5
“CONSIDER IT A PHYSICAL,” I told myself as I entered the lab alone from the observatory room, but then, most of the physicals I’d had in the past were the normal kind with doctors and stethoscopes. There was indeed a doctor in the room, from what I could tell by both his long white lab coat and the way he just kind of stood around looking important. But instead of nurses, he surrounded himself with technicians tinkering with monitors and wires and all sorts of medical equipment I couldn’t name if I tried.
“Ah, she’s here,” said the doctor when I shut the door behind me. “Maia Finley? My name is Dr. Rachadi.” He was young, slender, dark, and handsome, but having a pretty face to look at made me feel only marginally better. “Have a seat over there. This shouldn’t take long.”
Before I even had the chance to follow his instructions, a couple of technicians started dragging me toward a long examination table. I couldn’t see any of the other girls or Director Chafik, but I knew they were behind the large black screen on the left side of the room, watching me as I lay down on the table, as the technicians hooked me up to a set of monitors and wrapped black straps around my arms.
“Fix the tripod,” Dr. Rachadi ordered a technician, who ran to reorient the camera stuck in the corner.
“What are you looking for?” I shivered, longing for the warmth of a bed. The room was unusually cold. “What is all this stuff?” Long tubes coiled around the floor and over the tables like metal vines.
Dr. Rachadi grabbed the long neck of a thin, clear monitor and rotated it so I could see the screen. “This entire apparatus,” he said, patting the mass of complicated equipment, “will simply help us measure your spectrographic frequency and brain waves concurrently. We will monitor your cylithium levels, which should spike as you attempt to make contact with Natalya.”
Make contact. They made it seem like they were leaving me stranded on an alien planet. They might as well have been.
“Cylithium. Right. Where all the magic comes from.”
“Through studies in the past, we’ve come to conceive of cylithium as a kind of conduit or medium that not only enables your ability to control the elements but also allows for the connections between the psyches of the Effigies. Through previous studies on Effigies, we’ve found that the cognitive experience of scrying correlates to cylithium production, which goes into overdrive during the process. Now, you won’t be scrying by yourself. For your safety, we’ll be inducing your meditative state, adjusting cylithium levels to a premeasured amount. And we’ll be using the instruments at the far panel behind me to ensure that the levels never get out of control.”
When I lifted my head, I could see the technicians at the front wall turning various metal knobs of different sizes.
“That way you maintain the delicate psychic balance between the two minds,” he said.
“Just don’t kill me.”
He swept his fingers along the screen and with a few taps an image of my body appeared, all outlined in metallic blue, bordered by stats and figures in writing too tiny for me to read from my table. “Maia Finley, age sixteen, blood type AB, weight—”
“That we don’t need to say out loud,” I said, and I would have sat up if I weren’t hooked into so much weird stuff. I wanted to rub my arms. The hairs were standing on end, and I couldn’t tell if it was because of my own fear or because of the subzero temperature of the lab. Everyone else was wearing layers. They could have warned me.
A voice rang out from the intercom. “Finley, please calm down.” It was Director Chafik. Calm down. Easy for him to say. As if he had any idea how nerve-racking this was.
“Yeah, don’t worry, kid. We’re all here.” Chae Rin.
Lake chimed in too. “We won’t leave until it’s all over, ’kay?”
Belle said nothing.
I wondered what the other girls were doing behind the black screen. Maybe they were laughing at me. Well, Chae Rin would under normal circumstances, but I had to believe that she’d be a bit more sensitive even though we weren’t, as she’d said, best buds.
It’s not like we disliked each other either. None of us exactly saw eye to eye when we all first met. But battling side by side had brought us closer together. I liked Chae Rin’s straightforward personality, envied her mercilessness when it came to being as blunt as humanly possible. I’d come to expect it. Enjoy it, even—well, most of the time. Lake and I got along a lot better for whatever reason, maybe because we had the least harsh personalities out of the four. And Lake was just accommodating to everyone. I was sure she was as nervous for me as I was for myself.
