“Good idea,” says Noah, holding out his hand to me. “Shall we?”
I nod, taking his hand and following him into the crowd. My hips unconsciously begin to sway as we walk toward our friends, matching the bass line of the song that the DJ is playing. I am caught in the music as Noah and I finally reach the middle of the crowd, our friends closing around us in a tight circle. I watch their faces—Leyla, Bryan, Chantal, Nicole, Echo, and Reed—as I listen to the words, indescribable happiness floating over me like a fallen star.
I’ve been on this earth for more than six hundred years, yet I just learned what love is really like. It’s not a handful of powder thrown hastily on a fire, a combustible display of
fierce color, a possessive arm thrown around my shoulders, a prison that I entered at the age of fourteen.
It’s this, it’s now. I close my eyes. It’s as though the whole terrifying stretch between the night on Treasure Island and now has been erased. No breakup, no Cyrus, no choking elbow against my throat in the forest. I’m with my friends, with Noah. I’m six hundred and sixteen at once, old and new. Everything I’ve been through has led me to this moment.
Noah reaches for my hand and I take it, sliding my other arm up over his shoulder. He pulls me close, till our bodies are pressed together, till we’re one. I turn my head to the side and rest it on his chest as we sway.
We dance for a long time, songs melting into one another like candle wax in a house made of glass. I lean my head on his chest and listen to the sound of his human heart beating. How is it possible, I wonder, that it took me more than six hundred years to find Noah? And then I realize that if Cyrus had never placed that drop of elixir on my lips, I would have died in the fourteenth century. Not even a footnote to history. I never would have met Noah. I never would have known the greatest love of my life. And now that Cyrus is dead, I can almost, in a strange way, be grateful to him.
For song after song, we stay like this. Finally I pull away. “I need to go to the bathroom,” I whisper to Noah.
“Okay,” he says. “Come back.”
“I will,” I say, turning on my heel to fight my way out of the crowd.
I run into Echo at the edge of the dance floor. “Where are you going?” she asks, putting a protective hand on my shoulder.
“Bathroom,” I answer. “Back in a sec.”
She doesn’t reply, just blinks at me with big brown eyes rimmed in silver pencil.
“You shouldn’t go,” she says at last. I wonder if I heard her right—the music is so loud.
“When Mother Nature calls, I answer,” I retort with a smile that she doesn’t return.
“You shouldn’t go alone. I’ll come with you.”
“It’s okay,” I say quickly. “I don’t need an escort.” Echo’s long-distance stare and slow speech are creeping me out.
“Okay,” she answers, nodding, as though unseen forces are telling her to back off. “You’re right. Good-bye, Kailey.” There’s a strange finality in the way she says it.
I slip past her into the hallway that leads to the women’s restroom. Something feels . . .
off
. I can’t put my finger on it. I open the door to the bathroom and hear muffled sobs. I pause, surprised. It’s Madison.
She’s leaning on the counter, staring at herself in the
mirror, fumbling in the silver clutch that sits on the counter in front of her.
“Maddy, what’s wrong?” I ask, quickly traversing the space between us. She looks so distraught. Her shaggy hair’s a mess, like she’s been raking her hands through it over and over. “Are you okay?”
She shakes her head, sniffing. “I have something to tell you,” she says.
I brace myself, hoping that it’s not something to do with Noah. Did something happen between them while we were broken up? “What is it?” I ask.
“Seraphina,” she whispers. “It’s me. Charlotte.”
My eyes widen. My heart pounds against the walls of my chest.
My ears hear her words, but it takes a minute for my brain to catch up. My first instinct is to lie, to stay in hiding, where it’s safe. To say “Seraphina? I have no idea who you’re talking about.” But it’s
Charlotte
.
“Char?” I ask slowly.
“That’s what I said, dummy.” She smiles, reaches out to stroke my hair. “I’ve missed you, Sera.”
“Me, too,” I reply. Tears sting my eyes.
“Listen,” she says. “We don’t have much time. You’re in danger. Terrible danger.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“Cyrus,” she whispers, glancing around as if to confirm that the bathroom is, indeed, empty. “He’s here.”
“Impossible,” I breathe. “I killed him. Three nights ago.”
Her brow furrows. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. He followed me to Sonoma, pretending to be a police officer. But I—I took care of him.”
