Chapter 18
Being back in the tomb, even in the safety of his mind, made Miles shiver.
Gray stone. The smell of must and damp earth. Light flickering as if from a flame. A sigil of a tree on the far wall.
There was a body on the stone floor. Gabriel. Gray eyes lifeless. A trickle of blood down the side of his face. A red pool under his head. A blood-smeared chunk of rock beside him. His pale hand outstretched, fingers reaching towards Miles.
Behind him was a lifted platform, a woman laid out on it. She turned her head and looked at him with eyes that blazed like twin suns, dark with determination and rage. Her face was tear-streaked, her hands curled into claws against the stone.
He tried to conjure the memory perfectly, down to every last painstaking detail. Even the ones that hurt.
Another presence joined him. Rosalie’s energy was surprisingly comforting for a spirit, like the gentle heat of sunshine warming him through his jacket, with a herby, rosemary scent. She smelled like summer days in his mom’s kitchen.
“Can you see Jocelyn?” He wasn’t sure if she could hear his thoughts, so he whispered them out loud, feeling more than a little silly.
“Yes.” Rosalie’s voice was thick with emotion. He couldn’t see her, since she wasn’t part of the memory, but her voice was clear in his head. “What is this place?”
“Where Gabriel’s going to die. Or me. We tried to figure out where it was, but we hit a dead end.”
“I’ve never been here. It’s not somewhere I know.”
“Yeah, that would’ve been too easy.”
Rosalie’s energy shifted closer to Gabriel’s body and her sorrow enveloped Miles, a twin to his own.
He couldn’t look at the body directly, the curl of pale fingers and the blood-slick shine on the floor making his stomach roll.
“Poor child,” Rosalie murmured. “Such a terrible, unimaginable cost for something so inconsequential.”
“I don’t get it either, hating your gift so much that you’d murder to change it.”
“Florence never understood the privilege of being a healer. The day my gift made itself known to me and I realized I could heal people’s pain, I thanked the universe with my whole heart.”
Jocelyn had mentioned many times in her journal that Rosalie and Florence shared the gift of healing, that she hoped they could connect over it. Having met Florence and experienced her charm firsthand, Miles could see why that hadn’t worked out.
“You never wished you had a different gift?”
“I’d be lying if I said never, and we’d both know it.”
Miles had been there more than once. It was normal. Killing because you were bitter about it, not so much.
“Can you sense the connection between me and Jocelyn? I don’t know if it’s been completely cut off.”
“It’s still here. Only a thin, fragile thread, but enough to follow.”
Before Miles could ask how exactly they were going to do that, his gut gave a swooping lurch, like he’d woken up from a dream of falling. The room revolved around him, colors smudging together in a nauseating blur.
When everything steadied, the room had shifted. Miles locked his shaking knees and took slow, measured breaths so he wouldn’t puke. With each exhale, the tomb sharpened, details focusing.
The space was bigger now than in his visions, rough pillars positioned throughout and broken chunks of rocky debris littered across the floor.
It was a strange mix of natural and man-made, the walls and floor uneven stone, as if the room had been chiseled into the side of a mountain, but the Hawthorne crest carved into the wall was precisely done, its lines clean.
It felt so real, so starkly different from his memory, that for a moment, he had the ridiculous thought that Rosalie had teleported them. But he could feel the cold metal bench beneath him; he was still in the locker room.
Whatever this was, it was more than a memory. He knew if he reached out and touched the wall, he’d feel the rough texture against his fingers; if he opened his mouth and spoke, the words would echo around the space.
Apprehension grew as he scanned the room again and realized there wasn’t a door.
“Rosalie?” Miles couldn’t see her anywhere, couldn’t feel her energy. She was gone.
It was just him and Jocelyn. Even Gabriel’s body had vanished, thank God.
Jocelyn looked the same as always, laid flat across the lifted stone platform, still as a corpse.
Her ebony hair was knotted around her shoulders, white nightgown down to her ankles.
The only thing out of place were the blood-red flowers sprawling across the wall behind her, a fierce splash of color.
Poppies, their petals lush and velvety, a bitter, almost burnt smoky smell radiating from them.
At first, Miles thought they’d been attached to the wall in a baffling decor choice, but as he drew nearer, he could see the stems were growing out of the stone.
