|| 13 ||

THE NEXT DAY I got to school early and staked out Sophie’s locker. I fiddled with the strap of my messenger bag while I scanned sophomore hall for her waves of auburn hair. Since I woke up, I’d been thinking about what to say to her, how to persuade her listen, searching for the words that would get through to her. For once I actually hoped Brad would be with her. Maybe I could influence him and then he might help me convince Sophie to talk to me.

“Oh gawd, would you get out of the way?” Sophie said close behind me, bored but purposely loud to make me jump. I spun around to face her. Not a boyfriend or minion in sight.

I stopped fiddling with my bag and grasped the straps tightly. This was it. With a level stare, I straightened and stepped forward, just close enough to her to invade her bubble a little. Her eyebrows arched.

“This isn’t about you, or me, or anything that’s happened in the past.” I kept my voice low and calm, but my hands were shaking. “It’s much, much bigger than any of us. We’ve been chosen for these roles, Sophie. You are a Guardian in my pyramidal union. You may not like it. I admit I’m not thrilled about it. But neither of us can hide from this reality. The longer you try to deny it, the more time we lose.” She shrank into herself a little, and my heart sparked with hope. Maybe I was getting through to her. “I know you can feel the danger, just like I can. And that danger is going to spill out into Tapestry very soon, and it’s going to be devastating unless we stop it. Do you want something horrible to happen to Tapestry?”

We stared each other down for what seemed like minutes, but probably was only a few seconds.

She pursed her lips for a second and peered down at her feet. “Don’t use the influences on me.”

I frowned. “What?”

“I never gave you permission to do that.” She glared up at me. “It’s wrong.”

Permission? I bristled, my heart pounding. “It’s my right—” I dropped my voice to a fierce whisper. “My right as Pyxis to use the influences when I need to.”

“Well, it’s my right to not have someone using her mind control magic on me.” Her eyes narrowed. “Just because she wants power over me.”

Did she really think this was about controlling other people? Some kind of juvenile jockeying for dominance? For a second I thought I would erupt. But that was probably what she wanted.

I raised my chin and peered down at her. “Give me your word that you’ll be there for our next drill, and the next, and anytime we’re called to protect the convergence. And you won’t block me from our link. That’s the only way.”

She gaped at me a moment, then her mouth clicked shut. “Fine.” She eyed me. “Deal.”

The warning bell for first hour rang.

I turned to go. As I walked away, I blew out a lungful of air that I felt like I’d been holding for years. I didn’t trust that she’d stick to our agreement, but at least now I had something to hold over her if she broke it. My hands were still shaking.

* * *

I invited Mason, Ang, and Sophie over after dinner so I could tell them about the website and try getting onto it. Mason sat on my purple chair, and Ang sprawled next to me on my bed. He was telling her a little about the website and how we’d found it. I twirled and untwirled a strand of hair while I tried not to stress about the fact that Sophie wasn’t there yet. I didn’t have the energy for another showdown with her.

I’m on my way, Sophie said through our link.

Everything okay?

Yeah.

At least she seemed to be making an effort. I fired up my laptop and then passed it to Mason so he could do a web search that would bring us to the site we needed. I still didn’t totally understand it, but he said there was a piece of code he had to search for to get to the site because it had an address that changed all the time.

He handed the laptop back to me, and the now familiar color blobs drifted, undulated, merged, and separated across the screen. I wanted to log in, but I waited for Sophie.

“She’s not going to bail on us, is she?” Ang asked.

“Nah, she just told me she was on her way. Didn’t she say anything to you?”

“No. In fact, it’s almost like she’s blocked herself off from me—telepathically, I mean—since yesterday.”

“Still today?”

“Well, she’s back in my mind today,” Ang said. “But kind of muted or something.”

I chewed my lip. Sophie had cut herself off from Ang? I could understand why she’d have a problem with me, but I’d assumed the link between the two Guardians was stronger.

I talked to her this morning, and she promised not to cut us off anymore, I said to Ang. Let me know if it happens again, okay?

I will. Thanks for doing that. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.

No, but it was necessary. I shook my head and blew out some air. And she and I still have a lot more crap to work out.

The bedroom door swung open, and Sophie walked in. “Sorry I’m late. Took me a few minutes to figure out what to tell Bradley.”

It hadn’t even occurred to me. She would need to give my brother some explanation for why she and I were hanging out.

“Oh, right,” I said, and gestured to the bed, where she settled cross-legged next to Angeline. “How’d that go?”

“A little dicey.” She gave us a rueful half grin. “I couldn’t say we were working on something for school, because he’d probably know about any group projects going on. So I told him that since he and I were together, you and I decided we should try to be friends.”

“And he bought that?” After all the complaining I’d done about Sophie over the years?

“Well, not at first. I had to, um, distract him a little.” She bit her lip and glanced at me, as if just now realizing she was talking about my brother.

I arched an eyebrow at her. “Whatever works,” I said. “I can always use the influences on him.” I winced and wanted to smack myself for bringing up the influences.

Anger began to wash over Sophie’s face, and she opened her mouth.

“But I wouldn’t unless there was no other option,” I said quickly. I turned to Mason. “Want to tell her about the website?”

His eyes flicked between me and Sophie, as if he expected one of us to say something more. Then he nodded. While he repeated most of what he’d told Ang earlier, I watched Sophie. Her jaw muscle flexed a couple of times, but then she started to relax. Her scowl never completely vanished, though.

He turned to me. “Okay, let’s do it.” I tried not to tense up when Sophie sat beside Ang and peered over my shoulder.

