“You’re going to be okay, little sis,” he murmurs, and carefully tucks me into the backseat.
Vincent has been giving instructions to the driver of the first car, and now he returns and says, “Let’s go!” He settles next to me while Ambrose takes the wheel.
“I’ll ride with the others,” says Charlotte as Geneviève climbs into the front seat. I notice Ambrose’s eyes follow Charlotte as she jogs to the car in front of ours and jumps inside. Clenching his jaw, he guns our motor and spins the car out onto the road, doing an illegal U-turn to head in the opposite direction.
“Steroid rush?” asks Vincent drily.
Ambrose holds up his hands in denial. “This body is a hundred percent natural.”
“Hands on the wheel,” prods Geneviève.
“Thanks, Mom,” Ambrose retorts. “Do you know exactly how long I’ve been driving?”
“Wow. Great to be back,” I try to joke.
Vincent leans over and whispers, “How do you feel?”
“I’m okay,” I say, and then realize that I’m not. I’ve been trying to hold myself together for so long: to keep myself safe . . . to escape Violette. I’ve let myself reason through what happened, but couldn’t afford to let myself feel it.
But now that I’m out of immediate danger and under the protection of my friends . . . my kindred . . . I am suddenly overwhelmed by the events of the last few days and begin to tremble. Vincent takes me in his arms and holds me securely. After a few minutes, my shaking calms, but my teeth chatter and tears stream down my cheeks.
Geneviève turns to me and she places a steadying hand on my knee. “It takes most of us a while to come to grips with our new existence,” she says, her voice steeped in compassion. “Normally you would have time to acclimate to becoming a revenant before being tossed into the middle of things. I cried for two weeks after Jean-Baptiste found me and helped me animate. And it was months before I was mentally ready to face my destiny.”
“I assume Violette won’t allow me any coping-with-newfound-immortality time?” I ask.
“No,” Vincent says. “We figure that the only reason she has postponed a direct attack on us is because she wanted the Champion’s power first. Now that you’ve escaped her, she won’t wait long to make her move.”
He doesn’t want to say it. To call me the Champion. That’s what the look of fear is about. Vincent doesn’t want to think of me that way. I don’t want to think of myself that way. It’s too bizarre, and I don’t even know what it means. I feel like an unpinned hand grenade—about to explode but having no idea whether I’ll fizzle or blow up everything in the vicinity.
“Are we ready?” I ask, forcing that subject to the back of my mind.
“Our first priority was finding you,” Vincent says. “Now that you’re safe”—his voice catches on the last word—“now that you’re with us, we will plan our next move.”
I lean my head against the seat, weighed down by the scope of what is ahead. “We have to protect my grandparents and Georgia,” I say. “They’ll be the first ones Violette goes after now that I’ve escaped.”
“They’re already at La Maison,” says Ambrose, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “Charlotte and I took them there from the Crillon. Besides returning to their apartment to get things they needed, they haven’t left our house.”
I hadn’t doubted that Vincent would take care of my family, but feel immense relief knowing that they are safe inside the bardia’s walls. And then something occurs to me and my stomach ties itself back into knots. “Do they know . . . about me?”
Vincent turns my hand over and rubs his fingers up and down my palm. “I told them.”
Tears spring to my eyes, and I pull my hand away from Vincent to wipe them away. “How . . . what did they do?” I ask, my voice breaking.
Vincent’s eyes meet Ambrose’s in the mirror.
“After getting your grandparents outside, I went back to the hotel room,” Ambrose explains. “Vincent had been roughed up and knocked unconscious, and Violette and all her numa had left with your body. I smuggled him out of the hotel and back home. When he came to, he told us what had happened.”
“When Bran heard the story,” Vincent says, “he went apoplectic and confessed that he had known you would become the Champion. You already had the ‘star on fire’ aura, and it was so bright he couldn’t even look straight at you.