Such a Daring Endeavor by Cortney Pearson Read Free Book Online Page A

out its insides. Dircey gives me a shrug.
    “We don’t have much,” she says to me, “but you’re welcome to it.”
    “Thank you,” I say. I join my brother, taking an apple from the basket near the fridge.
    At that, a child enters the room. I take a bite of my apple, its juices bursting over my tongue. No, not a child—a
nymph
. The tiny creature’s limbs aren’t short in the way that children’s are, that shows they still have room to grow. She’s full-grown, a woman in miniature. Thin wings pulse between her shoulder blades, and she walks like the sirens do, as though it’s for show and not really a necessity.
    “Cadie,” says Ren in acknowledgment.
    “Let you out, have they?” says the small creature. I take in her neon purple hair, remembering her telling me to wait my turn, that her ink was in short supply.
    “You give the magitats,” I say stupidly. I’m not sure why, but the nymph intimidates me. Perhaps it’s her tiny size that makes her that much more of a mystery.
    Ren clears his throat as if embarrassed. Dircey looks amused.
    “From what I hear,” says the nymph, “you don’t need one.”
    “Cadie, this is—” Ren gestures.
    “Your sister. Yeah, I know, and anyone who can sneak magic back out after those vrecking claws can keep her distance from me.”
    I look to Dircey for direction.
    “See this finger?” says Cadie. “It can do the same things those Xians can. I don’t need any humans thinking they can subvert me.”
    “Don’t mind her,” Ren says. “Cadie’s known for being touchy.”
    “Only because you wouldn’t stop pestering me, Ren Csille.”
    “No, I don’t want a magitat,” I tell the nymph. It’s the first time I’ve ever really talked to one beyond a simple greeting. Our neighbors, the Hollys, weren’t exactly friendly. “But I do need a way into the Triad Palace.”
    The soft chatter halts almost at once. Dircey rests a palm on the table. Ayso actually glances up from her book. Though their gazes make me feel smaller, I keep going.
    “There’s no way I can get in on my own. I need help. A map, anything.”
    Dircey clears her throat again and juts her chin toward the door. Ayso taps her glasses higher on her nose with a middle finger before closing her book, and together she and Cadie leave us. Dircey readjusts herself so that instead of sitting, she crouches on her toes
on
the chair and interlocks her fingers.
    “That’s right into the lion’s den, little sister,” she says. “I’d avoid the Triad like a disease.”
    “I’m going, so if you know of some way I’d really appreciate it,” I say. “Maybe you have something like the basole plant that can make me stronger. Or that can make me turn invisible, like you did with that golden outline,” I suggest to Ren. The night Gwynn and I met him outside the ice cream shop, he shielded us from being seen by the guards on the street.
    It’s about time for some lesson in magic usage, now that I have it. I missed out on so much in school while I was in teaching the newly Torrented. Tyrus used the golden outline against me the last time I saw him. Talon did it too, come to think of it, under the bleachers at my school.
    “I’m not sure I can maintain it long enough to get us in there and keep us hidden,” says Ren.
    I return my attention to Dircey. “Please, my friend is there. They’re going to kill him any day. It’s my fault he got caught. I promise I won’t betray any of you. But I’ve got to go. Do you have a layout of the Triad, maybe?”
    “It’s not like I have blueprints lying around,” says Dircey.
    “I don’t have blueprints, but I spent time as Tyrus’s guard there,” Ren says in offering. Dircey stands at this admission and leaves the two of us to ourselves.
    I fight the urge to hug my brother. “Do you know where he’d be keeping a prisoner? Are there, I don’t know, dungeons?”
    Ren traipses to a leather-bound notebook on top of the fridge. He tears a clear sheet of