by Nicole Maggi
My chest heaved. I stared right into her eyes. “I will choose him over the Benandanti. If it comes down to it. You should know that up front.”
“Cara,” Nerina said. This time the softness of her tone melted my rage a little. “I would never expect anything less. Your first loyalty is always to your famiglia.” Her voice broke over the word, and she turned away. I thought of the little scene I’d just performed aboveground for Alessia, and my cheeks burned. It wasn’t funny. It was tragic. God, between the three of us, we had Shakespeare beat.
I swallowed hard. My throat felt jagged and raw. I was between a rock and a goddamned hard place, and the only way out was to get down on my knees and crawl through the scariest opening, the one covered in spiders and scorpions.
“Okay.” The word was rotten on my tongue. So that’s what betrayal tastes like. “I’ll do it. But I get the same deal as Alessia. We regain all seven sites, and I’m done.”
I stuck my right hand out. After a moment, Alessia walked over and put hers on mine. A long minute passed. Nerina laid hers gently on top. I noticed that she’d started biting her cuticles since the last time I’d seen her.
“Deal,” she said quietly, and we dropped our hands.
We stood there looking at each other in awkward silence.
I crossed my arms. “I need a cigarette.”
I was having a dream about sleep. In it, I got to sleep for hours and hours without anyone bothering me.
“Miss Wolfe?”
Go away, I thought.
“Miss Wolfe!”
“What?” I said crankily without opening my eyes.
“Miss Wolfe, if you do not wake up this instant, I will send you to the principal’s office.”
I cracked one eye open. The entire class was staring at me, and Mr. Tanner stood over me, his little piggy eyes squinting at me. I sat up. “Jane Austen was making a commentary on society.”
Mr. Tanner folded his arms. “That would be a relevant statement if we were discussing Jane Austen. However, we are discussing Jane Eyre.”
“Gothic feminism.”
“Miss Wolfe, if you fall asleep in my class once more this week, I will start deducting one grade point for each minute of naptime.”
“Then keep me awake,” I muttered, but he had already headed back to the front of the class. I missed Mr. Foster. He would’ve kept me awake or at least ignored me while I was sleeping. I sighed and stared out the window. It was snowing—again. It seemed as if that was all it did this time of year in Maine. I wished Mr. Tanner would just send me to Morrissey and be done with it. Maybe I could even get suspended. Then at least I could get some sleep. I snorted to myself. Unlikely. Nerina had kept me captive in her underground lair for the past five days, all afternoon and evening, only stopping for twenty minutes to eat dinner. I thought eating a meal in under two hours was sacrilege to Italians, but apparently I was wrong. I was just lucky my mom had decided to go away for a few days. And my dad had barely blinked when I’d abruptly quit my internship. He was hardly ever home these days.
The bell rang, and I vaulted out of my seat and into the hall before Mr. Tanner could harass me again. The rest of the day dragged until my final study period, which I usually skipped. But I was actually going today. Only I wasn’t going to study schoolwork.
I slid into a desk in the back corner of the room and pulled my hoodie up. As kids filed in around me, I took out the book Nerina had given me to work on from last night’s session. It was written in a really old, really dead language—not Italian, not Latin, not Greek or Aramaic or Hebrew or anything that remotely resembled words. Nerina thought it was a secret code, and even though I knew she was probably right, I was kinda hoping it would turn out to be some alien language from another planet or dimension.
I opened the book, which was easier said than done because the pages weren’t paper; they were bark. The book creaked as I laid it flat, and I glanced around to make sure no one was watching me. They weren’t. Most of the other kids in study period were losers too busy carving loser-band logos into their desks to notice my creaking book, or they were do-gooders who were, you know, actually studying.
Just like the other book Nerina had shown me, this one hummed when I pressed my palms onto the bark pages. The letters seemed to shift beneath my touch, as if they were trying to tell me something. I could sense that the book wanted to be known, but I was missing something, something I needed to give it before it would reveal its secrets. I closed my eyes and felt my way into the book. It was like stumbling down a pitch-black hallway, bumping into walls and chairs as you went. I pushed further, and the book pushed back. An electric shock jolted through me. I yelped and fell out of my chair.
