Foretold Page 17

  “What touched me?” Regan whispers.

  “Clear your thoughts, everybody,” Noah says.

  That is my fault. Stop thinking of it. There are no hands. No hands gripping, pulling, ripping. No hands. No hands. No hands. Hands. Hands.

  “What the fuck!” Griffin shouts, touching his cheek, his hand coming away bloody. “What just did that?”

  “Everyone, it’s okay. It’s okay. Clear your thoughts,” Noah says again, his tone even. Calm. He takes Regan’s hand and pulls it to his chest, placing it over his heart. “It’s okay,” he repeats to her. He turns and gives me a reassuring look. “We’ll be okay. Okay?”

  He said it five times. My breathing evens out. It’s a sign. I’m taking it as—my OCD is taking it as a sign.

  Griffin stares down at the crystal in his hand. “I thought Sid was here. I could’ve sworn he was…”

  I pull out my ICARUSS, sandwiching it between my hands and begging it to spit back a ritual to help find a missing person. It takes a half a second before it sounds and the wings on the screen dissolve into a spell. I whisper the chant and concentrate on Ford, picturing his distinguishing features—the scar on his cheek, his nutty professor dark hair, Regan’s extreme affection for him—holding my breath and waiting for a pull in the direction we should take.

  “I think it’s this way,” I say. We press on, farther in but more cautious now, listening, waiting. Some spaces remain steady and others ripple violently like a magician flipping a tablecloth, changing in a blink.

  “It’s like the dorms,” Regan says quietly, “but faster.”

  “Like a mind-reading chameleon jungle?” I ask. She gives me a small smile.

  The walls around us now appear to be made of heavily packed earth and exposed root systems, thick branching arms and fine hair-like tangles lining the surfaces. We reach a crossroads, each way shrouded in darkness. I pull a book from my bag.

  “Hope that’s a Robert Frost poem you’re reading,” Noah says with a stark laugh.

  “Left,” I say. “I think.”

  Griffin pulls a flashlight from his pack and we shuffle on, reaching a curving staircase that calls to mind the inside of an upside-down lighthouse. Left with nowhere else to go without retreating, we begin to descend, spiraling deeper and deeper. I touch my hands to the walls on either side of me and wrench them back. The surfaces are soft, damp. Griffin’s flashlight reveals a white fuzz coating everything, a kind of subterranean moss; the splashing of our careful footfalls in the puddles underfoot are muffled by it. We reach the bottom, and Regan shrieks.

  The light from Griffin’s flashlight bounces off of an enormous mirror planted in the center of the broad room. Sid Ford kneels in front of it—a lightning-shaped black blade pressed to his throat. A black-shrouded figure is holding the blade, the vicious serrated edge poised to tear through the tender flesh of his neck.

  “Stop!” Regan screams.

  The figure peers at us, a horrible ghoulish white skeletal mask obscuring its face. The dark cloak almost makes it look like it’s a floating disembodied head. The figure shifts, lifting the blade an inch or so away from Ford’s neck. Griffin takes a step forward, wielding his little flashlight.

  “Leave him alone!” He waves the flashlight back and forth like a lightsaber. It would be comical if the situation wasn’t so fraught.

  The skeleton-faced figure hesitates and breaks off into a run, robe floating behind it until it disappears into the dark depths of the Coil.

  Ford wobbles on his knees, as if swaying to music we can’t hear, his face contorted in pain.

  “Sid! Sid, are you okay?” Regan asks. We approach and she sets a hand on his shoulder. At her touch, Ford convulses and drops to the ground, writhing like a beached fish.

  “Help him!” Regan turns to us wildly. Noah reaches down and flips Ford onto his back. Ford’s eyes are rolled back in his head. His tongue lolls out of his mouth. The walls around us ripple wildly, snapping to hospital walls and back again.

  Griffin grabs Ford around the arms, hefting him up against his chest. He whispers something over and over, holding Ford until the quaking stops. Ford pulls away and starts retching. I grimace and look away.

  “What did you do?” Noah asks Griffin.

  “I told him he was alright. I willed him to be alright.” Griffin shrugs. Regan is staring at Griffin in a way I’ve never seen from her. He shrugs again and self-consciously clears his throat. “We shouldn’t be in here. We need to get out. Now.”

