Maybe it was possible to love two people the same.
Another tremor goes through me. “Come to think of it, would you trust a crazy person to have themselves committed? You’d probably send the money straight to the psychiatric hospital . . .”
Alma frowns.
I wrap my arms around myself, feeling unbearably cold. And jumpy. God, I’m jumpy. My knees wobble so hard they almost buckle.
“Cadence . . . is it me, or is the ground shaking?”
My skin becomes as slick as the cobbled square around the Puits Fleuri the night it overflowed.
47
Slate
I’m used to seeing the clock bathed in colored light from the glass cupola. But under the fluorescent tubing, the monstrosity looks menacing, like a mechanical bomb from a steampunk horror movie. The ticking is just as sluggish as it was earlier, but it echoes through the space, its pace setting my teeth on edge. I can’t help but notice how close to the end of the lunar cycle that damn clock hand is.
I calm my nerves by reminding myself that Bastian, Cadence and Alma aren’t here. No matter what happens with the clock, at least those three will be safe.
We climb over the plexiglass guardrail. Gaëlle struggles a bit, the pocket of her coat catching on the edge of the barrier, but I can’t help her since touching her body is a direct conduit for the dark magic. Still, when she wobbles, I reflexively reach out.
“Don’t, Slate. I’ve got it.” She tugs on her coat.
We each take our place around the dihuner—Gaëlle at the top with Air, Adrien and I across from each other with Fire and Water.
Adrien unwraps his piece. Like good little students, Gaëlle and I follow suit. The Bloodstone lights up, and liquid fire shoots through my veins. I grit my teeth to avoid growling.
Gaëlle’s knuckles go white, like she’s strangling her piece. I wonder if she feels something, too.
“With your free hand, touch the symbol at the edge of the dial.” Adrien crouches and rests his fingers on the triangle representing fire. Like earlier, a red glow leaks from the symbol.
Gaëlle presses hers to the barred triangle in front of her and is immediately bathed in white light. She gasps in surprise.
My skin itches even before I touch the water symbol. I hesitate for a second, but then drive my hand down. Blue light ignites and outlines my arm.
The clock gears screech, and the recesses for the Quatrefoil leaves grind down.
Another rushed exhale escapes from Gaëlle’s parted lips. “Do we put them all in at the same time or separately?”
“I don’t know that it matters,” Adrien murmurs.
“I think we should do it together.” Gaëlle’s voice is thin.
Adrien nods. “On the count of three.”
Tick . . . tick . . .
“One . . .” he says. “Two . . .”
I swallow, ignoring how both the ring and the leaf feel like they’re charring through my flesh even though no flames engulf my palms.
“Three!”
Like a synchronized dance crew, Adrien, Gaëlle, and I each reach forward with our pieces. As the distance between them and the grooves decreases, a magnetic pull sets in, towing my fingers faster than I’d like. My leaf snaps into its cradle with an audible clank. Gaëlle’s and Adrien’s, too. The lowest leaf of the Quatrefoil—Earth—stays empty.
We all recoil, breathing as hard as when we faced our curses.
48
Cadence
My gaze lurches off the shifting snow and vaults toward the temple.
There’d been tremors the night Slate slid on the ring and jumpstarted the clock. Maybe that’s the source of the earthquake.
“Bastian?” I yell.
He turns in my direction but doesn’t move away from his post near the library’s entrance which he’s guarding like Cerberus.
“Get the door open! It’s the clock!”
“The clock?” Alma says at the same time, as he yells back, “What?”
“The door! Open the door!”
He jerks around and lunges for the handle, but before he can grab it, the ground gives a violent shudder, and his head smashes into the door. His body bounces backward and crumples.
“Oh mon Dieu!” Alma gasps, flying off toward him.
I’m tearing across the snow after her, when the sound of glass shattering followed by an inhuman roar pins my boots to the throbbing earth.
Papa said the ground shook when my mother’s piece showed up. In slow motion, I turn. My heart, which had been stampeding, holds perfectly still.
Shards of glass burst away from the Beaux-Arts veranda, glinting in the thin wash of moonlight before sinking into the thick carpet of snow.
It’s not the clock.
It’s my leaf.
49
Slate
The clock sputters, a whoosh of air followed by a metallic clang resounding behind the dials.
I jump back, my muscles cramping, my veins filling with acid heat. Makes sense considering I’m near three-fourths of the Quatrefoil.
The gears emit a scraping and winding sound, as the enamel swallows the golden leaves, and our elemental symbols blaze anew. Suddenly, the slow tick of the clock speeds up like it just snorted a shitload of cocaine.
“Watch out!” Adrien whips out his right arm like he’s wielding a magic wand and can protect me and Gaëlle from whatever chaos is brewing.
For a bunch of frenzied heartbeats, nothing new happens—the clock goes back to ticking an even pace while my insides keep spasming, as though my bones were becoming soft tissue. But then the ring flares, giving off more light than the symbols, and a distant rumble strikes the stone walls enclosing us.
