The shaking stops.
The world goes still.
Mr. Calloway and Mayor Ridley and Isabel andTwig look around wildly, as though waiting for something to come, not realizing something already has.
The rift is open.
Across the room, Rafe yanks the ruby from Lainey’s neck. She twists free from his grip and runs past the undulating hole like she doesn’t see it at all.
Rafe’s eyes lock with mine, then Jude’s.
He grins a bloody grin and steps inside.
47
MARKED
We follow him. Jude and I step through the tear, and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end.
We’re still in the music room.
But it’s not the music room.
Whispers float in the air, disembodied and indecipherable. Joined by the confused, panicked voices of Mayor Ridley, Mr. Calloway, Isabel, and Twig. They talk over one another, their words muffled as though spoken through thick glass.
It’s exactly as Simon’s journal described.
We’re here, but we’re also not here.
There’s no time to make sense of it. No time to stop and figure out why Jude and I could travel through the rift, but Lainey couldn’t even see it.
We go after Rafe, through the corridor, into the foyer, out into the night, where the disembodiedwhispers grow louder, and the sky churns overhead—a swirling, black void that makes the ground feel tenuous. Like at any moment, gravity will let go and we will plunge into the abyss.
Jude takes my hand.
Together, we chase Rafe’s shadow across the lawn, flashes of light illuminating familiar landmarks—the marble fountain, the twisted tree in the Midnight Garden. But in this world, they are distorted. Warped. Reflections in a funhouse mirror.
Fog rolls thick, billowing like waves as Rafe slips through the front gate.
We hurry after him. But when we emerge from the estate, he’s gone.
Jude lets go of my hand and turns in a circle. I do the same. But I’ve lost all my bearings. I can’t tell which way is north and which way is south. We spot a familiar tree in the near distance, but when we reach it, it’s not familiar at all.
Jude scans for something—anything.
But the fog is too dense, and shadows swirl like sentient things.
A shiver crawls down my spine.
“We have to go back,” I say. “He can’t open the tomb. He doesn’t have the gemstones.”
Or mortal blood. Dante’s comet isn’t burning brightest in the sky, either. That won’t happen until Halloween.
Still, Jude hesitates.
Panic squeezes my throat.
If we don’t turn back now, we could get lost forever. And I swear, something is closing in, lurking nearby. We’re being watched.
