Waggling his finger at Bastian, he jerks to his feet. “You’re a genius.”
I admit it makes more sense than a stone, but I don’t discard my hypothesis. I mean, we are talking about a magical hunt. What’s more magical than an old wizard?
Bastian follows after Adrien, who’s already rounded the shelving unit.
Alma stretches her arms over her head. “Wait up, B.” Her heels clack on the tiles as she trots after them.
“How sweet.” I smile as I scoot Cadence’s chair back. “They have nicknames for each other.”
She rises and faces me. “You don’t actually think you aren’t smart, right?”
I frown. “Where did that come from?”
“Earlier, you said Bastian was the smart one.”
I tuck a fugitive brown strand behind her ear. “I’m street-smart. That’s good enough for me.”
“You’re way more than street-smart, Slate.”
“I wasn’t much help these past few days.” My self-esteem’s fine, but the truth’s the truth.
“Because you can’t sit still long enough.”
“Yeah. I think I’ve got ADD.” Undiagnosed because it isn’t like I ever consulted a medical professional when I was a kid. “Unless, I’m looking at you. Then I can sit and stare. And stare.”
“Not creepy at all.” She laughs softly, then presses her lips to mine.
The kiss is chaste but reaches deep and pumps up my ego.
The first time I bumped into Cadence de Morel, I thought her naïve and spoiled, interesting and the owner of a great ass, sure, but two-dimensional. Was I ever wrong. The girl’s deeper and mightier than the Verdon Gorge.
If only I had time to take her there . . .
“Come on. Let’s go check out Brume’s beating heart.”
I stow away my lancing glumness. “I’d rather check out your beating heart.”
She smiles and shakes her head as she tows me around the stacks toward the infamous dihuner.
44
Cadence
Slate’s fingers stay laced with mine as we circle the dihuner, proving to me he’s the boy I thought he was and not the one Papa wanted me to see. A boy with a kind and steadfast heart.
Speaking of hearts, Alma’s words skitter back into my mind. I squint to make out the middle of the clock-face from where I stand. Even though it’s recessed, between the waning sunlight and breadth of the magical antiquity, I can’t see much of anything.
“We need to get closer,” Adrien says, climbing over the guardrail.
Bastian follows suit. Once he’s on the other side, he carefully sticks to the meter-wide section of tiles ringing the wide, golden rim.
“I can’t get over how big this thing is.” He palms the nape of his neck, eyes sparkling as ardently as the constellation dial’s inlaid white topazes.
“Cadence, can you turn on some more lights?” Adrien asks.
Leaving Slate by the guardrail, I head toward the panel near the door and flick on the remaining switches. The bright beams aimed at the clock catch on the golden accents, making them glimmer like the lake at sunset. I’ve always found the seven-century-old relic majestic and mysterious, but now, knowing that the Quatrefoil is real, that magic is real, it has taken on a whole new allure.
“Hey, Slate, can you help me over?” Alma nods to the guardrail. “Short legs. Tall barrier.”
He hoists her up as though she weighs less than little Emilie.
Grief swallows me like the water swallowed the child mere days ago, and I shudder. I may be in awe of the Quatrefoil, but I am also deeply disgusted by its power.
“Need a leg up?” Slate asks, putting an end to my dark thoughts.
I nod. He picks me up and delicately places me on the other side, and then he leaps over.
“Anyone spot any cradles?” I scan the clockface, then the four elements sculpted on the exterior edge.
The crown wheel advances notch by notch, trickling a slow tick . . . tick . . . tick that echoes around the library.
Bastian crouches. “Maybe the cradles are the elements?”
“Or in the Quatrefoil loops, or petals, or whatever they’re called?” Alma stares at the gold outline that extends from one edge of the clock to the next.
“Alma may have a point. Perhaps we’re supposed to place our pieces in the leaves aligned with our element.” Adrien gestures to one of the triangles—either his or Slate’s, since there’s no bar through it.