A couple of the do-gooders looked over at me, annoyed that I’d interrupted their nerd session. The teacher at the front of the room didn’t even glance up from his laptop. Fifty bucks he was surfing porn. I climbed back into my chair and smacked the book. “All right, bitch,” I muttered, “if that’s the way you want it.”
I touched the book again, but this time I didn’t force my way in. I tiptoed, cajoling it as if I were a guy trying to talk his virgin girlfriend into having sex. Now the pathway into the book was lit by a single lightbulb, swinging crazily from a loose cord, casting shadows on all the walls. But in between those shadows were doorways. I just had to know which one to push open . . .
“Hey.”
I shook my head, blocking out the noise around me, and pushed at the closest door. It didn’t budge.
“Hey!”
My eyes opened a slit.
The nerd in front of me had turned around and was leaning on my desk.
“What,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Um,” she said, “you’re talking to yourself.”
“So?”
“So I’m trying to study.”
“Yeah, well, so am I.”
Her gaze dropped to my book. “What kind of a textbook is that?”
My fingers gripped the edges of the bark pages. “It’s a none-of-your-goddamned-business kind of textbook.”
With a huff, she spun around.
I smirked at her back and closed my eyes again. It was easier this time, sliding down into the deep, dark hallway, passing over the first door. No, that wasn’t the right one; of course it wasn’t . . . I passed by one door, two, three . . . None of those were right either . . .
This one. It called to me, faint but sure. I put a hand on the knob and turned. It swung open and light poured out, an unearthly green glow that flooded out into the hallway, filled all the corners, filled me. I could feel its aura in every pore of my body, alternating warm and cool, like stepping from sunlight into shadow and back again.
My gut twisted, telling me to pull away, to shake the light off me like a bug, but I forced myself to stay. This was what Nerina and I had been working on: not running away from my power. Apparently, I had commitment issues. No shit, Sherlock, I’d told her. The trembling started at my toes, trying to get me to run, but I kept myself rooted. If for no other reason than to show Nerina I could.
The light made me glow . . . I could see through my skin, see my blood running through my veins, see my lungs expanding and contracting, my heart pumping. The light spiraled up, up, up, into my head.
My eyes flew open.
Everything in study hall was exactly the same. Only now, every human being in the room wore a halo of the same green light. I held my hands up in front of my face. Same green. “Whoa,” I breathed.
The nerd girl turned around again. “Look, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to say something to Mr. Curtis.”
Obviously she couldn’t see I was too busy glowing to shut up. “Chill out,” I muttered as I examined my green hand.
Her halo flickered and turned back on, brighter than before. Her face slackened, and she slumped in her seat. “No worries, dude,” she said in a mellow-yellow voice. I stared. She seemed way too type A to say stuff like dude. Then she picked up her pen and sta
rted doodling on her arm.
Whoa.
I stood and moved to the loser guy two desks ahead of me. “Ask Mr. Curtis if he’s on the Big Boob Blowout or the Pussy Galore website today.”
The guy’s halo flickered and brightened just like the girl’s. “Hey, Mr. Curtis,” he called to the front of the room. “What’s the site of the day? Big Boob Blowout or Pussy Galore?”
Mr. Curtis slammed his laptop shut. “Excuse me, young man?”
“He didn’t mean anything by it.” I met Mr. Curtis’s gaze across the room. “You should just dismiss us all early.”
Mr. Curtis scratched his nose. “Why don’t you all take off early? Day’s almost over.”
Holy shit, I was Obi-freaking-Wan Kenobi.
I grabbed the book and my bag. When I got to the door, I couldn’t help it; I raised my hand just as Alec Guinness did in the movie and gave it a little wave. “You don’t need to remember any of this,” I said, and all the halos in the room flickered.
