C
HAPTER
22
J
enny’s response never came. As I waited, sleep dragged me under like a riptide, sinister and suffocating. In my dreams, I breathed in tar and it filled my body, squeezing the blood from my veins and the air from my lungs. The more I fought, the faster it overtook me. There was a splintering sound, and I lurched awake to see Luc standing at the foot of my bed.
“You’re supposed to be outside,” I whispered after I caught my breath.
His voice was so low I felt it in the base of my spine. “You’re supposed t’be awake.”
“I am. Kind of. What are you doing in here?” I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. 10:42. “I’m not late.”
“Figured it would be easier to sneak out if you had a little help.”
I scrambled out of bed, still dressed in my school clothes. Hastily, I tugged my skirt down. He raised an eyebrow. “Gotta say, I was hopin’ to see you in pajamas. Or do you not wear them?”
“Pervert.”
“This look is fine, too. Better with some kneesocks, maybe.” He came closer, touched my elbow lightly. The faintest shimmer of magic rose up around us.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re making a lot of noise. Rather not explain to your mom why I’m here.”
I had a sudden, vivid memory of another time he’d cloaked himself. We’d been on the front porch, kissing, and he’d simply. . . disappeared. And kissed me anyway, like a ghost, invisible hands on my skin, a mouth I couldn’t see trailing kisses along my throat. I shivered at the memory.
A concealment would work only if he was touching me, though, and I needed to change clothes. No way was I going off to do magic in my school uniform. I’d already ruined one this week; I wasn’t going to chance a second. I snagged a pair of yoga pants out of my dresser and gave him a gentle shove.
“Turn around.”
“It’s nothin’ I ain’t seen before.”
“Not on me, you haven’t. Turn around.”
He let go, and the magic dropped away, leaving the room colder. I pulled the pants on before shimmying out of my skirt, then quickly traded my wrinkled button-down for a long-sleeve tee and heavy fleece. For a moment, I studied the line of his shoulders, confident to the point of arrogance. He was lean and angular, even under the black leather coat, and you would think you’d cut yourself on the sharp lines of his body if you got too close. But I knew from experience how effortlessly you could fold yourself up in him. It didn’t make him any less dangerous, though. His hair, black like a raven’s wing, begged to be touched. I curled my fingers to stop myself from trying.
“I’m ready.”
He took my hand again. The magic came back like a caress, and I swayed into it. “Hope you’re warm enough. Bit of a walk.”
“We’re not going Between? Really?”
“I like these shoes. Don’t want you castin’ up your accounts on them.” Keeping my hand firmly in his, we tiptoed down the stairs. There wasn’t any need for stealth—my mom was fast asleep, Colin knew we were going, the cloaking spell made us invisible—and yet, when you’re strolling out of your house in the middle of the night with a boy who looked like Luc, sneaking is the only way to go.
“Where are we going?” I asked when we’d reached the street. It was cold now, just above freezing, and I took a hat from the pocket of my fleece.
“Open space.”
“We’re in the middle of the city, Luc. The nearest open space is a golf course.”
“Got it in one,” he said. “It’s better for this sort of thing. Things go wrong, we don’t have to worry about taking out passersby or property damage.”
“You think things will go wrong?”
He stopped. Under the streetlight, his hair gleamed and his eyes were lost in shadows, but he brushed the back of my hands with his lips. His voice held the slightest hint of strain. “Won’t let anything hurt you,” he said. “No matter what else you think ’bout me, you should know that.”
“I do.” For one brief instant, I let myself believe he was talking about me, Mo. Not just the Vessel. I wasn’t even sure he could separate the two. We started walking again.
“What does Pascal want?”
“To test some ideas.”
“I’m a lab rat?”
“Nicer to think of you as one of a kind,” he returned. “Things were different, you might like Pascal. He was a scientist before he was elevated to Patriarch. He’s still who we go to when we have questions about how the magic works.”
I could envision him as a scientist, but it didn’t make me feel any better about being his experiment. “How do you choose someone for the Quartoren? You’re Heir to your House, right? Is it hereditary?”
“Tricky business,” Luc said as we waited for a light to change. “It’s passed down through bloodlines for the most part. Sometimes there’s a prophecy, but that’s rare. In Evangeline’s case, there’s no clear successor, so people can throw their hat into the ring and the House will hold a ceremony, let the magic guide them to the right choice.”
“So Pascal didn’t want to be on the Quartoren?”
“Happened before my time,” Luc said. “But from what my father said, I don’t believe he was necessarily thrilled.”
I felt a sudden kinship with Pascal.
We walked in silence for a few minutes. Every so often, I’d check my phone for a message from Colin, but the screen stayed blank.
“Problems with Cujo?”
I bit my lip. “Why do you say that?”
