“James? Yeah, what’s up?” Then, covering the receiver, she whispered to us: “It’s an update on Naomi.”
An update, finally. It had been around a day and a half since the attack, with no news. Each of us watched her expression carefully as she nodded and listened. I almost wished I hadn’t. My chest ached as I saw her face fall. “Still in critical condition,” she said.
“Damn,” Lake whispered, drawing up a knee to rest her foot upon the bench.
“Wait, what?” Chae Rin’s back popped into a straight line, her eyes wide as she listened. “What did you say?”
“What’s going on?” I asked quickly, but she wouldn’t tell us until she finally clicked the phone off.
“The Sect is investigating the hit on Naomi. But someone saw us escaping from her apartment. Someone saw you, Maia.”
My body responded with a deep shiver, my fingers cold. “They saw me?”
“It’s all over the news.” Chae Rin shook her head. “The Sect is looking for us. Director Prince is on the warpath.”
But I’d covered my face so well. How could they have spotted me? I swallowed, clasping my hands together. “So we have to get into the museum fast. Grab the volume. Find out the truth.”
“And then what?” Chae Rin said. “We can’t avoid the Sect forever.”
“But we can’t work with them either,” I pressed. “You heard what my uncle said.”
“This whole thing is turning into a damn mess.” She flung the phone down onto the bench in frustration. “I mean, what is this? Are we fugitives now? Effigies wanted in connection for attempted murder of a Sect director’s wife?”
“Oh my god, we’re criminals,” Lake cried. “My name is ruined. My fans will leave me! What will my parents think?”
“Calm down,” Belle said quietly.
“You calm down, Ice Queen. This whole thing is going to hell!” Chae Rin snapped.
“What if they capture us?” Lake was breathing heavily. “I can’t release a single from prison; I don’t have the connections!”
“I said calm down.” Belle didn’t turn, but surely Chae Rin could see her features turn to stone through the rearview mirror. “We also have to consider that the Sect may have been responsible for the attack in the first place. Someone tried to kill a director’s wife and an Effigy just happened to be at the scene?” Belle tapped her fingernails against the wheel as she thought. “Under normal circumstances, the Sect would have done everything they could to control the narrative. They would have gotten to that witness first and made sure she never spoke to the press. Allowing this to reach the airwaves could just be an attempt to make us panic and draw us out. We have to stay calm.”
Ironically, Belle would have been the one to kill a director’s wife if it weren’t for us holding her back. Nevertheless, she was right. Keeping our heads on straight was a tall order, but we did our best as Belle drove us somewhere we could park until nightfall. It was a place Natalya had always told her about: less than a half hour away from the square on the northwest side of the city was a natural reserve they called Wild ?árka, named so after a legend Natalya had once cherished. We parked off the curb of Evropská Street. I stared at the thick of trees, holding the old window curtains open a sliver with a gentle brush of my finger.
?árka was a fierce warrior maiden who met her tragic end off the cliffs of these very reserves, according to the myth. I could see why Natalya would hold a certain fascination for the tale, but I couldn’t drum up the same kind of enthusiasm. There was nothing beautiful about tragedy. Not for someone like me, who’d already lost everything once, who was about to have everything taken away again. I’d tried to stay calm like Belle had said, but she wasn’t the one whose name was being mentioned in connection to the possible murder of a prominent official.
Rhys’s mother. I could only imagine what he’d be thinking watching the news. Or Uncle Nathan. Or my classmates and teachers back in New York. Chae Rin was right. Everything was going to hell. We were betting everything on some book whose contents were a mystery to everyone except a jittery old man who’d long fallen off the grid. And in the meantime, Saul’s clock ticked ever still.
Hours passed inside the van until I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get out of the car. It’d been several hours since I’d even stood on my own two feet. I needed to stretch my legs and breathe in fresh air that didn’t carry with it the hint of stale curtain. And maybe go to the bathroom.
“No way,” Chae Rin said. “It’s dark now; we should be heading back to the museum.”
“Please, just for one second! I’ll be in the trees, out of sight!”
“Ew.” Lake scrunched up her nose, but I was already tying my hair and wrapping it up in one of Lake’s scarfs she’d kept in her knapsack.
“Nobody will see me out here, I promise.”
Lake peered through the windows on either side of her, making sure the coast was clear before passing me a pair of shades.
“Ten minutes,” Belle ordered.
I answered with a quick nod and hopped out of the car. My legs felt like noodles the second my feet touched the ground. I wobbled into the trees, finding my footing only as I soaked in the solace of nature under the cloak of the ever-encroaching dark. The night weaved through the sturdy trees, concealing secrets of ancient lives told only through fairy tales. Tales of love and suicide, the bloodied bodies of warriors left in their wake. It was more June’s thing than mine—how she would have loved to come here, to see the world the way I’d gotten to as I breezed here and there. June had always planned to take a year off after high school to travel. The moonlight dancing across the leaves was just another reminder that I was living her life.
I walked a little bit deeper into the trees, stepping over the roots and mushrooms sprouting out of the bark of fallen logs. I inhaled in the clean air, hoping the calming breath would give me a moment’s peace.
But the hand around my wrist trapped the breath in my lungs as it yanked me behind another tree.
My first instinct was to summon my magic to fight, but the magic was dead, at least temporarily—by my own hand. I prepared for a struggle nonetheless, whipping around, squeezing my hands into fists, but my strength left the moment I looked up and saw his face.
Rhys.
Maybe my eyes were tricking me, but he’d pulled me close enough that I could see the outline of his defined jaw, his soft, focused eyes. His black hair fluttered, ruffled, across his forehead, though the majority of it was hidden underneath a baseball cap.
My chest swelled, and for that moment I looked up at him, my mind was blank. That was until I remembered Naomi, the blood oozing out from the bullet holes in her battered body.
My name in connection to the attack.
He wasn’t here on duty. In his waist-long corduroy jacket and jeans, I couldn’t see a weapon, though I knew he was trained enough that he didn’t need to carry one to do harm. I was ready again, ready to fight, but when Rhys grabbed my shoulders it was only to shift me this way and that. He was checking for wounds.