The halls were empty; everyone was still in classes. I passed the office and peered through the glass windows. Sure enough, all the secretaries inside wore halos.
Everyone in the world was my bitch.
Moments later, the last bell rang, and green-haloed kids poured into the halls, hundreds of chess pieces just waiting for me to move them. I wove in between them. The possibilities made me lightheaded.
I stopped the bitchy senior girl who’d said my lipstick made me look like a whore on my first day here. “You should tell your boyfriend you’re cheating on him,” I told her.
She nodded and walked away with purposeful strides.
Josh Baker brushed past me, knocking my shoulder with intentional force. I caught his elbow. “You need to tell your mother you have herpes.”
“Okay,” he agreed, a goofy smile on his face.
God, it was like eating an entire chocolate cheesecake and not gaining a pound. The light fed me with every halo flicker until I glowed so bright I looked radioactive. I soared through the doors onto the lawn, buoyed by power. It was still snowing, and while most everyone else huddled under the building’s eaves or jumped into cars waiting at the curb, I stood in the open, my arms stretched wide, tasting the cold flakes on my tongue. I owned the world . . . or at least, everyone in it.
Jonah sidled up to me. “What’s with you?”
I dropped my arms and squinted up into his face. Could he see the light? Did being a Malandante give him that power? But no—his eyes were clear as ever, save for the shadows that always lived there. His gaze shifted to something beyond me. I turned.
Alessia hurried across the lawn, her blue wool hat pulled down tightly over her ears.
I rolled my eyes. “You two need to figure this out already.”
Jonah’s halo flickered.
I straightened. “In fact, I think you should meet tonight and talk.”
Jonah blinked at me. “I have to go.”
He set off in Alessia’s direction. I jogged a step behind. When he reached her, I brushed behind her and murmured, “Say yes,” into her ear. I only had time to hear him ask her to meet in “their new place”—wherever that was—before I was out of earshot. I didn’t need to hear her say yes. I knew she would.
I stumbled to the Jacobs farm, tripping over my own feet with drunken glee. Wait until I told Nerina. I could do anything. I could order the Guild to turn themselves in. I could command the Malandanti to stop attacking the Waterfall. I could tell Pratt Webster to go fuck himself. I could tell my dad what I really thought of him.
I opened the door in the stone wall and hopped down the stairs. “Nerina!” The aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the air. She stepped out from the kitchen, an espresso cup in her hand. As soon as she saw me, her eyes widened. The cup smashed to the floor, splattering coffee onto her dove-grey pencil skirt.
“What the hell did you do?”
Chapter Twenty-one
The Reunion
Alessia
Candlelight danced against the walls of the emergency shelter when I stepped through the door; Jonah had gotten here first. I shut the door behind me with a snap. Movement in the corner caught my eye, and Jonah emerged from the shadows. My breath hitched. His green eyes were muddied and sunken, as though he hadn’t slept in a long time. “Are you okay?” I whispered.
He swallowed and sat down on the floor in a pool of dim light. I hesitated. The last time we’d been here, it hadn’t been pretty. And I knew I still couldn’t be with him. But his posture—his head bent, his shoulders hunched—made my heart twist.
I sat across from him, our knees inches away from touching, and set my backpack beside me. “What’s going on? Why did you want to see me, now, after all this time?”
His gaze was fixed on the old braided rug that covered the floor, but he glanced up at me from under his lashes. “I don’t know. I just knew I had to.” He flexed his fingers. “I miss you.”
The last time we’d been alone, Jonah had seemed a little conflicted about his role as a Malandante, but he’d still been defiant, still sure he was on the right side. Now, sitting so close to him, I thought he seemed . . . broken. I watched his face, how the shadows moved across his skin. I wanted to touch him so bad my fingers itched. I clenched my hands into fists. “I miss you, too,” I allowed.
