Chapter 48
The lurch came again without warning. One moment there was nothing, no ground, no air, no sense of having a body at all, and then something grabbed hold of me from the inside and pulled hard, the darkness suddenly cracking wide open and spitting me out the other side.
My feet hit solid floor. Solid, uncharred, intact floor, and for a second that alone was enough to make my eyes sting with relief.
I staggered back, still gripping Trace’s hand on my left and Dominic’s on my right, and stood there blinking as the room assembled itself around us, materializing in pieces, the edges bleeding in first before the center finally filled.
The heavy mahogany desk. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining every wall, their spines dark and uniform in the low light.
The leather desk chair, cold and empty. The curtains drawn against the night.
Uncle Karl’s study.
It had been weeks, maybe months, since I’d last been in his office.
Everything looked exactly as I remembered it and yet nothing like it at the same time.
It was the same furniture, the same layout, the same smell of old books and wood polish, but the air in the room carried an emptiness to it that hadn’t been there before.
An absence so total it felt like it had texture.
The cold of a space that had held someone for decades and now held only the memory of them.
Trace released my hand and moved immediately to the study door, pressing his ear against the wood and listening as Dominic let go of my other hand and grimaced, rolling his jaw like he’d just bitten into something rotten.
“That,” he said, his entire expression broadcasting exactly what he thought of the experience of being flung through the void, “was deeply unpleasant.”
“Coast is clear,” said Trace, pulling back from the door. He looked at me. “You good?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said, grazing my fingers absentmindedly over the back of my neck. The talisman pulsed faintly beneath my skin, and I suppressed the shudder that followed it. It was definitely going to take some getting used to. “Does everyone know where they need to be?”
“My Alt’s still downstairs with Ben,” answered Trace and then ticked his chin over at Dominic. “Yours should be dropping off Isa at home.”
“I’m aware of where I was,” replied Dominic dryly, already moving toward the window and pulling the curtain back a half inch to look out at the driveway below. “I should be arriving back any minute now.”
“Perfect. You should probably get downstairs before you do,” I said, rubbing my nervous palms against my hips.
“You can go ahead and make contact as soon as you have the chance, but whatever you do, don’t engage my Alt.
At least not until she leaves the kitchen.
I need everything to go exactly as it’s supposed to before I corner her in my room. ”
Trace frowned. “You want to let it play out?”
He was referring to Alford’s ambush, no doubt.
“It has to,” I said, nodding into it. “We need them to believe they have us exactly where they want us for as long as possible. As far as the Order is concerned, their plan is still moving forward without a hitch. Once that’s done, I’ll make contact with my Alt and complete the transfer as soon as she comes upstairs,” I explained, doing my best to keep my voice level and then looked at Dominic.
“Which means you need to be back before then.”
“There’s still plenty of time,” he said, letting the curtain fall.
“And after the transfers?” asked Trace, his baritone dropping lower than usual. “What’s the actual plan?”
I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear as I turned back to him. “We’ll take the next step when we get there.”
He didn’t blink. “That’s it? That’s the whole plan?”
“For now, yeah.”
He crossed his arms as stormy blue eyes locked with mine. “We’re going after the Order. This isn’t something we should be playing by ear.”
“We aren’t. I promise, I’m not being lax about it,” I said, inclining my head as he stepped closer to me. “I’m being intentional.”
His brows furrowed. “So, you’re purposely going in blind without a plan?” he asked, skeptically.
“It’s the only way to make sure they don’t see us coming,” I said, looking between the two.
“Every time we locked something in, every time we had a plan, the Order’s been ready for it.
Because they can see us coming the second we make the decision.
We’ve played right into their hands every single time.
” The anger that rose in my chest at that was clean and clarifying, nothing frantic about it.
“So we’re not going to give them a chance to do that this time. At least not right away.”
Dominic tilted his head, his dark eyes glinting as he looked at me, the corner of his mouth twitching just enough to tell me the plan had his full attention.
“This time, we stay unpredictable,” I continued, standing a little straighter. “We don’t give them anything fixed to read. We move when we need to move and we decide how when we get there. They won’t see us coming because there isn’t anything to see yet.”