The library begins to shake with the force of a Richter-scale-defying earthquake. Dust and books fall from the shelves like shrapnel. A cracking sound comes from the cupola. I look up and see fissures zippering along the glass.
“Look out!” I shout, hopping over the guardrail. I extend my hand to help them over, but it’s too late. The cupola shatters, blades of stained glass raining down.
Gaëlle and Adrien drop to their knees, curling into a fetal position with their hands cradled over the back of their heads.
Another shudder goes through the temple, disintegrates the guardrail, loosens the remaining pieces of the cupola that plummet like incisors. I lurch forward and yank Gaëlle’s arm, sliding her across the glass-littered tiles before she gets impaled.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Adrien yells, sprinting toward the door.
“Gaëlle, get up!” I shout over the din.
I see her mouth form words but don’t hear them over the splintering of bookshelves.
“Come on!”
I think she says, “I can’t.”
I’m about to remind her that she defeated a ghost, so she can do anything, when I notice the massive sliver of yellow glass poking out of her leg. Blood stains the denim black.
“Fuck!” I turn around and holler, “Adrien!”
Miraculously, he hears me and doubles back.
I pull off my scarf and knot it hard around her thigh. “Pull it out.”
Adrien winces but does as I ask. When blood squirts out along with the glass, his hairless head turns a sickening shade of yellow-green.
I scoop Gaëlle up and then scram for the exit, Adrien on my tail.
Another tremor rocks the building, tipping an oak bookcase. With a loud thud, it slams into the door, wedging it closed.
That was our way out.
50
Cadence
Maman’s terracotta war god releases a thunderous roar as he bursts through the broken glass wall and whirls, his dull eyes settling on me.
“What the hell’s that?” Alma screeches.
“That’s my piece,” I say but then whip my attention off Ares and look toward Alma who stands halfway between me and Bastian’s prostrate body. “You can see him?”
“Well, duh. He’s a behemoth, and he’s standi
ng right there!” She carves up the air with a jerky hand movement.
Yet, she hadn’t seen the dragon. Can she see my piece because it breathed life into something that already existed? Why am I wasting time pondering this? It’s a good thing she can see him. At least, she won’t run into him by mistake.
The statue takes a step and then another before stopping and letting out a cry so fierce the force of it rips out my hair tie.
“Alma, help Bastian, and get the others! And whatever you do, stay away from the statue, okay? Under no circumstance do you touch him. He’s only after me.”
When he steps in my direction again, which is also Alma’s direction, I take off sideways, leading him toward the Humanities building. As expected, he follows. For some reason, he doesn’t run, but he’s so inhumanly huge, that his strides are giant, and soon, he’s closing in on me.
Weapon. I need a weapon. I try the door but it’s locked.
When I look over my shoulder, Ares is right there, sword brandished, ready to pin me against the door like a butterfly.
I thought I’d felt fear before but apparently not. The icy claws tearing through my body are a brand-new sensation.
Ares’s arm flexes, and he plunges his terracotta sword forward, straight toward my head.
51
Slate
“It’s solid oak. There’s no way we can move it by ourselves.” Adrien uselessly shoves the bookshelf blocking the library door.
“What about a fire exit?” I venture.
He gazes across the room, where more thousand-pound bookshelves have fallen like dominoes. “This is a magical temple. There is no fire exit.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Thank fuck Cadence and Bastian and Alma aren’t here. Thank fuck they’re safe.
The room shudders, and books tumble down. The sharp corner of one knocks into my skull. Great. I was all out of head lumps.
Gaëlle sucks in a breath as a book lands on her leg.
“There should be a first-aid kit behind the reference desk,” Adrien tells me.
“And where is this reference desk?” I nod to the wreckage.
He weaves through the jungle of fallen bookshelves, smashed tables, and swinging light fixtures, then ducks, coming up with a zippered pack adorned with a red cross which he waves like a beacon.
I rip the soaking denim to expose the wound as he dashes back toward us. “We’ll fix you right up.”
“I’ve given birth,” she rasps. “This is like a bug bite.”
While Adrien goes to work squirting antiseptic ointment over Gaëlle’s leg, we get a moment of respite. A moment that stretches on and on.
The shaking’s stopped, yet the fire in my veins hasn’t quelled. I slide my phone from my pocket and dial Cadence before I remember her phone went the way of her silver jacket—up in flames.
Adrien starts wrapping a long bandage around Gaëlle’s leg as I dial Bastian.
It rings. And rings. And rings.
Come the fuck on! Pick up, little bro!
I hear fumbling and muffled swearing then finally, “Oh, my God!”
It’s not Bastian.
Dread pools in my belly. “Alma?”
“Slate! Oh, God.” Her voice wavers like she’s crying. “Bastian slipped and smacked his head. He’s out cold and—”
“What?” I roar.
Another tremor shakes me so violently my ribcage hurts. Or maybe it’s no tremor. Maybe it’s just me.
“And Cadence ran off after her statue.”
“After her what?” I shout.
“The statue her mom sculpted. She says it’s her piece. It came to life like a cursed Golem.”
“No! Fuck!” The words come out of me like a keening yowl.
