tension from Issie is pretty thick. I know it’s hard for her to be in the car with Devyn because she wants him to invite her to the dance and she feels weird about the whole Cassidy situation. We drive past trees and logging trucks. We drive up hills and around curves and then Nick slams on the brakes. My head pounds into the head rest.
“What is it?” Issie yells.
“Holy—” Nick jumps out of the car. He’s looking up at the sky.
We bail out of the car too. I crane my head up. There is something funny flying up high. It looks like two figures pushed together, with giant wings.
“It’s the Valkyrie,” I whisper. “She’s got someone.”
We stand there staring for a second and then I bark out, “Devyn? Can you change?”
He nods. “I think so.”
“Well, try. Follow her. See where she goes,” I order.
Devyn ducks down low. Issie comes to my side of the car and Devyn starts throwing his clothes over it. It doesn’t take long and he’s a bird. He takes off, super large eagle wings flapping hard and strong into the cold white sky. The clouds are high and stormy looking.
“Stay safe!” Issie yells. “Do not get hurt, Linguistic Acuity Man!”
He just soars up and away. Issie leans against me and I hustle her into the car. Nick grabs Devyn’s clothes and comes inside too. We blast the heater and wait. None of us talk about anything; not about pixies or dances, not about love or science tests or blue skin.
Luckily, it’s not long before Devyn’s back. He turns human by the side of the car, gets dressed, and shudders from the cold. Putting his hands in front of the heat duct, he tells us what he saw: a woman with swan wings. She held a female pixie in her arms.
“I lost her. She went into the clouds and then she was just gone.” He runs a shaking hand over his head. “I can’t believe I lost her.”
Devyn and Nick theorize that it’s a good thing the Valkyrie is here because if she’s taking pixies, then there are fewer pixies for us to deal with. They think she might be why we haven’t seen so many in the last week. But me? I’ve seen her up close, and I am not so sure.
Pixie Tip
Pixies are stronger at night. Stay inside. Nighttime is not the right time for pixie hunting.
“Easily the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Issie says.
We’re back at my house and I am showing them the book I found upstairs and what my dad wrote in it.
“Leave Risk Sixty? Baa Ebbed Fly Tight Vigor Trolls? Those aren’t the best clues,” Nick says playfully. “Sorry, baby.”
I poke him right above his belt loop and hand the book to Devyn. “I think they are anagrams.”
Devyn takes it. “You’re probably right. Let me think. The only one I can get off the top of my head is A Evil Sexy Skirt, which isn’t grammatically correct. It should be: An Evil Sexy Skirt.”
“There’s an anagram server on the Net,” Issie says, opening up Betty’s laptop. “Let’s see what we get.”
She gets to the site and types in: “Leave Risk Sixty.” There are 14,683 results. We all crowd around the laptop as she starts reading them aloud. “Relatives Xi Sky. Relative Xis Sky. Relative Six Sky. Relaxes Skit Ivy. Relaxes Kits Ivy. Leaver Ski Sixty. Reveal Ski Sixty . . .”
“This isn’t working,” Nick growls. He starts to back away, but I touch him on the arm and he breathes out slowly. It’s almost like gentling a horse.
Devyn agrees. “There are too many results. And it doesn’t show them all, only the first hundred. There’s no way to access the others.”