Belle, on the other hand . . . I couldn’t say I knew one way or the other. And that scared me.
Belle used to be my hero. Her strength, her skill, her focus. I still envied them as much as I used to worship them. Back then, I’d just wanted to be strong too. And I’d wanted her to acknowledge that strength as if that would somehow make it real. But right from the time we first met, the more I interacted with her, the more I realized how little about her I really knew or understood. And these days, after all we’d learned about Natalya, after Belle had come so close to seeing her again—through me—in France, it felt like things had only gotten worse. She was more distant and aloof. And then there were the missions where she was all too ready to strike the first blow. Dead Soldier was proof of that.
I thought back to her tired and unfocused gaze in Communications. In the past few weeks, in those quiet, unexpected moments, I’d seen her dulled eyes staring off into the distance. Something wasn’t right. But then, nothing’s been quite right since Natalya’s death, not for either of us. Anyone could see that.
We both had the same ghost weighing our souls.
Only difference was, I was the one about to face her.
Dr. Rachadi tapped his monitor. A washed-out yellow light waved through my body diagram from head to toe. The two red bars on the right side of the screen began to fluctuate.
I shivered. “Why is it so cold in here? I can’t scry properly under these conditions.”
“Exactly. The psychic boundaries between your mind and the next in your line have already weakened from previous contact.” He said it as if it weren’t supposed to terrify me. “You know that to enter another Effigy’s subconscious safely, your mind needs to be perfectly calm.”
I lifted my head as much as I could. “Yes, or else I get taken over. But then again, that’s what you want.”
“Creating conditions of discomfort will ensure a scrying experience that will allow Natalya’s mind to just graze the surface. Don’t worry.Like I said, we’ll be monitoring you carefully.”
Natalya’s mind. A sudden burst of fear gripped me. This was real. They were really going to do this. No, they said they’d monitor me. They’d take care of me. This wasn’t a trap. We had to do everything we could to figure Saul out. And the girls were on the other side of that glass. If these people tried anything, they’d be here to stop them.
But who would stop Natalya?
She’d moved my body in France so well, fighting against Saul and his phantoms. She’d moved it much better than I ever could. I’d watched her from the deep recesses of my own mind, suffocated by darkness as if I’d been buried alive. That feeling of hopelessness started to crawl back into me as I imagined her face. Natalya Filipova, a girl I’d once considered my hero.
“I changed my mind.” My words came out in short rasps. “I don’t think I can do th—”
A hard prick in my arm gave my heart a jolt. One of the technicians had practically attacked me with a needle filled with a pale blue liquid, completely oblivious to the panic on my face. How the hell could I be sure these people weren’t just trying to murder me? What had I gotten myself into? A warm liquid oozed into my bloodstream. I shut my eyes with a shudder, but I suddenly couldn’t move my jaw. I felt nearly weightless, my body just barely anchored to the table upon which my limbs lay lifelessly.
I wished my uncle were here. Uncle Nathan. I hadn’t seen him or talked to him since I’d left New York months ago. If he were here, I’d know for sure I was safe. I’d be . . . at peace . . .
“Raise the transducer frequency to twenty megahertz. Beginning . . .”
“. . . cognitive penetration successful . . .”
“. . . and eliminate the artifacts from the cylithium return signal . . .”
The voices weaved in and out, lyrics to an eerily pleasant song. Peaceful.
“Raise the frequency higher,” someone said. Director Chafik, maybe. His voice was much deeper than the doctor’s, a milky murmur that matched the steady rhythm of my calm breaths. “We have to allow Natalya to get to the brink. She’ll survive.”
Survive. I rolled the syllables along my tongue without ever parting my lips. Sur . . . vive . . .
Survive . . . survive . . .
Live . . . I want to live . . .
I want to live, Maia.
It was dark. In my T-shirt and jean shorts, I lay on a ground I couldn’t see because the darkness had cloaked everything.
