Page 79 of Divine Oaths

Kasem looked away. “There’s only the disinheritance ritual. And there’s only surviving the curse and inheriting Westfield or dying because of it. If my brother and I knew any other way to stop the curse, we would have done it by now.”

I sighed. “Well, do you have any objects or anything that I can look into? Maybe if I use my powers, I can see into the origins of the curse?”

He nodded toward the bracelet on my hand. “It’s been passed on from generation to generation. The ring too.”

“I’ve tried already. The only thing I got from it was one of the worst migraines of my life.”

“Have you tried the ring itself?” Kasem asked.

“I mean, no,” I admitted. After having been sucked into visions from the cowrie shells, I hadn’t had the nerve to try and look into the ring’s past. I knew it held something important—after all, Jojo had told me that Yara had it created for her husband during the Civil War. But who knew what secrets, what memories, were trapped inside it? And part of me was afraid that, if I channeled through the pain and couldn’t escape the vision’s hold, I’d be stuck in my mind forever.

But Kasem was here. And being with him was like when we’d played piano together. He was my anchor to the present. He made me feel safe.

“KSJ,” I said, repeating the initials carved into the ring.

“My father was superstitious. He thought if Ojore couldn’t inherit Westfield, then at least his secondborn, the spare, could have the same initials as Kent. He hoped that could be a form of protection since Kent lived beyond the curse. Probably picked up the idea from some soothsayer claiming to read the stars.”

I shimmied the bracelet off my wrist. Kasem inched closer.

“All right then, let’s do this.”

“Do you need me to hold your hand or something?” he asked. “Will it amplify it?”

I scoffed. “This isn’t a séance.” But then I realized maybe he had a point. In the past, whenever I’d tried to channel a vision, I’d always been completely focused on the person or object I was channeling from. I’d never thought to rely on someone else to strengthen my visions.

“Let’s try,” I relented.

Kasem smirked, but didn’t push the victory in our argument.

“I don’t know what will happen,” I warned him. “My powers have been pretty all over the place.”

Kasem nodded dutifully. “I’ll bring you back. I’ll let you go if I have to.”

I swallowed, not liking the sound of his words. But he was right. Letting go was the only way to release a vision’s hold on me.

Before I took his hands, I wiped my palms against my shirt. He raised an eyebrow and my heart fluttered. We were directly across from each other, so close that beneath the table, our knees touched whenever we moved or shifted in our seats. And then there was the kiss. The memory of his touch still sparked within me.

I reminded myself that he was farsighted, that he probably couldn’t see me being squeamish about him looking into my soul.

“Close your eyes,” I said, just for good measure.

“I thought you said this wasn’t a séance.”

“Just do it.”

“Bossy,” he murmured under his breath, but acquiesced.

I closed mine too. With a sigh, I laced my fingers through his empty right hand and then placed my other palm over his outstretched left hand, where he held the bracelet.

A chill rippled through me, inching from his cool touch like electricity. The world was dark and silent and empty. But the next moment, I was pulled into a vision of the past.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

What is past is prologue

IN THE VISION, THE WORLD dissolved into fragments of light and time. This bracelet had passed through many hands. Over the course of centuries, it had seen many lives coming through and leaving the gates of Westfield. In the midst of Reconstruction, the ring at its center had been engraved. Its body had been forged in the smoky aftermath of Appomattox, and the string of shells and glass beads that lined it had been woven together long before slave ships and bondage, in the bustling markets of an African village. I had little control, and the vision jolted me through the past, from hundreds of years ago to months before it had wound up with me, to when the bracelet had been slipped off a dying man’s wrist and placed into the possession of someone else.

I could feel the emotions steeped in the bracelet, and the most recent memory embedded in the jewelry swallowed me like a breathless wind. Red and blue lights flashed over a face so familiar that the mere glimpse of it set my heart racing, from the warm brown skin and piercing brown eyes, to the lashes that were as ebony as his locs, to his lips always on the brink of laughter, and the birthmark just beneath his bottom lip. Jojo. My Jojo, the old version of him, months ago in the mere hours before I would find Kasem in the alleyway.