“You’re no one’s spare,” I told her, squeezing her hands. Relief and anger warred inside of me, along with a fair amount of confusion. I was so happy to have Bee back, but the last thing I’d ever wanted was for her to get involved in this, too. Bad enough that Ryan had been dragged in, but—

Suddenly David was at my side, taking my hand from Bee’s. “What the—” I started, but he only shook his head, pressing his palm to Bee’s. I saw his brow wrinkle in confusion, and he glanced over her shoulder at Alexander.

“That mind-reading trick. Why won’t it work on her?”

Alexander lifted both eyebrows. “Oh, did I not mention? Once the Paladin begins the Peirasmos, the Oracle is stripped of her—well, his, in this case—powers. Can’t have you looking into the future to help Miss Price face her trials.”

David’s hands clenched into fists. “You can’t do that,” he said, but Alexander only shrugged.

“I already have.”

“And I didn’t begin anything,” I argued, dropping Bee’s hands. I noticed Ryan moving a little closer to her as David and I approached Alexander’s desk.

“You said that I have to do these things or die. It’s not like there was a starter pistol or a ready-set-go that happened, so how—”

“They began the moment I summoned David,” Alexander interrupted, giving me a smile that showed too many teeth for my liking. “Congratulations.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, you don’t get to come here and tell us what to do. We were getting along fine without you.”

“Were you?” Alexander rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling as though he were thinking something over. “David was squandering his godlike power while the two of you scrambled to keep the people in your lives from figuring out what had happened to you. You threw up wards around your town to keep people from remembering what happened the night Blythe performed the ritual. You acted like children, hoping pebbles would hold back the sea. And Miss Franklin,” he finished, inclining his head toward Bee, “was missing—for all you knew, never coming back. And now we have come to help you.”

He kept saying “we,” but the house was empty except for him, as far as I knew. But then, as far as I knew, there hadn’t even been a house here a few weeks ago.

I didn’t like it. No, more than that, I hated it. Saylor would have known what to do here. The weirdest thing was that parts of it sounded okay. It sounded right. And there was Bee.

“I understand why you hesitate to trust us, Miss Price, I honestly do,” Alexander said. “But right now, we are all you have. And believe me when I say we need you as desperately as you need us.”