The Air and Earth triangles are both slashed to indicate the separation between the ground and the sky. Mine should be upside-down, but all the triangles are pointing out, making the dihuner resemble a giant compass.
Alma squints at the element closest to her. “How can you tell whose element is whose? They all sort of look the same.”
Bastian points to mine and Gaëlle’s. “Two have bars through them. Earth and Air.”
“Okay . . . but how can you tell which one is which?”
“The one that’s upside-down is Earth. The other is Air.”
“And how do you know which one’s upside-down?”
“Oh.” Bastian rubs the back of his head. “I’m not sure. Adrien?”
Adrien touches the triangle that could potentially be his. When he’s not struck down by a freakish bolt of lightning, I lean forward and run my fingertips over the one that could theoretically be mine. The slashed triangle emits a pulse of neon green light that sends me stumbling back. My tailbone whacks the tiles.
“Cadence!” Slate yells, racing across the clock instead of around it.
I want to tell him not to tread on it, but by the time I shake off my surprise, he’s already kneeling beside me, flipping my hands over as though checking for burn marks. “I’m okay. I was just surprised and slipped.”
Slate’s dark eyes narrow. “So, the element didn’t send you hurtling back?”
“No.”
He’s still checking over my fingers.
“I promise.”
“It’s true, Slate. Look.” Adrien’s walked around to the opposite side of where he was standing when I fell, and his hand rests on the second plain triangle.
The shape glows crimson.
“How cool!” Alma claps her hands.
“Wow.” Bastian presses his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
A new noise, a grinding of sorts, sounds over the steady ticking.
“What is that?” I whisper. Or maybe I yell it. My blood pounds so loudly against my eardrums it’s hard for me to gauge the volume of my voice.
Although he doesn’t let go of my hands, Slate finally looks away from them and over his shoulder.
“That would be the cradles,” Adrien whispers reverently.
I tear my hands from Slate’s and push myself up. Sure enough, in the middle of the leaf aligned with the fire element, a recess has appeared in the exact shape and size of the leaf he collected after he defeated the guivre.
I blink and stare, then blink some more. And then I lean over and press my fingertips to my shape. It ignites, sending my pulse into orbit. I tip my head back, find Slate looming over me, arms crossed, chin dipped into his neck, black eyes painted a vivid emerald-green and narrowed on the point of contact between my body and the clock.
“We need to call Gaëlle,” I whisper, my voice husky with wonder. “And Papa.”
“You also need to get the pieces and see if they fit,” Alma adds. “And Bastian needs to calculate perfect twilight.”
I straighten. “Do you think we’re the first to figure this out?” When my hand lifts off the element, the light snuffs out right away, and the cradle grinds back up, smoothing until its outline melts into the dark enamel.
Adrien releases his hold on his element and presses himself up. “Our parents definitely didn’t know, because if they had, we wouldn’t be starting from scratch.”
“Unless they can’t be cradled individually . . .” I hold on to the hope that this isn’t true, though. That the last generation didn’t unco
ver the cradles. “Papa never talked about it, so they probably didn’t know.”
The mention of my father seems to make Slate’s biceps bulge under the athletic T-shirt.
“So, astronomical twilight starts at six fifty-three tonight and ends at seven-thirty.” Bastian flashes us the screen on his phone. Not that I can see it from where I stand all the way across from him.
Adrien glances toward his wristwatch. “That’s in two hours.”
I stare at the loop of the Quatrefoil that swoops toward my element. I stare at the spot where the enamel dipped in preparation to receive my leaf.
A leaf that has yet to show itself.
A leaf I have yet to earn.
A battle that will determine whether Slate lives or dies.
45
Slate
Adrien, Gaëlle, and I each hold our wrapped pieces like they’re made of glass as we climb the hill. The wind is bitter tonight, made even more so by the clinging fog. Cadence is at the head of our snail-paced procession, beaming a flashlight she grabbed from the tavern where she waited with Alma and Bastian while we retrieved our pieces.
