Chapter 32
Candlelight flickered from deeper within the tomb, long wavering shadows cast along the floor and far wall. No one shouted, no footsteps raced towards them, so the door must’ve opened unnoticed, cloaked by the murky darkness. Miles could barely make out the ebb and flow of voices.
He was truly here. The moment he’d been dreading had come.
Gesturing for Emily and Bram to wait, he crept inside, far enough to peer around the stone pillar blocking his view of the room. He immediately found Gabriel—his white button-up was rumpled and creased, blood smeared from nose to chin. The sight was hauntingly familiar.
Behind Gabriel, laid out on the lifted platform, was Jocelyn. She was a phantom in her glowing white nightgown, glossy poppies sprouting from the wall around her. Several petals had fallen to rest on her breast like violent blotches of blood against the snowy fabric.
“—be so defiant.” Felicity’s frustrated voice floated over. “This could’ve gone so much easier if you’d simply done as you were told. This isn’t how I wanted to spend my night.”
“Which part, exactly?” Gabriel was too strained to land the cool nonchalance he was aiming for. He wasn’t tied up, but his posture radiated barely restrained tension. “The kidnapping or ritualistic sacrifice? I assumed this was an average Saturday night for you.”
Kidnapping? Did that mean Gabriel hadn’t come here of his own free will? That would explain why he looked like he’d been in a brawl.
Miles peered farther around the column, Felicity coming into view.
She was standing beside a waist-high chunk of stone, the top littered with candles, beads of wax pearled along the sides and dripping onto the floor.
Instead of one of her usual monochromatic pantsuits, she was wearing a calf-length gray dress with a subtle shimmer.
She’d put in effort, getting dressed up for her son’s murder.
Miles resented her so much that his mouth tasted like ash.
“I don’t know why you insist on acting like this is a joke,” Felicity was saying. “If you stop and simply do as you’re told, it will go a lot faster.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Gabriel responded bitterly. “That’s all you’ve ever cared about. Obedience to the point of brainwashing.”
Felicity scoffed. From the shadows shrouding the edges of the room, another person stepped into view.
Aunt Robin, the grimoire open in her hands. And behind her, huddled against the wall, their hands tied with what looked like one of their aunt’s silk scarves, were Amy and Jenna.
Shock sucker-punched Miles in the gut. Knocked every bit of air straight out of his body and turned his knees to jelly. He had to dig his nails into the stone of the pillar to keep from falling.
What was she doing here?
It didn’t make any sense. There had to be a mistake. A misunderstanding.
Miles forced himself to turn away, to sneak back to the doorway.
“What’s wrong?” Emily whispered. “Is Gabriel hurt?”
“He looks okay.” Bram visibly relaxed at Miles’s words. “But Amy and Jenna are here… with my aunt.”
“Robin?” Emily’s lips parted in shock. “What do you mean? Like, she brought them here? Is she working with Felicity?”
“I don’t know.” Miles’s mouth was dry, the words a rasp.
If she’d used his sisters as leverage, that would’ve gotten Gabriel here with a minimal fight—but pondering that possibility was too much right now.
“All I know is, she’s got the grimoire and Felicity doesn’t seem bothered.
Whatever’s going on, we need to get my sisters out of here. ”
Emily nodded. “What’s the plan?”
He explained where Jenna and Amy were, how Emily could sneak around to them if she kept to the shadows and hid behind pillars. Miles would create a distraction while she untied them and got them out.
Emily didn’t like it, but when she couldn’t think of anything better, she reluctantly agreed.
“What can Balthazar and I do?” Bram asked.
Miles shrugged off his backpack and placed it in front of the still-open door—hopefully, it would stop it if it tried to close. For all he knew, there was an equally confusing puzzle on this side, and they didn’t have time to stop and solve it in the middle of hauling ass out.
“I need you two to wait here. Keep the door open for us and watch our backs.” Miles handed Bram the heart-jar. “When Emily gets my sisters, I need you to help her navigate out of here. Can you do that?”
Bram nodded solemnly. “We won’t let anything happen to them. I promise.”
Miles squeezed his shoulder gratefully.
“I hope you have an escape plan for you and Gabriel,” Emily whispered so only he could hear. “I’m going to be pissed if I have to come back and save you two as well.”
He didn’t have a semblance of a plan beyond keeping everyone alive and trying to not get himself killed. The sight of Robin—and of Gabriel plucked straight out of his vision—had him so rattled that it was taking everything in him to step forward.
