“I think we're in the right place.” I was sure of it.
“How do you know?”
“Remember that Southern Star you were telling me about?” I pointed to the flag. “Think about it. If you followed the star the whole way here, the star on the flag is exactly what you would be looking for. Some kind of sign you're at the right spot.”
“Of course. The seven-pointed star.” She examined the flag, touching the fabric as if she was allowing herself to believe it for the very first time.
There wasn't time for that. I knew we had to keep moving. “So what are we even looking for? Land? Or something man-made?”
“You mean this isn't it?” Link looked disappointed and shoved his garden shears back into his belt.
“I think we still have to cross over the water. It makes sense, really. Like crossing the river Styx to get to Hades.” Liv flattened the map against her palm. “According to the map, we're looking for some kind of connector that will take us across the water to the Great Barrier itself. Like a sandbar or a bridge.” She held the vellum over the map, and we all looked.
Link took them out of her hands. “Yeah, I see it. Kinda cool.” He flipped the vellum up and down across the map. “Now you see it, now you don't.” He dropped the map, and it fluttered into a mess of pages on the sand.
Liv bent to pick it up. “Careful with that! Are you completely mental?”
“You mean, like a genius?” Sometimes there was no point in Link and Liv talking at all. Liv pocketed Aunt Prue's map, and we started walking again.
Ridley picked up Lucille Ball. She hadn't said much since we left the Tunnels. Maybe now that she had been declawed, she preferred Lucille's company. Or maybe she was scared. She probably knew better than the rest of us the dangers that lay ahead.
I could feel the Arclight burning in my pocket. My heart began to pound, and my head began to spin.
What was it doing to me? Since we crossed over into the no man's land the map called Loca silentia, the light had stopped illuminating our path and started illuminating the past. Macon's past. It had become a conduit for the visions, a direct line I couldn't control. The visions were coming intermittently, interrupting the present with fragmented bits and pieces of Macon's past.
An old palmetto frond snapped loudly under one of Ridley's shoes. Then something else, and I felt myself slipping away —
Macon could feel it immediately when his shoulder snapped — the intense pain of his bones cracking. His skin tightened, as if it could no longer hold whatever was lurking inside him. The breath was sucked from his lungs, like he was being crushed. His vision began to blur, and he had the sensation he was falling, even though he could feel the rocks tearing at his flesh as his body seized on the ground.
The Transformation.
From this moment forth, he would not be able to walk among Mortals in the daylight. The sun would singe the flesh from his body. He wouldn't be able to ignore the urge to feed on the blood of Mortals. He was one of them now — another Blood Incubus in the long line of killers on the Ravenwood Family Tree. A predator walking among his prey, waiting to feed.
I was back again, as suddenly as I had gone.
I stumbled toward Liv, my head reeling. “We've got to get going. Things are getting out of control.”
“What things?”
“The Arclight — the things in my head,” I said, unable to explain it any better than that.
She nodded. “I thought it might get bad for you. I wasn't sure if a Wayward would react more strongly to an intensely powerful place, being as sensitive to the pull of certain Casters as you are. I mean, if you really are …” If I really was a Wayward. She didn't have to say it.
“So you're saying you finally believe the Great Barrier is real?”
“No. Unless …” She pointed out past the farthest dock on the horizon, where the skinniest, most splintered dock extended past the others, so far that we couldn't see where it ended, except that it disappeared into fog. “That could be the bridge we're looking for.”
“Not much of a bridge.” Link looked skeptical.
“Only one way to find out.” I walked ahead of them.
As we picked our way across rotting boards and oyster shells, I found myself slipping over and over. I was there, and I wasn't. In and out. One minute, I could hear Ridley's and Link's voices echoing as they bickered. The next, the fog blurred around the edges, and I was pulled back into visions of Macon's past. I knew there was something I was supposed to gain from the visions, but they were coming so quickly now it was impossible to figure out.
I thought about Amma. She would have said, “Everythin’ means somethin’.” I tried to imagine what she would have said next.