This wasn’t what scrying looked like. There was a right way and a wrong way to scry, typically. Belle had explained it before. There was a difference between using the front door and being dragged in through the back window. When Saul had first kissed me in New York, that sudden, shocking contact weakened the already penetrable barrier between my consciousness and Natalya’s, the last fire Effigy to die before me. Even now if I wasn’t careful, I’d see her memories in my dreams, but this left me vulnerable. True scrying required meditation and concentration. It was different from just slipping into her memories. It was a controlled experience.
This was neither. I didn’t know what this was, couldn’t fathom why the darkness had drained away until I was back outside the Marrakesh facility. Our Sect van was still parked outside. The sun was still blazing hot. Wiping the sweat off my forehead, I shifted my gaze to the sparse row of palm trees by the guard towers, their long, stiff leaves stretching into the sky.
“Maia.”
My body warmed at the sound of his voice, soft, deep, and darkly sweet. He stepped out of the driver’s seat and shut the door behind him, the wind tousling his black hair, which had grown a little since the last time I’d seen him.
“Rhys.” My arms were useless at my sides, the blood thumping in my body as I drank in the sight of his lean body dressed in the black suit typical for Sect agents to wear when not on the battlefield. A strange look for him; in the short time I’d known him, he’d worn mostly faded, worn-out jeans, baseball jackets, and, the first time we’d met, a bow tie.
“Oh good, you’re here.” He smiled as he straightened his pin-striped tie and walked up to me. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to do for ages.”
Wait. I’d had this dream before.
Many times. In many surprising locations.
I’d been having them since I’d first met him in La Charte’s hotel lobby. The contents were embarrassing to admit, but since I’d had this dream before, I wasn’t surprised when he wrapped his toned arms around me and drew me closer.
Stupid. What was I doing? I shouldn’t be doing this. Not when he—
He kissed me. Long. Deep. Yeah. That was how the dream went.
Strange how you could become attached to someone so quickly. But then so much had happened while we were fighting together . . . while he was silently protecting me, keeping me steady each step I took down this painful path. A sinfully handsome boy who cared about some geeky shut-in with self-esteem issues. I guess I was bound to get attached.
But as he pressed his chest against mine, his fingers sliding down my back and curling roughly against the base of my neck, my heart was aching with dread as much as longing. A chill slid up my spine, my arms stiff against my hips. But as I felt the moistness of his lips, I wondered if I had the strength to ask him that awful question. The one that had kept me up so many nights. The one I didn’t dare utter.
Don’t be afraid, Maia. Go ahead. Ask him.
Her voice caused me to rip myself away from Rhys’s lips, my fingers curling into fists by instinct. Fear pulsated through me as Natalya’s voice echoed in my mind.
With a sharp breath, I whipped around.
She stood behind the black gates, graveyard still, as the gentle breeze died around her.
“Natalya.” I’d spoken the word so quietly, I couldn’t be sure if I’d mouthed it instead. Her short, black hair cropped to her skull, the straight nose and haunting, piercing gaze of her brown eyes. It was unmistakable. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Isn’t this a dream? Or am I really scrying?”
Your dreams . . . my memories. My memories . . . your dreams . . .
The breeze ruffled my hair. I could feel its caress whistling past my ears, but the hem of Natalya’s white dress, cut just over her knees, did not so much as flutter. I was scrying, wasn’t I? Or was I dreaming? Were our consciousnesses that inextricably linked that it didn’t matter anymore?
Yes, I could feel her. Even though she stood several feet away from me, her presence weighed down my entire being, heavier and heavier with each passing second. As if she would overcome me at any moment.
Natalya’s scarred hand clutched the hilt of her sword, its tip just grazing the dirt.
Zhar-Ptitsa. The sword of Natalya Filipova, the legendary warrior who’d carried the mantle of fire Effigy before me.
But the flush was gone from Natalya’s small, angular face. She’d entered into my dreams, and she had taken with her the pallor of the dead.
I followed her right arm as it moved slowly, deliberately upward, her sword glinting in the sun as she raised it—to me.
