Page 11 of Alchemy of Secrets

It was real.

Holland had been afraid to get her hopes up. But she hadn’t mentioned her father when she’d left her message, she’d just said she’d been left a box.

She could practically hear her father’s voice now, telling her, Good job, Hollybells, keep following the clues . Because this felt like a clue.

Holland wondered what her father could have left her. She hoped it was maybe the start of another treasure hunt. But even if it wasn’t, she’d be happy to have anything from her dad.

Holland needed to call her sister. She knew it was past midnight in Spain, and Mr. Vargas had warned her not to tell anyone about the box. But everyone knew the rules were that if you had a secret, you got to tell your person, and January was Holland’s person.

She pressed her sister’s name, but the call went straight to her all-too-familiar voicemail.

“Hey JJ, it’s me. Something has happened. I was just contacted by a bank. I think Dad left us something in a—”

Her phone rang halfway through the message. Jake’s name flashed across the screen. Finally. Holland wanted to answer. But this was the worst possible time. She sent Jake to voicemail with a text that said Can I call you later?

No , he replied immediately. The Watch Man called.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Jake called again. This time, Holland answered on the first ring.

“Tell me this is all a joke,” Jake demanded, before she could even say hello.

“What ha—”

“He called,” Jake cut in. “The Watch Man. He—” Jake stammered and swallowed loudly enough for Holland to hear through the phone. “He told me that I would die tonight. Unless—” Jake broke off. For a second, all Holland could hear was a ragged sound that might have been a sob.

Holland wanted to tell him it was going to be okay, that it couldn’t be real. But the message she’d just received from the bank made her feel that the Professor’s stories were more real than ever.

Then she thought about Adam Bishop. She heard his voice saying, I know you look up to her, but you really shouldn’t. That woman is a liar and a fraud. And suddenly Holland hoped he was right.

It physically hurt to imagine being so wrong about the Professor, to think that the Watch Man was a scam, which would mean the bank was definitely a scam as well, and there was no box from her father.

But if the Professor was everything Holland believed, then that meant Jake was going to die.

“What did the Watch Man tell you?” Holland asked.

“He said that I would die at 6:47 p.m. unless—” Jake cut off again. Then, so soft she almost didn’t hear it over the laughter and the footsteps and the tourists talking too loudly in the lobby below: “I can’t do what he says, Holland.”

“What does he want you to do?”

“I don’t want to say. I just—I don’t want to be alone right now. Can you come over?”

“I…” Holland trailed off. Something in Jake’s voice made her nervous. But what kind of person said no to someone’s dying wish? No —she corrected herself. Jake wasn’t going to die tonight. Only, Holland wasn’t sure she actually believed that.

All she knew was that she’d had a bad feeling since she’d stepped into the Roosevelt, and she wondered if this was why.

“Please,” Jake begged softly. “I only filled out that paper last night because I was trying to impress you.”

Holland felt a stab of guilt. He was right about this basically being her fault, and if the situation was reversed, she wouldn’t want to be alone, either. “All right,” she said. “Just tell me where you are.”

Her phone pinged with a text showing an apartment complex address that was ten minutes away. “Hurry,” Jake said. “If this guy is right, I only have about an hour left.”

Holland jogged down the stairs back to the lobby. She might have gone without saying a proper goodbye, but she’d left her messenger bag at the table, and she knew her friends would worry if she just abandoned them.

“Please tell me you bought that man a drink before running away like Cinderella,” said Cat as soon as Holland approached.

“What are you talking about?” Holland asked.

Cat slyly inclined her head toward the mezzanine.

When Holland had been upstairs, the mezzanine level had been empty. But someone was there now. Standing in the grainy hotel light, leaning against the low wall, was a man in a white dinner jacket with an undone bow tie hanging around his neck.

Holland knew the stories about the different spirits who haunted the hotel, including a man in a white tuxedo. But the man she saw now wasn’t wearing a full-on tux. He also looked real, and just like Adam Bishop.

Something like ice crept up her spine. What the hell was going on?

Had Adam followed her? But on second glance, it was clear he wasn’t actually Adam.

There was definitely a resemblance, but this guy looked a little older, harder, and colder.

His skin was a little lighter and his hair was a little darker.

He was the looking-glass version of Adam.

Immediately, the stranger turned his head. His eyes locked onto Holland’s and the atmosphere charged, as if a bolt of electricity had escaped its bulb and now crackled through the air.

He didn’t stare at her the way a stranger might. This look was intimate. As if he knew her, as if he’d known her for a very long time. But Holland would have remembered a face like his.

