by Laura Legend
Soon, though, the whispers and fingers began to multiply, smalls knots of people began to gather, and Cass felt their attention shift away from Maya and toward her. Cass was the one getting recognized now.
A group of teenage girls called out after her, phones at the ready for celebrity selfies.
“Cassandra! Cassandra Jones! Destroyer of Worlds! We love you! Wait!”
Cass looked at Zach, bemused. “Destroyer of Worlds?”
Zach winked. “You definitely rock my world.”
“It’s because you won the tournament,” Maya said wearily, glancing back over her shoulder at them and rolling her eyes. “You ‘destroyed’ all the competition. It’s a popular meme.”
Cass still looked puzzled.
“You’re not on Instagram, are you?” Maya asked, steering them away from the girls and down a side alley.
Cass, as a matter of fact, was not on Instagram. She wasn’t even sure she knew where her phone was. Had it melted in the monastery? When was the last time she’d paid her phone bill? She was either going to have a lot of roll-over data or none at all.
The alleyway was tight. It passed under an arch, branched, and then became even tighter. Soon, Cass could reach out and touch both walls of the alley at the same time.
A big burly fellow in coveralls stepped out of an adjoining alleyway and blocked their path.
“Trouble,” Zach whispered and started to pull Cass in the opposite direction.
Cass, though, brushed him off. “Maya can handle this,” she whispered. Cass was confident that this was true—and she was also entertained by the idea that Maya might break a nail.
The fellow reached into his pocket and everyone tensed. Then he pulled out a pen and a rumpled tournament program and a big smile broke across his face.
“Please, Ms. Jones,” he said, talking over Maya’s head, and waving his program. “It’s for my daughter. You’re her hero. She watches videos of your tournament matches over and over again. It would mean the world to her if you signed this.”
Cass, surprised to be playing the part of celebrity hero, straightened her jacket and tucked her hair back behind her ears.
“Um, sure,” Cass said. Autograph signing was not something that came up very often for failed scholars of Christian relics.
With an admirably constrained air of impatience, Maya stepped aside and waved the man through.
Cass signed it and handed the wrinkled program back to the man, expecting him to move on. But he lingered, a smile on his face.
“If it’s not out of line,” he said, shooting an embarrassed glance at Maya and then Zach, “could I also give you hug before going on my way?”
“Um, sure,” Cass said again and, immediately, the fellow stepped forward and pulled her into his arms. Cass was tiny in comparison and, for a moment, the fervor of his embrace alarmed her. But, as quickly as it had come, the fear passed and Cass could see the truthfulness of his gesture. He really was grateful. He really did wish her the best. And then, for a moment, Cass felt the ice in her veins warm and begin to flow. And a tear slipped down her cheek.
Then, just as quickly as he’d appeared, the man was gone and the warmth fled with him.
“It’s not far now,” Maya said, pressing forward.
Cass was still trying to process what had happened. Zach took her hand and they followed.
They took one more turn onto a slightly larger street and found the shop. The shop windows and doorway were filled with curtains of hanging beads and, above the door, a neon sign in the shape of an eye blinked on and off, open and shut. Beneath the neon eye, the script read: “Fortunes Told: Human, Turned, or Lost.”
“Uhh—" Zach said.
Maya didn’t care for his skepticism. “This woman is a practitioner of magic, very old, with a specialized knack for tracking down missing people—if you know to ask for that kind of service. Do not be fooled by the elements of theater. Many people find them comforting.”
Zach looked at Cass, a bit skeptical. Cass shared the feeling. The elements of theater weren’t making her feel more comfortable.
One by one they pushed through the curtain of beads and into the shop. Save for a single small lamp, the room was dark and the air was hazy, filled with smoky incense. Surprised by the smell, Cass had to stifle a cough.
A placard gave the fortune teller’s name as “Flo.”
Maya rang a bell at the counter and, after a long pause, an older woman emerged from behind the curtain that shielded the back room. Flo, though, wasn’t really playing the part of a fortune teller. Instead, she was dressed like any of a thousand blue-haired retirees in Florida, sporting thick glasses, a crushed velvet tracksuit, and white orthotic sneakers.
Whispering over the counter, Maya explained what they need. Flo leaned in close, listening carefully. Then, when Maya was done, she straightened up, looked Maya up and down, cupped her ear, and practically yelled, “WHAT?”
“WE NEED HELP FINDING SOMEONE,” Maya said slowly and loudly.
The woman glanced over Maya’s shoulder at Cass and Zach, looking to commiserate. As the companions of this lady, surely they could see the kind of nonsense that fortune tellers had to deal with?
“Why didn’t you just say so?” the woman asked Maya, waving for them to follow her through a second curtain and into the back room. This room was lit with black lights and filled with incense. It was mostly bare except for a table in the center of the room, two chairs, and an enormous crystal ball that flickered with a spooky, milky light.
Flo took one seat at the table and gestured for Maya to take the other. Cass and Zach stationed themselves by the door.
“You know how this works?” Flo said to Maya. “To have any hope of tracking him down, I need an object that belonged to the man.”