He made himself turn back to Jocelyn. Now that he was looking for it, she didn’t seem like a typical ghost. She wasn’t hazy or translucent, which really should’ve been a glaring flaw in his assumption from the get-go.
If the magic of the curse really was keeping her alive, it hadn’t let her age past the day she’d been sacrificed.
She was like Snow White, preserved eternally on the cusp of death.
“Miles Warren.” Jocelyn’s voice made him jump, her eyes opening. “I was expecting you.”
“Oh. I guess you know Rosalie’s here too, then. Well, was here. I’m not sure where she went.”
Grief creased Jocelyn’s face, so visceral that Miles’s heart twinged. “She won’t be back. It’s not my time to see her again.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, as a tear streaked down her alabaster face to vanish into her hair.
He’d give her a moment if he could, but with Rosalie gone, he had no idea how long he had before he was yanked out.
“You probably know this too, but I’m here because Gabriel and I found the spell Florence used.
We know everything now: how the magic’s keeping you trapped here, that you’re bound to it, and that freeing you will end the curse. ”
She didn’t seem thrilled by the news. “Then why have you sought me out?”
“Uh, because we need you to tell us where you are so we can come get you? No offense, but we’re kinda ready to be done.”
“I have already told you. I cannot give you answers to guide your journey.”
“But…” They’d figured it out. Solved the mystery of the Hawthorne curse. “This could all be over tonight. I don’t think you understand, we have zero clue where you are and no leads. We’re not going to find you if you don’t help us.”
“My answer remains the same.”
Miles pressed his knuckles to his face, hard enough that black spots exploded across his vision.
“Then why even bother with the visions and warnings in the first place? I’ve jumped through every single hoop, done everything you asked—I found Gabriel, I kept the grimoire safe, I’m trying to save his life.
All I want is your help on this one thing.
” His words ricocheted around the room, too loud, too aggravated.
A petal fell from one of the poppies, swooping gently down to rest on the back of Jocelyn’s white hand like a bloody kiss.
“I know you’re angry,” she said. She studied the petal, twisting her wrist slightly so it drifted to the floor. “I don’t blame you. Contacting you was always part of this path, but assisting you here isn’t. I cannot risk sending you to an unknown end.”
“That’s bullshit. I’d rather take the risk of an unknown future than one that for sure ends in death. Why are you so determined to let fate call all the shots when we can change it?”
“What do you think it is that I’m trying to do?” she demanded, the first hint of spikiness in her voice. “I have called upon you to help me change this tragic future and prevent Gabriel Hawthorne’s death.”
“So you say, but you conveniently can’t tell me anything useful.
” Anger burned hot as a coal in his throat.
“You know what I think? You’re playing a bigger game here, toying with us.
You probably don’t give a shit about Gabriel.
This is all some sick, twisted, convoluted plan to help yourself, or see his family cursed forever after what your sister did to you. ”
Her expression shifted into something darker. “I would never lie about this.”
“But you can omit the truth however you want, right? Like the premonitions Gabriel’s having of my death… let me guess, you just forgot to mention that part?” An ugly, wet laugh escaped Miles. “What did you call me before? A noble knight? More like your sacrificial lamb.”
He didn’t realize how betrayed he’d felt until he voiced it out loud and saw her flinch. She’d known, and she hadn’t warned him.
It wasn’t fair. What a naive, childish thing to think, but it just wasn’t fair.
Jocelyn’s eyes fluttered closed. Miles hoped it was from shame. “I’m sorry. The future has so many paths. Ones where you save Gabriel. Ones where he dies. Ones where you save me. Ones where you die.”
“You should’ve told me.”
She sighed, the noise swallowed up by the hollow tomb. “I knew my own demise was coming, wrote the details of my visions down to try and decipher the clues so I could stop it. It did not matter. It did not help. All it did was make me more afraid. I wanted to spare you that.”
Well, excuse him if he wasn’t grateful she hadn’t bothered to warn him of his potential death.
“Help me stop the killer, then.” He didn’t care that he was begging. He’d get down on his knees if it made a difference. “Neither of us has to die. Tell me who it is. Is it Felicity? Is Gabriel’s mom going to do it?”
It was the first time he’d voiced his suspicions to anyone. He hated how rotten they tasted, how heavily they sat in the air. He wanted so badly to be wrong.
She didn’t answer. He’d known she wouldn’t.