Foretold Page 33

  “Good!” Regan spits out.

  The space around us is a dirt tunnel, propped up by wooden beams embedded in the walls and ceiling every few feet. Lanterns hang from nail pegs, enough of them to banish most but not all of the darkness. It’s not enough. The ceiling is high, but I feel the tunnel closing in around me. The shaft caves in. I can’t breathe. The dirt in my lungs…

  “Regan, get my aunt! Please.”

  Regan wrings her hands. “Your aunt knows, Cassie. That’s how I found out. I heard them telling her they’re bringing you to the Grims for trial. I didn’t hear what it was for, but I heard her say she won’t protect you anymore.”

  I make a sound suspiciously like a whimper in the back of my throat. Regan grabs for my hands.

  “Cassie, we’ll straighten this out. I’ll find… someone. Someone who can help. Don’t worry.”

  The guard unceremoniously dumps me on the ground. “You’re heavy. Walk.” He turns to Regan. “I’m going to count to three. If you’re still here, you—”

  Regan leans down to help me up and gives me a quick hug before running off to fetch help.

  It’s then that I feel it. The clock. It’s still there. A spasm squeezes my heart and I gasp, clutching at my chest. The clock within me thunders with resonance, fiercer, deeper than ever. It’s grief. Grief to come. It’s close. Oh God. Colin. It didn’t work.

  I did the ritual. I made the sacrifice. That thing in the Heart said it was enough. Why didn’t it work?

  “Please. Let me go. There’s a life that—”

  The guard yanks me so hard I feel my arm strain against its socket.

  I numbly march on, down a twisting path that eventually brings us to the bridge to the Grim’s Council chamber. The guard leads me straight past the anteroom and into the empty Council chamber itself. Then he shepherds me through a doorway behind the dais to a strange room tiled with round, polished tree-ring slabs. There are three metal jail cells along the wall.

  “Get in there.” The guard pushes me into a cell, closing the door behind me and locking it. He pockets the pinky-sized key. “This room is lined in jet. It’ll block any ritual you or any of your friends try. Somebody will be by later with food and water.”

  “Wait!” I shout, a manic edge to my voice. “Why am I being held?”

  The guard closes the door to the chamber behind him. A jail within a jail.

  Chapter 34

  It’s been hours since the guard closed me in here. Hours that I’ve paced the perimeter of this cell, looking for any hint of a way out. I know, because I’ve been counting ever since he locked me in here.

  Colin. Colin. Colin. Colin. Colin.

  Colin with his sapphire eyes and his crooked smile. Colin with the paintings of me and the unpacked mementos of his life. With his slow, sweet kisses. What if something has already… I close my eyes. Nothing has happened to him. Somehow I’d know it. He’s still alive. But I need to get to him. Now. I need to try whatever I can to save him.

  I still feel death approaching, stalking, but it’s not as strong as it was before we entered this room. Is it the jet in the walls? If so, jet must only dull scryer abilities instead of blocking them completely.

  I’m supposed to be home by now. I bite at my lip, wondering if Dad will worry. I can handle anything except scaring him like that. Or losing Colin.

  A person can live three days without water. What about Coil-days? I die of thirst, covered in color storm dirt. Dad—

  “I’ll bring the food in and be on my way,” a familiar voice rasps from outside the wood-tiled door. It’s Emina, carrying a large tray. I rush to the bars when I see her Pomeranian face and gray cotton candy hair. She shakes her head, a warning in her eyes. “Well, this nice young lady doesn’t look capable of that awful crime. And I’ve certainly never seen her before in my life.”

  “Less yapping, more delivering.” The guard follows on Emina’s heels, peeking at the tray with interest.

  Emina swats him away. “People used to respect the elderly, you know. This is for the prisoner. I have a tray out there for you.”

  The guard pulls open a metal flap in the middle of the cell door, large enough for Emina to hand me the tray. He lets the flap drop with a clatter as soon as her hands are clear.

