When we got back to the hotel room, I fought Percy for control and won.
Ellie leaned against the door, but the decisive look on her face was Evan’s. “That’s it. We’re out of here.”
I dropped down on the couch and stared into the empty fireplace. I couldn’t help shivering. I wasn’t sure if it was the lack of a fire or what Percy had decided. I knew that he was going to give his dagger to Lydia. I knew that he thought that he could win it back. And I knew that his plan wouldn’t work. Because I knew that he was about to die in this very hotel room. He had one more day to live.
“You’re right, Evan.” The words hurt to think. They hurt worse to say.
“Kat, listen to me.” He marched over to me like he was marshaling his energy for a fight—arms crossed and eyes full of fire. “Wait, did you say I’m right?” His voice stumbled, like someone had called a ceasefire in the middle of an attack.
“I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen next, but I feel like we have to get the dagger back to our time before it’s too late. I want to help them, but I don’t see how we can.” The muscles in my neck tugged at the back of my head. I rubbed them, but it didn’t help.
“So, we’re agreed—”
“It’s an awful choice. I hate making it.” All my frustration and fear got tangled up in my voice. “But Lydia is so strong. Without my ring and my blood, I can’t stop her. If she gets the dagger, we’re all doomed.” The admission slashed at my heart. The powerlessness I felt was a physical pain. “I have to try to save us—in our time. I have to face the danger there. There’s nothing else I can do here.” I hunched over, hating how right Evan was about everything. “Let’s go home.”
“Good.” I could hear Evan’s relief in Ellie’s voice.
I untied my cravat and popped the top buttons on my shirt. I reached for the locket, but I couldn’t find it. “My necklace.” I ran my hand around my neck searching for the chain. It was gone.
“Kat, don’t play games.”
I exposed my bare neck. “Do you see it?”
“Check inside your clothes.” I heard a note of panic now.
“Turn around.” It might seem silly since I was in Percy’s body, but I wasn’t exposing myself to Evan.
He turned to face the door. “Hurry up.”
I searched inside my shirt and even checked my pantaloons. Nothing. “I don’t have it.”
We turned over every pillow and looked under every piece of furniture, but we didn’t find the locket.
“It’s gone. Our only way home is gone.” Horror overcame me and I sank to the floor. “If I stay here another day, Percy and I will die.” My chest constricted. Suddenly, there wasn’t enough air in the room. My breath came in tiny, terrible gasps.
Ellie’s small body sat next to mine, but I recognized the soothing, rational tone of voice as Evan’s. “Kat, try to calm down. When was the last time you noticed it?”
“This afternoon.” I remembered adjusting it before we had gone down to dinner.
And then it came to me.
“Lydia.” Her name stole my breath away again. “She kissed Percy goodbye. She must have stolen it when he was distracted.”
Ellie’s forehead creased with Evan’s disapproval.
“I’m sorry.”
He wouldn’t look at me.
I didn’t blame him. If I’d have listened to him earlier, we’d never be in this position. “This is all my fault, but I’ll get it back,” I promised.
“How? The minute we’re in a room with anyone from this era, we revert back to Percy and Ellie.”
“We’ll wait until everyone is asleep and then we’ll sneak into Lydia’s house.”
“Into that fortress?” Disbelief doused his words. “How do you propose we find the locket in all those rooms before we’re discovered?”
I rubbed my lips together and tried to think of something. “Can you tap into Ellie’s powers?”
“Ellie can barely tap into her powers,” he muttered. “She only knows a few spells.”
There had to be a way to use what she knew. I thought back to how Toria had explained that my magic was connected to my blood and my soul. “But you have a bit of my soul in you from when I healed you. Maybe you can use it to help Ellie? Sort of like how Toria’s ghost slipped into my skin and helped me break the curse on the Radcliffe rubies.”
“You think I could help Ellie?” He sounded skeptical.
“She knows how to do a locator spell. She can find the necklace for us if you help her.” Evan’s this-will-never-work look was less convincing on Ellie’s face. “It’s possible. Just try. Please.”
“What if Lydia sees us coming?”
“No matter how powerful she is, she can’t see everything that is going to happen. Toria couldn’t and she was one of the most powerful Langley heirs. Ever.” I thought about Percy’s memories. “Lydia seems best at predicting harm to others. This is the opposite, right?”
I could see Evan’s skepticism shining through, but I also saw resignation. The truth was, we didn’t have much of a choice except to try.
