“Do you know who killed you, Sophie?”
“Eww.” Her nose wrinkled, and a smile broke across her face. “Don't be so morbid, Gray. God.”
I wanted to laugh with her—it was such a Sophie thing to say—but I didn't have it in me.
“Sorry,” I said.
“There's something else you need to know," she said, her smile fading.
“About the four?”
“Maybe. I don't know. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful, Gray.” She reassembled the cards and gestured for me to draw.
With trembling fingers, I pulled two more cards from the top. The first was the Three of Swords, a woman whose heart had been run through with three swords. Tears gathered in her eyes, but she was still standing, and no blood stained the blades. In the next card—the Moon—two marionettes danced in the street, the full moon pulling their strings.
“Betrayal.” It was the first word that came to mind, and the sound of it sent an icy chill down my spine.
Sophie nodded. “Just remember the message from the Moon. Things are not always what they seem.”
I looked around at our meadow, at the shadowy and ever-shifting forest that surrounded us. “You think?”
“Trust your intuition, Gray. In all things.” She held my gaze again, her eyes blazing with renewed passion.
“I'll find him, Sophie,” I whispered. “Whoever did this. I promise.”
“I know you will.” Sophie shuffled the cards back together and wrapped them up in the black cloth, all of it vanishing with a wave of her fingers. “I’m sorry it had to be this way. I wanted to tell you before, but—”
“But I didn't want to listen.” I reached up and tucked a lock of glowing green hair behind her ear, grateful that at least in my vision, her hair hadn’t been cut.
“Will you listen now?” she asked.
“Always.” I meant it, even if I didn't yet understand what she wanted me to hear. “Sophie, I—”
But she was already gone. The forest and meadow faded away, leaving me back in the cold steel room above Illuminae, Sophie’s book of shadows open on the table beneath my palms.
I slammed the book shut. The pentagram was silver again, no trace of my blood left. Seconds later, the book glowed red, locked once again in its magical cage.
Sophie was gone—at least for now.
The moment I left Illuminae, my phone buzzed with a text.
Detective Emilio Alvarez.
Can you meet me at the station? It’s urgent.
Twenty
Gray
My skin buzzed with nervous energy as I hauled open the heavy door that led into the precinct. A grizzled cop—a human who looked like he hadn't cracked a smile in twenty years—escorted me into a colorless room furnished with a cheap folding table and four chairs. The smell of old, burnt coffee permeated the air.
Other than its lack of windows, the room had nothing in common with the room at Illuminae, but my mind kept wandering back there anyway—back to Sophie and her book. She hadn’t just left me a diary or a collection of secret spells and rituals. She’d sent me an important message. I just didn’t know what to make of it yet.
Even after her death, it seemed I still couldn’t figure out how to listen.
My heart ached. Seeing the projection of her vanish before my eyes in the meadow… It was like losing her all over again. There was so much I never got to say to her while she was alive—so much I never eventhoughtto say—and now I’d never have the chance.
Guilt gnawed my insides. In my mind I kept reviewing her Tarot cards, waiting for some magic clue to trigger my intuition, to send me on the right path. But nothing clicked. I was stuck in the same endless loop.