  I look down at the tray: steaming meat pies, water, some of the red beet-poppers Bacchy loves so much, and a small Turkish coffee cup and bright hammered-copper Turkish coffee pot. I don’t have an appetite for any of it, except the water. I crouch to set the tray down, grabbing at the cup of water and sucking it down so quickly I cough.

  “You’ll want to drink that coffee while it’s hot, dear,” Emina says with special emphasis. She points at the inky depths. “Learned the recipe in the Seven Bells under a virtuoso.”

  I look up, my pulse quickening. She winks and follows the guard out of the room.

  I don’t know if Marko jacked the key himself or if he showed Emina how to do it, but I could kiss the both of them. I wipe the coffee off the key and reach through the bars, opening the lock to my cell door.

  I creep to the wood-tiled door to the Council chamber and open it a crack. There is no one in the chamber. I don’t see any other way out but the way I came in.

  The awful foreboding feeling hits me square in the chest again the second I’m clear of the room. It stuns me silent; death beating a drum.

  I hug the wall with my back as I gingerly make my way toward the doors leading to the anteroom, as if I’d somehow be able to camouflage myself against the stone if someone entered. One of the doors is closed, but the other is open, as are the massive doors leading out to the bridge. I have a clear view straight through. I screw up my nerve, ready to run—until I spy the guard seated outside at a small table, reading a tarot spread.

  I flatten myself back against the wall, breathing hard. How am I supposed to get past him?

  “Mac! What are you doing down here?” Sebastian calls out as he strides into the anteroom. “They pulled the last of the initiates from the Coil. Laurel Plain is wild right now.”

  “I’m watching the prisoner,” Mac says.

  “Prisoner? Didn’t realize we had one.”

  “Yeah. A girl. Cassandra Morai.”

  “They sent you to guard one little girl, locked in a cell, in a room carpeted in jet, in the middle of the Grimoire Council’s secure chambers?" The way Sebastian asks the question, it sounds as if Mac is too important for a simple job.

  Mac scratches his neck and shakes his head. “Dumb. But orders are orders.”

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it… but… oh, tarot? New deck my father’s people developed, is it? What do you think?”

  “Shite.” Mac doesn’t hesitate to respond.

  “Ah, but there’s a trick to it. Here, let me show you.”

  I peek out the door to see Sebastian shuffling the cards. His blond head is bent as he sets the cards down.

  “Give me one of your hands. Now close your eyes and keep them closed, Mac. I need you to concentrate; think about something you desperately want to happen. What you need to make happen. Think long and hard and don’t open your eyes until I tell you to.”

  I nearly gasp when Sebastian pins me with his green gaze. He mouths “Go now.”

  I slip past the table, glancing at the guard whose eyes are screwed tightly shut. I run, as soundlessly as I can, as Sebastian adds more instructions for Mac. I race across the bridge, hiding just beyond a bend while I think about my next move. I can’t leave through the Rotunda. Someone will see me.

  A hand slips over my mouth, smothering my scream.

  “It’s me. Are you okay?” Sebastian asks, looking so golden and clean it reminds me of how filthy I am from the Coil. He removes his hand.

  I nod. “How did you know I was here?”

  “Bacchy found me,” he says. His anger radiates through his coiled shoulders. “I didn’t know you’d been arrested. I should have been told. I’m going to find out why I wasn’t.”

  “Do y
ou know why I was arrested? They wouldn’t tell me—”

  “Let’s just get you out of here.” He takes me down the path the guard used to bring me here, and then through a doorway to our right. The space around us shivers but does not ripple. Stable. It occurs to me that the Coil feels smoother now. Not as malevolent.

  “You were arrested because they say you created and used a Magnitude Five Dark Mirror in a forbidden ritual targeting Bedlam.”

  I clamp my lips together and clench my teeth.

  “Where’d you get the ritual?” he asks.

  “It doesn’t matter. How am I going to get out of here if the guards all know I’m supposed to be in a cell?”

  Sebastian shakes his head. “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I can’t tell you anything about it.”

  “Why not? Bacchy did. He told me everything.” He actually looks hurt, as if my decision not to confide in him was a test. “Including the second forbidden ritual you’re working on.”