Adrien and Gaëlle are now studying me, eyes narrowed.
My muscles cramp again, and the ring flares brighter. Oh, no. No, no, no. I should’ve known it was Cadence’s piece burning my blood. Not the goddamn clock.
I made her stay out there . . .
I want to shred something. I settle for a hard punch against wood that splits my knuckles.
All of this is my fault.
I should’ve kept her by my side. Instead . . . instead she’s out there, fighting alone.
“Bastian needs help and so does Cadence.” Alma’s voice gives me something to focus on besides my sharpening ire. “You guys, please help,” she whimpers.
“We fucking can’t!” I punch the bookcase again, leaving a smear of blood behind. “We’re fucking stuck in here. Call an ambulance for Bastian!”
“We don’t have ambulances in Brume. But I’ll call Sylvie—”
“Call the police. And the fire department. And the freaking Girl Scouts!”
“Okay, but Cadence said no one else can touch the piece.”
“I don’t fucking care!” I hang up and start scrolling through past calls to find Rainier’s number. Vaguely, I hear Gaëlle say my name, but I focus on the phone. My hand is shaking so hard I accidentally call my lawyer. Then Bastian’s number again.
I thought I was scared when I was fourteen and Vincent came at me with a knife. I thought I was scared when they hauled me into juvie and my cellmate tried to chew my fucking ear off. I thought I was scared when that groac’h had me in her talons. I thought I was scared when I let go of little Emilie’s hand.
“Slate?” All of a sudden, Adrien’s right beside me. He rips the phone from my hands. “What’s going on?”
“Call Rainier.” I shove the bookcase keeping me away from Cadence with every ounce of strength I have. It doesn’t even slide an inch.
“What do I tell him?”
I shoulder the solid oak again, drive my boots into the tiles, push.
“Slate? What do I tell Rainier?”
All those times I thought I was scared? They were nothing. Nothing compared to the terror that grips me now.
My eyes meet Adrien’s. His face blurs as I say, “Bastian’s knocked out and Cadence is fighting for her piece . . . alone.”
52
Cadence
I fall into a crouch, and the sword whispers above my head. It hits the door with a deafening thwack. And then pellets of something—splintered wood?—rain down on me. Before one can knock me out, I lurch away, ducking under Ares’s still raised arm.
My opponent howls his discontentment as I scramble upright and whirl around, backing away without taking my eyes off him. He turns, and though there is little light, I notice the blade of his sword is gone. What bombarded me wasn’t bits of wood but fragments of dry clay.
The man can crumble. This is how I defeat him! The realization injects vigor and hope where there was only fear and despair.
He takes a step in my direction, then another. I pray the others are on their way even though I need to fight like they aren’t coming. Make my own luck, as Slate told me the first night we met.
Would Ares charge me into another wall? Maybe. But would my organs survive being body-checked by a man made of hardened clay? Probably not.
No. I really do need a weapon. For a fleeting moment, as I prance backward, my gaze zooms onto the temple. The doors are still sealed shut, and although the crescent moon spits out the faintest trickle of light, I can see the outline of a body hunched over another.
My bones chafe against one another as fear wads up in my throat. Why aren’t they out? Why are the doors closed? If anything happened to them . . . I wheeze in a breath, tears stinging.
I can’t go there. I need to focus.
So I do.
On the growling warlord advancing toward me.
53
Slate
Please, God. Please.
I’ll do anything.
Fucking anything.
Stop thieving.
Stop swearing.
Give up drinking and madeleines.
Give up everything I own.
Go back to living off scraps and handouts.
Just keep Bastian and Cadence safe.
54
Cadence
Think, Cadence. Think. Where can you get a weapon? If the Humanities building and temple are locked, then so will—
The answer slams into me so hard I almost trip on my own feet. I twist around, recover my balance, and sprint toward the Beaux-Arts edifice, toward the shattered veranda. I only glance over my shoulder once my boots crunch on more than icy snow. I grab a shard of glass and hurl it at the giant who’s closing in on me.
He blocks the missile with his shield. The glass explodes against it without even leaving a dent.
Wood. I need wood. Or metal. Something harder than glass.
I look around the trampled snow, but nothing remotely useful jumps out at me.
And then Ares is three paces away. If I don’t haul ass, he’s going to crush me.
I spin and run, the blood pounding in time with my footfalls.
I know this building.
I know every nook and cranny.
Every object inside.
I know there’s something I’ll be able to use.
I hang tight to this confidence that’s keeping me from stopping and surrendering.
I will win this. Just like the others did.
I can do this.
The walls and columns swim in and out of focus as I streak past them. The art displays blur. The lines of text on Marianne’s scroll smudge into one long strip of ink. Slow footfalls ring out behind me, distant enough for me to slow my frantic race and glance backward. The warrior still doesn’t run. Maybe the impact of his boots against the ground would make him crumble. Whatever the reason for his unhurried pace, I am freaking thankful. I wouldn’t have stood a chance if he’d moved any quicker.
Of Wicked Blood: A Slow Burn Romantic Urban Fantasy (The Quatrefoil Chronicles Book 1) Page 38