“Be careful,” was all he said in return.
Together, they made their way back into the room, staying low and moving slowly. Miles waited until Emily had vanished into the darkness blanketing the edges of the tomb, before standing and walking out into the open.
Gabriel saw him first, the blood draining straight out of his face.
Miles attempted a reassuring nod, then cleared his throat to get Felicity’s and Robin’s attention. They whirled around at the noise. “Uh, hey. Am I interrupting?”
Felicity glared, lip curled in disgust, as if he were a bug who’d dared to crawl into her line of sight. “I should’ve known you’d show up.”
It probably wasn’t a great sign that she didn’t look remotely worried.
Surprise, overtaken swiftly by guilt, flashed across Aunt Robin’s face. It was such an undeniable expression, someone doing something they know is wrong and not expecting to get caught. All Miles’s doubts collapsed, leaving a cavernous pit.
Behind her, his sisters clutched each other in terror. Amy mouthed his name, tears streaking down her face.
“I don’t understand,” Miles told his aunt hollowly.
Her fingers tightened around the grimoire. She refused to look at him.
“She’s here for the ritual.” Gabriel answered for her. “To bind herself to the magic, just as Florence did.”
Robin didn’t deny it. She didn’t say anything.
“But… why?” Miles needed it to make sense.
“You know how evil the grimoire is, you warned us yourself.” Emily emerged from the shadows on silent feet beside his sisters.
She put a finger to her lips as she started on Jenna’s ties.
“It won’t just affect you. You’ll curse our entire family—me, Charlee, the girls. ”
“I know you can’t see it, but this is for all of you. Trust me, it needs to be done.”
“You’re talking about the same magic that’s killing Charlee right this moment—”
“No, no, Charlee’s fine!” she interrupted, gesturing wildly at Felicity. “She’s all better. Felicity summoned the magic back and it worked. I called the hospital. Charlee’s awake and healed. They said it’s a miracle.”
“Call it a gesture of good faith,” Felicity remarked smoothly. “To solidify the newfound partnership between our families.”
That was the biggest load of bullshit Miles had ever heard. A nasty, cruel trick.
“So, what? You went through the trouble of healing her so she’ll just wish she’s dead when you curse her? It changes people, takes all their humanity and hollows them out until there’s nothing left. It’s evil, Aunt Robin. You know it is.”
Jenna was untied, helping Emily free Amy. Another minute, and they’d be gone. Safe.
Robin yanked erratically at the collar of her sweater, ripping one of the seams. “You don’t understand.
It doesn’t have to be evil. When it came to me two weeks ago, all it wanted was to show me how to bring Shaun back.
And then I saw a vision of the future: him, alive and in my arms, Charlee smiling with us. Our family was whole again.”
Two weeks ago. The night Miles had brought the grimoire home with him and sensed it reaching through his house before he’d gotten the containment box. It’d found his aunt that night, slithered under her skin and whispered its honeyed, poisonous words into her ear.
Gabriel caught his gaze, regret and remorse swirling in his eyes. They’d doomed Robin with such a stupid oversight.
“You were right, what you said in the hospital,” his aunt continued frantically. “Charlee needs me. And I need to do whatever it takes to save her. The future is going to be mine to make as I want.”
Miles wanted to cry. “It’s not real, you know it’s not. The grimoire’s manipulating you, influencing you. It has been this whole time. What about the sacrifice? You’re going to kill for this future?”
For the first time, uncertainty crossed her face. She turned, as if to glance over her shoulder before shame halted her.
Miles’s sisters weren’t there anymore, already scurrying away with Emily, but he understood. “Which one?” he demanded, blood thumping in his ears. “Or did you bring them both because you couldn’t choose?”
Gabriel made an angry noise.
“I didn’t know at first,” Robin admitted.
“I considered myself, so Charlee and her father could live a good life without me. A swap seemed fair. But then I had a vision.” Her gaze went distant, staring at a point over his head.
“Jenna’s gift will manifest less than a month from now.
She’ll be a seer, the same as me. Her life will be filled with misery and despair.
She’ll never know peace. It’s a terrible burden. I can free her from it.”
“By killing her.” Miles’s voice quivered. “You’re not even going to give her a chance.”
“She won’t be dead,” she countered quickly, like the negligible difference between dead and whatever Jocelyn was mattered. “She’ll be here, at peace, knowing she’s saving her family, and free from a life of hopelessness.”