“We’re going to get through this, Bee,” I said, and her head shot up. She’d rubbed off most of the mascara with the tissue I’d handed her, but there were still dark flecks around her eyes, and her face was splotchy and damp.

“You can’t promise that, Harper,” she said, and then, as the bell signaling the end of lunch rang, she stood up, rolling the chair underneath the counter.

“I just... I thought you’d all know what you were doing,” she said at last, and with that, she walked out of the room, leaving me, Ryan, and David in silence.

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

“THAT IS RUDE, Harper Jane.”

I glanced up guiltily, lowering my phone back into my lap. “Sorry, Aunt Jewel.”

After school, I’d decided to run by The Aunts’ house. Bee had gone home early, so I’d gotten David to drive me to my house to pick up my car. After everything in the newspaper room, I hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to Bee again, and while I was worried about her, I thought maybe she needed a little space. Plus, I wasn’t sure what to say. She was right that Ryan, David, and I hardly knew what we were doing, but it had still stung.

So off to The Aunts’ I went. I hadn’t done the best job being a good niece over the past few months, and as Mom always reminded me, The Aunts were the closest things to grandparents I had, so I needed to appreciate them.

And that meant that when I went to see them, I shouldn’t be messing around on my phone. But I hadn’t been able to resist poking around the internet a little bit to see if I could pick up any information on the Peirasmos, especially since The Aunts had been distracted by discussing whether or not Jell-O salad was still a thing you could take to a church potluck. Preparation was the key to any test, after all, and even if Alexander had said that the whole point was for me to be caught unaware, I didn’t think that had to mean, you know, going in completely blind. But it wasn’t like it mattered. Google seemed to think I might have some kind of stomach issue, but there was nothing on the internet about Peirasmos, the trials. I had been fixing to text David to see if he’d found anything in Saylor’s books yet, but from the way Aunt Jewel was looking at me, that was no longer an option.