She hadn’t wanted to bump into her father. Claimed she wasn’t ready to see him yet. She’ll forgive him eventually I suppose, even though I won’t.
“Six forty-seven,” Alma chimes from below. Far below.
The same way Cadence is several steps ahead of me.
I hadn’t wanted her, Alma, and Bastian to come at all, but they proved a bunch of stubborn asses. As long as they don’t brush up against us, they should be fine, but the stairs are slippery as fuck. My heart has stopped twice already. Once, when we hit the top of Third Kelc’h and Cadence skidded, thankfully falling forward, on her knees. If she’d hurtled down the stairs, I’m not sure what I would’ve done. The second time I almost had a heart attack was when I heard Gaëlle squeak, “My leaf!” It had slipped from her gloved hand and glided down two steps, falling inches from Bastian’s feet. I don’t usually yell at women, but I roared at her, told her to take off her damn gloves. And then I’d apologized, blaming my nerves, which were firing like a plug plunged into water.
The last time I felt this way, like my body was buried inside an ant farm, was in the well. I focus on that as I climb the circles.
Focus on how I defeated the siren.
When we reach Fifth, I expel a tight breath. “Cadence, get farther away,” I order, forgoing any pleases.
She nods, her skin moon-white in the wisps of fog curling around her body, and backs up, flashlight splashing the carpet of snow underneath her boots. She’s been pale since the tavern. She got even paler after she stepped out of the kitchen with Nolwenn. When I asked her what was wrong, she passed off her anxiety as dread, dread for the battle she still had to wage, dread for what might happen when we lock our leaves into the clock.
Yes, it’s crossed my mind that it might set forth a bunch of bad things. I said as much to Adrien on our way to the de Morel manor. It made him so skittish he suggested holding off until Cadence got her piece. And we almost did, but then I looked at the ring and told him that I, at least, needed to lock my piece in.
In case . . .
When we rang the doorbell, Rainier had seemed about ready to spring out of his wheelchair and clobber me. But Adrien stepped between us and explained our discovery. That had quieted the old man, who confessed to not knowing about the cradles. Although a liar, his gaping-fish mouth told me he really had no clue about the dihuner’s role in the hunt.
Lost in thought, I don’t realize Cadence has fallen into step beside me. I stop so suddenly that she halts, too.
“Do you have a death wish? Get away from me,” I growl.
At first, she looks offended. Then her eyes flare with anger. “Fine.” She stalks off toward the library.
I don’t care if I piss her off right now. I need her to be safe.
As I start up again, I sweep the obscurity around me to map out everyone else’s locations. Thankfully, they’re all satisfactorily social distancing. When we reach the library, Cadence is fitting the key into the lock. Her hands shake, which makes it jangle. Soon, though, she has the door open and the lights on.
Bastian treads closer to Cadence and leans his weight into the great door to widen the opening.
“Six fifty-two,” Alma announces.
“One minute to go,” Gaëlle whispers, her light brown skin as ashen as the foggy air.
She slips through first, then Adrien. Before I follow them, I say to the others, “You guys stay out here.”
“What?” Cadence’s eyebrows jolt up. “No! Don’t be ridiculous.”
“We don’t know what’s about to happen,” I say.
“I’ve been with you guys during every curse. I don’t see how this is any more dangerous.”
“We were contending with one leaf at a time. There are three now. When we put them in, hell could rain down upon us.” I want to go over to her and touch her, but until I’ve gotten rid of the golden, palm-sized frond, I barely dare breathe in her direction. “Please, I can’t see you get hurt.” Just the thought sends a sawing pain through my chest.
“He’s right, Cadence.” Adrien’s blistered forehead pleats. “Wait for us out here with Alma and Bastian.”
Cadence’s eyes widen. “I want to be there. I want to—”
“Six fifty-four,” Alma announces.
“We have to go,” Adrien says. “Come on, Slate.”
