The Shadow Prince (15 page)

“No, Simon. Everything will be fine.”

As quickly as it came, the dark look passes from Simon’s face. He smiles happily. “Very good, then. Keep those noses clean,” he says, tapping his own nose as he leaves.

I brush my nose, wondering if there’s something on my face.

Dax waits until Simon is down the hall and we hear his footsteps on the stairs. Dax shivers, then slips inside my room with a couple of large bags made out of a thin, shiny material. He shuts the door quietly and then turns on me.

“Where the Tartarus were you?” he whispers.

I blink at him. “I—”

“Don’t even think about lying to me, Haden. I came to check on you an hour ago and you were gone. I had no idea what I was going to say to Simon if you hadn’t been here now. What in Hades’s name were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t …”

“Clearly!”

“You were taking forever. How was I supposed to just wait here? I didn’t even know what time it was.”

“There’s a clock right there! You couldn’t be patient for a few hours?”

“Well, nobody bothered to tell me how time works here. That’s why I went back to the gate. I needed to know if it was still active. So I’d know that I hadn’t been waiting for weeks.”

“You went back to the gate? Did anyone see you? Did you talk to anyone?”

I shake my head. “No,” I lie. I don’t want him to know what I did. How Herculeanly I screwed up. “I went right there and came right back. I know I shouldn’t have, but I needed the reassurance.”

Dax drops the bags on the table in the corner of my room. “It’s my fault,” he says. “I haven’t been the best guide so far. I should have known not to leave you alone.…”

His words sting, but I can’t deny their truth.

“Are you going to tell Simon?”

“I should, but I think it’s best we keep this between the two of us. For both our sakes.”

I realize then that my actions have a reflection on Dax. As my guide, he could be punished for my mistakes.

I want nothing more than to ask him again what he knows about the circumstances of my quest, but I cannot bring myself to
broach the topic. Any talk of Daphne might cause me to slip. The guilt is eating at me already.

“What’s with all the stuff?” I ask him, trying to turn the topic off my ineptitude.

“Oh yes. I come bearing gifts. Every Champion needs his special tools,” Dax says, pulling several things out of the bags and placing them on the table. There’s more strange clothing, like what I was made to change into before passing through the gate, plus belts and a couple of pairs of shoes.

“New wardrobe makes the man,” Dax says. “These clothes are more up-to-date with current fashion than what you’re wearing. You’ll fit in just right around here. Well, at least in appearance.”

I nod. Blending in would be good for recon. I need to study Daphne’s movements, just like I did with that hydra I hunted down last year for the Feast of Return. I stalked its movements for days. I knew its favorite places to go. Where it ate and slept. Where it was most vulnerable … before I made my move.

Dax reaches down into the depths of the last bag. “Now don’t lose these,” he says, handing me three small cards made out of a thin, hard material. Two have my picture on them, and the other has a long set of numbers. “Two IDs and a credit card. This ID says you’re sixteen; the other one says you’re twenty-one. You’ll never know when which age will benefit you more. The credit card is how you pay for things. Simon set up the account and will handle the bills—which means he’ll know about
everything
you spend money on. Got that?”

I nod.

“Now, this,” he says, “is going to be your most important weapon of all.” I expect maybe he is going to bestow on me some kind of enchanted sword or maybe even some poison-tipped
arrows, but instead he pulls out a thin, black rectangle with a reflective screen. It looks almost identical to the white communication device I’d found in Daphne’s bag.

“What is that thing?” I ask, pretending that I have never seen anything like it.

“It’s an iPhone,” he says. “And it’s the most important tool you’ll need in the mortal world.” He slides his finger across the screen and the thing comes to life. He presses on the different icons, and shows me the functions of the device. “They’ve improved since the last time I was here. It’s so fast. And so thin.” He almost sounds as giddy as Simon. “Its primary function is communication. Somewhat like the talismans the Court uses, except it only transports your voice, not an astral projection of yourself.”