Cat whistled through her teeth. “If you didn’t buy that man a drink, then I will.”

“No—” Holland said, although it came out a little like a shout. And for a second, she couldn’t say why. Earlier that night all she’d wanted to do was buy a stranger a drink, to prove the devil was real. And this guy definitely seemed as if he could fit the job description.

But for the first time in Holland’s life, she didn’t feel as if following the clues was a good idea. She thought about Adam’s earlier warning: The Professor is very convincing. But I think chasing after any of her stories is a very dangerous idea.

If Jake’s call wasn’t proof of this, Holland didn’t know what was.

Both Cat and Eileen stared at her with slightly bewildered expressions. “What’s wrong?” they asked at the same time.

“Don’t buy him a drink,” Holland said.

“Don’t buy who a drink?” asked Eileen.

“The white dinner jacket guy on the mezzanine.”

Cat’s eyes lit up. “What white dinner jacket guy?”

“The one we were just talking about!” Holland turned and pointed, but he was already gone.

Holland felt it then.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Her nose was bleeding. Again.

“Holland, are you all right?” Eileen quickly handed her a napkin.

Holland brought the cloth to her face, dizzy.

Although she didn’t know if she was dizzy from the blood or because she was seeing and hearing things that no one else was.

This was her second nosebleed today. She almost never got them, so she wasn’t an expert, but she didn’t think they usually came with a side of hallucinations.

“Sweetie, why don’t you sit down,” said Cat.

“I can’t.” Holland swiped her nose once more with the napkin. Thankfully it wasn’t much blood. She was still feeling wobbly, but she tried to act as if she was fine for her friends. “I hate this, but I actually have to run. I’m so sorry—I love you both.”

Her friends both said they loved her too.

“And don’t forget about the party tomorrow!” Cat held up one of the flyers on the table for the Hollywood Roosevelt’s Halloween Ball. “If you need a costume, I can still hook you up—and I can get one for Clark Kent, too, if he comes to his senses!”

Holland tried to smile at her friend’s eternal optimism. Then she spun around and immediately crashed into something solid.

“Whoa, Holly—” Chance put one of his hands on each of her shoulders.

“Please tell me you’re not running away from me.

” He flashed his irresistible smile. And Holland knew he wasn’t even trying to dazzle her.

Chance was one of those very lucky child actors who grew up to be an even more beautiful adult.

“I’d never run from you,” Holland said. Normally she would add a teasing line about how she knew he was the one who liked to be chased. But she didn’t have it in her tonight.

Chance twisted his mouth. He might not have known her secrets, but he knew her well enough to know when something was wrong. “Is everything all right?”

I don’t know , she wanted to say. I feel like I made a mistake, or like I’m about to make a mistake . Then she thought again that if there was one person in her life who could possibly understand everything she was feeling and help make sense of what was going on, it would be Chance.

They had met after the class where the Professor had told everyone the myth about the devil and the sidecar. That night, in the parking lot, Holland had been talking to a small group about checking out various hotel bars, and suddenly Chance Garcia was there.

Can I join? he’d asked, and then he’d smiled as if he were just the boy next door—if the boy next door was a former child actor, with a face that had never stopped being cute. He had dimples, big eyes, and a smile made of pure charm.

Holland remembered being skeptical at first.

Sammy Sanchez had been her childhood crush, but this wasn’t Sammy Sanchez, she’d told herself.

That was just the role Chance had played on television.

Chance wasn’t an orphan with a heart of gold and undying loyalty to his friends.

He was a former child actor with a very dark past. And yet, it was the dark past that had eventually drawn her toward him.

One night, after too many drinks at a hotel bar, after everyone else had left, Chance had confessed that he believed in all the Professor’s myths. His smile had vanished, his eyes had lost their spark, and she had seen that the demons that had ruined Chance’s childhood still haunted him.

Now Holland was almost tempted to tell him that the guy she was dating thought he was going to die in an hour because the Watch Man had given him a call.

But she feared that if she did tell Chance, he wasn’t going to let her leave. Even now, as he looked at the bloody napkin in her hand, she felt him gripping her shoulders tighter. “What happened?”

“Just a nosebleed.”

Her phone chimed with a text from Jake: Get here soon.

Chance’s eyes cut toward the screen. He dropped one hand from her shoulder, but for a second he kept the other one there.

“Chance, I need to go.”

“I know. But—” He squeezed her shoulder, and the last remnants of his dazzling smile disappeared. “Ever since I walked in here tonight, I’ve had a bad feeling. I don’t know what’s going on, but do me a favor and just be careful.”