“Yes,” Maya said. She reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a tightly wrapped roll of cloth. She placed it on the table, removed the ribbon, and unrolled the cloth.
Maya held up the mummified finger that had been bundled inside.
Both Cass and Zach involuntarily recoiled. Even Flo gasped and leaned back in her chair.
Maya looked around the room.
“What?” she said. “It’s not his actual finger . . . just someone else’s finger that he used to own.”
“Fine, fine,” the medium said, back in control now. “That should work so long as the person it originally belonged to is dead.”
“Of course,” Maya said, a little offended at the thought that things might be otherwise.
“Then there’s just one more matter to consider. The issue of payment.”
“Name your price,” Maya said. “Money is no object.”
Flo smiled and wrinkled her nose. “No, not money. Money is boring. I would like something else.”
She looked past Maya, fixed her gaze on Cass, and smiled a big smile filled with crooked, yellowed teeth.
23
CASS SETTLED INTO the chair across from the medium. Light perspiration had broken out on the back of her neck; noticing this made the fading bruise on the back of her head pulse quickly for a brief moment. She put her hands on the table, afraid to find them shaking, but they appeared steady. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again, meeting the medium’s gaze.
Flo had no interest in money—but she had never read a seer before. She would help them, but only if Cass sat for a reading.
Zach, protective, had immediately objected. “You don’t have to do this, Cass,” he said. “We’ll find some other way.”
“Not likely,” Maya rejoined.
“Be quiet,” Cass said, curt and decisive. “I’ll do it.”
Then Cass had ushered Maya out of the chair and taken the seat herself.
Now she met the disturbingly pale blue gaze of the medium and held it.
The woman looked into Cass’s eyes for a long time, silent, before bringing her full attention to bear on Cass’s wandering, milky eye. She leaned close, as if she intended
to read the milky clouds themselves.
“You were not born with this wandering eye,” she said at last.
“No,” Cass said.
“It was a gift.’”
Cass didn’t respond.
“At the very least,” the old woman chuckled, “it prevented you from being too beautiful for your own good. That’s a problem that the lucky ones like us avoid.”
“We’re in a bit of a hurry, here,” Cass said, impatient.
“Oh, I know,” the medium said. “I know. Place your right hand on the crystal ball for me.”
Cass did. The faint, spooky light shining from inside the ball flickered and went out. Beneath Cass’s hand, the cool crystal was dark and lifeless.
“Huh,” the medium said. “Put your hands flat on the table.”
Cass did. The woman retrieved four dice from her pocket, irregular and many-sided, and rolled them on the table. The dice showed a banana, a rainbow, the letter M, and a tree. Cass, Zach, and Maya all leaned forward simultaneously to see. A puzzled look framed the medium’s face.
“What does that mean?” Cass asked.
“Uh—nothing,” the woman said, and swept the dice off the table and back into her pocket. “Give me your hand.”
Cass did.
The woman was taken aback. She studied Cass’s palm for a long time. The longer she held Cass’s hand, the more quiet and still everything became. The lights seemed to dim even further and Cass felt herself slipping sideways in time, out of its normal flow, and into a subtly adjacent space—except this time, she wasn’t doing it alone.
She and the medium were doing it together.
The woman traced Cass’s life line and shook her head, marveling and muttering. “Strange, so strange . . .” Then she traced Cass’s love line with the tip of finger, tracing it up and back as it branched along several different routes, and she shook her head sadly.
“No,” Cass said weakly.
“I’m only the reader, dear,” the woman said.
Cass tried to take her hand back, but the woman, with an astonishingly strong grip, held her fast and wouldn’t let go.
Time flickered. Past, present, and future interlaced.
Cass flashed on an image—a memory?—of her mother and Miranda. The pair of them were in their late teens. They were on a bench outside the Shield monastery’s walls. It was spring. They’d just begun studying with Kumiko, and Rose was casting her very first spell: with a hint of green trailing from her fingers, she made a flower levitate. Miranda was amazed and clapped her hands. Though Miranda was the older sister, working with magic came more easily to Rose. It was clear from Miranda’s face that they were in this together and that she would follow Rose anywhere. The bond between the sisters was deep. Rose’s smile was huge. But then the flower began to wilt, turn brown, and shrivel up. Rose’s face clouded with anger and, for an instant, she was the spitting image of Cass.
Time flickered again, tenses jumbling.
The vision broke and the medium let go of Cass’s hand, retreating back across the table. The woman hastily stood, a petrified look on her face.
“What?” Cass commanded. “What did you see? Tell me.”
But the woman had no reply.
Cass couldn’t tell if they had seen the same thing or not. Why would this woman be so afraid to see Rose’s face? Or why would she be so afraid to see Cass’s face in her mother’s?
Cass’s long-dead mother was nothing to fear.
The woman turned away from the table, scribbled something on a sheet of paper, and then forced it into Cass’s hands.
“This is an address that will lead you to the man you’re looking for,” she said, a frantic look in her eye.
Cass stared at the scrap of paper, unsure how to respond.
“Now get out of here,” the woman begged. “Get out and never come back.”
24
THEY LEFT. CASS was happy to get out. If she never saw that place again, it would be too soon.