I nod. I’ve heard the Heirs speak of their communication talismans but I’ve never actually seen one. I doubt they look anything like this iPhone object.

Dax hits a few icons and then scrolls through what looks like a list of names. He finds his own name and then a few seconds later, a ringing noise comes from his pocket. He pulls another iPhone out and shows it to me. “See, you need anything and all you’ve got to do is hit my name and it’ll call me. We can talk, no matter how far away, through these.

“However, this next feature is the most important.” He clicks on an icon that says YouTube and holds the phone up in front of me. “You know how we are taught to learn? Someone demonstrates and then we repeat his movements?”

“Yes.” The Underlords are natural mimics. We learn by repeating what we see or hear, absorbing the ability to do just about anything in a matter of hours. Some of us—including myself—can master any new skill in a matter of minutes. It’s how
I’ve excelled in my lessons. Humans don’t have the same accelerated ability, I recall, according to Master Crue’s many lectures.

“Well, the same
watch, absorb, repeat
method also applies to recorded videos.”

“Videos?”

“I’ll show you.” Dax taps icons of letters, spelling out the words
how to juggle
. “We’ll start with something easy.”

I watch as a prepubescent boy with a face full of pus-filled lesions appears on the screen. He holds three round objects in his hands. I listen and absorb as the boy demonstrates how to juggle the objects. When the demonstration ends, Dax hands me three apples from the bowl on the table.

“Try it,” he says.

I picture what I have just watched in my mind, and mimic the boy’s actions, movement for movement, and juggle the apples perfectly on the first try.

Dax nods in approval.

“Child’s play,” I say, placing the apples on the table. “How will this help me?”

“Juggling won’t help you much. Not unless Daphne has a thing for clowns, but you can pretty much learn how to do anything using this application.” He picks up one of the apples and takes a bite. “There are many gaps in your education.”

“I’ve noticed,” I say under my breath.

“You aren’t as prepared for this world as you might think you are. It’s why I didn’t want you venturing out on your own yet. Who knows what trouble you could have gotten yourself into?”

Guilt clutches at me, and I wonder if I should tell Dax about what I’ve done. I don’t know how to fix the problem I’ve created with Daphne. I feel like such a fool. But if I tell him, he would
probably have to tell Simon. How can I share my secrets with the one person I trust if he’s under orders to report back on me?

“Just don’t ask the Internet for dating advice. That’s never a good idea, trust me.”

“Dating?”

“You’ll see.”

“What else can that thing do? Can it track someone?” I’m thinking of Daphne and wondering if this
iPhone
can show me where to find her again.

“If you have the right app. Or if you have their address, you can type it into this map function, and it will tell you where and how to find the location.” He hands me the phone and then starts putting my new clothes away in a chest of drawers next to the table.

Address
. I remember seeing something like that in Daphne’s papers. I’d memorized it without even really thinking about it. While Dax isn’t looking, I punch the numbers and words into the search bar in the map’s feature. After a moment, a small red dot lands on the map, showing me where Daphne lives. I could go there right now if I wanted. I could sneak out again as soon as Dax left.

I shake my head, dismissing the thought. What is it about this girl that makes me act so stupidly? I tell myself it’s for recon reasons, but I know there’s a part of me that just wants to see her again.

“I have one more thing to show you. Outside,” Dax says. “But first, we’d better do something about your hair. Someone might think you’re trying to look like a pirate if you go wandering around, looking like that.”

“I’m tired, Dax. Can it wait until tomorrow?” Really, I’m itching to study Daphne’s things some more. Learn as much about
my adversary as I possibly can. I don’t want to be caught off guard again.

“Believe me,” he says. “You don’t want to wait to see this. It’s going to change your entire world.”

chapter sixteen

“Wow, this place is perfect, isn’t it?” I say to Tobin as we walk on one of the lake paths.

