poetry-performing voice rings through my memories. Yes. Yes, I do trust a neon-yellow demon more than I trust Honora.
At breakfast, Honora monopolizes Artemis’s attention with hilarious and daring stories of her demon-hunting exploits. Even Jade is engaged, leaning forward and listening. Rhys pretends like he doesn’t care, but the way his eyes widen at the good parts indicates otherwise.
“Can I talk to you?” I ask Artemis.
She nods, but doesn’t stop listening to Honora. “Later, okay?”
“Don’t you need to talk to the Council, Honora?”
“Bradford Smythe and Ruth Zabuto both sleep until ten or eleven every morning,” Artemis says.
Honora steals some fruit off Artemis’s plate. “Layabouts. I already tried my mum’s door. She didn’t even open it. Said she’s sick. Everyone here looks a little rough. You should get them vitamins or something, medic. And anyway, they can wait. That’s what they do. They should be the Waiters Council. Besides, I’m not going to leave Artemis to clean all this by herself. You’re the best trainee I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe they didn’t make you full Watcher. It’s crap.”
Artemis shrugs, but I can tell she’s pleased. “After breakfast I’ve got some time to train.”
“Can I join you?”
“Aren’t you hunting a demon?” I interject.
“No leads,” Honora says. If the Coldplay demon were really as nasty a killer as she said, she wouldn’t stop for anything. Or at least, if she were a good Watcher, she wouldn’t.
“There aren’t going to be any leads in our gym.”
Artemis scowls at me. I scowl back, then text Cillian. All is quiet in the shed. I could talk to Leo about it. Or anyone, really. But I wanted to talk to Artemis. And I can’t very well admit I kept this huge secret with Honora here.
It’s barely 8 a.m., but I’m exhausted from the emotional strain. I collapse into bed. My mother is the daughter of a Slayer. She wants to ship me to boarding school. There’s some sort of prophecy that my dad was concerned about. The demon I’m hiding in Cillian’s shed may or may not be a killer.
And stupid Honora is back.
As soon as Honora is gone, I’ll tell Artemis and get her help. I close my eyes, hoping for a few minutes’ rest with nothing but blankness on my mind so I can sort through some of this mess.
• • •
Instead, I find myself back in Bradford Smythe’s room.
19
OH GODS, NOT BRADFORD SMYTHE sleeping again.
It’s the same. Him tossing and turning. The darkness taking shape on top of him. But the room is a little lighter—like it’s not the middle of the night. His curtains are drawn tight, but I can see more in the room. Except the figure on top of him. That remains impenetrable night. Tendrils of darkness trail from it, infecting the room.
Bradford smiles at first, his face tender. Then his expression becomes panicked. Sweat breaks out on his forehead. The figure on top of him arches triumphantly.
Bradford goes completely still.
Wake up, wake up, wake up.
It’s dark. I can’t open my eyes, can’t move. There’s a pressure on my chest, a weighted heaviness that feels as dark as the insides of my eyelids.
I want to scream, to cry out for help.
“That’s right,” the darkness whispers. “You can’t do anything.” I feel the presence shift closer, feel its ice-cold breath brush my ear. “You can’t save any of them.”
I gasp, finally breaking free of the paralysis of the dream. Only to find myself on a rooftop in San Francisco. Buffy sits, small and alone, on the edge looking out over the sunset. I don’t have time for this.
If I were really a Slayer, if I were a hunter like Artemis, I would run forward and push her off. Dream or not, I owe her. I owe her for everything messed up and crappy in my life. She defied the Watchers and ruined the order of everything. She let in so much chaos that the First was able to rise and kill almost all my people.
And she got my father killed.
“You didn’t deserve him!” I shout, consumed by my anger toward Buffy. “He should have let Lothos kill you! The whole world would have been better off!”
I don’t know if it’s the wind blowing her hair or if her shoulder moves in a shrug. I want to hurt her. I want her to know how it feels to lose everything, how it feels to be powerless, how it feels to—