you.”
I pinched my nose and swallowed the foul tea in three large gulps. A shudder ran up my spine, and I fought my stomach’s desire to expel the liquid back the way it came.
“A little early to be drinking hard stuff, don’t you think?” Owen asked.
“Come on,” Char said, ignoring her son. She took my wrist again and pulled me toward their luggage in the foyer.
“Can’t this wait?” Tristan asked. “It’s not exactly a short ride.”
“I don’t like this idea one bit, Tristan,” Mom said, sounding like my mother again, at least for a moment, “but . . . you will at least have as much protection as possible. Especially Alexis.”
Tristan threw me a questioning look. He saw the changes in Mom, too. Before, she would have been adamant about trying to stop us, saying it was an absurd idea. I returned his gaze with one that said, “I’ll tell you later.”
Char opened one of the suitcases, grabbed something black, examined it, and tossed it to Owen. She picked up something else and tossed it to Tristan. She continued throwing things at them and finally started tossing stuff to me. First, a black leather jacket. It wasn’t heavy; in fact, the leather was thin and supple, and it reminded me of the one Char herself wore. Second, a bustier made of black leather and adorned with purple-dyed suede and silver embellishments. Third, pants made of the same kind of leather as the jacket and a belt with several loops hanging from it, and, finally, a pair of combat boots.
“Are we going to a bike rally? Is this supposed to make me fit in?” I asked, not quite understanding why Char and Mom brought me leathers. Not that I had any—we weren’t the rally kind of bikers, and I didn’t need them to protect my skin from road burn.
“These are warrior clothes,” Char said. “What we all wear out in the field. The leather’s enchanted for maximum protection.”
Warrior clothes. Of course. We could no longer leave home without being prepared for a fight.
“And your weapons,” Char said, waving her hand over the suitcase. She lifted what had appeared to be the bottom of it, exposing a hidden section. She handed me a small knife that flipped in and out of its own hilt, much like a pocket knife, but bigger. “This is your back-up weapon.”
I took it and examined it, flipping it a few times to get used to it. Then she pulled out something longer, nearly as long as my forearm. A silver vine with leaves wound around the gold hilt, circling to the center, where it ended with an amethyst the size of a nickel. The blade hid in a black and purple sheath that matched my bustier.
“Your dagger, Ms. Alexis,” Char said with a bow of her head as she held the hilt toward me.
I took the dagger and pulled it out of its sheath. The sun coming through the window shone through an intricate design of vines and leaves that was cut out of the center of the blade.
“It’s a hand-me-down,” Mom said. “The same dagger Andrew gave to Cassandra.”
Wow. I actually held Cassandra’s dagger. Andrew’s dagger. Specially made in the Otherworld. My earliest ancestors had once wielded this same weapon.
“Of course, Ferrer enchanted it to take your powers,” Char said.
“You remember how to use it?” Tristan asked.
I stepped back and made a few moves. Then Char showed me how swiping my thumb over the amethyst could make the dagger disappear and appear again.
“Not even metal detectors will sense it,” she said.
“It would have been nice to have this all before,” I said. “Like when we first left and had to fight Vanessa all the time.”
“It wasn’t ready yet,” Char said.
“Then they wouldn’t let us bring it to you the first time we came,” Mom added.
“They didn’t exactly let us bring it this time either,” Char said.
“We were always good at covert operations,” Mom said with a smile.
“Thanks to Martin and his help, too,” Char added, and Mom nodded.
Owen looked at his phone. “We need to get out of here, moose. I’ll be back in a few.”
He disappeared with a pop. Tristan and I quickly changed into our new gear. I expected the leather to be difficult to pull on and uncomfortable to wear, but it came on easily and molded itself to my body, like a second skin. I moved around in it, and after a few minutes, I felt both naked, as if nothing impeded