Page 98 of Divine Oaths

“You go find help,” I said. “Hurry. I’m going to stay and see what I can do.”

She seemed reluctant at first, but then she nodded. We exited the shed and a few feet away at the dock, the roar of an engine sounded. Pete was starting the fan boat.

“Take this,” Honey said. She handed me the switchblade she’d used to free us from our binds. It had a wooden handle and an archaic mechanism for unfolding, like someone had tried to create a prototype of a switchblade before they became pocket-size. When I took it, the prolonged touch of my skin through the lace sparked a flash of a vision in my mind: a dark alleyway, a body hunched behind a dumpster.

I gasped, nearly dropping the switchblade but clutching on to it before I did.

“Where did you get this?” I whispered.

Honey looked confused.

“It’s Alaster’s,” she explained. “I stole it off him a while back. It’s one of their family heirlooms.”

On the base of the blade was an engraving, not so different from the one on Kasem’s family ring: JTW.

The engine roared again. I slipped the blade into the pocket of my ruined skirt. I’d have to deal with this revelation later. Right now, Kasem needed me.

“Vivian,” I screamed. “Vivian, we need your help.”

At the mention of her name, Vivian appeared out of thin air. Honey jumped back, startled for a moment at Vivian’s sudden appearance.

“Greetings to the Ԑnhye from Theta,” Honey said.

“Go get help,” I repeated. “Hurry.”

Honey nodded and sprinted off, making her way to a parked ATV near the shed.

Vivian and I ran in the opposite direction, toward the dock.

“Can you slow them down?” I asked.

Vivian nodded. “I’ll try.”

She disappeared and, in the distance, she reemerged at the foot of the engine as the fan boat took off. At her touch, the motor seemed to disintegrate. The engine groaned, spluttered, and waned.

They were just at the edge of the dock. I ran, faster than I ever had before, faster than my lungs could handle. Pete’s scream of anger was terrifying. Yet I raced onward.

I was nearly there, just at the edge of the dock, ready to jump onto the fan boat. But before I could reach them, Pete descended on Kasem, kicking Kasem to his knees. And then, after ensuring that Kasem’s wrists and his feet were bound, Pete threw Kasem into the swampy waters of the Westfield estate.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

What fools these mortals be

THE SCREAM THAT TORE THROUGH me was pain and heartache, all mangled into one terrible cry. It was the loss I’d felt in the auditorium that day: me, seated behind a piano, as I witnessed an inferno rip my parents from me. Grief awakens so much in us. It reminds us that time is precious and rare; here, and then… gone.

Kasem and I were no different. That brief encounter at Gus’s shop. The alleyway where I’d watched Kasem nearly die. And then here, at Westfield. The sound of his laughter stirred something in me. His smile, that gentle, teasing curve of his lips, how his dark brown eyes gleamed with mischief—how was I supposed to imagine a world without him here, smiling at me?

Losing my parents so early in my life, I’d always thought that people were temporary. People I loved, like Jojo, abandoned me. And except for my erratic powers and his curse, Kasem and I had even less tethering us. Yet, I wanted to be with him, for him to tease me and for me to discover the different parts of him that, inexplicably, I found myself curious about.

Because somehow, I’d become attached to him. Me, an orphan, a stray.

Kasem wasn’t just a stranger in an alley or some elitest legacy. He was Kasem. My Kasem. I wanted more time for us. And I loved him.

Water and mire engulfed me as I followed Kasem into the depths of Westfield’s swamp. The rush of all of it solidified this realization in me.

But always, fate was cruel. And my fear of losing Kasem in that moment was heightened by the whispers of doubt it cast in me. What if he didn’t make it this time? What if I did? What if we lived, but neither he nor I could transcend fate’s tragic hold on our lives?

Vivian screamed for me to stop, but I was already diving far beneath the surface of the swamp as Kasem sank into its depths.