Panic seized my entire body, my heart crashing against my chest. Natalya was here. Natalya was here. She was going to take my body again. She was going to take me. I couldn’t breathe. I clutched at my throat, willing myself to calm down, but to no avail. She lifted her sword high above her head. I couldn’t move, not even when the sword launched from her hand. I closed my eyes, ready for the impact.
It was the sound of Rhys’s helpless whimpers that snapped my eyes back open. Blood dripped from his soft lips as his hand grabbed at the hilt of the sword piercing his chest.
It was a dream, I reminded myself over and over again as Rhys fell backward onto the dusty ground before I could catch him. It was a dream. The real Rhys wasn’t dead. I knelt down and pressed my hands against his cold cheeks gingerly, suppressing the sob threatening to escape me. He wasn’t dead. “Rhys . . . Rhys!”
Take heed. Such is the fate of those who betray.
“What do you want?” I cried, standing up again. “You want my body? Huh? You want to freak me out and take me over like last time? Is that what this is?”
I didn’t have to wonder what she wanted for long because she made it clear the moment she raised her free hand and beckoned me with her finger.
A smile flashed on her face.
I want you to catch me.
She took off.
It must have been some invisible force propelling me forward because I didn’t actually want to run full tilt for the gatekeeper’s booth. But I was following her. I was following the girl who wanted to hijack my body.
My foot found the ledge of the empty booth and boosted me up, high enough that I could grab the roof. I flipped myself over onto the roof from the momentum and dashed across the moss-green metal roofing sheets. I could still remember the blood dribbling down Rhys’s cheek as I jumped over the gate.
I saw the edge of a white skirt fluttering around the side of the building. It rippled in the wind as Natalya ran across the roofs high above me, jumping from one building to the next. Her feet tapped the rooftops so lightly, so quickly, they may not have even touched the metal at all. I chased her into the city, through the narrow, dusty streets of the same busy market the Sect driver had taken us through on our way to the facility. But this time the bystanders were moving in slow motion, their hands filled with food, baskets, and money nearly frozen in the air, their mouths parting too slowly for me to hear what they had to say before I breezed past them. A dream. I was dreaming still. But where was Natalya taking me?
Keep your eyes on me. Catch me, quickly.
Natalya’s consciousness was particularly strong being the most recent death, and she used that to her advantage. The messages, the dreams. She’d even appeared once among the living, the day I took my oath as an Effigy. There, in that echoing cathedral, she’d become something like an omen. Back then I thought it was to warn me about the Sect. When I’d found out that she’d been investigating Saul during the last moments of her life, when I’d found out that the Sect had lied about her committing suicide, I’d decided to trust her.
But I learned all too quickly: Even in death, Natalya always had her own plans.
She jumped down, disappearing behind an alleyway. I slipped between two white wooden buildings and—
—and then I was in a museum.
I was taller. My arms long and white. These weren’t my arms. This wasn’t my body.
I was . . . I was turning around. There was a crowd of people here on the main floor of the museum. The National Museum of Prague. I was here on a mission, but I couldn’t complete it. I’d only managed to leave my message for Belle in Castor’s volume when I turned and saw him coming through the door—the door I thought had been locked.
Yes. Aidan. He’d come to the museum on the same day with friends I’d never seen before. He hadn’t seen what I’d done and didn’t ask questions, and I was grateful for it. Now that we were back in the lobby, he’d left his friends by the long, winding staircase to talk to me.
“Hey, Natalya, I’m so sorry I startled you before,” Aidan said. He’d come dressed in a black striped T-shirt and jeans, wearing that cute grin I’d come to know over the years. “It’s just that I saw you sneaking around the museum and couldn’t help but be curious. I was surprised to see you here in the first place.”
“I didn’t even notice you, Aidan,” I said.
He laughed. “Well, I’m pretty good at sneaking around too.”
It was strange that he’d be here on the day I’d decided to carry out Baldric and Naomi’s mission to find the secret volume. So strange. But then again, his laughter had a way of making you think otherwise.
