Brooklyn Bridge—City Hall station, New York City
Without the lyre, Evangeline’s senses returned and she began to understand the spell the lyre had cast upon her. She had been captive to it, held in a mesmerism that she only fully comprehended once the lyre had been taken from her. Horrified, she recalled how she had simply stood by as Percival killed Gabriella. Her grandmother had struggled under his grasp, and Evangeline—who was near enough to hear the exhalation of Gabriella’s last breath—had merely observed her suffering, feeling nothing at all but a removed, almost clinical interest in the kill. She’d noted how Percival had placed his hands upon Gabriella’s chest, how Gabriella had struggled, and then, as if the life had been sucked from her, how Gabriella had become perfectly still. Watching Percival, Evangeline understood the pleasure he’d taken from the kill. To her horror, she longed to experience the sensation for herself.
Tears came to her eyes. Had Gabriella died as Angela had? Had her own mother struggled and suffered at Percival’s hands? In disgust, Evangeline touched her shoulders and the flat of her back. The wings were gone. Although she remembered clearly that Percival had taught her to retract them and that she had felt them settle under her clothing, resting lightly against her skin as she’d tucked them away, she was not quite certain that they had existed at all. Perhaps it had been a terrible nightmare. And yet the lyre in Percival’s possession proved that everything had happened just as she remembered.
“Come, assist me,” Percival ordered. Unbuttoning his overcoat and then the silk shirt beneath, he revealed the front of an intricate black leather harness. “Unbuckle it. I must see for myself.”
The buckles were small and difficult to unfasten, but soon she had worked them open. Evangeline felt that she might be sick as her fingers brushed her grandfather’s cold, white flesh. Percival stripped away his shirt and let the harness fall to the floor. His ribs were lined with burns and bruises from the leather. She stood so close to Percival that she could smell his body. His proximity repelled her.
“Behold,” Percival said, his manner triumphant. He turned, and Evangeline saw small nubs of new pink flesh scaled with golden feathers. “They are returning, exactly as I knew they would. Everything has changed now that you have joined us.”
Evangeline watched him, taking in his words, weighing the choice before her. It would be easy to follow Grigori, to join his family and become one of them. Perhaps, he had been right when he said that she was a Grigori. Yet, her grandmother’s words echoed through her mind: “Do not fall pray to the temptations you feel. It is up to you to do what is right.” Evangeline looked beyond Grigori. The Brooklyn Bridge rose against the night sky. It made her think of Verlaine, how she had trusted him.
“You are wrong,” she said, her anger uncontainable. “I have not joined you. I will never join you or your murderous family.”
Evangeline lunged forward and, recalling the intense feeling of insecurity she’d felt when Percival had touched her at the base of her wings, grasped the soft flesh on his back, took hold of the wing nubs he’d taken such pride in showing her, and thrust him to the floor. She was surprised at her strength—Percival hit the concrete hard. As he writhed in agony at her feet, she used her advantage to hoist him to his stomach, exposing the nubs. She had broken one of the wings. The torn flesh oozed a thick blue fluid. The flesh hung agape, and a great wound opened where the wing had been, allowing her to witness the gruesome collapse of his lungs.
As Grigori died, his body transformed. The eerie whiteness of his skin dimmed, his golden hair dissolved, his eyes turned into black vacancies, and the tiny wings crumbled to a fine metallic dust. Evangeline bent and pressed her finger to the dust and, holding it aloft, so that she could see the glittering grains sparkle against her skin, she blew it into the cold wind.
The lyre lay tucked under Percival’s arm. Evangeline eased it away from his body, relieved to have it in her possession even as the hypnotic power it might cast terrified her. Overcome with disgust at the sight of the corpse, she ran from Percival’s body, as if it might contaminate her. In the distance the intersecting cables of the bridge wove across her line of vision. Floodlights illuminated the granite towers that rose into the frigid night sky. If only she could cross the bridge and find her father waiting for her to come home.
Climbing the concrete ramp, she emerged on a wooden platform that brought her to the pedestrian walkway at the center of the bridge. Holding the lyre close, she ran. The wind hit her full force, thrusting her back, yet she struggled forward, keeping her vision trained on the lights of Brooklyn. The walkway was deserted, while a stream of cars sped by on either side of her, their headlights flickering between the slats of the guardrail.
As she reached the first tower, Evangeline paused. Snow had begun to fall. Thick, wet flakes drifted through the mesh of cables, alighting upon the lyre in her hand, upon the walkway, upon the dark river below. The city stretched around her, its lights glimmering on the obsidian surface of the East River as if it were a single dome of life in an endless void. Scanning the length of the bridge, she felt her heart break. No one was waiting for her. Her father was dead. Her mother, Gabriella, the sisters she’d grown to love—they were all gone. Evangeline was utterly alone.
With a flex of her muscles, she unfurled the wings on her back, opening them to their full span. It surprised her how easily she could control them; it was as though she’d had them her whole life. She stepped up onto the railing of the walkway, girding herself against the wind. Concentrating on the stars glinting in the distance, she steadied herself. A gale threw her off kilter, but with an elegant twist of her wings, she kept her balance. Stretching her wings, Evangeline pushed away from the solid world. The wind lifted her into the air, past the thick steel cables, and up toward the abyss of sky.
Evangeline guided herself to the top of the tower. The pavement far below had been blanketed in a layer of pure white snow. She felt strangely immune to the freezing air, as if she’d gone numb. Indeed, she no longer felt much of anything at all. Gazing at the river, Evangeline drew herself inward, and in a moment of determination she knew what she must do.
She brought the lyre between her hands. Pressing her palms around the cold edges of the base, she felt the metal soften and grow warm. As she added pressure, the lyre grew less resistant in her hands, as if the Valkine had reacted chemically with her skin and had begun a slow dissolution. Soon the lyre began to glow with a molten heat against her flesh. In Evangeline’s grasp it had transformed into a ball of fire brighter than any of the lights glowing in the sky above. For a fleeting moment, she was tempted to keep the lyre intact. Then, remembering Gabriella’s words, she thrust the fire forth. It fell like a shooting star to the river. Its light dissolved into the inky darkness.