GWENNA
“We’re leaving.”
I almost burst into tears again as I stumble over the threshold to Morgan’s room.
“What?” The straw of Morgan’s bejeweled black tumbler falls out of her mouth. “Oh, goddess. Come in.”
She sweeps me the rest of the way through the door and I will myself,forcemyself to get a grip, stand up straight and strip the tears from my eyes and take a deep breath through my nose. Door closed, Morgan circles around me, peering into my face. “What do you mean? What happened?”
Another deep breath. I accept her offer to sit, sinking into her plush little couch for what might be the last time, and justthinkingthat makes my chest ache. I blink away whatever’s threatening to burst out of me and stare—not at Morgan, her mascara immaculate and her hair waving over her shoulder in a low ponytail, but across the room, into space, at the little plume of scented air curling out of her diffuser.
“We’re leaving,” I say again, and explain it all as best I can: that the Consistory knows Luther’s not dead, that it’spresumably only a matter of time before they come here and, at the very least, insist on their payday from his estate, that we need to stay one step ahead of them in case they?—
“—resort to alternative means of persuasion?” Morgan says. “Fuckers.” She sets her cup on the coffee table. “This is organized crime with a cross on the front. Iknewthey were like this. All the weird shit they had those guys do in France, in the name of training? I bet they’d literally break kneecaps.” Seeing my face, she hits the brakes. “Oh. Gwenna.”
She pulls me in for a hug. I sniff.
“I don’t want to run away,” I mumble into her.
“I bet.” Morgan pulls back. “I don’t want you to run away, either.”
I push back. “I want to fix things,” I say, my voice plaintive and pathetic. “I really wanted to…” I glance around the room, at the windows, the too-early afternoon dark already starting to roll in. I swallow hard. “How’s Elena?”
Morgan’s expression flattens. “It’s…bad,” she says. “I brought her some salves that took down a lot of the inflammation, but.” She breathes out, and for the first time I notice how tired she looks. “We’re dealing with something that’sbeyond. It’s not regular contagious, but…Elena’s not the only one. ”
My stomach falls through the floor.
“I shouldn’t be going,” I say. “Weshouldn’t be going. I should stay here, and study more, and try to figure out?—”
Morgan takes my face in her hands. “Gwenna. Listen to me. Some days you can only save one person, and some days that one person is yourself. Okay? That’s one part of your whole religious deal I can get behind. You are a person, made in God’s image, or whatever your Bible says, and youalsodeserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
“That’s not the Bible,” I murmur. Morgan sighs.
“Iknow. Just, you get my point, right?”
I nod.
“Okay.” She lets me go and leans back a little. “Besides, if the four of them are determined to keep you safe on some private island somewhere, I’d like to see someone stop them.”
“Hah.” I fidget in my lap. “I don’t think we’re at private island level yet. Just…South America, maybe.”
Morgan frowns, considering. “How’s your Spanish?”
I wince. “Bad.” For all my love of languages, I never did have the good sense to pick up the one spoken by six hundred million people worldwide. My mother’s voice fills my mind:It’s like you’re determined to make the most impractical choice at every turn, Gwenna.“Hopefully I can get by with French and a little Italian.”
As I say it, something flickers in Morgan’s eyes. She holds up a finger—wait here—and leaps off to her bedroom. When she comes back, she’s holding a little stack of something in her hands—notecards, I think at first, from her serial killer board. But no: these are cards, but printed ones.
Tarot cards.
“For you.” She settles back next to me and fans them out. “A parting gift. Little…good-luck charm, I suppose.”
I take them, fan them out.
Cavaliere di Spade, Cavaliere di Bastoni, Cavaliere di Coppe, Cavaliere di Denari.
Knight of Swords, Knight of Wands, Knight of Cups, Knight of Pentacles.
I’ve seen these before. These particular cards.
