Embrace, Entice, Emblaze (84 page)

one. I need to concentrate,” she snapped.

So we waited again. And waited. It must have been about ten

minutes, but then…the earth started to move.

Azeem and his men, still at the top of the mountain, dropped

to their knees. But there was little point unless they were praying to the almighty Zoe.

We all crouched to the ground to hold our footing. And marveled.

Rocks began to move from side to side; it was only slight, but

in sync. The trees— the entire mountain— rocked. Zoe had nature moving as one. Dancing.

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“There!” Lincoln yelled.

“Yes!” cried Nyla, standing up, swaying like a magical creature surfing the mountain.

One small area remained still. The mountain moved around

it, but that one part showed no sign of life. It was the perfect size— an opening.

“Okay, Zoe, you can stop!” Griffin roared over the sound of the live mountain.

Zoe stood and opened her eyes. The mountain became still,

everything exactly where it had been. Everyone else stood slowly, in awe of what we had just witnessed. Salvatore bowed his head.

“Zoe,
complimenti
.”

She couldn’t hide the smile as she swatted him away. “I. Don’t.

Speak. Italian!” she said, marching toward the place we were all now headed.

“Zoe, that was remarkable,” Rudyard said. With this, she

couldn’t hold back a full- blown smile.

“We’re proud of you, Zoe,” Nyla said so warmly her words struck a chord in my heart. I realized they were like a family, and when Zoe beamed back at Nyla, she gave the kind of smile a daughter

would give a mother. I realized something else too. That’s why Nyla unnerved me so much.

Nyla linked hands with Rudyard and they walked on.

Could
I
have
that
one
day?

When it came to stepping up to the area that had not moved,

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around, trying to pull at rocks and dirt, but anything that was removed seemed somehow instantly replaced. It was useless.

“It’s solid or something. It regenerates itself,” Lincoln said, still persisting, pulling at more rocks.

“Everything is under a glamour,” Nyla said, walking back to us.

“We cannot break through it with force,” she clarified, even as we all watched Lincoln throwing boulders at the opening.

Ideas were put forward, the best of which was to try and tunnel in from another place.

But
if
Phoenix
knew
how
to
get
in, there must be a way. He must
have known we could get in too.

I took a tentative step toward the opening, scared, as if it might swallow me whole. I placed a hand on the glamour. It felt like

touching dirt and rock.

I drew on my power, worked it up within, and then released

it over the glamour, willing it to fade. My mist poured from me straight to the opening, concentrating solely on the facade. It knew what I asked of it.

The mist gripped its target, fixed onto it like billions of tiny droplets, and ate into the opening, working its way down to the ground.

“Well…that was effective,” Griffin said, mesmerized. Before us

stood a cave leading to a long tunnel, alight with what must have been ever- burning torches.

Eternal fire.

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chapter
twenty- eight

“There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated
to some stroke of the imagination.”

RaLph WaLdo eMeRsoN

We followed Azeem and his men as they led the way into the

tunnel. I wondered why only the male Grigori had joined us on

the trip. Th e only female Grigori I’d seen, other than Ermina, had been in the lookout posts back at the hotel.

Spence came up beside me. “Da da da dah- dah, da da da dah-

dahh, da da da dah, da da da dah, da da da- dahh.”

“
Star
Wars
?”

“Crap. I was going for
Indiana
Jones
,” he said. “This place is wicked.”

I wanted to agree, but I had a diff erent feeling and it had me on edge. I couldn’t place it— something stale, almost. I took off Lincoln’s cap and stopped walking. Spence’s attention had already drifted elsewhere and no one else noticed. I let them walk on

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ahead and turned back to the opening. Something was definitely

not…Then I realized what I should have sensed as soon as we

entered the tunnel. Though on a much lesser scale, it was that same musty feeling I’d had when I’d felt the senses on our arrival.

The sun beamed into the ominous tunnel, and as I walked back

toward the opening, I saw the robed exile standing there, bathed in bright light, head bowed beneath a hooded drape.

Waiting for me.

“Friend or foe?” I said, stopping a few yards away from him.

“Neither.”

His voice was young but tired, very tired.

“You’re an exile, aren’t you?” I asked, suddenly unsure.

“I made my choice, yes.” And yet somehow I didn’t feel like it

was really an answer.

“Who are you?” I took another step toward him. He didn’t

seem concerned.

“A messenger.”

“What do you want?”

His head moved to the side. I thought he was going to look at

me, but then he stilled again. “Nothing. I want for nothing.”

“Then what are you doing here?” I asked, confused.

“Wanting. Nothing.”

“Right…”

Escape
from
the
institute
much?

“What’s your name?” I tried, starting to feel impatient.

“You can call me Jude,” he said, still not revealing himself. I 354

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wondered if something horrific lay beneath the robes, if he were wounded or scarred.

“Okay, Jude. Do you know where the Scriptures are?”

