Free Bailey Morgan [2] Fate by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Page A

could,” Zo said finally. Her words were sweet, but her tone was more disgruntled than anything else. She didn't like the idea of not being able to protect me from whatever the Reckoning entailed.
    Come to think of it, I wasn't so fond of that idea myself.
    “I'd take you with me if I could,” I said, and Irefused to say the rest of the sentence—
but I can't—
because it felt like admitting something awful that was true in more ways than one.
    It was official: the world was conspiring to make me see everything as a metaphor for the end of high school.
    “So what now?” I asked Zo, half-expecting her to have answers that had nothing to do with the next half hour and everything to do with the next few years.
    “The way I see it, we have three options.” Zo was clearly in the mood to take charge, and I (a) knew better than to stand in the way of
any
of Zo's moods, and (b) didn't, in general, have any objection to following.
    “Option one: We try to research the necklaces.” Zo made a face. Clearly, she realized that of the four of us, she and I were the least apt to do any kind of research on mystical jewelry. A-belle was research girl, and Delia was the fashion expert; the two of them would be all over this soon enough.
    “Option two: We forget about the research and go for a trial-and-error kind of thing for using them.”
    I considered that one for a moment, thinking about what the necklace had shown me earlier and wondering what I'd see if I probed things more.
    “What's option three?” I asked, hating that I couldn't just jump on option two, which was quite obviously the best choice.
    Zo picked up the charm on her necklace and held it out and away from her neck, assuming a fighting stance as she did. “I challenge you to a duel!” she said.
    I held out my own necklace and grinned back at her. “I accept.”
    The two of us launched ourselves into option three: using our necklaces in a twisted pendant sword fight, careful not to do any actual damage with the sharp edges.
    Productive? Maybe not, but it was exactly what I needed.
    As we circled each other, completely concentrated on the task at hand, I barely noticed that the shadows in the room seemed to move with us—even the ones that should have been standing still.

On some level, I must have seen the shadows when Zo and I were attempting to duel, but it wasn't until I laid down to sleep that the image—slithering, scattering, shifting—made its way into my conscious mind. The entire scene played against the backdrop of my eyelids, over and over again, the movement of the shadows so subtle that I wondered if it was real or if this was just another example of Things That Happen When Bailey Doesn't Get Enough Actual Shut-eye.
    Given everything I had on my mind, I should have had trouble falling asleep, but I didn't. One second I was lying there thinking about shadows and Zo (and college, which was never far from my mind), and the next, I was out.
    * * *
    The Seal was cool under my back. I lay there for a long moment, my eyes closed, feeling as comfortable as I did in my own bed. More than anything else in the Nexus, the Seal was home.
    “We are connected.”
    Adea's voice broke into my thoughts, and I flashed back to my mom's “Bailey Marie” that morning. Adea wasn't big on middle names. She preferred eerie lectures. At least this time, I knew what she was talking about.
    Sort of.
    “The three of us are part of one whole, and the Seal represents that whole. It was forged out of man, out of Sidhe, that we might connect the two. In a time when the worlds were separating, our birth brought them closer together, that this Seal and the balance it represents might hold the worlds, separate but entwined, the powers from one rejuvenating the other.”
    “Four score and seven years ago …”
    For some reason, my mind decided that it would be productive to imagine Adea delivering the Gettysburg Address, rather than actually trying to connect her words to my