The idea that someone else—someone who was not herself, not a seer—could look into her future and know what was going to happen made her skin crawl. Her own experiences with time contracted and looped around and around until, while Cass could feel the truth of time’s certain passing, she never felt as if her own future was already cast in stone. Time’s organic heart remained beating within her seer powers. She didn’t like the idea that some behind-the-scenes author—God, Fate, the Laws of Physics, or whatever—was pulling the strings. She wasn’t a bit character in someone else’s book. She wasn’t just going to sit around passively, hoping things would work out. For better or worse, she was going to choose her own destiny.
Feeling the rough weave of her grass ring against the palm of her hand, she was grateful that she already had chosen. She reached for Zach’s hand and found it.
They were headed back toward the center of London’s Underside hub. But they hadn’t gone far before Maya pulled them all to the side of the street and asked to see the scrap of paper that the fortune teller had given Cass.
Maya held out her hand, asking for it.
Cass, though, just unfolded the sweaty note that, without realizing it, she’d crumpled in her fist as they’d walked. She had no intention of handing it over to Maya.
The ink had run a little, but the woman’s handwriting was still legible. Zach and Maya both leaned in trying to get a look, and bumped heads.
Cass held it out for them to see. “It says, NYC PUBLIC LIBRARY.”
“That,” Zach noted, his voice puzzled, “is not an address.”
“It decidedly is not,” Maya agreed.
“What, does he live at the library?” Cass asked. “That library is enormous. What are we supposed to do, stake the place out and hope he shows up?”
“We’ve also got another problem,” Maya added. “New York City is a weird place. There is no direct Underside route to the city. In fact, it is as distant from the Underside as any point on earth. There are theories about why, but no one knows for certain. It may be that, when it comes to magic and the undead, everything lives right on the surface in the city.”
“Right,” Cass said, folding up the scrap of paper and tucking it into her pocket. “Of course it does.”
“We’ll need to take a private jet. But we can be there by morning.”
“Right,” Zach said. “A private jet. Of course we will.”
Without further discussion, Maya led them back to the center of the hub, steered them to the York Tower entrance that overlapped with the Underside, and pushed through the lobby doors.
Standing in the enormous glass and steel lobby, Cass and Zach exchanged a look. They last time they’d been here, they’d been double-crossed by Maya. The time before that, they’d been chased from the building by Lost vampires and ridden a rocket-sled through a secret tunnel.
Maya, though, wasn’t reminiscing. She marched across the lobby, past security, and swiped her pass to open the doors to a private elevator.
The guards visibly flinched when they saw Cass—Cass had, previously, been firm but gentle with them—but straightened up and put their game faces on when Maya shot them a look. However leery they might be of Cass, they were twice as frightened of Maya.
Maya barked some instructions into her phone and they took the elevator straight to the roof-top heliport. Positioned in the heart of London’s business district, the view of the city from the roof was spectacular. The sun had almost set, the city was lit up, and the skies were clear.
The helicopter—their ride to the private airfield where a jet was waiting for them—was already spooling up. While Cass and Zach admired the view, some of Maya’s assistants burst out onto the roof with a couple of go-bags filled with supplies and, presumably, a few additional pairs of NYC-ready pumps for Maya.
The pilot signaled that he was ready, and they were about to board when the elevator doors opened again.
This time it was Richard York.
Richard was in full CEO mode and
clearly in his element: pin-striped suit, white shirt, tie, perfectly coiffed golden hair, and commanding presence.
Everyone froze in place—even Maya.
Richard took them in, gathered himself, and strode purposefully across the roof. He nodded to Maya, shook Zach’s hand, and lightly embraced Cass.
“First,” Richard began, “let me sincerely congratulate you both. I wish you all the happiness in the world.”
Cass, knowing what it cost him to say this, also saw that he meant it. She squinted up at him in the fading light, shielding her face from the wind generated by the helicopter’s blades.
“Second,” he continued, “let me offer my deepest condolences. It pained me deeply to hear about the monastery’s destruction and the devastating losses suffered by the Shield.”
Cass and Zach both tried to absorb this gesture without ceding too much room to their own grief.
“Is Kumiko well?”
Cass deferred to Zach.
“She and Dogen and a handful of others survived.”
“Is there something I can do to help? Where are they staying?”
Cass watched Zach take in this last question with a measure of skepticism.
“They are . . . at a secure location.”
Richard nodded, taking the hint.
“Stay safe,” he said to both Cass and Zach. “You’ll be in good hands with Maya.”
Then, pulling Maya aside for a moment, he whispered something into her ear. They both glanced at Cass. He repeated his instructions firmly, jabbing one finger into the palm of his hand for emphasis, a rare glimpse of emotion shining through.
Maya bowed her head and nodded.
Richard turned to the pilot. “You’d better go quickly.”
Then he turned, hiding his face from them, and strode quickly to the elevators without looking back.
25
CASS, FLANKED BY lions, was stationed on the stairs in front of the New York City Public Library. She was impressed with the number of people in the city who still appeared to be reading books—or, at least, checking them out. From the time the doors opened at ten a.m., a steady stream of people had come and gone.
