Priest lifted one of the headphones away from his ear. “You got your butt kicked, that’s what.”
Lukas guided the van into a deserted gas station and climbed in the back with the rest of us. “You all right?” He held up three fingers. “How many do you see?”
“Nine.” Jared swatted his hand away. “Now tell me what happened.”
Alara started talking before anyone else had a chance. “Kennedy drew the Wall in the cabinet and bound the dybbuk inside.”
“How did you know what it looked like?” Jared asked.
Alara answered for me. “She saw it in my journal.”
“And you remembered it?”
Telling people for the first time was the worst part. My memory had always set me apart from other people, creating a boundary I couldn’t cross. “I have eidetic memory—”
“It means photographic.” Alara rushed on. “She can remember anything she sees and—”
“Not anything,” I corrected. “Images and numbers mostly.”
“Whatever.” Alara waved off my denial. “You basically took out that thing alone. I singed it with a little holy water, but you did the rest.”
I listened, barely registering the fact that Alara was talking about me. “She’s exaggerating, but I did get these.”
I opened my hand and revealed the green glass disks.
Alara smiled. “Like I said, I was just along for the ride.”
It was strange to hear her bragging about me. Climbing in the well to help Priest had earned me a level of respect, but it was something anyone could’ve done. Drawing the Wall was different. It required skill, and it proved I finally had something to offer.
Priest reached for the disks and held them up to the light. “You found two?”
“It was dark and they looked exactly the same, so I grabbed them both.”
“I’m not sure they’ll do us much good,” Lukas said. “The clue to finding the next piece is probably ash by now.”
Priest closed his hand around the disks. “He’s right. The other clues were close to the places we found the disks.”
“Not all of them. The diagram of the Shift and the word Lilburn were in your journal, and parts of mine are encrypted. There has to be something—” Alara winced and pulled up her sleeve. “Oh my god.”
Thin lines carved themselves into her skin, the same way Priest’s mark had manifested after he destroyed Millicent’s spirit. The impressions curved and one peaked into a triangle like the devil’s tail from Andras’ seal.
The fire Alara set must have burned through the cabinet and destroyed the dybbuk by now.
She reached in her pocket and rubbed her wrist with salt. Slowly, black lines filled the indentations. The guys pulled up their own sleeves, and Alara rubbed the crystals over their arms. The salt acted like the glass disks, illuminating a code invisible to the naked eye. The four of them positioned their wrists to form the seal, only one small section missing.
I’m about to get my mark.
I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted it—to be part of their secret world, and my mother’s—to be one of them.
When did it change?
At Lilburn when Lukas saved my life, or in the well when Priest and I saved each other? When Alara trusted me to draw the Wall from memory? Or was it before that? When they lost almost everything they owned because of my mistake and still didn’t turn their backs on me?
Maybe it was all of those moments layered between the White Stripes, a blue string, a voodoo medal, and the weight of Jared’s eyes when he looked at me.
I inched up my sleeve slowly.
Will it hurt?
“Let’s see it,” Lukas said, the four of them still holding their arms together, waiting for the last Black Dove. I turned over my wrist so I could see the lines magically cutting themselves into my skin.
It was unmarked.
Confusion registered on their faces, mirroring my own.
“Wait,” Priest said. “Alara’s mark only showed up a second ago, and you shot the spirit on the way out. That had to be at least a few minutes after the fire destroyed the dybbuk. Give it some time.”
Alara raised her eyes to meet mine. There was no way the fire could have burned through the box and destroyed the dybbuk before I shot the magician and we made it out of the building.
“I’m not one of you.” I pulled my sleeve back down.
Lukas looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Kennedy destroyed the vengeance spirit first.” Alara’s eyes dropped to the floor like it was somehow her fault.
I wanted to disappear.
Instead, I threw open the door and ran.
The truth pounded me with every step. I wasn’t destined to protect the world from a demon that murdered my mother, or the missing link the Legion needed to destroy him.
Halfway across the parking lot, a hand closed around my wrist. I spun around. Jared stared back at me, desperate and lost. “I didn’t mean to grab you.”
I wanted to tell him it was okay—that I needed someone to hold me until the pain melted away.