But while she glows, Damen does the opposite. His normal y tal , lean form appears to darken and shrink until he’s barely a shel of himself.
“Damen Augustus Notte Esposito,” she says. “Why do you deny me?”
I watch, startled to see him so flustered he’s unable to respond, unable to find his own voice, much less fight his way out of whatever it is that she shows him. Just about to intervene when he shakes his head, straightens his spine, and yanks himself right out of her spel , pul ing himself together enough to say, “You’re crazy. You’re wrong and you’re crazy. And while I have no idea what your deal is or what you’re trying to do here, I do know you better stay away from Ever. Far, far away, do you hear? Otherwise, I can’t be held responsible for what happens to you, regardless of how old you claim to be.”
But if he expected her to back off or run away scared, wel , he must’ve been just as surprised as I was to see her smile instead. The two of us watching her face brighten, her cheeks widen, her lips spreading and lifting enough to display a startling array of teeth—
startling in that a good deal of them are either graying, yel owing, or entirely missing.
Her attention shifting as she moves from him to me, taking my hand in her soft papery dry one, her words confident and sure when she says, “His love is the key.”
I look at her, release myself from her grip. “I thought you said Adelina was the key?”
“It is one and the same.” She nods, as if that made any sense. “Please. Please consider the journey. It is the only way to release me.
To release you as wel .”
“The journey back—back to the beginning?” I say, sarcasm blooming. “And just where does this journey start? Where does it end?” I look at her, noticing how she stil appears lit from within.
“The journey begins here.”
She points down at our feet, or maybe the mud, I can’t be too sure. I’m more confused now than I was when this started. But when our eyes meet again, I know the instruction is literal—the journey begins in the very muck where we stand.
“And it ends in the truth.”
And before I can say another word, before I can beg for a little more clarification, Damen swings his arm around my waist and pul s me away.
Hurling the words over his shoulder, not bothering to look back when he says, “No one’s going anywhere. Don’t bother us again.”
nine
“So what do you make of it?” Ava swings her wavy auburn locks over her shoulder and levels her brown eyes on me, lowering herself onto one of the old plastic fold-up chairs Jude dragged into his office in an attempt to accommodate us al in this impromptu meeting.
“What do you think it al means?”
I venture a glance toward Damen, who, having refused a chair, chooses to lean against the wal , arms crossed before him, face bearing a look that reads loud and clear: I thought we were through with this? I thought I warned her to stay away? I thought you said you were merely planning to swing by, pick up a book or two, and be on your way?
Meeting it with one of my own that says: You promised me a week and I’m holding you to it—unless, of course, you want to tell me what the old woman showed you?
He frowns, looks away, just as I figured he would, so I turn away from him in favor of Ava.
“I have no idea what it means,” I admit, doing my best to pretend I didn’t just hear Damen sigh even though that was clearly his intent.
Jude glances between us, his gaze cautious, correctly sensing there’s trouble in paradise and wanting nothing more than to steer clear of it. Stil , since he also promised to help, he takes his place behind his desk, tilts his chair way back, and pretends to be lost in deep thought as he stares into space, when real y, he’s just dreaming of being some other place. Summerland would be my best gue
ss.
“So, she thinks you’re Adelina, or that you were Adelina, or … whatever…” Miles frowns, tapping his pen against the pages of the leather-bound journal I gave him before he left for Florence, busying himself with intense note taking, trying to make sense of it, while I busy myself with taking him in. Noting how his freshly cut hair makes him appear a lot more like the old Miles again, the one who so wil ingly befriended me on my first day of school, though the baby fat he shed when he went to acting camp in Italy is clearly gone for good, transforming him from comfortably cute to, wel , real y, real y cute.
“Yeah.” I nod, stil not used to talking about this so openly, or at least not with him.
Even though he’s al caught up to speed, pretty much informed of al the more sordid details of our lives thanks to both Roman’s interference and the fact that he was there the night I kil ed Haven. Caught in her snare, eyes about to pop right out of his head, as she went about the business of trying to choke him to death.
By kil ing her, I saved him. And by doing so, I lost al hope of ever getting my hands on that antidote.
Stil , I’d do it again if I had to. He’s one of my very best friends, and he did absolutely nothing to deserve that from her.
“I have no idea who she is.” I frown. “Al I know is that the old lady cal s herself Lotus, and is convinced I’m Adelina.” The words mumbled in a way that makes it sound as though I was talking to myself.