Trace held out for another second before the tension across his shoulders eased. “You’re going to give me gray hairs, but I think this might work.”
I smiled up at him. “Lucky for you, you don’t age.”
“It’ll work,” agreed Dominic as he pushed off the wall. “A fixed plan is a readable plan. This way the advantage stays ours.” He caught my gaze as he moved toward the door, something dark in his expression that was equal parts approval and anticipation. “I’ll be back before the transfer.”
“Don’t be late.”
He pulled the door open a crack and glanced back at me. “I wouldn’t dream of it, angel,” he said and then slipped out into the corridor without a sound.
Trace lingered with me in the study, seeing as our Alt’s were still preoccupied downstairs in the kitchen.
He looked at me for a long moment, something working behind his eyes that he didn’t bother dressing up.
“For what it’s worth,” he said finally, the smile reaching all the way up to his brilliant blue eyes, “I think you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a lot of people in my life.”
“I’m not brave,” I said, having a hard time meeting his eyes then.
“Yes, you are. The way you walk straight into the fire for the people you love, no matter the cost to you. You don’t even hesitate. I don’t know anyone else who could do that.”
“You do the same thing for me. I’m really not all that special.”
“The difference is I only do that for you.”
Something in my chest cracked open at that, warm and aching all at once.
“I feel bad dragging you into my fires with me. You shouldn’t have to carry the burden of my choices.”
“Hey.” He caught my jaw in one hand, tipping my face up. “I’m not here because I have to be. I’m here because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than beside you, Jemma. Whatever happens, this right here is worth it,” he said, gesturing to the two of us. “You’ll always be worth it.”
Tears pricked under my lids and I had to blink them back to stop myself from crying.
“You say the most unfair things sometimes, you know that?”
“Do I?” The corner of his mouth tipped up, setting off his right dimple.
I moved to smack his chest, but he grabbed my wrist and tugged me against his chest. Without saying a word, he leaned down and pressed his lips to mine, slow and hot, kissing me just long enough to make my chest warm.
When he pulled back, he looked down at me for a few seconds more, as if he wanted to memorize something, and then he was gone too, slipping out of the study and down the corridor to the staircase and the low murmur of voices rising from the floor below.
I watched him disappear down the stairs and then waited a few beats, letting myself breathe before I rolled my shoulders back, lifted my chin, and let everything he’d said rise to the surface and harden into something I could use.
Everything depended on this working, on completing the transfer with my Alt. Because if it didn’t, there was no going back from this. No fallback, no contingency, no version of this where I got to try again. And no saving Tessa, Gabriel, and Ares from what was coming.
This was our one and only chance, and I had to get it right.
* * *
I knew which floorboards to avoid and which corners of the house swallowed sound. I knew the layout of the Blackburn Estate the way I knew my own heartbeat, and I knew exactly how the next fifteen minutes were going to unfold downstairs, because I’d already lived them.
My past self was downstairs right now, sitting across from Ben while he made his case for why she couldn’t leave him behind.
She didn’t know yet what was coming for her tonight.
What was going to come for all of us before morning.
But she was going to stay down there and see it through, because that was what I had done, and I needed her to do the same.
Every word, every argument, every minute of it playing out exactly as it had before.
So that the Order and Alford would move ahead with their plan tonight, believing they already had us right where they wanted us.
Closing the study door behind myself, I tiptoed down the corridor until I reached my old bedroom without making a sound. The door was shut and the hallway empty, just as it was supposed to be. Turning the knob, I slipped inside and pressed myself into the shadow behind the door.
And I waited.
Downstairs, the voices continued. Ben’s softer cadence, Trace’s shorter responses, my own voice somewhere underneath it all, not yet knowing what was coming. I listened to the rhythm of it and said nothing and did nothing and let it play out exactly as it had to.
Then I heard the conversation shift. The scrape of a chair. Footsteps on the stairs, light and unhurried as my past-me made her way upstairs, resigned to what had been decided. Oblivious to the horrors that were going to besiege her when she finally closed her eyes tonight.