Chapter Thirty
When we returned to the gala, Jace immediately moved to Owen’s side, looking nothing like the man I’d come to know. His gaze was sharp, his jaw set. He glanced at the black veins running over my chest and arms but said nothing. Shae raised her eyebrows, but I mouthed later and she nodded.
“Something’s wrong,” Jace said, gesturing toward the crowded gallery.
I drew in a sharp breath. A ghostly fog seeped from the walls and rolled low and heavy toward us, swallowing the floor.
Gasping in awe and delight, the guests clearly thought a smoke machine was responsible for adding an air of mystery to the museum’s event.
Were these wraiths? This felt different from when they had attacked us in the past.
“You can’t fight them here,” Jace said, his voice low. “We’ll have a mass panic on our hands. Police will get involved. There could be casualties. Injuries, for sure.”
“Follow me,” Owen said, his voice tight. He still held his sword, obviously no longer caring what people might think. “We need to draw them away. Get somewhere quiet.”
Owen took my hand and Jace put his arm around Shae as we left the gala guests behind and, once we were out of sight, ran through a darkened section of the museum.
The mist followed, rolling along the floor and curling around corners, but it never overtook us, and no wraiths materialized. Why weren’t they attacking? The waiting and wondering were almost worse than an actual fight.
Thanks to their earlier reconnaissance work, Owen and Jace knew exactly how to get to the loading dock. Night air gusted across my face as Owen opened the doors. Our car was just around the corner.
“Stop!”
We spun around to find Sylvia standing at the end of the hallway, the mist twisting around her legs. Owen moved in front of us, his sword raised.
“Go home, Sylvia,” I said. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Oh, but it does,” she cackled, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “You still don’t get it, do you, child? I made a bargain.”
My throat turned dry, and I had to swallow twice before I could speak. “What bargain?”
“When you touched the third stone, she was finally able to enter our world. Now she’s here. She needs you,” Sylvia said in a singsong voice, her eyes filled with greed as they fell upon the sword. “That sword will do nothing to stop her, but it will fetch me a tidy sum once I finally acquire it.”
I could only focus on her earlier words. “Who needs me? For what?”
But Sylvia ignored me, her eyes wild. Jace and Shae pressed in on either side of me.
“I tried to get my hands on Marion’s book for decades.
One day late last year, I finally got my chance.
Marion felt ill that day and left her emeritus office at the university early, forgetting the book.
I broke in and tore out what I needed; it was too risky then to steal it.
Marion was so distracted by her declining health that I don’t think she even noticed the missing pages—which told me how to summon Aed. ”
Oh, shit.
“But the page you ripped out didn’t mention anything about how to summon Aed—”
“We tore two pages from the book. Todd only gave you one.”
“But when…” I struggled to make sense of it all. “And why?”
“Todd and I first contacted Aed last fall, and she gave us the ability to find you. She wanted to meet you. She’s been trapped on the Root Path for a long time and was losing hope you would ever arrive to free her.
We promised Aed we’d bring you to her on the Root Path, in exchange for riches beyond imagining and the academic fame Todd has always deserved.
We were about to tell you everything and start your training, but my idiot grandson cheated and you left. ”
It all clicked into place. Why Todd had pursued me so aggressively from the beginning. How Sylvia wielded magic. Why they had wanted the book.
“Aed couldn’t leave the Root Path until you touched the third stone, which is why she needed Todd and me to help her.
Now that she’s here, she grows stronger every minute, but she’ll need to use our bodies for a little while yet.
On the Root Path, she could control you with her mind.
But now that she’s in our world, she can control anyone we—”
Sylvia’s eyes rolled up as a ghostly white face appeared in the mist and slithered into her skin, making her back arch unnaturally. Her body twitched and then straightened, bearing a cold, unfamiliar smile.
“—touch,” Sylvia hissed. But it was no longer Sylvia.
Aed.
“Run!” Owen shouted, ripping the door open. We dashed through pelting rain toward our car. I headed for the front seat, but Owen yelled, “Back seat! Safer. Jace, you drive.”
It was close to midnight now, and the gala would end soon.
Some guests were already spilling out of the museum and heading to their cars.
I held my breath and gripped Shae’s hand in the back seat, expecting to see Aed/Sylvia pop out in front of us at any moment.
But Jace navigated us quickly to Bloor Street, and we sped away.