He nodded once. “You must see the room which goes beyond

your eyes.”

Why
the
hell
does
everyone
have
to
be
so
cryptic
all
the
time?
It’s like it’s some angel/exile criteria.

He turned to leave.

“Why are you so familiar?” I asked, still unable to shake the

feeling that I knew this exile somehow.

“I was famous once,” he said, and though I still couldn’t see his face, he sounded oddly amused.

————

When I caught up to everyone else again, they were piling into a small room. Azeem’s Grigori were walking back past me.

“Where are they going?” I asked.

“To guard out front,” Azeem said.

“Oh,” I responded, briefly considering telling them about Jude

but deciding not to. He was gone.

“This is truly remarkable,” Nyla was saying as I walked into the room they were all gawking at.

Lincoln came to my side. “Where did you go?”

I didn’t think anyone had noticed. “I’ll tell you later,” I whispered.

Along
with
everything
else.

He raised an eyebrow but let it go.

I looked around the room— really just a dirt floor and cracked

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stone walls covered in paintings and symbols that looked thousands of years old— which were precisely what made it so remarkable.

“This is an amazing discovery,” Azeem said, “but I cannot see

anything in here to help you. It is possible this is the— or a— pre-chamber to Moses’s tomb, but I cannot see where it would lead,” he said, circling the room, running his hand along the walls.

“We have to allow ourselves to see it,” I whispered to myself,

repeating Jude’s words. “Oh my God! I know what to do.”

I looked at Lincoln. “It’s like the front, but more. This place—

it’s made by angels.”

“Glamour?” Lincoln asked, trying to keep up.

I shook my head. “Imagination.”

The two things seem the same, but glamour is external, a trick

of the eye. Imagination is within us, a perception. To reveal it, our own imaginations have to be open to new interpretation.

And before anyone could ask, I released my power into the

room. A blanket of amethyst mist floated over everything and

began to work its way through the apparent barriers. This room

was a defense, just another layer.

The intensity of my power built and built, and started to encircle the room, rebounding off the walls until the mist became its own windstorm. Everyone hit the deck.

I pushed it out, pushed it to break down the entire fabric of what was surrounding us. It looked real. If we tried to walk through it, our legs would not take us, and if we put our hands to the wall, our minds would tell us it was solid. But it was not.

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I felt the sweat start to bead on my forehead and the strength

flow rapidly from my body. I wasn’t controlling this well. I started to see the room break away, but only in my peripheral vision. When I tried to see what was beyond, I couldn’t.

I wasn’t strong enough.

But I didn’t need to be. Without looking, I threw my open hand

out to the side. He caught it firmly. The room started to fill with new colors and his grip tightened. I knew the mist; though multi-colored like everyone else’s, it contained the most vibrant green, just like his eyes. I was still weakening, but I squeezed Lincoln’s hand back, as together we demanded the veil be lifted.

I’m not quite sure what happened next, just that everything

went dark and I was going down.

The next thing I felt was someone kicking the soles of my shoes.

I was lying down.

I opened my eyes. I was on the ground, head in Lincoln’s lap. I looked down. Spence was lining up to kick me again. I moved my

foot just in time.

“You know, I really think everyone needs to assess the way they treat their fellow Grigori— especially when they’re unconscious.”

“This coming from the girl who decked her man a couple of days

ago!” Spence said, arms wide as if he didn’t understand the difference.

I blushed. Pathetic as it was, lying in Lincoln’s lap and having someone else call him
my
man
was embarrassing. Lincoln was pretending to look elsewhere for a moment. But he was biting back a smile.

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“Eden, you’ve got some heavy mojo, I’ll give you that, but ya

got no staying power. Come on!” Spence said, throwing a hand out to me.

“Take your time,” Lincoln said, smoothing the hair back from

my sweaty face and sending a sharp look in Spence’s direction.

“That
was
some major stuff back there.”

He was right. I was absolutely spent, but I sat up anyway and let Spence pull me up. This wasn’t the time for feebleness.

I took in my surroundings. We were in a completely new room.

Well, actually it was a very, very old room. Everyone else was slowly moving around the space, studying the symbols on the walls.

Azeem was kneeling on the ground.

“Is he praying?” I asked Lincoln. He nodded. Azeem was

committed, I’d give him that.

On one wall, there was a painting of Mount Nebo and it looked

like a sheer curtain had been lowered over the entire mountain.

The next wall showed the curtain partly covering a wooden box

with a golden top comprising two majestic birds, perched, wings outstretched. On the third wall, there were three figures in human form. One was painted bright, one shadowy dark, and one…faded,

almost translucent. The three figures, each wearing a small, silver crown, stood around a large chalice, which rested on a very long stem. All three of them had an arm extended and were bleeding

from the wrist into the cup. The other hand rested on the shoulder of the one to their left so they were all connected. I cast my gaze to the last wall— it was completely faded or had never been painted.

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Nyla and Rudyard were standing very close, holding hands