“Why you denyin’ it? I’ve got eyes. You’re walking around like someone told you there’s no Santa. And he’s looking at you like ...”
“Like what?”
He seemed to struggle with the words. “Somethin’ precious. Somethin’ fine and delicate, like china. And he’s scared to death he might break you.”
He paused, and I stared at the ground, unwilling to meet his eyes.
“He ain’t the only one who sees it. He got there first, is all.”
There was nothing I could say to that.
His voice was gentle. “Maybe it’s for the best, you two ending things now. You’re not meant for him.”
I stuffed my hands in my pockets, walking faster. “Do not start with the fate thing. I’m not you, Luc. I’m not going to base everything in my life around a stupid prophecy.”
“Even if it’s true?”
“The prophecy was about Verity.”
“It was about the Vessel. That’s you, like it or not. You don’t see me complaining.”
“Because you don’t argue with fate.”
“Bad things happen in the world. Terrible things. You can rail against it, but there’s no point. Fate gives us those things for a reason. And sometimes they bring you something good along with it.”
He spoke with a fierceness, a sort of desperate conviction, that reminded me of what Marguerite had said the first time I met her.
He holds his grief so close I’m not sure he even realizes what it does to him.
I wanted to ask more, but some instinct held me back. Instead, I stopped, sliding my fingers along the chiseled line of his cheekbone. He swallowed, like he was trying to shove the grief down, and pressed his lips to the scar crossing my palm. The warmth of his breath drew me in.
“You laugh at fate,” he said hoarsely. “You don’t believe in it, but it’s still there. You believe in gravity. You believe in quarks and God, dark matter and planets you’ve never seen. You believe in magic. Why not believe in me?”
“I do.” The words hung between us, smoky puffs in the night air.
“Then why are you fighting so damn hard?”
I was tired, suddenly, like I’d never taken that nap, like I’d been running forever, since the first time I saw him. Maybe it was time to take a stand. “Because it’s not your decision. You never even question the prophecy. You don’t wonder what your life would be like without it. So when they tell you that I’m the one you’re supposed to be with ... you don’t think to yourself, ‘Hey, I might not want to spend the rest of my life with a girl I barely know.’ You just fall in line with what’s expected.”
I pulled back, rubbing my thumb over the spot he’d kissed.
“It’s not you choosing to love me, Luc. It’s fulfilling a duty. I don’t want to be your obligation.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Tell me how to convince you it’s more than that.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
He caught my hands before I could walk away, his eyes blazing green under the streetlights. “You think I don’t care, but I do. If you’re lookin’ for me to prove it, best be ready.”
My heartbeat picked up, so loud I was sure he could hear it. For an instant, his words were thrilling instead of terrifying. “Ready for what?”
“Me.”
C
HAPTER
23
I
f you’re going to mess around with a force capable of flattening a city block, the Beverly Country Club was one of the prettiest places in Chicago to do it. A world-class golf course dropped into the middle of the city, it was bounded on one side by train tracks and on the other a forest preserve my mom forbade me to visit. I was never sure if it was the rumors of the wild dogs or the wild parties she was more worried about.
The BCC itself was a lush green rectangle lined with trees, plenty of wide open space, and an easily circumvented security system. Perfect, Pascal assured me, for the experiment he had in mind.
To look at Pascal, you wouldn’t guess he was an Arc, let alone one of their leaders. Slightly built and a little unkempt, he seemed like the kind of guy who’d be more comfortable in a chem lab than governing a secret society. Dominic clearly ran the show, and Orla seemed most concerned with propriety. I wondered what Evangeline’s role had been, and who was going to take her place.
Pascal was in full-on absentminded professor mode, muttering over notes scrawled in a thick, leather-bound book, stopping every so often to close his eyes and concentrate on something I couldn’t see.
When we were bound, Luc had given me a ring to help stop the Torrent. It had allowed me to see the ley lines threaded through the world. Evangeline had taken the ring from me. Now I could sense the lines, like a current of warm water in a cold lake, but I couldn’t see them on my own.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Pascal said, looking up. “How are you feeling?”
I doubted he was digging for answers about my love life. “Okay, I guess.”
“No lingering effects from the other day? Headaches, dizziness?”
I tugged off my hat, twisting it with both hands. “How did you know?”
“Another theory,” Pascal said. “Nosebleeds?”
“A couple. Why?”
“I healed that up,” Luc said, eyes roving over me like he was trying to see past my skin. “I fixed it.”
“What’s your theory?” I asked Pascal.
“Well, it’s only an idea, you understand. You’re quite the anomaly.”
I’d known something was wrong. And clearly Pascal had, too. Even Marguerite had suspected, but she hadn’t mentioned it to Luc. Why not?
“What’s wrong with her?” he demanded. “You know what it is, you always do. Quit dancin’.”
