The two of us get to work, at first in silence. Twig wedges the crowbar beneath the slab. It takes both of our strength to lift it enough to fit the car jack underneath. Not until we descend the stone stairs with our flashlights on do I start talking. The words pour out in a gush. I tell him all about Rafe’s plan. The way he used Lainey to execute it. The rift opening and what it was like on the other side.
Twig listens, his head on a swivel as he takes in our surroundings. When I use the key to get insidethe crypt, he turns into a kid in a candy shop. I don’t blame him. If I weren’t in such distress myself, I’d probably join him. But the burn beneath my collar smarts—so sharp, I grimace.
“Hey,” Twig says. “Are you okay?”
I consider lying.
But this is Twig.
He’s going to find out sooner or later.
So, I pull down the collar of my shirt and show him what I have yet to show Jude.
His face turns gray.
I tug the collar back into place. “Please don’t say anything to him.”
“But that’s?—”
“I know what it is.”
His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.
“Please, Twig? He’s going to freak out.”
“Shouldn’t you be freaking out?”
“What’s the point?” The mark is there. That’s a fact. But maybe it doesn’t have to mean what we think it means. “There’s a reason Ezra painted me. Those words he wrote? Beacon. Balm. Blessing. Maybe that’s what I can be.”
“Do you know how to break a curse?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.” I turn away from my friend and his very visible concern. I didn’t come here to talk about the curse. I came here to protect the people I love.
“Selah? I really think you should tell him.”
I pick up the pearl and the onyx. I grab the locket, too. Because why not have all the pieces tothe puzzle? Rafe wants the gemstones by midnight. I’m not convinced handing them over is a good idea, but given his ultimatum, what other choice do we have?
A haunting sonata envelops me as soon as Tulane invites me inside.
Jude sent a text.
We need to talk.
He’s right. We do.
We need to devise a plan, figure out exactly how to hand over the gemstones while keeping Rafe from his ultimate goal. But right now, that goal feels small and far away. All that exists is this soul-stirring music, so filled with longing, it makes my chest ache. I follow Tulane to the music room as if in a trance. Then we reach the open doors, and whatever’s left of my breath whooshes away.
The rift hangs in the air like a freshly stitched wound. A jagged seam of darkness, the edges frayed and flickering with veins of obsidian light. I turn to Tulane, but he simply bows and leaves like nothing is amiss. Like that wound is as invisible to him as it was to Twig and Lainey the night before.
I step closer, remembering the way it tore open in my dream. A violent explosion that sucked Simon and his family straight in. The police found no evidence of anything amiss other than a fallen candelabra. But what if it was there all along in thedining room? A fresh wound, just like this one. Only they couldn’t see it.
A niggling thought wiggles into my brain.
Ezekiel Cotton’s first claim.
Last night, I found it underwhelming and obvious. Of course mortal descendants of angels would have a strong connection to the spiritual realm. But now, stepping around the rift as it hangs there like an omen, warping the music ever so slightly, I find myself reconsidering it.
Dante wasn’t the only angel to create a mortal line.
