Chapter 53
THE SPILLING OF BLOOD
Beyond the estate gates, Foggy Hollow celebrates Halloween.
Porch lights glow. Witches, pirates, superheroes, and princesses dart through yards, their bags fat with candy.
Teens laugh and scream their way through the Wraith Walk before gathering in the cemetery for a costume party.
It’s my favorite holiday of the year, and tonight, it feels like a different world, something completely removed as I enter the music room where the rift floats like a scorch mark in midair.
Rafe waits in the dark, a rigid silhouette cut from shadow.
I take a step toward him. “Is Jude—?”
“Alive? Why, yes.” He sets his hands on the armrests of the chair, pushes himself upright, and steps into the halo of light from the corridor.
For once, he doesn’t look flippant or casual.
There are deep shadows beneath his eyes, and an unmistakable tightness in his jaw. “Are you really willing to do this?”
By this, he means helping him open the tomb.
He has no idea what I’m willing to do afterward.
All day, I’ve been gathering my resolve, summoning my courage.
Despite all the planning and conniving I’ve done with Twig, I know there’s only one way to break this curse.
“We can’t get her to undo anything if she’s trapped in the tomb. ”
He looks me up and down as though measuring my commitment.
Finally, with an unimpressed lift of his brow, he reaches inside his coat and removes his phone.
He taps out a message and hits send, then returns the device to his pocket and draws out the ruby.
It glows softly. I swear, I can hear the faint, familiar sound of Lainey’s weeping—a distraught melody seeping from the amulet.
Rafe lifts it into the air, then draws it downward along the rift’s seam.
The room hums. Deep and low, vibrating through my chest like a tuning fork pressed to bone. Lainey’s weeping grows louder. And like a fresh wound all-too easily opened, a sliver of spectral light cuts through the scorch mark.
It splits open and stretches wide.
Rafe peers at me over his shoulder, then holds out his hand. With a shaky breath, I take it. And together, we step through. Into the cold. Into the dark. Into the swirling void of two worlds twisted together, coiling in and out of sync.
Removing my hand from his, I pull my coat tight and press my palm over the locket hidden beneath my shirt.
I match Rafe’s long stride. Determined to keep up, to stay close, like he is safety—a testament to my terror, and the awful memory of that sucking, tentacled beast that crawled out of the fountain.
“How do you know Jude will come?” I ask.
“He won’t ignore the message I sent him.”
I look at the black abyss overhead. The blaze of Dante’s comet is the only familiar thing.
Somehow, it is fully present in both realms, its white fire painting everything in sharp silver and deep shadow.
I stumble, then quickly recover. “The last time we tried finding our way in this place, we got lost.”
“Last time, he didn’t have the compass.”
“And the tomb?”
“What about it?”
“He’s supposed to willingly spill his blood.”
Rafe presses onward.
“Is it willing if he’s doing it under threat?”
“There will be no threat to his life.”
“Just mine.”
“So long as I don’t take his blood without his permission, or physically force his hand, the choice remains his.”
Thick, viscous fog sucks at my feet.
All around, shadows press in.
I try to swallow my fear. But it is a persistent thing, crawling right back up my throat again. Talking seems to keep it down the longest. And just maybe, if I say the right thing, I won’t have to fight two demons tonight. “How do you know Seraphina wants out?”
He scoffs at the question.
“You said it yourself. Two hundred sixty-eight years is a long time. And for every second of it, she’s been with Dante. Forgive me, Rafe, but they read a bit like soul mates.”
Toxic ones, certainly.
But soul mates nonetheless.
He doesn’t take the bait.
I keep pressing. “Do you really think she’ll come out and the two of you will ride off into the sunset?”
He chuckles dryly, like my question is silly.
“She seduced you so she could reclaim her powers. Took advantage of your love to get the upper hand. From everything I’ve read, she never loved you back.”
He whirls on me, his eyes glinting. “You make a lot of assumptions, young Selah.”
I lift my chin. My assumptions are logical.
“What makes you think I want to ride into the sunset with her?”
His question throws me off balance.
