Chapter 33
INTO THE CRYPT
Over the next week, Sienna and Emma remain missing.
Twig gets his cast off. My lacerations begin to heal.
Rafe tries to charm Lainey. And I do my very best to avoid Jude.
But on Tuesday, when we pass each other in the hall, his knuckle grazes mine and I nearly have a panic attack afterward in the bathroom.
I’ve kept a wide berth ever since.
We haven’t touched. We haven’t so much as spoken.
But my anxiety remains on high alert. Because no matter how much I ignore him, no matter how much distance I maintain, I can’t seem to stop myself from wanting him.
It’s become such a problem, I’ve taken to counting sheep in my head whenever my thoughts stray in his direction, which is almost always.
It hasn’t been good for my grades.
Being in the same orbit as Jude while not letting myself interact with Jude is a unique brand of torture.
And yet, I’m glad he’s coming to class. The thought of him withdrawing, secluding himself in that giant manor with only Isabel and Rafe for company squeezes my heart into pulp.
I encourage Twig to sit with him at lunch, then spend the period trying very hard not to look in his direction—terrified that if I do, if our eyes so much as meet and he sees my yearning, his mark will grow.
By the time Friday rolls around, I’m exhausted by the effort, and Rafe has given up on his attempted seduction. Lainey is obviously locked in on her mission, which doesn’t involve him. He decides we don’t need the key anyway.
We’re going to break in.
That evening, we descend into the dark, dank antechamber beneath the ruins of St. Fortuna’s. I stand away from the heavy door holding my flashlight steady as Rafe attempts to pick a lock that refuses to be picked.
“The mechanism is mounted behind the door plate,” he finally says, dusting off his hands and eying the door, which is set inside a stone arch inscribed with Latin.
That which is closed must remain closed.
Unbothered by the ominous warning, Rafe examines the iron plates mortared into the masonry.
“It’s damp down here, which means there’s moisture.
And when moisture meets iron and centuries of time, there’s bound to be rust and expansion. ”
“Okay,” I say, drawing out the word.
“The stone around the hinges will be compromised.”
“Which means what?”
He gives his eyebrows a little wag. “It’s time for some demolition.”
The next morning, we return with a crowbar, a sledgehammer, two torches, and a lighter. He lights the torches and slots them into the wall sconces on either side of the arch.
The plan?
Defeat the door’s mounting, not the door itself.
Rafe thinks with enough effort, we can break the hinges and tip the door forward.
I look at the arch, which seems to be pretty foundational to this antechamber in which we stand. “You’re not worried about a collapse?”
“Not enough to let it stop me.”
With that, he picks up the sledgehammer and begins pounding the stone around the hinges, sending up dust and debris.
The banging bouncing around the small chamber is so loud I plug my ears.
After a minute or so, he grabs the crowbar, wedges it between the door’s edge and the stone frame, and starts prying.
When nothing happens, he returns to his hammering. He keeps going until dust rains down upon our heads. When he’s done, he reclaims the crowbar and tells me to push.
I brace myself against the door and shove while he pries.
Still, nothing.
He resumes his pounding.
By now, he’s taken off his coat and rolled up his sleeves.
He tries a third time with the crowbar.
I throw my entire weight against the cast-iron barrier. I push and I push and I push. Until there is the tiniest fraction of give.
Excited, Rafe and I look at each other.
He pounds some more.
Then he pries while I shove, so hard I’m working up a sweat.
We don’t stop until a crackle splits through the chamber.
The upper hinge snaps. The door shifts forward at an awkward angle. Rafe pulls me back and we watch with bated breath as the bottom hinge follows suit. Metal screams against stone and the door slams to the ground, echoing violently through the antechamber.
A cloud of dust billows around us.
I cough and wave my hands and when it settles, the door lies on the stone floor.
Rafe takes one of the torches.
I take the other.
He steps over the fallen door and I follow him inside.
The crypt is exactly how Jude and I left it, with the portrait, the family tree, the once-locked tome from Evermore Books on the stone table at the far end.
Along with the scroll with the prophecy about Dante and Seraphina.
The photographs of Rafe from different decades. And several of Ezra’s journals.
Rafe bypasses the coffin in the center of the room. He slots his torch into one of the scones and stares at the portrait he had in his possession for so long.