“When the raw magic passed through you during the Torrent, you became joined to it, somehow. Now the magic is treating your body like another line, attempting to flow through you.” He shook his head, in wonderment or pity, I couldn’t tell. “But you were never meant to do magic. Your body can’t handle the buildup of energy, and so it rebels. The nosebleeds, the headaches ... they’re symptoms of the pressure building inside you. When an Arc calls on a line near you, that magic inside you responds, bursting free. It intensifies the effects of the spell as well as your symptoms.”
“At the Covenant,” Luc said. “That’s why it got so wild; you made the magic amp up.”
“Yes. I don’t have diagnostic equipment, but I think one of your flat scanning exams would show a substantial amount of internal damage after each encounter.”
The image of Kowalski, caught in a blast of raw magic, came back to me in a rush, and my knees started to give.
Luc pulled me close, tucking my head under his chin. “Fix it,” he ordered. “Fix her.”
“That’s what we’re trying to do.” Pascal pushed his glasses up. “Tonight I’d like you to interact with a line. A minor one, nothing too powerful. I’ll open it, and you can get your toes wet, so to speak. Once you’re comfortable, try channeling the magic as you did during the Torrent.”
I was not looking forward to repeating the Torrent, but Constance’s face, so much like Verity’s, lingered in my mind’s eye. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, considering what happened at the Covenant ceremony.”
“It’s a very small line. One of the weakest in the vicinity. I’ll be monitoring the whole time. If a problem arises, I’ll close the line down.”
“What’s my part?” Luc asked, his arms still encircling me.
“Lend her support. Your mother’s prophecy speaks of the Four-In-One. That’s both of you. She can’t do it alone. Even if she could, without your contribution, the magic would end up horribly unbalanced.”
I was not thrilled at the idea of needing Luc for anything, especially after our exchange on the way here. Thinking about Pascal’s experiment was more comfortable.
“This sounds dangerous.”
“It is,” Pascal said, closing the book with a thump. He suddenly looked a lot more like a Patriarch than a mad scientist. “You agreed to the Covenant. Under those terms, you’ll do whatever’s necessary to fix the magic. This is a necessary step.”
“Risking my life is a necessary step?” I said, as Luc’s fingers tightened on my arms.
“I need to see what occurs when you interact directly with the magic, so I can determine a plan for how to fix it. The alternative is to send you into the source of the magic and let you fumble your way through.”
Luc murmured into my hair. “Might be best to start small, hmn?”
“Best” didn’t apply here. All of my options sucked. I’d known it when I agreed to the Covenant, but standing on the eighth hole on a frigid November night made that knowledge much more real, much more terrifying.
I squeezed Luc’s hand, drawing strength from the fact that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me. He squeezed back, and I nodded at Pascal.
“Let’s proceed,” Pascal said.
Around us, the trees stood like dark, silent sentries. The grass underfoot was dense and springy, nearly black in the moonlight. Pascal waited until a passing freight train had rumbled a safe distance away. As the sound faded, he began to chant, making the line visible. Its surface swirled like mercury, a slender thread that seemed to pulse in time with my heartbeat. The lines I’d dealt with in the Torrent were massive ropes that rippled beneath my touch, much more difficult to control. Shoving aside my nervousness, I closed a hand around the line, allowing its energy to flow into me.
The initial contact was a rush, jarring but almost exhilarating. It was an earth line, the texture sturdy and cool against my fingers. I opened myself a bit more, tentatively, and the power glided smoothly through my veins.
“The line is healthy. There’s nothing wrong with it,” I said. I’d expected to feel some sort of brokenness. During the Torrent, the lines had corroded under my fingers, unleashing raw magic as they crumbled away. But this was full and rich, firmly grounded in its element.
“Good,” Pascal said. “Try increasing the capacity.”
I didn’t need his instruction—already the magic was tumbling, straining against the filament-like line. I drew on Luc’s power to bolster it. The surface was like clay, malleable to the touch, and I tried to reshape it, working as fast as I could. Not fast enough.
The magic destabilized the line gradually, like the tide lapping at the base of a sandcastle, sagging and crumbling before it washed away completely. It slipped out of my control in slight, ominous increments. Next to me, Luc’s muscles trembled as he fed his strength into our connection.
This wasn’t right. They’d warned me the magic was stronger now, but this was more than powerful—it was all-consuming, almost hungry. I could feel the force of it in my bones, racing toward us, and tried to deflect it.
“Shut it off!” Luc shouted to Pascal, who was scrutinizing me and muttering to himself. He nodded and made a few sharp gestures. For a moment, there was only silence, and relief. My breath came more easily, and my shoulders relaxed as Luc’s hand found mine.
