Aphrodite turned her cool blue gaze on me. "Your friends are dorks," she said.

I grinned and b.u.t.ted my shoulder into her. "Then that makes you a dork."

"That's what I'm afraid of," she said. "Speaking of me being in h.e.l.l-come to my room. There's something you have to help me figure out before we go to the Council Meeting."

I shrugged. "Okay by me." Actually, I was feeling pretty good about myself. My friends were speaking to me again, and it seemed that everyone might actually have a chance of getting along. "Hey," I said as we walked down the hall to Aphrodite's room.

"Did you notice that the Twins said something nice to you before they left?"

"The Twins are symbiotic, and I hope very soon someone takes them away to perform science experiments on them."

"That att.i.tude is not helping," I said.

"Could we just focus on what's really important?"

"Like?"

"Me, of course, and what I need you to help me with." Aphrodite opened the door to her room, and we walked into what I liked to think of as her palace. I mean, jeesh, the place looked like she'd decorated it out of a Guide to Gossip Girl Design magazine-if there was such a thing. Which, sadly, there probably was. (Not that I don't adore Gossip Girl!) "Aphrodite, has anyone ever told you that you might have a personality disorder?"

"Several overpaid shrinks. Like I care." Aphrodite walked across the room and opened the door to the hand-painted (probably antique and majorly expensive) armoire that sat in front of her hand-carved (for sure antique and majorly expensive) four-poster canopy bed. As she rummaged around in it, she said, "Oh, by the way, you have got to find a way for the Council to make it okay for you and, tragically, me and-as much as I hate to say it-your nerd herd, too, to be allowed off campus."

"Huh?"

Aphrodite sighed and turned to face me. "Would you please keep up with me? We have to be able to come and go so we can figure out what the f.u.c.k is going on with Stevie Rae and her nasty friends."

"I already told you that I'm not gonna let you talk bad about Stevie Rae. Nothing is going on with her."

"That's up for discussion, but since you refuse to sanely discuss it this particular time, I'm talking about the freaks she's hanging with. What if you're right and Neferet wants to use them against humans? Not that I particularly like humans, but I definitely don't like war. So I'm thinking you need to be checking into that."

"Me? Why me? And why do I have to figure out a way to get all of us in and out of the school?"

"Because you are the superhero fledgling. I'm just your more attractive sidekick. Oh, and the herd of nerd are your dorky minions."

"Great," I said.

"Hey, don't stress about it. You'll think of something. You always do."

I blinked in surprise at her. "Your confidence in me is shocking." And I wasn't kidding. I mean, she really looked like she thought I'd figure out this mess.

"It shouldn't be." She turned back to searching through the cluttered armoire. "I know better than just about anyone else how gifted you've been by Nyx. That you're powerful, blah, blah, whatever. So you'll figure it out. Finally! G.o.d, I wish they'd let us have housekeepers in here. I can never find anything when I'm forced to clean up after myself." Aphrodite emerged with a green candle in a pretty green crystal gla.s.s and a fancy lighter.

"You need me to help you figure out something about a candle?"

"No, genius. Sometimes I really wonder about Nyx's choices." She handed me the little gold lighter. "I want you to help me figure out if I've lost my affinity for earth."

CHAPTER EIGHT

I looked from the green candle to Aphrodite. Her face was pale and her lips were compressed into a thin bloodless line. "You haven't tried to evoke earth since you lost your Mark?" I asked gently.

She shook her head and continued to look like her stomach hurt.

"Okay, well, you're right. I can help you figure this out. I should probably cast a circle."

"That's what I thought." Aphrodite drew in a deep shaky breath. "Let's get this over with." She walked over to the wall that was on the opposite side of the room as her bed. She stood there, holding up her candle. "This is north."

"All right." Resolutely, I went to stand in front of Aphrodite. Turning to the east, I closed my eyes and centered myself. "It fills our lungs and gives us life. I call air to my circle." Even without a yellow candle representing the element-and without Damien and his air affinity-I felt the instant response of the element as a soft breeze smoothed against my body.

I opened my eyes and turned to my right, moving deosil, or clockwise, around the circle to the south, where I stopped. "It heats us and keeps us safe and warm. I call fire to my circle." I smiled as the air around me warmed with the second element.

Moving again to my right, I stopped next in the west. "It washes us and quenches us. I call water to my circle." Right away I felt the cool of invisible waves against my legs. Smiling, I moved to stand in front of Aphrodite.