  “Here, I’ll get his feet and you get his arms,” Noah says. They try to lift Ford but only manage a foot or so before he drops back to the ground.

  “He’s heavy, man,” Griffin says.

  “Lift with your knees,” Noah says. “It’s not that bad.”

  Griffin grunts as he hefts Ford up. “Pretty sure muscle memory is my problem. I’ve never had muscles, so they have no memory.”

  Ford moans, startling Noah and Griffin into dropping him again. He lands with a splash in a puddle partially of his own making.

  “Watch it!” Regan scolds, rushing to Ford’s side. “Sid. It’s me, Regan. Can you hear me?”

  He moans again, as if in extreme pain, then opens eyes wild with fear. “No. It won’t work. You need—”

  “You’re safe, Sid, it’s us. You’re okay.” Regan smooths the shock of messy hair back from his forehead. Ford blinks, awareness dawning. The scar on his face is bone white.

  “What’s happening? Where are we?”

  “You were attacked,” I tell him when he looks over at the rest of us.

  “Do you remember anything?” Regan asks.

  Ford stands with an effort, waving away Noah’s offer of help. He looks ahead. “We’re in the Coil? You came in here without help? Before the Agon? You could have been—how did you find me?” He sways and Regan catches him under the arm. “Thank you. All of you. Let me get us out of here.”

  Ford closes his eyes. When he opens them, we follow his lead, hand in hand.

  The space around us continues to change, this time in small, almost imperceptible ways. We do have a scryer escort now, after all.

  “It’s just up here. Blank your thoughts and follow close behind,” Ford says.

  I look up at him. There’s a sadness fixed to his expression that I recognize. I remember it on Dad’s face after Mom died, and I see it in the mirror every day.

  A tremendous, bone-weary loss: he’s in mourning.

  Chapter 16

  If heaven has a waiting room, it looks like this.

  I’m sitting on a Clorox white chair in a room full of blindingly snowy walls. On the glass table in front of me is an alabaster vase of perfect white calla lilies. Everything is bright, and clean, and orderly.

  Griffin leans forward and presses one thumb to the clear glass, leaving behind a fat fingerprint. He smiles in satisfaction and waggles his eyebrows at me. I’m torn between smiling back and hunting for Windex. Instead, I reach over and grab a tissue, handing it to him. “You’ve got dried blood on your cheek.”

  Agatha Triggs, Welborne’s wire-thin assistant, appears, her spine as rigid as a bow the second before its arrow is loosed. “You can wash up after your meeting. Come with me.” She stalks away, and we file behind her down a glass-lined hall of bustling offices and workspaces.

  “This is like a zoo for rich people,” Griffin says, eyeing a few well-dressed Oracles seated around a conference room table as we pass. Noah swallows a laugh. We’re all wiped, but infected with a kind of triumphant euphoria. We saved a man’s life.

  “Very amusing, Mr. Eden,” Triggs says, as we reach the end of the hall. Her face, framed by that iron-colored helmet of hair, is so smooth and unlined it looks like she’s never found anything remotely amusing in her life. She opens the door. “In you go.”

  The office is large and bright, all steel and glass and swaths of whites and reds. Sebastian is seated across a desk from his father.

  “What matters is what you think—” Sebasti
an is saying. He notices us and falls silent, leaning back in his chair.

  Jordan Welborne smiles his large-toothed smile at us and stands. “Regan, Cassandra, Griffin, and Noah, right? Sebastian, did you want to stay, too?” Welborne’s gaze is filled with fatherly warmth.

  I miss my dad.

  “No. Thank you. I’ve got things to take care of.” Sebastian stands and gives me a sideways glance as he departs, pausing only to prop the door open for Aunt Bree as she enters. She’s dressed in a red so vivid she looks like a bloodstain even in a room full of crimsons.

  Triggs leads us all to a sitting area. After we’ve all found our chairs, Welborne says, “I hear you four have had an ordeal.”

  Bree has claimed the seat next to his. She raises a brow at me. “My niece is full of surprises.”

  “Sidney Ford would not be here today if not for your bravery. From the bottom of our hearts, we want to thank you,” Welborne says.