Ezra’s Obsession.
A painting of me.
Completed in 1807.
“I should have known as soon as I saw you,” he says, “that your presence in this town, at this moment in time, was meaningful. I guess you’re right, Selah.” He looks at me, firelight dancing along his profile. “I do seem to underestimate you.”
He picks up the black and white photographs of himself—frozen in time, just as he is now. Then he thumbs through one of Ezra’s journals. “Of all my dear nephews, Jude is most like him.” He speaks quietly, like he’s talking more to himself than me.
Still, I can’t help but inquire, “Do you miss him?”
Rafe looks at me over his shoulder.
For a second, there is a flash of vulnerability—the tiniest hint of pain—like maybe he does. But then his expression goes cold and uncaring. “I miss tormenting him. But I suppose I got my fill with his descendants.”
“Is that what you plan to do—torment Jude?”
“I think you’re doing that just fine without my help.” With a biting smile, he takes the torch from my hand and turns to the coffin behind us. “What do we have here?”
I pull it open and there is the jewelry box, still inside.
I lift the domed lid, move aside the tray with the charred silver husk that was once Seraphina’s locket, and find them underneath.
I wasn’t sure if they would be here. I didn’t know if Lainey would leave them behind.
But they are here indeed—the onyx and the pearl—gleaming in the torchlight.
With trembling fingers, I reach inside the jewelry box to pick up the onyx, something I have done before. Not long ago, while sitting in the center of Jude’s bed, I held the onyx in my hand, as well as the pearl and the ruby. Nothing happened then. The stones seemed stripped of their powers.
But now?
Warmth spread through my palm and skitters up my wrist, all too reminiscent of the plant. Reflexively, I try to let go. But I can’t open my hand and my lacerations burn. I release a strangled cry as the onyx starts to glow.
Fear swirls with excitement, because this is it.
A rift will open.
I know it.
The stone vibrates—alive once again.
It’s as though my lacerations have reactivated it.
But the air neither hums nor crackles.
Instead, darkness oozes between my fingers.
With a yelp, I drop the stone.
It clatters to the floor.
I yank up my sleeve, unravel the bandage around my arm, and gasp. “Do you see this?” I ask, looking up at Rafe, who is standing too close not to see.
He trails his thumb alongside my glittering wounds, a featherlight touch that makes my breath catch.
His eyes meet mine. “These are from the plant?”
Swallowing thickly, I nod. Then I pull my arm from his and take a step back. With a shaky inhale, I toe the onyx warily with my boot.
“It responds to pressure,” Rafe says, picking it up. To prove his point, he gives it a squeeze and the shadow oozes again, sliding through his fingers in cords of vaporous smoke, reminding me of Halloween night, when those same cords slithered around my neck and squeezed.
I take another step back.
Rafe stops and the shadows disintegrate.
“What about this one?” I ask, nodding at the pearl. “Does it respond to pressure, too?”
“I don’t know what makes that one work,” he replies, looking—for the first time since his return—truly uncomfortable.
The power to reveal what is hidden.
I eye him curiously, wondering anew what he’s up to. Not for a single minute do I believe he’s helping me out of boredom. Given all the lies he has told, all the things he has hidden, it’s no surprise to see him more comfortable with darkness and shadow than truth and revelation.
I narrow my eyes—not at him, but the pearl.
I came here to see if either of these amulets might open a rift.
The onyx doesn’t.
Maybe the pearl will.
This time, I brace myself. And sure enough, as soon as I touch the stone, my lacerations burn and the torchlight flares. Orange flame erupts into mist and when the haze clears, I catch a glimpse of a vaguely familiar clock, its hands spinning wildly.
I don’t let the strange vision distract me. I clasp both hands around the pearl and bring it beneath my chin. Squeezing my eyes shut, I beg a rift to open.
Please, open.
The pearl goes cold.
My lacerations stop burning.
When I look, the firelight has returned to normal and Rafe is watching me. “I do hate to say I told you so.”
With a scowl, I square my shoulders, refusing to concede defeat. I might not have figured out how to open a rift, but that’s not all this crypt was good for. Surely there’s enough evidence down here to make a believer out of Kate.
I pull my phone from my pocket. With one tiny bar of reception, I text Twig.
Can you bring your sister to St. Fortuna’s?