Page 125 of The Reveal
Buthowcan he be dead? He’s twenty-five hundred years old and three seconds of sun does him in?
I can’t bear it. I have survived far too many things, but this one might kill me.
This one I don’twantto survive.
Maddox whines, still in her wolf form, and when I look up, I follow her gaze.
I see mist between the trees, rising slowly.
I hold my breath.
Then he’s there. Silver eyes blazing.
And burns. Nasty, awful-looking burns all across his face, down his neck, and all over his arms.
But he’s here. He’s not gone. He’shere.
The relief that courses through me is so profound that it feels like a blow. Like another whole body landed on me, too, and knocked all the air out of mine.
Who needs air if he’s not dead? I’m happy to keel over if it’s for a good reason instead of the worst—
“Gran.” Augie’s voice is intense. “Shit.”
I stop worrying about whether or not I can breathe and return my attention to my grandmother. She’s covered in blood, and it can’t be Samuel’s blood, because new blood is still welling out of her. She’spanting, heavily, and the hands that held her handgun in front of her have fallen to her sides.
Revealing the hilt of a knife sticking straight out of her chest.
“No,” I say, or maybe I scream it.
Savi starts chanting again. The wolves are howling.
Everything is terrible, but then Gran opens her eyes. She looks between Augie and me, and she smiles.
“I’m an oracle,” she croaks out at us. “I came here today knowing this would happen, precisely like this. I was not betrayed. This is a willing sacrifice. He wanted this to be the key that unlocks her, but it’s not.”
“He did not betray me either,” comes Ariel’s dark, furious voice. “I always thought he was a two-faced fool.”
Ty roars, and I think we all know it’s in agreement.
Everything feels charged and slow and terrible, but I remember what Savi said at our first gathering.Two locks to open. And two different keys. The first, a living sacrifice, as painful as possible beneath a full moon. The second, a terrible betrayal and an unwilling sacrifice.
“You would have to have trusted him to be betrayed by him,” I manage to say, looking at Ariel. I look back down at Gran. “And you knew what he would do. That means you sacrificed yourself.Willingly.”
Though my voice cracks when I say that word.Willingly.
“Why else would I bring your grandfather’s gun?” Gran asks with a rough approximation of her usual saltiness.
“There will be a different betrayal, a different sacrifice,” Savi says, her eyes blazing gold. “And there is nothing to say it will be amongst us.”
“It wasn’t last time,” Ariel points out. “It was all entirely triggered by Vinca’s acolytes.”
Gran nods. Her breathing is getting shallower. “Remember,” she says, though she has to struggle to get her words out, “I walked into my death with my eyes open. I chose it. I didn’t hide from it, I didn’t try to change it. I want the two of you tolive.”
“It should be me,” Augie grits out, his voice thick with the same fury and disbelief that I can feel eating me up inside. “I’m the fuckup. I’m the disappointment.It should be me.”
“I’m a seventy-five-year-old woman,” Gran tells him, her indigo gaze bright. “Death and I are no strangers to each other. And you, August, would do well to remember that it will come for you when it’s ready. No matter how you court it. No matter how you chase it.Youdon’t get to decide your time.”
“Gran,” I whisper.