And then the magic surged, retaliating against Pascal’s attempt to stop it. It was like an avalanche, the power roiling around us, grasping and ravenous. I felt myself being lifted into the air. All I could think was that I must look like Kowalski had when he died.
Then the magic left as abruptly as it had come, throwing me to the ground like a rag doll. Something in my leg snapped.
“Mouse!” Luc dropped to his knees next to me. “Don’t look.”
“Okay.” I covered my face with my hands, whimpering at how badly it hurt.
“Stop, Luc.” Pascal’s voice was hoarse.
“She’s losing blood. I need to—”
“You need to protect her.”
Luc fell silent. With my eyes closed, I could hear the trees creaking in the wind, the shuffling sound of the leaves, the rumble of an approaching train. I felt Luc’s breath against my cheek, his words low and urgent. “I need to take you Between. Right now.”
I dropped my hands. “No!”
“Darklings are coming. Three, at least. Maybe more.”
“Luc, I don’t think I can go Between.” It wasn’t that I wanted to stay here, a target for Darklings. Black spots swarmed over my vision, and the shallow panting I heard was coming from me. Internal damage, Pascal had said. Judging from the stabbing pains radiating from my stomach, a broken leg was the least of my injuries.
Pascal stood on the other side of me. “You can’t take her in this condition. It would kill her.”
Three forms seemed to ooze from the grove of trees bordering the golf course. Even from this distance, they were tall, wearing tattered black remnants that flapped in the cold wind. The air carried the stench of decay, and bile flooded my mouth.
“Heal me,” I said. “We’ll go Between and they won’t follow.”
Luc and Pascal exchanged glances, and Luc turned, wrenching his sword from thin air, the blade shining from within. He shrugged off his coat and pressed the leather hard against my leg wound. I screamed through clenched teeth, and he flinched. “Keep pressure on it. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Luc!” I cried. An instant later, a glowing red lattice sprang up around me. Wards, designed to prevent the Darklings from reaching anyone inside.
Luc was outside the wards.
He and Pascal stood crouched as the Darklings loped toward them. The noise I’d thought was a freight train was them, snarling and roaring. Bloodlust, I thought dimly. I was losing blood, and they could smell it. I wondered if it was the cold ground or shock causing me to shake so violently.
On the other side of the wards, Luc and Pascal battled the Darklings. I would have thought Pascal would be a lousy fighter, but he seemed to be holding his own against one of the creatures. He wasn’t graceful, but combined with whatever spells he chanted, he was able to keep it at bay. Once in a while, he even managed to land a blow with the massive hammer.
Luc moved so beautifully, I could almost forget how lethal he was—slashing and parrying, leaping away from their curving talons at the last possible moment. One struck him in the leg and he dropped to the ground. The wards dimmed, and two Darklings lunged toward me.
I screamed again, and Luc sprang up, shouting something. Instantly, the red lines brightened like a road flare the same moment the monsters reached through. Sparks scattered, the air turning acrid and smoky. The first Darkling howled and stumbled away, leaving behind part of its arm.
Still calling out spells, Luc pressed the advantage, beheading the creature, plunging his blade deeply into its chest, setting the body aflame with a word. I gagged at the smell.
I should have been able to see the wards above me, but the black dots spotting my vision were expanding. On the far side of the golf course, something moved. I squinted at it. More Darklings? A passerby? Grunting, I leaned forward. Too small for a Darkling, feet that looked like a human. The black spots were winning.
I had the impression of hands on knees, as if someone was bending over to peer at me, and then a flash of light. My eyelids were too heavy to open again, my hands too weak to hold Luc’s jacket, and the outraged howl of another Darkling, abruptly silenced, came from such a long, long distance.. . .
And then Luc’s palm was hot against my stomach, his other hand hovering over my leg. His words seemed to pierce my skin, the numbness that had overtaken my leg becoming painful tingling as blood started to flow normally again and the bone reknit itself. There was a stretching, pulling sensation along my skin, and Luc’s hands slid away.
“The Darklings?” I whispered.
“Gone. We’re safe.” He flopped on the ground next to me.
“What about the guy? Did they get him?”
“What guy?”
“Someone else was here. I saw him.” Maybe Colin had followed me after all.
“Shhh.” He reached over, brushed my hair away from my face. “Nobody else is around. You were in shock. Probably hallucinatin’.”
I sat up and checked my leg. I hadn’t imagined my injuries. The gray jersey pants were ripped at the thigh, drenched in blood. But underneath my skin was unbroken. I sank back onto the cold, damp ground, too weak to stand.
“See? All better.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Are you sure that was wise?” Pascal asked, addressing Luc.
“You had a better plan?” he asked through clenched teeth. I shifted to see Luc’s face, stunned to find an ashen cast to his skin, usually the color of melted caramel.