“You assume because I loved her once, I love her still?”
“But … ” I blink a few times. “Don’t you?”
He huffs, a quick exhalation through his nose, then continues onward.
“Then why go to all this trouble?” I ask, following him once again.
“Did my dear brother happen to mention, in all his precious journaling, how Seraphina brought me back to life?”
My brow furrows.
No. He didn’t.
“My existence is tethered to hers. And for the past two hundred sixty-eight years, she has been sealed inside a cold, dark tomb. Not dead. But not exactly alive either. It’s a long time to exist in such a way.”
He’s not talking about her.
He’s talking about him.
“An immortal life in a dark and broken world is a cruel thing in any circumstance. But especially mine.”
“Your lives are connected,” I say.
His jaw clenches.
His fists, too.
He’s not freeing her out of love.
He’s freeing her so he can be free, too.
“Does that mean, if she dies …?”
“Are you getting fanciful ideas? You think if you kill her you can get rid of me? She is an angel. You wouldn’t stand the slightest chance.”
But he doesn’t know.
About the locket.
About the power within.
Power I can wield.
The ground softens beneath my foot like mossy sponge. My boot sinks. And I swear, something breathes on my neck. I twist around to look behind me, where shadows coil and crawl.
Rafe grabs my wrist and yanks me forward, this young-looking man who speaks of immortality like a punishment.
All day I’ve been drumming up bravery, fighting back despair.
Somehow, Rafe’s words, of all words, have bolstered my morale.
We all wish for more days in the end. More time.
But perhaps, in some paradoxical twist, the very fact that our days are numbered is what makes them so special.
The wrought iron gate of the cemetery rises before us. The Halloween party is in full swing—muffled laughter, distorted music, warped voices. Costumed teenagers flicker in and out of focus, smudges of motion weaving between gravestones, unaware that I am here, too. But a ghost.
We wind up the hill. Past the oldest graves. Toward the mausoleum at the top.
The tomb.
The arch.
The three symbols etched in stone.
They’re here in front of me, just like they were when the lightning flashed.
So is Twig, hiding exactly where he said he would be, crouched beside the twisted silhouette of a cracked obelisk. Inside my pocket, my thumb hovers over my phone screen, a message typed before I set foot inside the Vandenberg manor.
We’re here.
As Rafe carefully slots the pearl into place, I hit send and hold my breath, counting the seconds, wondering if the message will make it through. Rafe is slotting the ruby into place when it happens—a flicker of light blinks once. Just once.
Twig’s signal.
He got the message.
He knows I’m here.
And while his presence can do nothing to save me, it does everything to give me courage.
Somewhere behind the obelisk comes a faint mechanical click, followed by a soft whir.
One of Twig’s devices kicking on. He’s planted them all over this part of the graveyard.
Not just one weapon, but a supernatural minefield.
A patchwork of sensors, coils, and pulse rigs wired with hope and just enough recklessness to make them dangerous.
Then another sound comes.
Someone is calling my name.
Rafe fits the onyx into place.
Something ancient stirs beneath our feet as Jude breaks through the fog, the compass clutched in his hand, his chest heaving.
His eyes lock onto mine.
But he’s too late.
Rafe grabs me around the waist and cold, sharp steel presses against my throat.
“Move any closer,” Rafe says, as casual as a Sunday stroll, “and she dies.”
Jude freezes.
“Please,” I whisper, grasping Rafe’s forearm in an attempt to create more space between my neck and his blade. But I’m not sure who I’m begging, or what I’m begging for.
For Jude to cooperate?
For Rafe to let me go?
For the curse to relent?
For fate to reconsider?
I want a different ending. But time has reached its end. Above us, the comet burns brighter. A flare across the heavens. Party-goers let out shouts of awe. They light sparklers and snap selfies and lift lanterns, oblivious to the nightmare unfolding.
All of them except Twig.
Jude picks up a rock. He brings the jagged end across his palm in one decisive swipe. Blood pools in his hand. I hold my breath as he takes a step forward, tips his palm to the stone, and lets the crimson spill.