“You and Bree have gotten kinda chummy.” He picked at a loose thread on the rug. “Is it—does it have anything to do with me?”
Just like a boy, assuming everything was about him. “No.”
He met my gaze. I had to bite back a gasp at the darkness I saw there. “Does it have anything to do with the Benandanti?”
“You know I can’t—I won’t—tell you that.”
He held his hands up. “I’m not asking to spy. I just want to know what’s up with you. What’s up with Bree. I . . . hardly ever talk to her anymore.”
“I’m still not telling you.”
His posture bent even more, if that was possible. “I don’t blame you. For not wanting to tell me things. But I’m not going to tell them. I promise.”
“Jonah, I’m not worried about you telling them willingly. I’m more worried about them forcing it out of you.” I thought of Dario, about how he’d stayed strong. He was immortal, with hundreds of years of training to withstand torture. I didn’t know anything about Jonah’s training, but I would bet he wasn’t that well trained. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do what Dario had done.
He looked past me to the posters on the wall, chewing his bottom lip.
I narrowed my eyes at him. In the past, he would’ve jumped down my throat for a comment like that. “Jonah? Are you okay?”
“No.” If it hadn’t been dead silent in the basement, I wouldn’t have heard him. “I’m not okay.”
My rib cage tightened so much I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t stand it; I reached forward and touched his knee. He didn’t move, didn’t look at me, but he covered my hand with his. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. I won’t say anything to anyone. I promise.”
His fingers curled around mine and squeezed. “I think . . . I think you might be right.”
“About what?”
“About them. The Malandanti.” He made an involuntary motion, as if he were checking to see if one lurked in the corner. “Maybe I am . . . on the wrong side.”
I think time stopped for a moment. Even the dust particles hung suspended. The only thing moving was my brain, whirring from side to side. Did he really just say what I think he said? Somehow I found the ability to speak. “Why? Why do you think that?”
“I’ve heard things,” he whispered. “Things that are impossible to misinterpret.”
I fought the urge to shout, What things? If I pushed, I knew he would bolt. I turned my hand beneath his and stroked his palm. He closed his eyes. I wanted to kiss away the pain I saw on his face.
“It’s funny you should mention them forcing things out of me,” he said. “I overheard them talking about doing that to someon
e. In California?”
I nodded. “At the Redwood site.”
“They’re going nuts because you guys have reclaimed it and the one in Pakistan. That each of your Clans now has a member of your Concilio with them.”
“But why don’t they just do the same with your Concilio?” It was what my own Clan had been anticipating, anyway.
“Because they think it would scatter their power. I guess they think they’re better off working together from wherever they are.” He sucked in air and looked at me.
I pressed my palm onto his. “It’s okay. I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone, and I won’t.” Not even Nerina, I swore to myself.
His shoulders relaxed. We sat in silence for a few minutes.
Jonah swallowed. “I heard my Guide talking to someone. I don’t know who it was, but it wasn’t a Malandante. But they were talking about Mr. Foster. About what they did to Mr. Foster.” He wouldn’t look me in the eyes. “About the magic they used to kill him.”
My throat was hot. I could see again the life force leaching out of the Lynx, his aura flickering out like a dying light. “Angel Falls,” I said. “It’s the magic from Angel Falls.”
“Yes.” Slowly, Jonah raised his gaze to mine. “You were right, Alessia. They killed him. We have a mage, and he killed Mr. Foster.”
I shifted onto my knees and leaned toward him. “Do you know who the mage is?” Jonah shook his head. “But you just said you heard them talking. He’s not a Malandante, so he was in human form. Who was he?”
“I couldn’t see him. He was in shadow, and the second my Guide sensed me, he vanished. Like, actually vanished.”
I sat back. “Yeah, I saw him do the same thing when he attacked me and Mr. Foster. Neat trick.”
“I didn’t know,” Jonah said. “You have to believe that I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t.” I pulled my backpack into my lap. “I have to show you something.” I unzipped my bag and drew out the green folder with his name on it.