He’d given me a tour of most of the places in town that could be reached on foot. I wheeled my old bike along as he carried Gibby and pointed out different places of interest. My favorite so far is a street of small, boutique-style shops that Tobin said is called Olympus Row. Each of the stores had been designed to look like a shop you would find in a Greek village, with the white stucco walls and blue roofs and doors. It made me feel like I’d been transported to another world. We’d stopped for gelato, and ate it while we watched a group of kids splashing in a fountain before heading for the trails that wind around the lake.

“Don’t let it fool you,” Tobin says.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing is ever as perfect as it seems,” he mumbles. A strange black note drifts off him. It clashes with his warm vibe.

“What, is this town ripe with conspiracies and secret societies?” I say, trying to lighten his mood.

“Hey, I’m just saying you never know.…” Tobin strums a few bars on Gibby. The sound muffles whatever emotive notes
he might be putting off at the moment. He sings a couple of lines from a song I don’t know and then stops walking. “Hey, speaking of secret societies,” he says, his voice much lighter now, “there’s this party next week.…” He trails off, and I’m not sure I’m following his segue.

“Are you telling me that the Skull and Crossbones are holding a recruitment meeting? Or is it a Masons sort of shindig?”

“Aliens,” Tobin says. “It’s an alien rave.”

“Ohhhh,” I say with a laugh. “Hey, what’s over there?” I point at the smaller island of the lake, even though I know very well it’s the grove. “You haven’t shown me that place yet.”

“What? Oh, that’s the grove. I thought you said you went there earlier today?”

Oh yeah. I had. “I must be all turned around,” I say, sheepishly. “Let’s go check it out again.”

“Uh,” Tobin says. “It’s just a bunch of old trees. Once you’ve seen them, that’s kind of it. Nobody even goes there. Anyway, about this party …”

“The alien one? Come on, let’s cross the bridge.”

“Yeah, that one. Except without the aliens. I was kind of hoping.…” He lets his sentence trail off again, like he isn’t sure what to say next.

I’m not sure what to say, either. Crap, had I totally been oblivious again? I’d read Tobin’s vibes toward me in nothing but a friend-zone sort of way. But as CeCe had already established, I totally suck at this sort of thing. So much so that I don’t date. I’d always been too focused on my music to care whether or not I got asked out, and I never felt like I had the time to spare when I did. Truth is, the idea of dating has always seemed like it’s in opposition to my goals. My mom had let herself get sidetracked by a guy,
and look where that landed her. I know I’m hesitating too long, so I say what comes to mind first. “I, um, don’t really date.… It’s got nothing to do with you.” I cringe, knowing I sound completely lame. “I just feel like I need to stay really focused on the music department.…”

“Oh. Yeah, I get that,” Tobin says. “Totally focused here, too. The party is
for
the music department. My mom likes to throw a big shindig for them after the first month of school. It’s supposed to help everyone bond as a group, you know. She’s kind of overly invested in my social life. I just wanted to make sure you knew about it.… So you could come. Alone. Of course.” He gives me a sheepish grin. A tinge of pink highlights his cheeks. I listen carefully to make sure his friendly tone is still there, and feel relieved when I still hear it under the wavering notes of embarrassment. I would hate it if my social lameness had messed up my first—and possibly only—potential friendship in this place.

“In that case, I’ll be there. Assuming I even get into the department, that is.”

“Believe me, you’re getting in.”

“So let’s go explore this grove place,” I say, eager to change the subject. I grab Tobin’s arm and try to pull him down the path toward the grove, but he literally digs in his heels to stop me.

“Seriously, Daph. Nobody goes there. That place gives me the creeps.”

So Marta hadn’t been making it up that nobody ever went there.

“Why? Do weird things happen there or something? Or are you just chicken?” I ask, trying to sound nonchalant and jokey, but I really do want to know. Maybe I wasn’t the first person to have encountered something strange there.