I gathered a swirl of blue influence and aimed it at the laptop. The login screen dissolved and was replaced by a message board-type interface. The first board was called “All Unions.” Next was one called “Pyxis Chat,” then “Shields Only,” followed by “The Guardian Room.”

I laughed. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but it looks so ordinary.”

“Go to All Unions,” Mason said.

I clicked, and the four of us scanned the conversation topics on that board. I noticed one with Zane’s name next to “started by” that was called “Contact With Tapestry Lake! (P.S. TLC Pyxis is hawt).” My eyes widened when I realized he was referring to me, and I willed myself not to blush. I flicked a glance at Mason. His nose wrinkled and he pursed his lips.

“Cool. Say hi or something,” Ang said.

I started a new topic and titled it “Greetings from Tapestry Lake!” I typed:

Corinne (Pyxis), Mason (Shield), Angeline and Sophie (Guardians) here! Can’t wait to talk to all of you! A mundane way to mark such a profound moment, but I wasn’t sure what else to say.

We all stared at the screen, holding a collective breath. A minute later, a reply from “Felicia” appeared below my message:

Greetings, TL union! Glad you’re finally here with us. We certainly need you. All of you should create your separate logins so you can get back here, and into the restricted message boards. Corinne, check the Pyxis board for the discussion about the false Pyxis we started. Love to stay and get to know you, but it’s the middle of the night here, and I must sign off. We will connect with you soon!

“Well, that was . . .” Ang trailed off.

“Lame?” Sophie finished for her.

I stiffened.

“Pretty anticlimactic,” Mason said, and I realized that was what Sophie meant by “lame.”

“Yeah.” I frowned at the screen. “Oh well. I guess you should make your profiles so you can get into the other boards.”

They started passing my laptop around.

“What do you think she meant by ‘we certainly need you’?” Mason asked as he handed my laptop to Ang.

“I’m not sure.” Aunt Dorothy had said the Perth convergence would be most vulnerable at their winter solstice. Maybe it was something to do with trouble there. “But because of the distance, it seems like there’s only one way we could help any of them.”

“The hypercosmic realm,” Mason said.

I nodded. “Yep.”

Sophie raised her arms, palms out. “Hold up, people. What are you talking about?”

“There’s no way we could physically help any of them where they are because they’re just too far away. But through the dream world, we can connect with them and distance is no barrier.” Mason paused and looked at me. “So we’re thinking whatever they need us for might involve meeting up with them that way.”

“Aunt Dorothy won’t like that at all,” I said. “In fact, I don’t think we can tell her. She already made it pretty clear I wasn’t to contact Zane again. She thinks it’s dangerous.”

Mason frowned at the floor and bit his bottom lip, and I wondered if he agreed with my great-aunt. “Seems like the other unions interact plenty, though.”

“Yeah, I know. I love her and Mr. Sykes, but I think they’re just kind of out of touch.” I gestured to my laptop. “I mean, they knew nothing about this website. And, obviously, the other unions don’t think it’s dangerous to be in contact. I can’t help thinking the other unions either know a lot more than we do, or they’ve taken the right precautions, or both.”

“Or maybe Aunt Dorothy and Mr. S know something the other unions don’t,” Ang piped up. “If Tapestry Lake has been isolated from the others all these years, maybe something happened here that taught them isolation was the best choice.”

“Could be,” I said. “But then why wouldn’t she just tell me?”

“Who knows,” Mason said. “I’ll ask Mr. S about it when I get the chance.”

Sophie and Mason took off not long after, and Ang curled up on the end of my bed with her phone for a texting marathon with Toby. I sat back against the pillows at the head of my bed and logged onto the Pyxis message board. I spent a few minutes scanning the most recent discussions, trying to figure out who was who. We’d already established that Felicia was the Perth Pyxis, and I figured that Pamela was the Britain Pyxis. That left Ione, the Rome Pyxis.

I scrolled down the page until I came to a discussion titled “False Pyxis (TLC).” Felicia had started the discussion, reporting Zane’s encounter with me and Harriet. Scanning through the discussion, I realized that none of them had firsthand experience with a false Pyxis. The last anyone knew about was two generations ago at the Rome convergence. Ione’s was the last post in the message string, where she promised to speak with her aunt, who had been the Rome Pyxis before her.

I hit “Reply” at the bottom of the message string and started typing.

Thank you so much for helping me with this. It has me more than a little nervous. I don’t know much about the woman, the false Pyxis. Her name is Harriet Jensen, and she’s a distant relative. My great-aunt, who was a Guardian in the last TL union, said I need to watch over the rest of my union because Harriet will try to take them for her own. But to be honest, I don’t know how to protect them. Zane said she’s not as strong as I am, but she managed to influence me within an inch of my life. Granted, she had the element of surprise, but if he hadn’t come along, I don’t know what would have happened to me. I’m just very worried about my friends, about what would happen if Harriet caught me again and then went after the rest of my union. Is there anything I can research or help with?

I paused, the pressure of tears beginning to build behind my eyes. I wasn’t sure why sudden emotion coursed through me.

I finished my message. Thank you. I can’t tell you how happy I am to find you.

“Everything okay?” Ang asked. She examined my face, her eyes soft.

“Yeah,” I said, and I swiped at a tear running down my cheek. “I’m just so glad we’re not alone. I’m not the only Pyxis in the universe. I’m relieved our union is complete. Even if it includes Sophie.”

Ang chuckled, and I grinned.

“I think she’s going to work out okay. Really seemed like she came around, don’t you think?” Ang said.

I wasn’t quite as convinced as Ang, but I was trying to give Sophie a chance to show her dedication. “Yeah, today was good. I hope you’re right.”