No one said anything for several seconds, and then Damien picked up the thread of my thought. “Just like in life. Nyx gives us all choices.”

I grinned at him. “And some of us choose wisely.”

“Some of us mess up,” Stark said.

“Goddess! It really is obvious,” Lenobia said. “There’s no mystery to Kalona’s spell.”

“It’s all about choice,” Aphrodite said.

“And truth,” I added.

“It does make sense.” Damien broke in. “I couldn’t understand why only three of our professors were able to see through Kalona. I’ve always thought that all of the vampyres here were special and had Goddess-given gifts.”

“And most are,” Lenobia said.

“But gift or no gift, finding the truth and following the right path is always a choice.” Stark spoke softly as his gaze trapped mine. “That’s something none of us should forget.”

“Which could be why Nyx has brought us here. To remind us that all of her children have free choice,” Lenobia said.

That’s my whole point with A-ya. I have the choice not to follow her path. But wouldn’t that mean Kalona also has free choice, and can choose good over evil? The thoughts whirled through my mind. I pushed them away and said, “Okay, so, any ideas on where we go from here?”

“Absolutely. You follow Kalona. We come with you,” Aphrodite said. When we all stared at her, she continued, “Look, Kalona has proven he’s evil, so let’s make the choice to destroy him.” Before I could say anything, Aphrodite added, “It’s not impossible. One of my visions showed Zoey taking him out.”

“Visions?” Lenobia said.

Aphrodite briefly recapped the two visions she’d had, leaving out the specific mention that in the “not so good” one I’d joined with Kalona. So when she was done, I cleared my throat, put on my big-girl panties (figuratively), and said, “In the bad vision I was with Kalona. As in with him. We were lovers.”

“But in the other vision you did something to vanquish him,” Lenobia said.

“That was clear, even if everything else was a jumbled mess,” Aphrodite said. “So, like I was saying before, she has to go to him.”

“I don’t like it,” Stark said.

“Neither do I,” Lenobia said. “I wish we knew more—had more details about what caused each vision to happen.”

“Goddess! I’m a moron,” I said, fishing in my pocket for the piece of paper I’d put there. “I forgot all about Kramisha’s poem.”

“Ugh, so did I,” Aphrodite said. “I hate poetry.”

“A fact that baffles me, my beauty,” Darius said as he came into the room with Stevie Rae and Shaunee close behind. “Someone with your intelligence should enjoy it.”

Aphrodite gave him a sweet smile. “I’d like it if you read some to me, but then again, I’d like anything you read to me.”

“Disgusting,” Shaunee said, going over to sit by Erin.

“Totally,” Erin agreed, grinning at her twin.

“Good, we didn’t miss the poem part,” Stevie Rae said, plopping down next to me and petting Nala. “I was wonderin’ what Kramisha had come up with.”

“Okay, well, I’ll just read it out loud,” I said, and began,

A double-edged sword

One side destroys

One releases

I am your Gordian knot

Will you release or destroy me?

Follow truth and you shall:

Find me on water

Purify me through fire

Trapped by earth nevermore

Air will whisper to you

What spirit already knows:

That even shattered

anything is possible

If you believe

Then we shall both be free.

“I hate to say it, but even I can tell that’s from Kalona to you,” Aphrodite spoke into the thick silence that followed my reading.

“Yep, sounds like it to me, too,” said Stevie Rae.

“Ah, hell,” I muttered.

Zoey

“I don’t like it,” Stark said.

“You already said that,” Aphrodite said. “And none of us like it, but that doesn’t make the stupid poem go away.”

“Prophecy,” Damien corrected her. “Kramisha’s poems are prophetic in nature.”

“Which is not necessarily a bad thing,” Darius said. “If we have a prophecy that also means we have forewarning.”

“So these poems plus Aphrodite’s visions combine to create a powerful tool for us,” Lenobia said.

“If we can figure them out,” I said.

“We figured out the last one,” Lenobia reminded me. “We’ll decipher this one, too.”

“No matter what, I think all of us agree that Zoey has to follow Kalona,” Darius said.

“It’s what I was created for,” I said, which definitely got everyone’s attention. “I hate it. I don’t know what to do about it. Most of the time I feel like I’m a giant snowball rolling down a mountain in the middle of winter, but I can’t ignore the truth.” I remembered Nyx’s whispers and added, “There’s power in the truth, just like there’s power in making the right choice. The truth is that I’m connected to Kalona. I remember the connection, and remembering it makes Kalona hard for me to deal with, but something inside me defeated him once. I think I have to find that something and make the choice to defeat him all over again.”

“This time maybe for good?” Stevie Rae said.

“I seriously hope so,” I said.

“Well, this time you won’t be alone,” Stark said.

“That’s right,” said Damien.

“Absolutely,” Shaunee said.

“Yep,” Erin added.

“All for one and one for Zoey!” Stevie Rae said.

I looked at Aphrodite. She sighed dramatically. “Fine. Where the nerd of herd goes, I’ll go, too.”

Darius put his arm around her. “You won’t be alone, either, my beauty.”

It was only later that I realized Stevie Rae hadn’t said anything about joining us.

“All of this solidarity is good, but we can’t act because we don’t know where Kalona is,” said Lenobia.

“Well, in my dream I found him on an island. Actually, on top of a castle on an island,” I specified.

“Did anything look familiar about it?” Damien asked.

“No. It was really pretty, though. The water was incredibly blue, and there were orange trees everywhere.”

“That doesn’t exactly narrow it down,” Aphrodite said. “Oranges are all over—Florida, California, the Mediterranean. All those places have islands.”

“He’s not in America.” My response was automatic. “I don’t know how I know that, but I do.”

“Then we’ll take it as truth,” Lenobia said.

Her confidence in me made me feel good, but nervous, and kinda sick all at the same time.

“Okay, well,” Stevie Rae said. “Maybe you know more stuff about where he is, but you just need to not think about it for a while so you can think about it.”

“Bumpkin, you make no damn sense,” Aphrodite said. “Here, I’ll translate from countrified Okie to English.” Aphrodite turned to me. “Without thinking about it you knew he wasn’t in America. Maybe you’re trying too hard to figure this out. Maybe you just need to relax and it’ll come to you.”

“That’s exactly what I said,” Stevie Rae muttered.

“They’re Twin-like,” Shaunee said.

“Hilarious,” Erin agreed.

“Shut up!” Aphrodite and Stevie Rae said together, which made the Twins convulse into laughter.

“Hey, what’s so funny?” asked Jack as he came into the room. I noticed that he still had tear tracks on his cheeks and his eyes looked haunted.

He went to Damien and sat close beside him. “Nothing’s funny. The Twins are just being the Twins,” he told Jack.

“All right, enough of this. It’s nonproductive and absolutely not helping us figure out where Kalona might be,” Lenobia said.

“I know where Kalona is,” Jack said, matter-of-factly.

“What do you mean, you know where Kalona is?” Damien said while we all gawked at Jack.

“Well, him and Neferet, that is. Easy.” He held up his iPhone. “Internet’s back up, and my Vamp Twitter has been going crazy. It’s all over the Net about Shekinah dying all sudden and mysterious, and Neferet showing up in Venice at the High Council saying that she’s Nyx Incarnate and Kalona’s Erebus come to earth, so she should be the next Vampyre High Priestess.” We stared at him. I know my mouth was definitely flopped open. Jack frowned at us. “I’m not making it up. Promise. You can see it all right here.” He offered up his iPhone again, which Darius took. While he poked at the screen, Damien put his arms around Jack and kissed him smack on the mouth. “You are brilliant!” he told his boyfriend.