  “If you know, then you don’t need to hear it again. Can you answer me? How am I supposed to get out? Where are you taking me?”

  He pauses, raising a finger to his lip, and looks around a corner. He pulls me along, down a hall of gleaming white floors and navy walls. I hear a sound, and before I can react, Sebastian has pushed me against the wall, his strong arms wrapped tight around me.

  It knocks the wind out of me. I look up in confusion and gasp a second before his firm lips come down on mine, molding to my own. His hand reaches up and fists in my hair, gently tugging until I tip my face up to his. I can’t think, my heart is beating out of my chest, until I hear a throat cleared. Whoever it is rapidly moves away.

  Sebastian stops his kissing but keeps his lips on mine, shielding me, until the sound passes. Even knowing why I had those skillful lips on my own, I feel guilty. Colin. Colin. Colin. Colin. Colin.

  Sebastian lifts his head slowly and looks down at me, his green eyes black in the dim light. I blink and struggle to catch my breath.

  “This is the executive entrance. Your aunt commissioned it, and no one except Oracles know about it. That’s how I’m getting you out.” He turns and leads me down a hall to our left and throws open a door, peering outside. He holds it open over my head and gestures for me to step out into the mid-afternoon light. I realize we’re nowhere near Theban Group’s main entrance; this one has let us out onto a street at least a dozen blocks away. I turn back to Sebastian, a thank you on my lips.

  Instead, I ask, “Why are you helping me?”

  He doesn’t answer, just stares down at me, his gaze probing, penetrating. Finally, he says, “The boyfriend? I hope he’s worth it.”

  “He is,” I say softly. “Thank you.”

  “Then good luck. I’ll do my best to cover for you here. Do what you need to do.” Sebastian leaves a beat. “You know this isn't a permanent fix, right? This isn't over.”

  “I know.”

  He looks away and nods, pulling the door closed, and I am left standing between a nail salon and a bank.

  I run toward home. Toward Colin.

  Chapter 35

  Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay.

  I’m dripping sweat and almost delirious with worry by the time I round the corner to my block.

  Firetrucks, ambulances. No. No. No. No. No.

  I stumble forward, trance-like. My home is engulfed in flames; they lick greedily up the front of the building from what used to be my living room.

  I look around, dazed. I don’t see Colin. I don’t see my father, either. I see Mrs. Clay, Colin’s mom. She’s talking to one of the firefighters. I push through, forcing my way past the police and the taped-off area.

  “Colin! Is he okay? Where is he?” I shout.

  “Cassie! There you are! You look like a mess. Are you okay? We were all worried sick! Your apartment caught fire and we didn’t know what to think… Colin is fine! He ran over to Mrs. Otero’s to see if she’d heard from you.”

  My heart bounds into my throat and lodges there. I take off running, past my frightened neighbors, past the fire crew, as fast as I can in the direction of Mrs. O’s shop. To the place I watched Colin die.

  It’s happening. It’s happening. He can’t be dead. Whatever is about to happen, is about to happen now.

  I scan the street before tearing across to Mrs. O’s bodega, pushing her shop door open and setting the bell jangling like mad.

  “Cass!” Colin runs to me, grabbing me in a bear hug.

  Mrs. O rounds the counter and opens her arms. “Oh, thank goodness. I can’t tell you how worried I was when your father came by.”

  I pull Colin along, unwilling to let go of him, unwilling to let him out of my sight. He’s alive. He’s alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. I let Mrs. O hug me, and I throw an arm around her too, still holding Colin’s hand.

  “You’re okay,” I tell Colin.

  “Of course I am. You’re the one… Cassie, your apartment is on fire. We thought you were inside. Your Dad said you might have let yourself in… that you were due back from camp hours ago. He looked like he was about to crawl out of his skin until the firefighters told him there was no one inside. The camp wasn’t answering his calls…”

  “Mrs. O, I need your phone. I need to call his cell. Colin, don’t go outside for any reason. I need to talk to you,” I say, my Colin anxiety warring with my guilt and misery over Dad.

