new brat, and she says, “Be happy for them. They’ll be losing you. This may make it easier.”
But I don’t like that idea, either.
Then I hear Kurt flush. “We have to tell your brother.”
“I can’t. Not until I know it can truly happen. That you can truly make me human.” She takes my hand softly. There’s a strange noise in the living room. Someone falling down.
“Uhoh.”
Kurt’s on the floor, sprawled across our fuzzy white rug.
“Is he okay?” Thalia goes to him and tries to lift him up, but he’s dead weight.
Kurt gathers his hands and folds them under his face like a pillow. He makes deep, guttural snoring noises.
“I think he’s—smiling,” I say. “Probably the first good night’s sleep he’s had in a while.”
I dig my hands in my pockets and feel the coolness of the Venus pearl I forgot was there. I bring it out and cup it in my palm. I really wish I could have given it to Layla.
“Tristan!” Thalia hisses, snatching it from me.
“Careful!”
“Don’t you see?” She dangles it in my face.
“Yes, I see a sweet present I can’t give to—” And I realize. “Shelly! Shelly can translate the oracle speak.”
I take Thalia’s head and kiss her forehead loudly. “Only problem is, what can I gift her? I’m thinking we’ve run out of precious gems, and the pearl won’t work twice.”
“Get your backpack.” Her smile is cunning. “I have just the thing.”
•••
“It’s like a great metal makara,” Thalia says, hopping on the train.
We take the F all the way to Manhattan. This late on a Monday night, the subway platform is full of the strangest people only New York breeds. Couples full of PDA, a man with a dress made of balloon animals and plastic bottles. People coming and going, and those with nowhere to go at all.
Thalia clutches the wooden box Felix gave her, and I pull on the straps of my backpack for the security of my weapons. I can’t decide if I want to sit forward or lean back. Uncertainty is the worst feeling in the world. Worse than rejection and worse than failure, because at least then the action has been completed. Uncertainly is emotional limbo.
Deep in my heart, I know I have all the pieces and now I have to make them fit.
“What were you really doing with Penny?”
“I wanted to see them.” She stares at the speeding blackness out the window, the graffiti rolling by like a flip book of colors and shapes that never stop changing.
“You should call Layla.”
“I know,” I admit. I don’t want to tell her about Sarabell. She’ll hate me. Even if I didn’t do anything wrong, I still hate me for going. “Did you see her today?”
“At Thorne Hill. In the field with the others.”
“The schoolyard?”
“That one. There was a huge commotion because your friend—” She snaps her finger. “The one with the tall hair.”
“Angelo.”
“Yes. He was running with Princess Menana on his shoulders. All the adults were furious. They were naked right down to those little trousers for your foot-fins.”
“Socks?”
“Not that the adults are better. They’re all mad. You remember what it was like when the rest of the princesses arrived. They’re making all the boys happy as seals in mating season. Layla’s been put in the ground by her parents so she had to leave immediately.”
“You mean grounded?”
“That’s what I said.”
I place my face in my hands. “Should I do something?”
“Become king. Restore order.”
The train barrels into the station. I take her hand and lead her up and out through the Manhattan streets. I realize Thalia’s never been in the city. She stares at the checkered lights of the buildings and I explain that’s where people live. She laughs and pets a fire hydrant because she likes the shape. When we’re in Central Park, I try to remember the direction Gwen and I took Friday night. But the winding paths are dark, and the shadowed trees all look the same. Thalia picks up a baby mouse at her feet and cradles it.
“Ugh—cut it out, Snow White. Those things are gross.”
She places it back on the grass and pinches me. “All life is precious, Tristan.”
“Come.” I lead her through the urban woods and up a hill, until the castle comes into view.
“Oh my,” she gasps. “I didn’t know you had royalty here.”
I laugh as we head straight up toward Turtle Pond. “We don’t. It’s for kids to play in.”
But before I can take another step into the shadows of the castle walls, a tall