"Ready?" I asked her.

She nodded and closed her eyes and raised the green candle that represented her element.

"It sustains us and surrounds us. I call earth to my circle." I flicked the lighter and held the little flame to the candle.

"Ow, s.h.i.t!" Aphrodite cried. She dropped the candle as if it had stung her. It shattered against the wood floor at her feet.

When her eyes lifted from looking at the ruined gla.s.s and candle mess, I saw that they were filled with tears. "I've lost it." Her voice was little more than a whisper as the tears spilled over and down her cheeks. "Nyx took it away from me. I knew she would. I knew I wasn't good enough for her to gift me with an affinity for something as amazing as the element earth."

"I don't believe that's what's happened," I said.

"But you saw it. I'm not earth anymore. Nyx won't let me represent the element," she sobbed.

"I don't mean that you still have your earth affinity. What I mean is I don't think Nyx took it away from you because you're not worthy."

"But I'm not," Aphrodite said brokenly.

"I just don't believe that. Here, let me show you."

I took a small step back from her. This time without Aphrodite's candle, I said, "It sustains and surrounds us. I call earth to my circle."

The scents and sounds of a spring meadow instantly surrounded me. Trying to ignore the fact that what I was doing was making Aphrodite cry even harder, I walked to the center of my invisible circle and called the last of the five elements to me. "It is what we are before we're born, and what we eventually return to. I call spirit to my circle." My soul sang within me as the final element filled me.

Holding tightly to the power that always came to me when I evoked the elements, I raised my arms over my head. I tilted my head up, seeing not the ceiling over me, but imagining through it to the velvet darkness of the all-encompa.s.sing night sky. And I prayed-not the way my mom and her husband, the step-loser, pray, all filled with fake humbleness and with lots of decorative amens and whatnot. I didn't change who I was when I prayed. I talked to my G.o.ddess just like I would talk to my grandma or my best friend.

I like to believe Nyx appreciates my honesty.

"Nyx, from this place of power you have given me, I ask that you hear my prayer. Aphrodite has lost a lot, and I don't think that's because you don't care about her anymore. I think there's something else going on here, and I really wish you'd let her know that you're still with her-no matter what."

Nothing happened. I drew a deep breath and centered myself again. I'd heard Nyx's voice before. I mean, sometimes she actually talked to me. Sometimes I just got feelings about things. Either would be okay right now, I added that little part of my prayer silently. Then I tried to concentrate even harder. I closed my eyes and listened so hard within that I was squidging my eyes and holding my breath. Actually, I was listening so hard, I almost didn't hear Aphrodite's shocked gasp.

I opened my eyes, and my mouth flopped open along with them.

Floating between Aphrodite and me was the shimmering silver image of a beautiful woman. Later, when Aphrodite and I tried to describe to each other exactly what she'd looked like, we realized we couldn't remember any details except that we both said she'd looked like spirit suddenly made visible-which really wasn't any description at all.

"Nyx!" I said.

The G.o.ddess smiled at me, and I thought my heart would pound out of my chest with happiness. "Greetings, my u-we-tsi- a-ge-ya" she said, using the Cherokee word for "daughter," just like my grandma often did. "You were right to call me. You should follow your true instinct more often, Zoey. It will never lead you wrong."

Then she turned to Aphrodite, who, with a sob, dropped to her knees before the G.o.ddess.

"Do not weep, my precious child." Nyx's ethereal hand reached out, and like a beautiful dream given substance, she caressed Aphrodite's cheek.

"Forgive me, Nyx!" she cried. "I've done so many stupid things, and made so many mistakes. I'm sorry for all of it. I really am. I don't blame you for taking away my Mark and my earth affinity. I know I don't deserve either of them."

"Daughter, you misunderstand me. I didn't remove your Mark. It was the strength of your humanity that burned it away, just as it was the strength of your humanity that saved Stevie Rae. Whether you like it or not, you will always be more sublimely human than anything else, which is part of why I love you so deeply. But do not think that you are only a human now, my child.

You are more than that, but exactly what that means, you must discover-and choose-for yourself." The G.o.ddess took Aphrodite's hand and lifted her to her feet. "I want you to understand that the earth affinity was never yours, daughter. You simply held it in safekeeping for Stevie Rae. You see, the earth could not truly live within her until her humanity had been restored. You were who I trusted to keep that precious gift safe, as well as the vessel through which Stevie Rae's humanity was returned to her."

