Chapter 21
CLAWS & TENDRILS
Irun past the Mercedes Benz parked along the circular drive.
A chauffeur sits behind the wheel. I can feel his eyes upon me as I race up the steps of the manor’s imposing entryway.
I’m just reaching for the knocker when the doors open.
Isabel is in motion on the other side, sliding her arm into the sleeve of her coat as she speaks over her shoulder.
“The committee meeting may run late.” She pulls her hair free.
“I trust I don’t need to repeat myself about the east wing—”
Isabel’s sentiment is cut short.
She lets out a strangled cry at the sight of me, out of breath on her portico in my dad’s oversized barn coat with frazzled hair and smudges of dirt on my face. She presses her hand against her chest, looking aghast.
“What in the world?” she says, shifting away.
“Is Jude home?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer.
I think she’s too appalled for words.
Thankfully, Mr. Denis Tulane steps into the entryway with his trademark bow. “Good evening, Miss Selah. Master Jude has retired to his room.”
I don’t wait for an invitation.
Urgency has overpowered decorum.
This is Jude’s house anyway, when it comes down to it. So what can Isabel do but move aside with a derisive huff as I let myself in and hurry up the staircase on the left.
His bedroom door is ajar.
I knock softly and poke my head inside.
A fire crackles in the hearth.
“Jude?” I call.
No answer.
I step over the threshold.
His bathroom light is on, the door wide open.
I say his name again.
Still no answer.
So, I take a few more steps and spot him standing in front of his bathroom mirror with his hands splayed atop his vanity. He has AirPods in his ears and he’s dressed in a pair of sweatpants.
Just sweatpants.
I swallow, my attention traveling up his bare back, from the clean taper of his waist to the broad expanse of his shoulders and every perfect line in between.
Then my attention shifts to the mirror, and alarm shoots through my extremities.
I squeeze my eyes shut, positive it’s a trick, a traumatic flash of memory.
But when I look again, it’s still there—that mark.
Spidery tendrils scorched into the skin over his heart. Just like they were when he was dead.
Our eyes meet in the mirror.
He turns around, a blush rising high in his cheeks as he covers the mark with one hand and takes out his AirPods with the other.
We stare at one another for a moment—the room tilting.
“What is that?” I finally ask.
“Nothing,” he says.
Perhaps it is this—such a blatant lie—that gets me moving again. I march into the bathroom and pull his hand away. The sight of it this close up knocks the wind right out of me.
“Selah,” he says.
I shake my head, brushing my fingers over the blackened tendrils—the same ones that appeared on Halloween night after Jude destroyed Seraphina and he died. I look up at him with my breath in my throat. “How long have these been here?”
“A few days.”
“A few days?” The vague nature of his response has my mind spinning out of control.
“You don’t have to worry,” he says. “I’m taking care of it.”
“How are you taking care of it?”
“I’m seeing some specialists.”
“Specialists?” I let my hand fall to my side. “What do they specialize in?”
“Supernatural ailments.”
“You found specialists in supernatural ailments?”
He nods.
“How?”
“I reached out to the retired professor from Ohio.”
“The curse expert.” He was texting her before he left for Seattle. He tried hiding it from me. At the time, I misunderstood. I thought he was worried about me. But he wasn’t worried about me. He was worried about this. And then, it hits me with astounding clarity. “Your grandfather isn’t sick.”
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.
“Do you even have a grandfather?”
“Selah…”
I take a step back, feeling nauseous. “Your roommate from boarding school wasn’t here in the states, either.”
My words seem to cause him physical pain.
Then I think of another set of words.
Mistress Bramble’s words at Dante’s tomb.
What has its claws in you, boy?
He acted like he didn’t know what she was talking about.
“How long have you been lying to me?”
“I haven’t been lying.”
“Yes, Jude. You have. It’s the textbook definition, in fact.”
He shoves his hands into his hair. “I just—with everything going on, I didn’t want to worry you. It’s a mark, Selah. That’s all. I don’t feel sick. My health is fine.”
I don’t believe him.
He’s been lying to me and his health doesn’t seem fine. Not if the shadows beneath his eyes have anything to say about it.
“It’s probably nothing but a cool battle scar,” he says.
I stare at the tendrils. Those horribly, wretched tendrils. “Battle scars don’t go away and then come back.”
“Supernatural ones might.” He smiles a broken smile.
“I shouldn’t have lied. I’m sorry for that.
But you don’t have to worry about this.” He steps toward me and takes my hand—my dirty hand—and stops.
He turns it over to find dried blood and a cut on my palm.
Then he looks at me, really looks at me, and the furrow in his brow deepens. “What happened to you?”
“I went into the well.”
His face goes a bit white. “You went into the well?”
“What did they say?” I ask.
He blinks. “Who?”
“These experts you’ve been seeing, in supernatural ailments. What do they think this is?”
“They aren’t sure. Every curse is unique and I left in a hurry.”
“Are you going back?”
“Once things are settled here, then yes, I’ll go back. Selah, why did you go into the well?”
“To get the key.”
He looks at me like I’m crazy. “Why would you do that?”
“Because, Jude, that’s where I dropped the key.
The key gets us into the crypt, and everything is in the crypt.
The portrait. Ezra’s journals. The photographs of Rafe.
If we showed these things to Kate and Harper, they’d believe us.
And they’d be safer for it.” I stare at the tendrils on his chest. Those terrible, awful tendrils.
“The ruby is down there, too. It made that mark go away. What if we were supposed to keep it? What if it was meant to be some sort of supernatural treatment plan? But the key is gone. I think somebody took it.”
“Selah, what are you talking about?”
“I couldn’t find it. It wasn’t down there. So when I came back up, I drove to St. Fortuna’s. Someone moved the stone slab. The crypt was locked, but someone was down there. What if they took the ruby? What if they’re using it against you? What if that’s why these marks are back?”
Jude takes my elbow and pulls me into a hug, staunching the flow of my escalating panic. But even in his arms, I don’t feel safe. Not with Mistress Bramble’s words echoing in my mind.
What has it’s claws in you, boy?
“I doubt anyone has the key,” he says, his voice a rumble in my ear.
“I’m sure you just missed it. It would be pretty hard to find at the bottom of a well.
And I feel fine, Selah. I promise you, I feel fine.
Once we resolve whatever is going on with Lainey, I’ll go back.
I’ll meet with the specialists until we figure this out. ”
“Mistress Bramble might know what to do. She comes from a long line of healers.”
Jude tips my face up to his. “It’s going to be okay.”
He runs his thumb along the ridge of my jaw, his eyes searching mine.
For belief.
For forgiveness.
While I’m usually quick to offer both, I don’t know if I believe him and I’m not sure I should forgive him. He’s been lying to me for two weeks.
But then, ever so slowly, as though testing the waters, he comes in for a kiss—so sweet and soft, my body aches. I slide my hand over his chest. His skin is warm. His heart beats firmly against my palm. And for the briefest second, I swear I feel the mark ripple.
I pull back.
He doesn’t seem to notice. He just brushes his lips along my earlobe and murmurs, “I’m going to get something to treat your cut.”
He grabs a hoodie off his bed and slides it over his head.
I watch him go with my heart in my throat and my stomach in my knees. Because I swear, those scorched tendrils over his heart just grew.