“Aidan, about what I was doing—”
“Honestly? Don’t even worry about it. If you’ve got something to do, then do it. It’s got nothing to do with me.” He smiled at me reassuringly.
It was the nice smile of a nice boy. I’d known him since we’d worked together on a mission near his post in rural New York three years ago. Only fifteen, but still so capable. He’d been a good friend to me ever since, fighting with me, standing by my side as a comrade. I had no reason to doubt him, but I had to maintain my guard nonetheless.
“By the way, are you interested in coming to see the dinosaur exhibit, by any chance? It’s why I’m here. I even dragged a few of my friends along.”
His friends were waving him over. He always did have a bizarre love for large creatures, even knowing the damage they could do. On more than one occasion, he’d tried to get me to go to some circus with him in Canada. Monsters as entertainment. It was beyond me.
“Why don’t you come with us?” he offered. “Life isn’t all about blood and glory. Have a little fun for once in your life, Natalya.”
But you weren’t there for a little fun, were you, Aidan?
Natalya’s voice, violent and murderous, jolted me out of her body and into a dark abyss through the pure force of her fury and pain.
He was spying on me. He followed me. Then he killed me.
“No . . .” I hadn’t wanted to believe it when she’d shown me the first time in France. I didn’t want to believe it now. “No, you’re just saying that to take my body from me.”
He killed me!
“He wouldn’t!”
You don’t believe me . . . because of your crush?
Natalya was laughing. It felt as if I were drowning. Her consciousness was swallowing me whole.
Pitiful. This body. This life. You don’t deserve it.
Without mercy, her consciousness buried mine deeper and deeper. “No . . . Get away from me!” Deeper . . . deeper . . .
“No . . . no!”
I was screaming.
“Maia? Maia!”
“No!” I screamed, waking with a terrible shudder. Chae Rin pinned me to the table, hissing at me to calm down. I stopped thrashing and surveyed the room, now silent but for the beeping monitors. Dr. Rachadi gaped at me. I could see the sweat lining his forehead.
Director Chafik and the other two girls were hovering over me.
“Well?” I heard Lake say. “Did you get what you wanted?”
My limbs ached, and my head throbbed. Tears were welling up behind my eyelids.
“The frequency’s instability during the process of scrying matched Saul’s,” Dr. Rachadi said, wiping his forehead. “For a few minutes, Natalya’s consciousness surfaced. But the frequency didn’t stabilize the way Saul’s had once Alice’s consciousness resurfaced during his interrogation. We can hypothesize up to this point that Saul’s ability to mask his own frequency may not be something we can see in the other Effigies. Also—”
“Did you see her?” Belle. The naked desperation in her eyes was almost too much to take. Did she see me at all? Did she even care?
“Yes, I did. Natalya . . . She won’t stop.” My body shook as I lay back against the table, tears dripping down my cheeks. “She won’t stop . . . until I’m gone for good.”
My flesh was weak and tired, my muscles worn, my mind wounded. I passed out, praying I wouldn’t see Natalya again.
• • •
I awoke to the sound of curtains rippling with the gentle breeze that fluttered in with the moonlight through the open window. It was dark. Were we still at the facility? Most facilities had rooms for agents and trainees, and this hard bed was about what I expected for the kind of dreary accommodations the Sect usually had available for them. Pushing off the gray covers, I turned my weary body onto its side. They must have brought me here after I passed out. When I picked up my phone by the side of my flat, white pillow, the text message Lake had sent me an hour ago said as much.
Sibyl called after you conked out. Said we were to come back right away for a debriefing and continue your training. I KNOW IT NEVER ENDS!!! But don’t worry! We’ll leave first thing in the morning! Lots of love <3 <3
I let my phone slip from my fingers and lay back against the pillow, resting my wrist on my forehead. What never ended was the lingering feeling of danger that came with the knowledge that Natalya was deep inside my mind, waiting for her chance. At least I hadn’t dreamed about her again, not yet. But traces of the last one still haunted me.
