Page 102

Both men scramble to their feet. The squeakier voice of the two answers. “Grab our coats. I’ll get the key to the jewels.”

I hear what put them on alert—Sionnach’s convincing English accent.

“I got a right good tip off, Mr. Vicars sir.”

Out the window, a pair of shadowed forms close in on the house but not fast enough. The would-be lovers head for the kitchen at the rear of the house. My coward’s brain warns me to lay low, but it’s our last night. I can’t lose this chance. I stand, blow the whistle, and run after the men attempting to steal the key.

“What in bloody hell?” shouts one of them, whirling to face me. He already holds the ornate key in his hand.

“Drop it,” I yell. Grabbing a low stool from the corner of the kitchen, I swing it at his head. The crack to his skull reverberates through my body. He drops to his knees with a scream as Sionnach and Vicars burst through the front door, lantern held high. The thief’s face crumples a split second before his body does. The key skids across the floor.

The door at the back of the kitchen hangs open. Sionnach, Vicars, and I glimpse the second man streak between buildings and disappear. The rumble of voices sounds from the street. Three policemen charge into the house.

Sionnach retrieves the abandoned key from under the table. He presses it into Vicars’s hand. “Hold tight to both keys in your keeping, friend. Trust no one, and you’ll save yourself.”

As bodies crowd the kitchen, Sionnach pulls me into the shadow of a doorway. The moment backs are to us, we slip through time.

As soon as we enter the Veil, searing heat burns my skin and hair. I scream, raising hands to shield my face.

Ambush.

“Run,” shouts Sionnach. Together, we tear down the narrow passageway of the Veil away from the raging purple-blue fire. He pushes me too roughly and I fly forward, unable to catch myself before rolling onto the carpet of faded turquoise orbs.

Behind Sionnach, a shadow steps through the flames. The figure of a priest stands tall and lanky like a grasshopper. Wind from the fire flaps his robe, raptor wings. Crackling noises deafen me as an ugly tear rips open the walls of the Veil. Through the breach, the full moon is close enough to blind, but it’s all wrong. Its usually bright white surface is a sickly yellow surrounded by fraying red rings.

Sionnach lifts me into his arms, and we plunge through the wall of sizzling heat.

I expect to roll onto the familiar grassy slope beneath the soulfall tower. Instead, a wave of spitting froth smacks me in the face. The weight of my Victorian clothing pulls me underwater. After fighting my way up, I swivel to avoid getting battered by the next white plume, but the river’s current jerks me forward. Familiar white moonlight pebbles across the surface of water. Substantial rocks embedded in the bottom of the river strike at my feet.

A break in the spray allows me a glimpse of an up-thrusting boulder ending in a familiar craggy point. I’m headed straight for the moss-covered tooth that lies in wait for souls at the bottom of the tower.

To my left, a slender finger of stone breaks through churning water. With a double arm stroke and a lucky push off the bottom, I’m close enough to wrap my arms around the pillar. Between my refuge and the riverbank, the trunk and branches of a fallen tree bob in the current. Its roots are embedded in the sheared-off face of a small rise at the water’s edge. Between stone and tree, the current relaxes slightly. I frantically kick toward shore and manage to crook an arm through a soggy fork of branch.

I search for Sionnach. He’s thrown his body across the rounded top of another boulder not far away. From the looks of him, it won’t be long before the river sucks him back in.

“Sionnach,” I holler, trying to be heard above rushing water.

He turns to my voice. The water between us is agitated and unwelcome, but he dives in. I twine the fingers of both hands as tightly as possible around the tree and stretch my body out into the river.

When his hands clamp around my ankle, our combined weight nearly causes me to lose my grip on the branch.

Sionnach grabs handholds of my dress and slides over the top of my body until we are sandwiched together in the cold sting of the river.

“Climb,” he shouts, and grabs my waist. Together, we slither along slimy wood onto a strip of mud. The roots of the tree provide a rudimentary ladder to the grassy slope below the soulfall tower. Crawling away from the river, we cough until breathing is bearable.

I clear my river-ravaged throat. “Did the monster follow us out?”

We scan riverbank, woods, and tower. I reach out to the Veil to try to sense the bastard. All that comes is a tiny current running up my arms and the faint smell of lemongrass and spearmint.

Sionnach is first to let his guard down and collapse onto his back. “The fucker’s not here,” he wheezes, but then sits when he catches sight of my face. He runs a finger under my cheekbone. “You’re burned.”

A stripe of black darkens his forehead. “You too.”

His hand probes tender skin.

I raise a tentative fingertip to my cheekbone and draw in air with a hiss. “Shit—stings.”

“Oh, my love,” he says and cradles me in his arms. We’re both drenched. We shiver and cling to one another, stealing a moment. The full moon sits in its proper place above a familiar tree line. Not far off, a creamy pearlescent oval reflects off wet grass. The room at the top of the soulfall tower glows. I steel myself for the wailing.