“No.”
Lucio presses his lips together, like he’s worried he’s said too much. “I’m sure it’s coming up in a future lesson.” He takes a drink of his orange soda, probably trying to buy himself a second to think of how to change the subject, but I’m not going to let him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Darkness
I wait patiently for Lucio to finish his drink. “Come on,” I say, mock-whining, like we’re five years old. “Give me a sneak peek of the lessons I’ve got coming to me.”
Lucio shakes his head, but he’s grinning, so I know he’s about to give in.
“Okay. But if Aidan asks how you know, don’t tell him it was me.”
“No problem,” I promise. “I’ll just say it was one of the dozens of other luiseach here at Llevar la Luz.”
Lucio laughs. “Excellent.” His voice turns serious as he continues. “Aidan’s been teaching you to pull spirits toward you from miles away, helping them move on one at a time.”
“Yes.”
“Most spirits want to be found. It’s like they set off flare guns all across the world when they leave their bodies, just begging us to track them down and help them move on. But some spirits . . .” He trails off.
What was it that Professor Jones said about spirits who lingered on Earth too long? Nolan would remember immediately, but I have to search my memory. Eventually I hear the professor’s scratchy old voice in my head: Even the friendliest of spirits is dangerous. Because it simply should not be here. It is a fish out of water. A hawk with broken wings. A horse with a broken leg.
Do you know what they do to horses with broken legs, child?
I didn’t actually know until Nolan told me sometime later. Horses with broken legs are killed because it’s the merciful thing to do.
I don’t think dark spirits know about mercy.
“Some spirits don’t want to move on,” I supply. “The ones who feel their lives were snuffed out too soon. Who think they have unfinished business.”
“Exactly,” Lucio nods. “Earlier you got to that spirit before he could run and hide—”
“Eddie Denfield,” I remember.
“Right. But sometimes we don’t catch them in time. Spirits can hide from us.”
“The opposite of spirits who do want to move on.”
“Exactly. And when you’re tracking a particular spirit, you can feel when it starts hovering on the edge of going dark. You can feel the darkness closing in.”
“What does it feel like?” My voice comes out like a whisper.
“You know the peace you feel when you help a spirit move on? Imagine the exact opposite of that.”
“No thank you,” I say, and Lucio laughs out loud. “So that’s what you’ve been doing since I got here? Tracking a spirit on the verge of going dark?”
He nods. “It’s unusual, this close to the equator.”
“Why?”
“Something about the warm air kind of . . . I don’t know, makes them weaker, almost sluggish.”
“So are all luiseach training facilities close to the equator?”
Lucio grins wryly. “Not the ones that are dedicated to studying dark spirits.”
“But this spirit, the one you’re tracking, it’s behaving strangely—stronger than it should be?”
“I don’t know why.” Lucio runs his fingers over his closely cropped hair. “Maybe it’s the . . .”
He doesn’t seem to know how to finish his sentence, so I decide to try another question: “What did you mean when you said it was one of our spirits?”
“When did you hear that?” Lucio narrows his almost-black eyes.
“My first night here. I haven’t exactly been sleeping soundly since I arrived.”
“It’s just . . . I don’t know how much I’m supposed to tell you exactly.”
“What’s one more off-book lesson?” I ask hopefully, but Lucio shakes his head slowly as he toys with his tattoo.
“I can’t betray Aidan’s trust.”
It’s hard to argue with a statement that honorable. “Aidan sure seems like he has a lot of secrets.” I take the last bite of my taco.
“He does.”
“Do you realize that I don’t even know which building his lab is in?”
“I’m sure he’d tell you if you just asked.”
I shrug. Finally, I say, “Do you ever think about giving it up?”
“Giving what up?”
“Luiseach-y-ness,” I say, not sure if there’s a luiseach word equivalent to humanity. “You know, becoming a normal person. Like Victoria did.”
Well, sort of like Victoria did. I’m not sure I would call her normal exactly. But then, I wouldn’t have ever called myself normal, even long before I knew I was a luiseach. I never quite fit in with other kids my age, as evidenced by the fact that the T-shirt I’m wearing today is older than I am, dug up from a bin in the back of a vintage shop while everyone else I went to school with bought their shirts from Old Navy or H&M.
“Are you crazy?” Lucio asks.