***
Evan did not enjoy casting a spell. I could tell from the looks he was shooting across the hotel room at me. They ranged from doubt to frustration to annoyance and circled back again. I understood the array of emotions. This was usually my task, and it still felt weird to me.
For this locator spell, we’d had to improvise. We still had the basic ingredients from the spell that Ellie had cast to find Lydia, and Evan was able to probe Ellie’s own memories a bit for guidance. We added a lock of Ellie’s hair and a nail clipping from Percy because the locket was tied to both of them. We had to hope that this would be enough.
The piece of my soul that Evan carried helped power the spell even more than I had guessed. We figured that it might be because I was the Langley heir and stronger than Ellie. In any case, despite Evan’s initial misgivings, we had a precise location. The locket was in the drawer of Lydia’s writing desk.
All we had to do was get it.
Had Evan and I been on our own, we wouldn’t have had a chance. Luckily, we weren’t.
The locket wasn’t just a piece of jewelry. It was an ancient and powerful piece of magic. With Lorelei’s mirror and her own Langley blood, Lydia could travel to Dumbarton and, from there, to any of the four families’ homes in Connecticut. Percy would never let that happen. He would want the locket back, and he would know how to burglarize a townhouse without getting caught.
After a quick discussion, Evan and I decided to recede into the background so that Percy could concoct and execute a plan to steal back the locket.
***
Percy blamed himself for losing the locket. He had let Lydia get to him. He’d been a fool. But he didn’t have time for anger or self-loathing now. He had to fight and he couldn’t be at war with himself. He had to reserve all his focus for the task at hand.
As he and Ellie stalked towards Lydia’s house, he couldn’t help thinking about how he’d been sneaking in and out of rich men’s houses most of his life. Their wives and daughters had a weakness for him. Maybe it was the lure of the Kingsley name. Maybe it was his dangerous reputation. Maybe it was simply the eye patch. Whatever drew them in, he’d exploited it. Sometimes for Harrison’s benefit. Sometimes for his own.
He might have carried on like that indefinitely. But now he wanted something more. Better. He wanted Sarah.
As he thought of her, he cast a glance at Ellie. He hadn’t known whether to bring her or not, but, ultimately, he’d decided that he wanted to keep her close.
While Percy worried about Ellie, I lurked in the back of his mind and worried about Evan. I should have listened to him. If we’d used the locket to go home as soon as we had the dagger, he’d be safe now. And, with the dagger, he might even have been able to save me.
***
Ellie and Percy crouched in darkness, watching as the lights inside Lydia’s townhouse were extinguished, waiting for the servants to go to bed. Percy checked his pocket watch. It was just after midnight when the last candle was snuffed. They waited another half hour. Then he scooped Ellie into his arms and crept silently towards the kitchen door.
He set Ellie down gently. “Don’t move,” he whispered.
She nodded.
He pulled out his tools to pick the lock. Just one of the questionable skills he’d acquired in service to Harrison. So much of who Percy was came down to being the Kingsley heir. Duty to Harrison had always come first, no matter what that duty required. Tonight, though, he was choosing Sarah over the Radcliffes and he didn’t care about the consequences.
He heard the delicate click. The lock had released its hold on the door. Slowly, he opened it. He took a few steps inside and motioned for Ellie to follow him. It was so dark inside, Ellie stumbled. He caught her before she fell.
He couldn’t carry her through the house. He had to be ready to fight if someone discovered them. He grabbed her hand. “Stick close to me, and don’t let go of me,” he whispered.
Her head bobbed in the darkness.
He skulked through the house, seeing the auras of objects and scooting around furniture as he made his way to the drawing room. When they stepped inside, he scanned the room. Nothing living. He shut the door behind him and locked it.
He noticed a faint orange aura emanating from the bottom drawer of the desk. That had to be the locket.
“Stay here, next to the door. I’ll be right back.”
He skirted around the coffee table, passed the fireplace, and went around the couch toward the desk. It took him just a moment to pick the lock. He slid the drawer out and found the locket lying inside. He was about to reach for it when he saw the glow from the star sapphire in his dagger’s sheath. A supernatural threat.
He had faced assassins, thieves, and marauders on his own, but it had been years since he’d faced off with something supernatural without Sarah. The blood rushed through his veins, readying him for the fight.
He looked back to the door, where he’d told Ellie to stay. Her aura had disappeared. He whispered, “Ellie?”
