‘The Sage of Athenea found their girl,’ I breathed and broke off in wonderment. My father had brought me up to be rational, but my experience here had changed that. I was ready to believe this, crazy and way-out as it seemed.
‘Do you know who she is?’
He shook his head. ‘The first Heroine? No idea. Nobody knows. The Sage have shut their borders so there is no way into the dimension and no way out. We can’t send messages and they certainly aren’t telling us anything. We have to wait on them to tell us. As usual.’
I frowned. ‘But how long could that take?’
‘Who knows?’ he answered. ‘Days, weeks, months maybe. They’ll bide their time and when they are ready, she will come. She will have to at some point, because she was born to awaken the other Heroines.’
I gripped the edge of the fountain, the cool spray chilling me again and spotting Kaspar’s jacket with water. ‘What do you mean?’
He shut his eyes, sighing. ‘The verses are in order. The first is about the Sage, the second about here, the third about the Damned, and so on. The first explains how the first Heroine must search out each Heroine. As the second is supposedly a vampire, she will come here first, find the second girl and then … well …’
He trailed off, shaking his head.
‘What is the first verse? Do you know it?’ I asked, doubting he would actually tell me.
‘Of course. Everybody knows it, apart from you puny little humans in this dimension.’ I scowled at his reference. ‘It’s far more beautiful in its native tongue, Sagean, because in English it’s been altered to make sense and to rhyme, but you can get the gist of it.’ He leaned back on his elbows, staring up at the starry sky, the words flowing from his tongue as though they had been spoken a thousand times.
‘Her fate is set in stone,
Bound to sit upon the first throne.
The last of her line and a symbol of the fine,
She is the last of the fall; a deity among all.
Her teacher, her love, her lie,
Alone, the first innocent must die,
For the girl, born to awaken the nine.’
He finished and his lips came together, his eyes downturned from the stars now.
‘Alone, the first innocent must die?’ I quoted, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
‘Haunting, isn’t it?’ he murmured. ‘Forty-five people will die if the entire Prophecy is true.’
I shivered, the intrigue for the subject fast become an unnerved chill. ‘I wouldn’t want to be that Heroine girl right now.’
He shook his head. ‘Neither would I. It’s not something I would wish upon anyone,’
‘What if it was someone you knew?’
He stood up abruptly, turning back to me, his form blocking the light from the house and moon, casting a long shadow across the grounds. ‘Then may fate have mercy upon her heart.’
When he looked back at me, a second shiver passed down my spine; gone was the amusement and the smirk. Instead, it looked as though just laying eyes on me seemed to hurt him.
‘Maybe we should go back in,’ I murmured, getting up too. I’ve got enough answers for tonight.
‘You’re right. C’mon.’ Together, we headed back in, ignoring the many stares of the onlookers. We were just passing the alcove beneath the balcony when he stopped. ‘Violet, wait.’
I froze in front of him and turned back to find him ducking into the alcove. I was taken aback, but quickly remembered I was still wearing his jacket.
‘Jacket. Here,’ I said, quickly slipping it off and handing it back to him.
‘No, it wasn’t that, but I do need it back,’ he chuckled. He pulled it on and reached into the breast pocket. ‘I have something for you.’
I knew my cheeks were moving from washed out to purple. ‘What? You shouldn’t have!’
He smirked. ‘Yes, I should. Think of it as a sorry I screwed up your life gift.’
‘I didn’t think you showed remorse?’
‘No, I don’t. If I regretted what happened in Trafalgar Square, there’s no way I would give you this,’ he clarified, and from his pocket he pulled a long chain, a pendant – no, a locket – hanging from it.
‘My God,’ I breathed, not believing what I was seeing. My eyes became glued to the tiny, sealed album, watching the emerald stone disappear and reappear again as it spun on the chain.
‘It was my mother’s locket. And inside it contains miniatures of my family. She gave it to me the week before she died and told me to give it to the woman that I felt would keep this family together. And … and I figured that was you.’
My voice caught in my throat. ‘I-I … you can’t!’
‘I can,’ he replied, already moving behind me to fix the clasp.
‘But—’
‘No buts.’
He lowered it over my head, bringing the chain behind my neck. I froze, afraid he might accidentally touch me. He fiddled for a moment and I could feel the locket against my skin, the metal unnaturally cold and not warming as I pulled my hair from underneath the chain.
‘There,’ he breathed, sidestepping around me. ‘Look after it.’
Slowly, ever so slowly, he brushed his fingertips across the emerald, gradually tightening his grip around the pendant. I stopped breathing as he brought the locket away from my skin to his lips. He kissed it.
‘Look after it,’ he repeated and then replaced it, just as I took a single, slow breath. His fingers, as cold as the locket, just for a moment, a second, traced across my skin. But it was long enough. Kaspar met my gaze, the sudden fear I felt bubbling in my chest reflected in his eyes as he turned away and looked past me, beyond the alcove to the doors. I followed his gaze. I knew what I would see.
Standing beside the doors, his eyes darker than the night beyond the lantern-light, was the King.
FORTY-NINE
Violet
I took a step away from Kaspar, clutching protectively at the locket; more afraid he might take that from me than of his actual anger.
‘You just don’t understand, do you, son of mine?’ His words were calm. Controlled. A threat.
‘Understand what, Father?’ Kaspar replied in the same tone.
The King took a few steps forward, bringing himself into the shadow of the alcove. Folding his arms across his chest, he observed his son through black eyes – the only thing that betrayed his anger.
‘The philosophy of look but do not touch.’
A gentle breeze blew across the veranda and through the alcove, stirring my hair. The lanterns swayed, chasing the shadows away and spilling light across both the King and Kaspar. For a moment, I was struck by how much they were alike – from the way they stood to the arrogant smirk they shared; even the determined line of their brows was identical.