The Sweetest Burn (Broken Destiny #2)

“No,” Adrian said, his arched brow questioning where I was going with this.

“When we get back to the real world, we can google Poland to see what parts have freaky natural occurrences,” Costa said.

“We could do that,” I agreed, taking a deep breath. What I was about to suggest sounded insane, but after all I’d been through, I was starting to believe that more than a series of random coincidences and flukes had led us to where we were now. Add in some cryptic Archon speech about a map “of sorts” and a staff that might be controlling a lot more than nature, and maybe we’d been looking at this puzzle from the wrong angle.

If not, well, then, this wouldn’t be the first time that someone called me crazy. “The staff is what Moses used during his infamous standoff with Pharaoh, but what was the point?” I asked, plowing ahead with my theory.

Adrian lifted a brow. “To call down crushing plagues?”

“Yes, but what was the point?” I insisted. “Everyone knows the ‘let my people go’ line that Moses kept repeating to Pharaoh, and after the plagues, Pharaoh did. So, what if the staff’s influence isn’t limited to nature? What if, just like with Pharaoh, the staff’s greatest accomplishment is influencing man?”

I began to pace, so consumed by my theory that I couldn’t stand still any longer. “And if so, what if thousands of years later, the staff’s influence caused two sets of people to do the exact same crazy thing? After all, it cost huge sums of money to have an obscure little chapel disassembled and moved brick by brick over thousands of miles just to be reassembled again, and for what? There’s nothing special about the chapel! But we know that’s what happened, and we know the staff moved with it from France to New York to Milwaukee. So what if the staff made both those chapel owners do something senseless and costly, just like Pharaoh did something that he would have considered senseless and costly by letting his entire enslaved work force leave? And if so, then instead of looking for the staff in places with freaky nature anomalies, should we be looking for it in places with freaky human anomalies?”

I was almost panting by the time I finished, having rushed through those last sentences without taking a single breath of air. When I was done, Adrian said nothing. Neither did Costa. They just stared at me, until the silence passed awkward and headed right into uncomfortable.

Okay, so they didn’t seem to share my views on the staff. Wait until they heard the rest of my theory, and it was either tell them now or keep it to myself forever.

“There’s more,” I said. No way could I keep this to myself. “I found the slingshot in your former realm when I was looking for Jasmine. We found the tablet by going to your former home at the campus, the chapel’s location in New York just happened to be at a chateau that you used to stay at, and its original location of Chasse-sur-Rh?ne in France just happened to be the first place you went to when you were exploring the human world. Yes, you’ve been all around in your very long life, but that’s too many coincidences. I think the tablet isn’t our only clue to the staff’s location, Adrian. I think the real map is you, so let me ask you—have you ever been to Poland?”

If I thought they’d looked skeptical before, this time, both Adrian and Costa’s faces registered sheer disbelief. Then, after a silence that slashed across my nerves, Adrian’s expression changed, becoming so hard and calculating that, for a split second, he reminded me of Demetrius.

“Yes, I’ve been to Poland,” he said in a stiff voice.

I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Now, for the million-dollar question. “Any particular place?” If he’d been all over that country, it would blow a huge hole in my theory, but the look he gave me sent chills up my spine.

“There was one that I kept going back to.”

“Was it a church?” Costa asked, his tone almost urgent.

Adrian answered while keeping his gaze locked with mine, and what I saw in its depths convinced me that I was right. “Calling it a church is an understatement.”

Zach appeared, walking over as casually as if he hadn’t left in an angelic huff. “Are you ready?”

“For what?” I asked, wary.

He smiled, a rare real one. “To go to the Salt Cathedral.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

ZACH LED US through the gateway to Wieliczka, Poland. All of us, even though I had wanted Jasmine to stay behind. Zach refused, saying that he had important tasks to carry out and couldn’t continue to act as our supernatural doorman. That analogy would have amused me if he didn’t follow it up by disappearing as soon as he’d pulled the last of us through.

“This is just great.” I could still feel the gateway, but true to Zach’s warning, I could no longer cross through it. “Get your Archon ass back here, Zach! You can’t strand us in a tiny foreign town with no passports, money, transportation or weapons!”

No response. I resisted the urge to give the gateway the middle finger only because I didn’t think Zach could see it. The only person more upset than me was Brutus. He snarled at the bright light around us, hitching his wings up to cover himself. Then he glared at me as if to say, More sunshine? How could you?

“Don’t worry,” Adrian said, rubbing my back. “I can call someone and get what we need. We just need a phone.”

Costa pulled out Father Luis’s cell phone, tried to turn it on and then put it back. “Yep, battery’s definitely dead.”

I forced myself to relax. Okay, so we might have a long walk ahead of us, but there were worse things. At least it wasn’t dark, making this area demon-free for a few more hours until the sun went down. After that, well, where there was a light realm, there was a demon one. I could only hope that it wouldn’t drop on us or leak out onto us, either.

Adrian looked around. “I know this place. It’s the town’s version of an urban market.”

The quaint buildings arranged in a square around us didn’t strike me as that, but whatever, it meant that phones were close. And hey, one of the shop’s names was even in English. Granted, it was called Fuck Luck Tattoos, but all I focused on was that if the title was in English, then someone in the shop probably spoke it.

Adrian must’ve felt the same way. He took my arm, murmuring, “Let’s try here.”

“I’ll stay with Jasmine,” Costa said. Brutus had already run toward the shop because it had a sun-blocking awning.

I glanced at my sister. She met my gaze, then deliberately looked at the diamond ring on my hand before looking back at me. After her blowup following Adrian’s parentage reveal, I expected accusation in her stare, or anger, but instead, the only emotion I read was sadness that bordered on grief.