  “Did you guys catch the freakshow who tried to take him out?” Griffin asks.

  “No, but I’m not surprised. The Coil produces all manner of creatures. For our protection, of course. It should be safe for scryers who have completed the Agon, but nothing is ever certain.”

  “Creatures?” I ask. “I thought it was a person.” Every head in the room whips toward me.

  “What gave you that impression?” Welborne asks, frowning. “And the rest of you? What did you think?” he asks.

  “It looked like a skeleton-faced nightmare ready to slice into a dude’s throat. That’s what I thought,” Griffin says. Noah nods.

  “Well, whatever it was, it’s gone now. Sid is safe,” Aunt Bree says. “If you can’t tell us anything else—”

  “Red blessing!” I interject. “I—I scryed some stuff about a red blessing. Twice. Once before orientation and again right before we saved Ford. A red blessing is a human sacrifice for a scryer ritual, right? That’s what my visions were about?”

  Aunt Bree freezes and looks to Welborne. His brow knits further and he rubs his lantern jaw.

  “Why didn’t you bring this up before today?” Triggs asks, pawing through her ICARUSS. “There is nothing in the ICARUSS mainframe about any red blessing visions by anyone. What else are you withholding?”

  “It may have been a woman,” Regan blurts, clearly thinking of du Lac. “I’m not sure, but… it was a feeling.”

  “This is outrageous. I apologize, Mr. Welborne. I will personally handle their re-interrogation,” Triggs says.

  Griffin groans. “We sat through the Spanish inquisition with that girl at the front desk already.”

  “It’s okay, Agatha.” Welborne laughs. “I’ll go and interview Sid myself when he’s had a chance to rest. They’ve sedated him. If there is more to this story, I’ll find out when he wakes. Sound good?” He smiles at us. “Now for the fun part. As a thank you for saving an instructor, and using your scrying abilities to do it to boot, we are exempting you from the individual Agon assessments.”

  “Sick!” Griffin crows.

  “It is indeed. First time Theban Group has ever done so as far back as I can trace. I do hope this token shows how appreciative we are. You’ll still need to walk the Coil as a team, of course—I’d exempt you from even that if I could, but your venture into it today wasn’t enough to render the Coil safe for you. And, anyway, you’ll want your shot at becoming an Oracle. Based on how well you performed as a group getting to Sid’s side, I’m sure it won’t be an issue for you.” He stands, and we follow suit. “Now! I’d better get back to running this place, and you’d better get back to your studies.” He shakes our hands with a smile. When he walks off toward his desk, Triggs bustles us toward the door.

  “They’re not taking this seriously,” Regan whispers, reading my mind. “The red blessing stuff… any of it. If it was a person—if it was du Lac—Sid is still in danger.”

  “We’ll protect him,” Noah says, reaching out to comfort Regan. Griffin rolls his eyes and trudges forward.

  Aunt Bree follows us out and looks me up and down, taking in my appearance for the first time. She shudders delicately and pulls me aside. I wave Regan on.

  “Did you leave anything else out? Anything at all? Details you might deem unimportant may be critical,” she says. “Did he say anything?”

  “No, he was out of it. He didn’t—” I stop, frowning.

  “What?"

  “I was going to say he didn’t say anything, but he did. In the Coil. After that thing ran away, he was scared and said something like, ‘It won’t work.’”

  Aunt Bree frowns. “Poor Sidney,” she whispers, looking truly saddened. It’s the most potent flash of humanity I’ve ever seen out of her. I feel bad for her. She gazes sightlessly at Welborne’s office glass door, rubbing her lip unconsciously with her thumb, before straightening. “Your search history on the ICARUSS has raised a red flag.”

  “My search—wait, you’re spying on me?”

  “Cassandra, don’t be naïve. If you’re using an organization’s device, always assume someone is watching your communications. Anything life and death gets flagged at Theban. Now, why don’t you explain so that I can smooth over the situation?”

  “There’s nothing to explain.”

  “Are you trying to protect Sidney? Is that why you’re searching for that ritual?”

  “No. It had nothing to do with him. I was looking up ways to try and help someone else.”

  “Who? And to do what, exactly?”

  “Live. I’m trying to save someone’s life. I saw them die in a vision. It’s not Ford.”