Charlotte swallows hard, her gaze darting upward as her eyes fill with tears. “Oh, Sera. I’m so sorry,” she says sadly, taking my hands in hers, gripping them so tightly the bones scrape together. “That was
Jared
.”
My mind reels, and I stagger backward. Officer Spaulding was Jared? I thought Jared was in San Francisco, working with the police to keep them occupied in the investigation of Mr. Shaw’s supposed death. If Jared was the police officer, then who is Cyrus?
“Noah,” she whispers, as though she can hear my thoughts. “Noah is Cyrus.”
“You’re wrong,” I say immediately. The idea is ridiculous. “Noah is
Noah
. I would know if he were Cyrus.”
“Sera,” she says gently. “Why do you think he forgave you so easily after the breakup? Why do you think he was standing right next to you when Eli’s band played that song on Treasure Island?”
“No,” I whisper. I am falling apart. My world is shattering
like glass into a million tiny pieces that can never be put together again. “No. Noah isn’t dead.”
“I’m sorry,” she answers. “But the boy you think you’re in love with isn’t even Noah. He’s Cyrus—he’s been Cyrus ever since Eli disappeared. Noah died two weeks ago. I wanted to tell you sooner, but I didn’t know if you were Seraphina.”
I stare at the walls. I wait for the tears, sobs. I will break. But I don’t. I can’t. All I can think of is Noah’s hands running across my body three nights ago, of kissing him deeply, of being so deliriously in love with him that I nearly lost control of myself.
But it wasn’t Noah. It was Cyrus.
I feel like I’m going to be sick.
This
, this is betrayal. This is pain. This is what he wanted me to feel.
“Sera, I’m so sorry,” she whispers again.
I look up. I meet her eyes. “How
dare
he?” I ask. I’m shaking with rage.
“You know what you need to do,” she says.
She’s right. I do.
I whirl around and tear out of the bathroom.
FORTY
There are no tears, not yet. I have forever to mourn. Right now I want revenge.
I have enough presence of mind to run to the janitor’s closet and throw open the door. My hammer is there, right where I left it.
I tear into the ballroom and scan the crowd. I don’t see Noah anywhere. I push my way through the dance floor, dodging boys in suits and girls in gowns, holding the hammer low at my side.
“Sera!” Charlotte hisses, and I spin around. “He’s
outside. In the back, by the kitchen loading dock.”
“Show me,” I say firmly.
I follow Charlotte’s silver dress down a shadowy hallway, so grateful that she’s here with me. I just can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner. I should have known.
She points to a steel door, holds a finger to her lips. I push it open.
I think, suddenly, that my life has been made of nothing but doorways, a whole house full of doors. Some I walk through many times, back and forth. And some I only walk through once. They lock behind me. They are doors made of consequences that cannot be undone.
Noah—Cyrus—stands under a bare bulb at the bottom of the sloped driveway. The night has filled with dense fog, and the light he stands under makes the surrounding mist glow like a halo. The air hums with air conditioners and generators. Behind my back, I slip my hammer into my other hand, so he won’t see it as I hurry down the stairs, my footsteps slowing as I meet him.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his brow wrinkled in the perfect imitation of concern, of love.
“I’m fine,” I say, my voice shaking with anger. I can’t bear to look at his face, the face that Cyrus ruined. The soul that Cyrus evicted.
“Maddy texted me that you were sick, that you were out here all alone.”
Thank you, Charlotte,
I think.
“I
am
sick,” I answer, taking a step toward him. My fingers curl around the hammer, so solid and deadly in my grasp.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. “Is it your stomach?”
“No,” I answer. I take another step. “Not my stomach.”
“What, then? A migraine? I’m worried. Should I take you home?” He holds out his arms. I take another step. I’m close enough now. Within striking distance, as they say.
“I don’t have a home,” I say softly. “Not anymore.”
“Kailey?” His eyes are so blue.
I let my eyes drift past him to the top of the driveway. “What the hell is
that
?” I gasp, pointing theatrically. He turns to look in the direction I pointed. I say a prayer of thanks that I won’t have to see his face when I kill him.
“It’s so foggy,” he says. “I can’t see anything.”
In answer, I raise the hammer. I grasp it with both hands and aim at his black hair.
