Read Page 27

I look up at her. She gives me a smile. "If you could see your face, Gemma. Really, so serious!"

This makes me laugh. And cry a bit more. Soon, we're all laughing through tears, our arms around each other. It feels like coming home after a long, dusty journey.Advertisement

"Let me look at you," Pippa says. "Oh, I have missed you so. You must tell me everything. How is Mrs. Nightwing? Are Cecily and Martha still the most unbearable snobs?"

"Positively hideous," Ann says, giggling.

"Gemma spilled jam on Cecily's dress just the other morning to keep her quiet," Felicity says.

Pippa's mouth opens."You didn't!"

"I'm afraid I did," I admit, feeling foolish for my bad behavior.

"Gemma!" she cries, smiling brightly."You are my hero!"

We fall back in the grass laughing. There is so much to say. We tell her everything--about Spence, the girls, her funeral. "Did everyone cry awfully much?" Pippa asks.

Ann nods. "Terribly."

She blows at a dandelion. The fluff spreads out on the wind, where it becomes a swarm of fireflies. "I am glad to hear it. I'd hate to think of people sitting stony-eyed round my casket. Were the flowers lovely? There were flowers, weren't there?"

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"The loveliest, most elaborate cascade of flowers," Felicity says. "They must have cost a fortune."

Pippa nods, smiling."I am so glad to have had such a nice funeral. Oh, do tell me more stories of home! Do they talk about me in the great hall? Do they all miss me awfully?"

"Oh, yes," Ann says in earnest."We all do."

"Now you do not have to miss me at all," Pip says, squeezing her hand.

I don't want to ask, but I must. "Pippa, I thought that you were . . ." Dead. I cannot bring myself to say it. "I thought that you'd crossed over the river. To the other world beyond the realms. When I left, you and your knight . . ."

Ann sits up."Where is your knight?"

"Oh, him. I had to let him go." Pippa yawns. "He always did whatever I asked. Frightfully dull."

"He was certainly handsome." Ann swoons.

"Yes, he was rather, wasn't he?" Pippa giggles.

"I am sorry," I say, afraid to disrupt our happiness. "But I don't understand. Why didn't you cross over?"

Pippa shrugs."My lord, the knight, told me that I didn't have to cross after all. There are many tribes here, creatures who've lived in the realms forever. They are part of this world." She leans back on straight arms, bends her knees, and lets them sway gently against each other.

"So you just came back?" I prompt. "Yes. And then I stopped to pick wildflowers to make a crown. Do you like it?"

"Oh, yes," Ann says.

"I shall make you one, then."

"And for me," Felicity adds.

"Of course," Pip says."We shall all have one."

I'm terribly confused. My mother told me that souls had to cross over or become corrupted. But here is our Pippa, happy and shining, eyes the color of fresh violets, the girl we've always known.

"How long have I been here?" Pippa asks.

"Two months," I say.

"Really? Sometimes it seems like yesterday; other times, it's as if I've been here forever. Two months . . . that would make it nearly Christmas. I do think I shall miss Christmas morning."

None of us knows what to say to this.

Ann sits up. "Perhaps she hasn't completed her soul's task. Perhaps that is why she is still here."

"Perhaps she is supposed to help us find the Temple!" Felicity exclaims.

"What temple?" Pippa asks.

"When I shattered the runes, I released the Order's power into the realms," I explain. "The Temple is the source of that magic. Whoever finds the Temple and binds the magic there controls it."

Pippa's eyes widen."How marvelous!"

Ann chimes in. "But everyone's looking for it, including Circe's spies."

Pippa links her arm through mine. "Then we must find it first. I shall do everything I can to help you. We can ask the creatures for help." I shake my head. "Kartik said we shouldn't trust anything from the realms, not with the magic loose." Trust no one. Trust nothing. But surely that doesn't mean Pippa.

"Kartik?" Pippa says, as if trying to remember something from long ago. "The Indian boy? The Rakshana?"

"Yes."

She lowers her voice."You ought to be careful with him. The Rakshana have their spies here too. They cannot be trusted." pqdm.com