I’d dreamed about Natalya skulking around the National Museum in Prague two months ago. Or more specifically, I’d scried into one of Natalya’s memories in my sleep. There, she’d left a message for Belle in a secret room, but the dream had abruptly ended the minute she’d heard someone behind her. I could still remember her fear and shock. I thought perhaps it was an Informer, one of the specialized agents that shadow Effigies and bring information back to the Sect. And now I knew that it was Rhys who’d followed her.
Rhys . . . I thought of the blood dripping from his mouth and the light dying from his dark eyes. It wasn’t real, just Natalya’s memories and my dreams blending too seamlessly together while Dr. Rachadi messed around in my head.
Or maybe Natalya’s consciousness was becoming too strong.
You don’t believe me . . . because of your crush?
I squeezed my eyes shut. Two months ago, when I’d brought up Natalya’s trip to the museum with Rhys, he’d been uncomfortable with my even pursuing the subject. And that was before the night I’d faced Saul in France, when Natalya had finally shown me the scene of her death in full: her poisoning at Rhys’s hand.
A dull pain began throbbing in my chest as I considered it. I couldn’t recall every detail of the dream, but I did remember Natalya’s heart calming upon seeing his boyish smile because that’s how I’d always felt. His honey sweetness underlined by the dark charm of a warrior raised from youth for battle. I hadn’t seen him since he’d gone back home some weeks ago. In the short time I’d known him, I’d attached myself to his kindness, caving in to my own attraction. But like Natalya, I hadn’t realized just how little I knew about him.
Until it was too late.
Rhys killed Natalya. Or did he? Natalya was desperate to live again, and the only way she could do that was to destabilize my mind while I was most vulnerable—when I was scrying into her memories. Then she could slip into my body. It worked the last time in France. All she had to do was show me Rhys killing her. A lie. The perfect scheme. Or the truth.
It was why I hadn’t told anyone about it. Not even Belle. I just didn’t know.
And now I couldn’t even trust my own mind. I covered my eyes with a shaking palm. What if she got me one day? What would I do then, trapped helplessly in my body? I tried to stop them, because I knew I had to pull myself together and be strong, but a few tears leaked out anyway, slipping through my fingers and trickling down to my ears. Sometimes it was too much.
“Don’t cry, Maia.”
My eyes shuddered open at the feel of his whisper grazing the skin of my ear, his hand on the side of my face. A tender touch. He’d sat down on the bed so quickly, so quietly. My whole body burned from his closeness.
No.
“You’ve been looking for me,” Saul said. “But I’m here now.”
I had already launched at him before the scythe had fully formed in my hand, flames erupting around my body. He moved off the bed with several steps back, quick and careful, side-stepping my first swing. The blade of the scythe lodged into the wall.
I had to calm down. Calm down and capture him. This was my chance.
Yanking the scythe out of the wall, I swung again. Saul could have disappeared just as easily as he’d appeared. Yet he didn’t. A shadow cast from his wide plum hood covered the top portion of his face, but not the upward turn of his full lips. His robes fluttered from the impact of my blade against his hand—a metal hand. Silver and shining, its thin fingers connected by bulbous joints that whirred noisily as he held my weapon in place.
“I thought I cut that off. Where’d you get a replacement?” I asked coolly, trying to break through his grip with my strength alone, but Saul was strong too. “Couldn’t have been while you were hiding out in Greenland.”
He stood perfectly upright, shaking just a bit under the weight of my attack when he answered. “So you’ve been tracking me since we last spoke.” And he began squeezing the blade so tightly I thought it would break. “You remember, don’t you? What you did to me then?”
“I remember what you did.” The bodies of innocent people strewn about the La Charte hotel lobby. The train passengers screaming as they were torn apart by phantoms. “I remember.”
I let go of my scythe, banishing it quickly before kicking him back and summoning it again in another whirl of flames that licked the curtains—but all I could see was him. Saul. I had to capture him. Jumping at him, I brought it down, only to have him dodge. The blade plunged into the floor. “How did you even find me?” I demanded, yanking it back out.
