Jean-Baptiste, Gaspard, and I stared at one another, speechless. Bran continued, “As my mother and I suspected might be the case, it turns out that I am the VictorSeer. The one guérisseur from my line who has been chosen to identify the Victor . . . your Champion.”
“But how do you know?” I asked, incredulous. “Just last week you told me you weren’t certain.”
“Ah, but it only just happened,” Bran said, smiling weakly and shifting his gaze to JB. “From the moment you took my hand yesterday—the head of the revenants touching the representative of my family of guérisseurs—your auras all changed in my eyes.”
“So that’s what happened,” JB said.
Bran nodded. “I felt the power possess me, and . . .” He hesitated, choosing his words carefully, “I know quite definitively that I am the one who will identify your savior. And this volant spirit that is with us is not the chosen one. I am sure of it.”
“But how—” Gaspard began to ask, but Bran cut him off.
“Don’t ask me how, my new friend. I have agreed to help you as much as I can, but there are some secrets I am bound to keep.”
There was radio silence in my mind as Vincent began talking directly to Gaspard. “Yes. I agree.” Gaspard nodded in response to something he said, and turned to Jean-Baptiste. “Vincent says that, if what the guérisseur says is true, we can’t let Violette discover her error. The more time she wastes attempting to achieve this fruitless task, the longer we stall her from bringing war to our doorstep.”
“But if we stall, won’t that put you in danger?” I asked Vincent. The more I saw her in action, the more afraid I was becoming of Violette.
Violette can’t do anything to hurt me, he responded reassuringly, but the way he said me inferred that Vincent wasn’t the only one at risk.
“If we do delay for the three-day period Violette has set, we might have a chance to find the true Champion, now that we have the man who can identify him,” JB said, nodding to Bran. “We could call together all of Paris’s revenants so that you can see if he is amongst us.”
“I will do what I can,” Bran said.
“I will tell Ambrose to arrange a meeting of Paris bardia immediately,” said Gaspard, and bustled out of the room.
“Vincent, does Violette actually hold enough power over you that she can force you to tell her what we are doing if she draws you back?” Jean-Baptiste asked. He listened for a moment and his eyes flicked to me, his expression dark. “She can’t compel him to do anything against his will,” he relayed. “However, as we suspected, she plans on using something dear to him to do the compelling for her.”
Jean-Baptiste was silent for a second, and then said, “I promise you, Vincent. For the next three days we will not let Kate out of our sight.”
TWELVE
THE DOOR SWUNG OPEN, AND JULES RUSHED INTO the room. “Just saw Gaspard,” he panted. “Is it true? Vincent’s back?” He listened for a second, and then practically threw himself on me, talking to Vincent while simultaneously squeezing my breath out. “Oh, man, am I glad we got you back.”
I squeaked, “Jules! Oxygen!”
“Sorry, Kate,” he said, releasing me. “I’m just happy to see both of you, and you’re the only one I can actually touch.”
I laughed as I smoothed my scrunched-up T-shirt. “That’s okay.”
Bran, Jean-Baptiste, and Gaspard began talking in earnest about the prophecy, the Champion, and what could be done once he was identified. Jean-Baptiste looked away for a second and said, “Of course, Vincent. But come back before long. We need to ask you more about Violette and her plans.”
“They don’t need us right now,” said Jules, his eyes sparkling like he had just won the lottery. “Vince, let’s go to my room, okay?”
Vincent must have agreed, because Jules grabbed my hand and we were off, down the hall, up the double staircase and through a door next to the one leading to the roof terrace. I stood gawking at a room I had never seen. Jules’s room was the attic. But instead of being the dark, musty kind it was suffused with sunlight streaming through a large frosted-glass window set in the ceiling.
Charcoal and pencil drawings filled the room, stacked on every surface and rolled up into tubes along the walls. A bed stood in one corner of the room with more drawings piled on it. The room had a musky, artsy smell, like cologne mixed with paper, ink, and pencil lead.
Jules led me to a garnet-colored velveteen couch under the skylight. “So how are you?” he asked. I paused, not sure who he was talking to. But the way he sat still, listening, I knew Vincent was answering his question.
“And you, Kate?” Jules asked, taking my hand.
“Fine. Thanks for texting with the non-update this morning. The last couple of days have been hellish.” I addressed the air. “Vincent, I was so worried about you.”
And I you.
His words were like a caress. But they left me wanting more. “Are you okay? Did Violette hurt you?” I asked.
She couldn’t do much worse than destroying my body—besides keeping me away from you.
I began to speak, and then hesitated.