“You’re a fast learner, Whitlock.” He pivots so his back is to the railing. “Orion is the constellation. His belt’s the asterism.”
I twist with him, spotting the three stars in a straight line. “Where’s the rest of him?”
“The two above his belt are his shoulders. And that little line hanging below is his sword.”
“Huh.” I cock my head, able to see him for the first time. Not just the belt, but the full picture of Orion himself—the great hunter. “Okay, Vandenberg. What else ya got?”
He grins. “If you follow the belt to that reddish star, there? That’s Taurus’s eye. And the cluster of stars in the shape of a V are his face.”
I peer upward.
His breath tickles my ear. “And if you look that way, to those two? That’s Castor and Pollux, the heads of Gemini.”
Something about them—one a golden yellow, the other a bluish white—strikes a familiar cord. Ican’t look away, even as Jude moves on to a constellation called Canis Minor.
My heart starts to thud a dull beat in my ear, as if my body has made a connection before my brain. Two bright stars, each one with a tail of fainter, smaller dots, forming parallel lines. My attention sweeps back to Taurus—a V in the sky—and the revelation comes like a zap of electricity. “The glowing dots.”
“What’s that?” Jude asks.
I turn to him, and he’s standing so close now, my breath catches. “On their wrists.”
His attention dips to my lips before returning to my eyes, shifting from one to the next.
It makes me a little lightheaded.
So, too, does my realization.
“Lainey and Griffin,” I say. “The dots on the inside of their wrists. They’re constellations.”
45
CONNECT THE DOTS
By the time Jude and I come inside, the guests have migrated to the salon. They’ve gathered in predictable groups, enjoying coffee, tea, and port while the wait staff readies the dining hall for dessert. Opal sits on a fainting couch between Sterling and Camilla, scowling while Isabel talks about a private collection of late-eighteenth-century portraiture she viewed while living outside Paris.
I glance past them, toward Twig and Naomi, bursting with this new revelation—constellations, Lainey and Griffin have been marked with constellations—when Opal cuts through Isabel’s prattle in that thin, commanding voice of hers. “How are the stars tonight?”
Isabel goes quiet, a blush rising in her cheeks.
All eyes turn in our direction.
“Bright,” Jude replies.
“We were just going to, uh, visit the conservatory,” I add, feeling conspicuous. Hot in the spotlight. Like my face is twice as flushed as Isabel’s. “Jude wanted to show me a… plant. A very rare plant.”
I make meaningful eye contact with Twig and Naomi.
“We’ll come with,” Twig says as both of them stand from their chairs.
“Me too,” Kate adds, handing her tea cup to her mother.
Rafe leans his elbow on the fireplace mantle, his eyes narrowed shrewdly. Before he can worm his way into our group, I take Jude by the arm. “All right, then. We’ll just… be in the conservatory.”
But Opal Bogaard is not done.
She clears her throat so loudly, it has the five of us losing steam halfway across the room. “Sterling,” she says, jabbing her pale, pinched great grandson in the ribs. “Wouldn’t you like to go with them?”
The suggestion has me freezing mid-step.
