Now, Conjurers by Freddie Kölsch

Author:Freddie Kölsch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Union Square & Co.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Monday, November 22, 1999

It was three o’clock.

It felt like it should be midnight, or the next day, or the next month since that morning. I could see it in the tense expressions of the girls. They looked scared and tired and wired, all at the same time.

“Go to his house,” Drea said, as we headed back toward the center of North Dana. “Maybe we can catch him there … and get that key away from him, or something.”

“We can’t do that,” Brandy said, immediately. “Mr. Nous will eat him if he takes the token off, remember? Mr. Tethonius said so. If the Advocate takes the token off—”

“Yeah, anyone who takes the necklace off is definitely killed like … like Bastion was,” Dove said. “Plus, way more importantly, whoever gets the key becomes the next Advocate. I am not letting it get its creepy red hands on any of you.”

“Or you, Dove Bar,” I said, touching her hand for a second. Dove looked over at me, and then flicked a bunch of cigarette ash—from the last remaining cigarette she hadn’t gifted to Old Tet—out of the rolled-down window.

“Whatever,” Dove said. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m serious,” I said. “You better not try some heroic bullshit. If anything happened to you, it would kill your mom.”

I meant that it would kill Anna to lose two kids, but that wasn’t really true. Anna Attia had no idea she’d lost one kid to begin with. But the sentiment was still the same, and I could see Dove absorb it.

“Yeah,” she allowed, kind of grumbling. “I guess.”

“And stop smoking in my car,” I added.

“You let me smoke in here earlier!” Dove said.

“You were in shock then. Chuck it,” I said.

Dove rolled her eyes gratuitously, but she ditched the cigarette.

“We can at least try to have a conversation with Cameron not at school,” I added. “He might be more truthful without a crowd of witnesses.”

“If we try that, we might just push him into wishing us out of existence,” Drea said. “If he hasn’t decided to already.”

“Let’s just see if he can be reasoned with,” Brandy said. “I don’t imagine that he is particularly ecstatic to be the Advocate, regardless of how much power he has. He’s not stupid. He can probably tell he’s in bad trouble.”

“He’s pretty stupid,” Dove said, which made Drea laugh-wheeze through her bandaged nose.

Personally, I agreed with Brandy: Cameron wasn’t stupid, and he probably wasn’t happy about the deep dark monster that he was entangled with. But I didn’t trust him. I thought of his stubbornness back in freshman year, when he was my nameless Gym Buddy. His almost insane persistence … and his quiet desperation. Someone with all that quiet desperation was not exactly the person I’d trust most with limitless power.

I headed toward the center of North Dana, and slowed to a roll on the road as we passed the Winship’s big white Victorian with the black trim.

“Scope it out,” I said, and the rest of North Coven craned their

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