I set my teeth. “I won’t go anywhere until Cadence swears she’ll stay out here.”
I shift my gaze to Bastian, and he nods in silent understanding. He may be skinny, but he’s bigger than Cadence, so he can hold her back if she tries anything.
“Fine!” Anger rolls off her like the mist forever cloaking this damn town. “Fine!” She lurches away from the door and whirls on her heels, the beam of her flashlight zigzagging over the white expanse.
“We’ll take care of her,” Alma adds, already running after her.
Bastian stares at me as I finally walk past him. His lips press together, Adam’s apple bobbing and bobbing. I sense he wants to say something, but either he’s not sure what, or fear’s got his tongue.
“It’ll be fine, little bro. All will be fine.” Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll start believing it.
He releases the door once I’ve stepped over the threshold. It bangs shut, locking me in with three fragments of a maleficent relic and a ticking clock. I steel my spine, swallow hard, and head over to seal my leaf in its cradle, and quite possibly my fate with the Quatrefoil’s.
No.
That’s not true.
My fate was sealed the day I read the spell on the inside of the band and put on the ring.
46
Cadence
Between my talk with Nolwenn and the others all but booting me out of the library, my blood zings. I understand their reasons for keeping me out, and quite possibly, if I hadn’t been a ball of stress and anger, I would’ve placidly agreed that I had no added value in there.
“What is going on with you?” Alma asks, once she catches up to me. “You do realize they’re trying to protect us?”
“I know.”
“Then why are we storming off?”
“Because, Alma!” I growl.
“Because what?” she growls back.
“Because I’m pissed!”
“They’re—”
“Not at them!” I toss my arms in the air, the beam of my flashlight catching on the wisps of fog, and then beyond that, on gray limestone.
Her brow furrows. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. No, it’s not at you either.”
“Then who are you pissed at?”
“At Papa.”
She cinches my upper arm to hold me in place. “You have to forgive him. He was just trying to protect you. You’re his little girl.”
“I’m not mad at him because of what he said about Slate”—I mean, it still definitely rankles—“I’m mad because of what h
e did to him.”
She frowns. “Did to him? What did he do?”
“He stole money from him.”
Her fingers jerk away from my arm. “Stole?”
“In the trust fund file, Bastian noticed there were two wire transfers made out to Marianne Shafir to help cover her medical bills. Apparently, she had cancer.” My gaze strays to the gray façade of the Beaux-Arts building where her scroll hangs. I can just see the corner of framed vellum through one of the windows.
“Really? Geez. I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t either, so I asked Nolwenn about it.” My gaze is pulled farther, to Maman’s terracotta war god enclosed in the glass veranda that juts out of the art center like a translucent bug eye.
“And?”
“And Nolwenn asked where I’d picked up that heinous information. She said Marianne didn’t have cancer.” My nose prickles. “Papa lied, Alma.”
“Maybe she needed money for an embarrassing reason.”
“Like what?”
“A full-body lift? She was getting pretty saggy by the end.”
“Alma!”
“What? It’s true.”
“You think she did a hundred thousand euros worth of plastic surgery?”
She bites her lip, then releases it. “Probably not. She looked pretty saggy on her deathbed, too. But I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation.” Alma’s devotion to my father blinds her to any faults he might have. Papa could kill someone, and my friend would find him a valid excuse. “Actually, you know what?”
“No. What?”
“Maybe he lent her the money to have herself committed. Do you remember how loopy she acted at Camille’s funeral, when Geoffrey insisted his wife didn’t commit suicide and said she was murdered? Marianne started laughing hysterically. The police chief had to physically remove her from the cemetery.”
A bone-deep shudder shoots up my legs. “I remember that. I also remember Adrien holding his father.”
It had been the single-most devastating spectacle of my life—a son holding up his father, trying to soothe his despair. It was the only time where I’d felt something other than revulsion for Geoffrey Keene. Perhaps he’d loved my mother, but he’d also loved his wife.
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