And just as I’m about to slam it down, I hear a voice, a voice I know too well. A voice that’s never lost the soft brogue that she inherited from her Irish-born parents no matter how many new bodies she occupies.
“Stop! Sera,
stop
!” the voice yells.
I freeze.
She comes running down the hill toward us, red hair streaming behind her.
I drop the hammer.
It’s Charlotte, in the body I last saw her in.
And if Charlotte is here, who the hell is Madison?
FORTY-ONE
Charlotte skids down the hill. Through the fog, I see a figure behind her—Sébastien, his dreadlocks tied back in a low ponytail. He starts to run after Charlotte.
I steal a glance at Noah’s face—he’s utterly, painfully confused. “Kailey?” he asks, but I just shake my head. I don’t know how to begin to explain.
“Charlotte! Sébastien! Freeze. Don’t take one more step.” The familiar female voice comes from behind them, at the top of the driveway. “I’ve got a gun, and I
will
use it.”
Charlotte and Sébastien stop in their tracks, raising their hands slowly and turning around to see
who it is. But I already know. I should have known when she told me Noah was Cyrus. I should have asked her a question that only Charlotte knew the answer to. But I was hurting too much to think clearly.
She walks forward slowly, like she has all the time in the world, pausing to open the silver clutch purse that was tucked under her arm. She pulls out a small pistol. Its shiny metal matches her glittery silver dress.
She aims it at Charlotte and Sébastien, who are halfway up the slope. Noah and I stand at the bottom. The four of us are surrounded by loading dock walls. The only way out is up the wooden steps to the walkway above, the door I came out of.
“Madison?” The first touch of fear has scarred Noah’s voice. “Is that a gun?”
She laughs, pivoting her torso and her outstretched arms toward Noah, pointing the pistol at him. “First of all, my name isn’t Madison.”
Oh, god. My blood turns to ice, and my body erupts in cold sweat.
“What are you talking about?” Noah asks. “Please, put that down and we can talk.”
“Not going to happen,” she says. I still think of her as a
she
, even though I know who it really is. I calculate the distance from us to the stairs. Perhaps twenty feet. She stands at least twice that distance away at the top of the hill. We
might
be able to make it, if we run, fast. It’s difficult to hit a moving target.
But if we try, someone might very well get shot. I glance at Noah, Charlotte, Sébastien. I can’t. I can’t risk them getting hurt.
I hear a scraping sound from above and whip my head around. Rebecca slips through the door and hurries onto the wooden walkway. I can see from here that she’s carrying a knife.
“Stay there, Amelia,” says Madison. My mind spins.
“Shit,” whispers Sébastien.
We’re trapped. And if Rebecca is Amelia, that means I’m right, that Madison is—
“Cyrus,” Amelia says calmly. “Just let them go. Like we discussed.”
I whip my head toward Madison—toward
Cyrus
. “It was you?” I ask him, already knowing the answer. “All this time?”
He smiles. “Of course it was. My one regret is that you didn’t figure it out sooner. Before it came to this.”
To my right, I hear the gritty sound of shoes on asphalt. Cyrus hears it at the same time and whips around, aiming the pistol at Sébastien, who quickly skids to a stop. “No heroics, Sébastien,” Cyrus says with a sigh. “I don’t want to have to kill you.”
“Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?” demands Noah. “Madison, why are you doing this?”
“For the last goddamned time, my name is not Madison!” Cyrus’s face twists with rage.
“It’s Cyrus,” I say sadly. Cyrus nods approvingly, like I’m his devoted pupil.
“Are you guys playing a joke on me?” Noah’s face is shiny with perspiration, or mist, or both.
“He’s kind of slow, isn’t he, Sera?” Cyrus gestures at Noah with the barrel of the gun. “I’m surprised you never told him the truth about you. About us. But then again, that would have taken guts, wouldn’t it? Which you clearly don’t have.”
Anger rises in me like a high tide, sweeping away everything before it. “I escaped from you, didn’t I?”
“Running away is an act of cowardice.” Cyrus spits out the words. “And you couldn’t even do it right. If you really didn’t want to be found, you would have ditched that body and taken another one. You would have fled the country.”
Everyone is staring at us, listening. Even Noah, who seems to have temporarily accepted that the world has gone utterly insane, that his friends have lost their minds.