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I was standing next to the bookcase, the leather tome in my hands. The chair was pressing against my thigh.
My phone was in my pocket.
The computer was still updating.
I blinked slowly.
I felt like I was underwater. Like I had when I’d gotten close to the house under guard.
I looked down at the book. The inscription on the first page was the same.
I flipped to the second.
There was a date from years before across the top right corner.
It took me a moment to read the first few lines.
They said, I have made mistakes. So many mistakes. That’s the terrible gift of hindsight; it allows you to see everything in such startling clarity. My father always said if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. I didn’t understand what he meant. Not then. Not before it was too late.
I do now.
Elizabeth thinks I should call him. I doubt he’d even pick up the phone. He’s always been hardheaded, and it’s undoubtedly gotten worse because of what we did. What I did. I don’t know how to make him understand. That we couldn’t take the chance that his father had done something to him, put something in the marks carved into his skin when he was a child. A failsafe in case his plans didn’t go through. Gordo wouldn’t—
The computer chimed.
The scanning software had finished.
I grimaced as my head began to throb.
The book fell to the floor.
I stumbled toward the desk, hands flat against it.
My phone began to ring.
My claws dug into the wood.
The computer chimed again. And again. And again.
My phone wouldn’t stop ringing. The combined sounds rattled around my skull.
I said, “What is this? What is this? What is—”
“—this?” I asked as we walked through the woods.
He laughed, taking my hand in his. I couldn’t see him, not really. It was static and snow, a vague outline of a person, but it was right. Oh god, it was right. “It’s nothing. Just… why do you ask so many questions all the time?”
I bumped my shoulder against his. “I need you to come with me. That’s what you said. You have to know how that sounds. All mysterious.”
“It’s… goddammit. I’m not trying to be mysterious.”
No, I didn’t think he was. I—
—fell back into the bookcase, hands covering my face, muttering, “No, no, no, this isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t—”
“—anything bad,” he said. “It’s… I hope it’s good.”
“You hope,” I teased him, feeling lighter than I had in a long time. The trees were green, the sky was blue, and the forest was alive. There was a hum beneath my feet, deep in the earth, and I knew its power, I knew what it was capable of.