No reply.
Blast it. He slid the locket into his coat pocket and looked around the room. There were no living auras anywhere. No sign of any other person there. But of course there wouldn’t be. The realization made him feel sick. And disgusted with his own stupidity.
“Lydia.” She’d lured them there. Of course she had.
She chuckled. It sounded like it came from everywhere. His heart pounded against his chest, trying to beat down the fear. He pulled his dagger out and held it in front of him as he spun around, but he couldn’t find her. She was masking her presence.
“Where is Ellie?” he asked the darkness.
Lydia’s voice echoed around him. “She’s right here beside me.”
“Ellie?” he called out again.
“I’m here.” Ellie’s voice came out in a high-pitched squeal.
Lydia was cloaking both of them. “Lydia, let her go.”
“Don’t break into my house, pull a knife on me, and give me orders.” Her voice was so cold that he almost shivered.
Ellie gasped just before all the candles in the room flared to life.
Lydia stood by the fireplace in a dressing gown of pink and blue. Such gentle colors on such a cruel woman. Her long hair hung around her shoulders. Her eyes glittered with anger. She kept Ellie in front of her and held a small knife to the girl’s throat. It glinted in the candlelight. A drop of blood seeped up from where she’d pressed the blade too hard against Ellie’s neck.
Ellie’s lower lip trembled. He’d never seen such fear in her eyes. It sent a terrible sensation tumbling down his spine and slamming into his stomach. He tried to keep his voice calm. “It’ll be fine, Ellie.”
Lydia made a noise in her throat like a bobcat mauling a rabbit. “Depends on your definition of fine. And I’m going to need for you to return that locket.”
“It doesn’t belong to you,” Percy said.
“It doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the Langleys,” she hissed.
“The Langley heir, Lydia.” He needed to keep her talking while he found a way to get Ellie away from her. “It must sting to be reduced to picking pockets.”
“I’ve always done what I must.”
“Did you learn that skill after your family banished you?” He wanted to incite her anger. He hoped that emotion might cause her to make a mistake. “Is it something your husband taught you? Or another man, perhaps?”
She lifted her chin and taunted him. “Are you jealous? That the great Kingsley heir was outmaneuvered by a Langley, and not even a Langley heir?”
“You think this is about my pride? You don’t know me at all.”
She pressed the knife harder against Ellie’s throat. A thin stream of blood was falling toward her collar. She looked terrified.
His stomach twisted. It had been a mistake to try to provoke Lydia into a misstep. He slid his blade back into the sheath.
“I know you, Percy.” Lydia’s eyes narrowed like a hawk siting its prey. “You will always do the right thing. And that means saving Ellie at any cost.”
He folded his arms and leaned against the desk, trying to appear indifferent. “But you already told me she’s going to die soon. At least this will be quick.”
“Who said it would be quick?” Lydia slashed Ellie’s neck. Blood poured out, drenching her dress.
“No.” He leapt toward them.
Ellie’s aura faded from red to orange to a faint yellow. She was dying. As Percy was striding toward her, Lydia whispered ancient words and the wound on Ellie’s neck healed. The life came back into her eyes. Her aura glowed again.
Stunned, he froze in place.
Lydia pulled Ellie close again and the child cringed. “I can do this all night. Kill her and bring her back. Or I can start summoning servants. I can sacrifice people in her place until it turns her very soul.”
“You can’t. You don’t love them.”
“I don’t have to.” Her laugh sounded almost merry. “Oh, I know what Jonas told you. But that spell only requires that I love the person I’m killing as much as the person I’m saving. And I love the girl who arranges my hair at least as much as I love this little thing.”
Percy couldn’t keep the look of horror off his face, even though he knew that Lydia would relish it.
“In any case, I know all kinds of spells to save lives and trade lives. Spells that extract a brutal price from those they save. There are so many ways we can do this.” An unholy fire burned in her eyes. “But those spells are exhausting, even for me. Eventually, I might become too weary to bring her back again.”
Percy was desperate now. He just wanted to keep Lydia talking. “Why do you want the locket? It’s a doorway to the families you despise.”
“That’s no concern of yours. All you need to understand is that I want it. And I’ve already explained what will happen if I don’t get it.” With that, she stabbed Ellie in the stomach, pulled the knife out, and let the child fall to the floor.
Ellie’s blue dress turned red at the center. “Don’t do it, Percy,” she whimpered.