  “You don’t have to call him. He left maybe two minutes before you got here, little one. He’s right across the street in the school parking lot, hoping your bus finally shows up. He didn’t know what else to do since no one was answering his phone calls and your guidance counselor isn’t in,” Mrs. O says.

  I run to the door. “Colin, please stay inside. Okay? Don’t move. For any reason. I’ll be right back. Please.”

  I hurry to the curb and start pounding the crosswalk button five times with my knuckle. Oh my God, our house is on fire and his mentally effed-up daughter has been missing for hours and he’s gotta be crawling out of his skin by now—

  “Cass!” Dad’s voice cuts through the busy block’s noise.

  I spot him across the street. His eyes glint with relief. He looks worried and haggard. I did that to him.

  He wipes at his eyes and steps into the street.

  Chapter 36

  No one talks about the day after the worst day of your life.

  You hear about the day—the worst day, a waking nightmare where everyone you know is now an actor playing a sad version of themselves.

  You hear about the general after—that vague period when time no longer exists and the days and weeks and months meld together in a fog of tears, anger, and discarded tissues jamming up pockets.

  But no one talks about the specific day after the worst day of your life. When you wake up having forgotten… remember… then wish you’d never woken up at all.

  Flashes of soul-searing recollection are hurriedly folded away by a hulking and protective disbelief. You feel like you’re sleepwalking, numbly tripping through a bramble patch, those dull stings and aches dogging every step as you go through the motions of brushing your teeth, maybe washing your face, probably not brushing your hair.

  “Cassie, I’m sorry to bother you, honey, but people are going to start coming and—you should get dressed, okay?” Colin’s mom says. She’s been kind. I slept in her guest room last night. My home, both the place and the person who made it feel that way, are gone.

  I cry, I brush my teeth, I put on clothes—new, with tags, since I no longer own anything. They’re nicer than anything I owned before. I wouldn’t care if they were rags.

  There’s a knock at the door. It opens a crack, and I expect to see Mrs. Clay again. My heart gives a dull twist when I see Colin’s face.

  “Cass, can I come in?” He looks miserable. He looks nervous, too. I make the observation in a clinical way, detached, like an anthropologist making a guess based on dusty bones. This
numb haze doesn’t allow me to process any more than that.

  I’ve changed. So has he, for me anyway; he just doesn’t know it yet. I nod.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks, and then runs a hand down his face. “Dumb question. Ignore that.” I don’t respond, and he abandons his anxious attempts to draw me out, instead leading me to the drawing room in the front of his home. The room I used to daydream about whenever I passed is identical to what I imagined. My scryer instincts were right about the place, but wrong about the feelings.

  Colin’s mom brings me a cup of tea and ushers him out of the drawing room over his protests, the politician’s wife correctly reading my need to be away from him. I sit on the window seat and stare at the yellow police tape guarding the charred ruins of what used to be my home. I guess I was right about the sprinklers.

  I see 2A, the old couple James and Chris, who have a cat named Madame Déficit because they spend all their money pampering her. They’re staring up at the half-blackened shell of the building, Chris calling out to Madame every so often. I hope she wasn’t inside when the fire… I stare down at my cup of long-forgotten tea and try to scry, hoping to find Madame for them, failing miserably. My mind was never clean to begin with.

  There’s a knock on the door.

  “Cassie, someone here to see you,” Mrs. Clay says. She opens the door wider, and Aunt Bree steps in. Mrs. Clay closes the door behind her.

  Aunt Bree looks haunted, with circles under her eyes no amount of concealer can contain. Her black skirt and jacket emphasize them.

  “Congratulations. You killed my brother,” she says.

  I flinch. I clutch my tea cup and saucer.

  “No response? Well. I’ll do the talking for both of us, then.” Aunt Bree throws her handbag down on the fancy little sofa and sits. She folds her legs and tips her head, her unkind smile a red slash across her pale face. “You were supposed to do the ritual I gave you so Bedlam didn’t trouble us again.”