“I heard you were here and thought I’d stop by.”
“Heard? From who? Only . . .” My breath hitched. Only the Sect knew we were here.
“Aren’t you happy to see me?”
There was a whimsical note in his voice that made me think of Alice, but the sociopathic, dead Effigy in his line wouldn’t have been this calm in the heat of battle.
“Nick. Is that who I’m talking to? Is it?”
“I’m sure you can tell. Though, strangely,” Saul said, his voice a breath, “it doesn’t seem to matter much these days.”
The two personalities were constantly warring, battling for control over Nick’s body. I knew what it felt like. But I had no sympathy for Nick, no matter how human he tried to make himself appear. Neither was to be trusted. He just so much as said it himself.
One strike. Two. He dodged well, grabbing my wrist with his metal hand and squeezing it tight.
“Relax, Maia. Don’t you notice?”
Releasing me, he shoved me back, not too hard, perhaps, because Nick was still trying to pretend to be a gentleman. But when he pointed to the bed, I finally noticed—the flames were eating at the gray covers, licking the walls. And for a moment, I was paralyzed. For a moment, all I could see was my house in Buffalo up in flames, the bodies of my family being carted out in bags. Mom. Dad. My twin sister, June . . .
No. I could handle this. I’d been training for two months for this. I could handle this. But the scythe had already vanished into the air, my hands trembling as I watched the fire spread.
“Banish the flames, Maia. Go on. Don’t be afraid.”
Saul was too close to me. I could feel his hard body against the dark curls spilling down my back, his chest a breath away from my head. If he wanted to kill me, he could have done it already. I had to concentrate. This time I would do it.
I breathed and raised my arms. It was like the reverse of trapping and releasing. I drew the energy back inside my body, like depriving the flames of oxygen. Releasing a deep, shuddering breath, I collapsed back—into Saul’s arms.
I stayed crumpled in them, too shocked to move at first, even with my brain screaming at my muscles.
“Good. Good.” Saul’s heavenly face beamed down at me, his sea-blue eyes glinting in the moonlight. “The better control you have over your powers, the easier it will be for you to find Marian.”
A sudden spurt of adrenaline shot through my limbs. He didn’t just have the power to disappear. He could take me with him if he wanted. Like last time.
I pushed myself out of his arms, but Saul grabbed my wrist before I could back away. “I’m not here to hurt you. I can’t take you yet. I have too much to do before then. You can rest easy for now.”
“Yet,” I spat. “So you’re still after me.”
“It’s not me you’ll have to worry about, Maia,” he said, sliding down his hood so I could see the long, loose silver hair that had been dark in the picture Director Chafik had shown us. “Truthfully, I was in an awful state after you hurt me in France,” he said. So Sibyl’s theory was right after all. “But I did gain control of myself. Control. Focus.”
His gaze wavered strangely, but for just a moment. Or did I imagine it?
“Right now there are other things I have to take care of before we can see each other again,” he continued as steady as ever.
“What do you mean?” A hard rhythm pounded against my chest.
“Alice and I are going to achieve what we’ve set out to for many years. Decades.”
He sounded as eerily calm as the night I’d faced him in France. It’d frightened me more than Alice’s murderous frenzy.
“I told you before. We both have a wish to grant. With Marian’s help, we’re going to reshape the world.”
With his hood down, I could see his face in full, long and slender, beautiful with its high angles and sharp edges. The smile playing on his lips was gentle, unassuming—Nick’s smile. But I knew better than to trust it.
“This is a world of shadows, Maia,” he told me, leaning so his silver hair fluttered over his shoulders. “And the secrets hide themselves there in the dark. You’ll understand that soon enough. I’ll give you a sign.” His breath was hot on my skin as he spoke, his melodic voice dancing in the heavy, spiced air. “You won’t miss it.”
Then he walked backward a few steps before disappearing, leaving me alone in the dark room.