He didn’t have a choice. “Heal her first.”
A smile slithered across Lydia’s face. “I thought you’d see it my way.”
She whispered words of healing again. A few moments later Ellie stood up, shaking. Her eyes were haunted by what had happened.
“Put the locket on my desk.”
If he conceded to her now, he might have one more chance to best her. He doubted that he’d have more than one. He pulled the locket out of his pocket and placed it on the desk.
“This has almost been too easy. You were all so eager to abandon Harrison in order to help Ellie. I had assumed that you’d have more of a sense of duty. Ah, well.”
“Was Ellie really in danger?”
“Of course. But Sarah was a fool to not see through the vision I sent her.”
Percy struggled to understand what he was hearing. “Did you really even want my dagger?”
“Oh, you know how negotiations work. Ask for more than you can imagine. Settle for what you want.”
“Which was the locket.” He’d been so stupid. She could get to everyone now. Because of him. “Are you going to kill them all?”
“We need to start over. The four families need a fresh set of heirs.” She spoke with a feverish intensity. “The ring will be mine.”
“The ring passed over you once, and it will do so again. It will never choose you, because you killed your mother.”
Her face contorted with anger and she tightened her grip on Ellie. “That wasn’t my fault. She was killing me. I had to survive.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that the ring will never choose you.”
“Do you know what happens if all the heirs die at once?” she asked.
“I don’t.”
“Neither do I. Nobody does. But I, for one, am eager to find out.”
She thought she could manipulate the ring into picking her. And it didn’t matter how many people had to die. She was willing to do anything to make it happen.
No. That wasn’t right. She’d already done things to make it happen. The truth was written across her face. Somehow, she had gotten close enough to poison Harrison without Sarah or Percy realizing it. She was the reason Sarah was dying. She’d used Ellie to get Percy here and to lure out Jonas. She was behind everything bad that befell the heirs and she had used him to advance her plan.
Lydia was the reason everyone he had sworn to protect was in danger. In that moment, his hatred for her flash-flooded his mind. Lydia had to suffer. Every inch of his body cried out for her death. He took a step toward her intent on ending her, even if it ended him.
***
I couldn’t let this happen. Lydia would kill Percy and Ellie. I had to do something. I struggled to take control. I shouldn’t have been able to do it in Lydia’s presence, but, somehow, I did it. And I had a plan.
If Langley blood and Langley souls powered spells, maybe getting some of Ellie’s blood on my hands would help me work magic, even though I was in a Kingsley body. “Release Ellie. Let her come here, to me, and I’ll leave the locket on the desk, just as you asked me.”
Lydia eyed me curiously before saying, “Take a few more steps away from the desk.”
I had to put several feet between me and the desk before she would release Ellie. When Ellie rushed to my side, I touched the blood on her dress. I felt the energy. The connection. The Langley power pulsing in my soul.
Lydia’s face contorted. “Who are you?”
“Someone you shouldn’t have messed with.” It was Percy’s voice, but my words.
“You’re a Langley, aren’t you?” She stared at me and for a second I swore she could see into my soul. “Are you from the future, or the past?”
The question caught me off guard, but I refused to answer. “That’s my locket now.” I managed to keep my voice level, even though I was terrified.
“No, actually, it’s mine now.” She grabbed it off the desk and slid it into the pocket of her dressing gown.
“I won’t let you hurt them.”
“You think you can stop me?” Her tone was dismissive. “Your magic won’t work here. Wherever you’ve come from, you’re in the wrong time, girl.”
“The heirs are stronger than you, aren’t they?”
“I don’t see a ring on your hand,” she said.
“But I’m not the Langley heir right now. I’m the Kingsley heir, and I have my dagger.” I slid my hand to the hilt, grasping it.
Her gaze followed my movement.
In her moment of distraction, I gripped Ellie’s hand and imagined my soul’s power flowing into her. Words, ancient words that I’d never spoken, came to me. To us. Ellie and I said them together. Lydia’s eyes widened. I didn’t know what we were doing, but it seemed that she did.
I thought she was frozen in place until I noticed her lips moving. A counter spell or a curse. Whatever she was saying, I couldn’t let her finish. I didn’t think, I just acted on Percy’s instincts and threw the blade at her. The Kingsley dagger hit her in the belly. She stumbled backwards, but she had enough strength left to send her own knife hurtling toward Ellie. I shoved Ellie to the ground and an incredible pressure spread through my side.