The glow of passing streetlamps illuminated Owen’s profile. His shoulders were tense, his jaw tight, as he and Jace spoke to each other in short, terse sentences.
“Fuck,” Owen swore, looking out his side mirror. “We’re being followed.”
“See it,” Jace replied, checking his own.
“Is it her?” I asked, fear twisting my stomach as I turned to look. The rain running down our windows made the city around us a blur of white headlights, red brake lights, and flickering neon signs.
“Dark sedan. Tinted windows. Stuck with us for the last five turns. Jace, do you have—”
“Sure do,” Jace replied, as he pulled a gun from the waistband of his pants. He handed it to Owen, who checked the chamber, his hands steady and practised, and then held the gun low and pointed toward his feet. The sword leaned against his leg.
Guns were involved now, too? Shit. What had we gotten ourselves into?
Jace sped up, our tires screeching as he took a sharp turn and nearly clipped a fire hydrant. Behind us, the dark sedan surged in pursuit, its engine’s roar rising over the blare of car horns.
Every time Jace slowed for a turn, however, the sedan gained on us until its front was just behind our bumper. On the next turn, it nudged us, and Jace fought to control the wheel.
A gun emerged from the passenger’s window and shot at our back window and tires.
“Get down!” Owen shouted, and Shae and I ducked as much as our seatbelts would allow, covering our heads.
Owen lowered his window and fired back at the sedan. His first shot cracked the sedan’s windshield, but it stayed tight on our tail, weaving through traffic with us like a shadow.
“Keep it steady, Jace!” Owen yelled.
“Trying,” Jace grunted, making another turn.
Jace weaved through narrow backstreets and open boulevards, sparks flying as our bumper scraped concrete curbs.
Another shot from the sedan shattered a nearby shop window.
I prayed no one got hurt. Trash bins flipped over and pedestrians dove for cover as both vehicles raced through a red light and the intersection erupted into chaos.
Sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer with each second.
We surged onto another street heading east toward the Don Valley. Another shot and our rear wheel exploded in a burst of rubber and sparks. We fishtailed violently, barely avoiding a collision with a delivery truck.
The sedan drew beside us on our left and made contact, the screeching of our cars scraping against each other harsh and grating. I looked past Shae and my heart stopped.
Todd pointed a gun at our heads while Sylvia drove, resolute and focused, beside him. They turned to us as one, their eyes wild, unnatural grins splitting their faces, both clearly under Aed’s control.
“Down!” Owen barked, and I ducked a second before bullets shattered our windows, covering us in glass.
Owen reached past Jace to shoot back, but before he could, Todd’s hand darted out and touched Jace’s shoulder through the now-open window.
“Kira, use your magic!” Shae screamed.
I reached for my power but was thrown to the side as Jace veered to the right, taking an off ramp. I looked up to see us barrelling toward a sign illuminated by our headlights: road closed.
Barricades and warning lights blocked off the underpass, but Jace didn’t hesitate as he blasted through, and wood splintered as the sign spun off into the dark.
“What are you doing?” I screamed at him, but in the rear-view mirror his eyes were blank. Aed had control of him now, too.
No. Not Jace.
Owen and I exchanged a panicked look as everything happened too fast.
Unfinished and riddled with construction debris, the road ahead dipped sharply. Rebar jutted from broken concrete. Floodlights cast swinging shadows across towering girders and skeletal shapes.
We skidded through gravel, narrowly missing an excavator.
A cement mixer loomed before us, too late to dodge.
We clipped it and metal sheared off in a screech as the side of our car sparked.
We kept sliding, tires barely gripping the muddy ground.
The sedan followed us over loose rock and splintered planks.
Todd fired again and hit our bumper and taillight.
We veered left, slamming through a stack of pallets.
I saw it then and stopped breathing.
Ahead of us, the road ended in a gaping drop-off, the construction incomplete. And beyond it lay the wide, black surface of the Don River, churning in the storm.
Suddenly I was twelve again and about to lose everyone I loved. My stomach lurched and bile rose in my throat as that terrible night played out in my mind.
We hit the broken edge at full speed. Then, airborne. For a second, we seemed suspended, headlights flaring in the dark, rain slicing across the windshield. Owen’s eyes met mine, his terror and helplessness reflecting my own.
Gravity took us, and we crashed into the river with a resounding splash. I closed my eyes against the rush of water, which never came.