  Aunt Bree peers at me suspiciously. Then her expression clears. “You can’t,” she says simply.

  I fist my hands. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you can’t save someone destined to die.”

  “I have to!”

  “No, Cassandra. This isn’t me assuming, correctly, that you lack the ability. This isn’t your ‘believe in yourself and prove Aunt Bree wrong’ moment of truth. There is no way that you can avert a foreseen death. It’s too big a change. Leave it alone.”

  “We saved Ford,” I say.

  “You didn’t see a vision of him dying, you sensed danger, a blood sacrifice. There’s a difference.”

  “There has to be a way!” I take a step back, blood thundering in my ears.

  “There isn’t.” She shrugs.

  “And I wondered why Dad can’t stand you.” My chest constricts. There has to be something.

  “And here I thought we were getting on these days. But oh, I’ve missed you! The surly teenage attitude, the facial expressions sure to help that cabbage patch of premature wrinkles along… you’re so predictable, Cassandra. My best advice, not that you asked for it? Make your peace with this. There's nothing you can do.” She smiles. I wonder if it makes me a bad person that I’m happy to see she has lipstick on her teeth.

  I force myself to keep it in, to not let it show. The hurt. The dread. The rising urge to knock five times.

  When Aunt Bree reenters Welborne’s office and saunters toward his desk, I give in to all three.

  Mrs. O.

  I have the ritual to try and save her building. I have the things I need for the ritual. I’ve only scrycasted for small things, and I’ve been scared to try it before now, but I have to give it a go sooner or later. If I can’t stop Mrs. O’s move, there’s no way I can save Colin. And I'm still trying for that, Aunt Bree be damned.

  I pull a basket loaded with ritual supplies out from under my bed. It’s a weird collection of things, mostly stuff Bacchy gathered for me, like evaporated seawater salt, rope from a stubborn mule’s lead, and wormwood leaves. There’s also the picture of the developer that I pulled off the internet, and the letter with his contact info I swiped from Mrs. O. A second basket joins the first, loaded with more odds and ends. Bacchy told me the jar of tiny pink eggs would’ve never hatched into birds, but I still feel awful about having to smash them.

  I wipe my damp palms
on my pants before scrolling through the instructions on my ICARUSS and try not to let my usual crazy thinking intrude while I mix up the ingredients I need.

  First, purification. I move to my bathroom and fill up the tub with cold water. I’m a pro at cleansing rituals, but that’s not something to be proud of. I look down at my hands with a sigh and sprinkle a few of the herbs onto the water. The smell reminds me of damp leaves revealed by a snow melt.

  I strip and step into the tub, immediately plunging below the water and holding my breath as I mentally tick off the time my ICARUSS specified. My lungs burn and my body shakes from the cold, but I hold the line until I hit that number. When I burst up from the water and wipe the rivulets from my eyes and face, my teeth chatter so hard I’m shocked my jaw doesn’t break. I throw on a robe and pad barefoot back into my room, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind me.

  One liberally poured salt circle, burnt pile of herbs and twigs, and incantation later, and I’m ready for the sacrifice. This one calls for blood. Super. At least it isn’t a red blessing’s worth.

  I cut five strips of fabric from the shirt Mrs. O bought me for Christmas last year and set them aside. Then I take my ritual knife and inhale deeply.

  Now or never.

  I hiss against the pain as I draw the blade down one finger to the place where it meets my palm. A scarlet line follows the blade’s path, the blood beading quickly. It’s a superficial cut, but one that has me picturing all sorts of Coil germs invading into my body. I wrap a strip of the shirt around my wounded finger like a maypole and repeat the slicing and wrapping with my other four fingers.

  When my blood has saturated the strips, I remove them and tie them together with the rope to bind Mrs. O to me. Then I drop it all into a little pan.

  “With this blood / I will arrange / My required future change,” I say in a strong, steady voice. “Bind her here / Bind her near / Remove the obstacle we fear.”

  I light a match and toss it on top of the pan; the five blood-damp strips catch right away, flaring a lime green color and reeking of decaying roadkill and heavy rainfall. I grab the smoking pan’s handle and rush it to my open window, placing it on the sill and waving the smoke outside.