"So you're not punishing me?" Aphrodite said.

"No, daughter. You punish yourself enough without any addition from me," Nyx said gently.

"And you don't hate me?" Aphrodite whispered.

Nyx's smile was radiant and sad. "As I have already said, I love you, Aphrodite. I always will."

This time I knew the tears that washed down Aphrodite's face were tears of joy.

"You both have a long road before you. Much of it you will travel together. Depend upon one another. Listen to your instincts. Trust the still, small voice within each of you."

The G.o.ddess turned to me. "U-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, there is great danger ahead."

"I know. You can't want this war."

"I don't, daughter. Though that is not the danger of which I speak."

"But if you don't want the war, why don't you just stop it? Neferet has to listen to you! She has to do what you command!"

I said, not sure why I was suddenly feeling so frantic, especially when the G.o.ddess was gazing at me serenely.

Instead of answering me, Nyx asked a question of her own. "Do you know what it is that is the greatest gift I have ever given my children?"

I thought hard, but my mind seemed to be a jumble of crossword puzzle thoughts and fragments of the truth.

Aphrodite's voice sounded strong and clear: "Free will."

Nyx smiled. "Exactly correct, daughter. And once I give a gift, I never take it away. The gift becomes the person, and were I to step in and command obedience, especially in the form of extracting affinities, I would destroy the person."

"But maybe Neferet would listen to you if you spoke to her like you're speaking to us now. She's your High Priestess," I said. "She's supposed to listen to you."

"It grieves me, but Neferet has chosen to no longer hear me. This is the danger of which I wish to warn you. Neferet has her mind tuned to another voice, one that has been whispering to her for a very long time. I hoped her love for me would drown out the other, but it has not. Zoey, Aphrodite is clever about many things. When she said that power changes, she was right. Power always changes the bearer of it and those who are closest to her, though people who believe it always corrupts think too simplistically."

As she'd been talking, I noticed waves of brightness had begun to shiver through Nyx's body, like moon-kissed mist rising from a field, and her image was getting harder and harder to see.

"Wait! Don't go yet," I cried. "I have so many questions."

"Life will reveal to you the choices you must make to answer them," she said.

"But you say that Neferet has been listening to someone else's voice. Does that mean she isn't your High Priestess anymore?"

"Neferet has left my path and has chosen chaos instead." The G.o.ddess's image wavered. "But remember, what I have given I never take away. So do not underestimate Neferet's power. The hatred she is attempting to awaken is a dangerous force."

"This scares me, Nyx. I-I'm always s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up," I stammered. "Especially lately."

The G.o.ddess smiled again. "Your imperfection is part of your power. Look to the earth for strength, and the stories of your grandmother's people for answers."

"It'd be a lot safer if you just told me what I need to know and what I should do," I said.

"As with all my children, you must find your own path, and through that discovery, you will decide what each earth child must ultimately decide-whether she chooses chaos or love."

"Sometimes chaos and love seem like the same thing," Aphrodite said. I could see that she was trying to be respectful, but there was a clear amount of exasperation in her voice.

Nyx didn't seem to mind her comment. The G.o.ddess simply nodded and said, "Indeed, but when you look deeper, you will see that though chaos and love are both powerful and alluring, they are also as different as moonlight is from sunlight. Remember . .

. I am never far from your hearts, my precious daughters . . ."

With a final flash of shimmering silver light, the G.o.ddess disappeared.

CHAPTER NINE

"Well, c.r.a.p. Chaos and love are the same, but not. Neferet still has her powers, but she's not listening to Nyx anymore.

Oh, and she's trying to wake up something dangerous. What does that mean? Is it an abstract wake up, like 'waking up' danger in the form of a war with humans, or is she literally trying to wake up some horrible, scary thingie that could eat us all? Like that creepy thing that scratched me earlier, which I didn't even get a chance to ask her about. c.r.a.p again!" I babbled as Aphrodite and I hurried from the girls' dorm. Sadly, it appeared we were going to be late for the Council Meeting.

"Don't look at me. I have enough mysteries of my own to solve. I'm human, but I'm not? What does that mean? And how can my humanity be so big and bad anyway-I don't even like humans?" Aphrodite sighed and fiddled with her hair. "s.h.i.t, my hair's a mess." She turned her face to me. "Can you tell I've been crying?"