Fatigue washed over me as I climbed the steps. My limbs felt heavy and drugged. I was just going to sink into my bed, I decided, curl up and pull the covers over my head. Maybe when I opened my eyes again, I’d find everything was somehow fixed. The Beneath would have released Shane’s body and withdrawn back behind the veil of the Circle. Gideon would return to himself. I wouldn’t have to worry about futures or visions or the end of the Kin, or whether or not I determined it. I trudged down the hall and pushed open the door to my room.
I knew he was there before I stepped inside.
Verrick. I had felt his presence often enough before to know it now. I had felt it within Mom’s memory, the night on Harlow Tower when I’d seen his face through her eyes, the malevolence within him. I’d felt it in my readings for the Remnant, that sensation of something watching me, searching as I searched. I’d felt it in my reading for Gideon, the cards almost burning against my fingertips. And I’d felt it that day of the baseball game, that moment when Verrick had briefly touched the surface.
He was here. In my house. In my room. In the dark.
I flicked on the overhead light.
“Gideon?”
He was sitting with his back to the wall, his knees drawn up against him. Rain trickled from his hair and clothing, soaking into the carpet. He looked wholly human, sunburn on his arms and face, no shine of silver showing through his flesh. The knuckles of his left hand were bloody. A thin trail of crimson rolled down his hand to the tips of his fingers, beading there a moment before falling. He was still dressed as he had been the last time I’d seen him. His T-shirt had a rip in the shoulder, but otherwise he looked no different. If I hadn’t sensed it, I might not have known.
He raised his head and his gaze met mine.
The color of his eyes hadn’t changed. It was still that deep, rich brown that was so familiar to me. But they weren’t Gideon’s eyes, either. I could see into them, through them, to the empty of Beneath. And beyond the Beneath, somehow. Impressions flashed through me, rapid and jarring. Fragments, visions, I wasn’t certain which—I saw birds wheeling above and then dropping like stones from a sky that was swollen and dark; I heard the sound of bones crunching, the sound of sirens; a scream and then a sigh. There was the thud of a heart. A throat sliced open, thick blood dripping onto a ground the chalky gray color of ash. All of that there, in his eyes. And rage, as well. An anger so intense it was blinding, choking.
I inched backward.
“Audrey,” he said.
I scanned the room quickly, noting details I’d missed at first. My window was broken. Two or three shards of glass still hung from the frame, but most were scattered across the floor. A bolt of lightning that streaked across the sky outside made the shards spark and flare like they were alive. Gideon hadn’t come here from Beneath, then; he’d climbed up the house. I glanced at the blood on his knuckles, the growing red stain on the carpet below. He noticed my gaze land there, then lifted his hand and sucked at the injury.
I stood there, divided. I wanted to run to him, to kneel beside him and wrap my arms around his thin shoulders; I wanted to flee in the other direction and never look back. In the end I did neither. I just kept watching him. As he huddled against the wall, I saw the quiet glow of the light that surrounded him. The Astral Circle’s light, pulsing faintly. It rippled into the air, warm and clear and familiar. I could feel the edge of its burn. The connection between us.
The way I could kill him, Iris had said.
I chased the thought away once more. There was a quiver in my voice as I said, “Your parents are really worried. Are you okay?”
He gazed up at me again. I had to force myself not to look away.
“You lied to me. You said I was Kin.” Though his words were strained, his tone anxious, his voice sounded the same. Like Gideon. His teeth started chattering. He clutched his knees tighter.
“I’m sorry, Gideon,” I breathed. “I’m so sorry.”
“Gideon never existed. He was just the skin I lived in.”
“That’s not true.”
The teeth chattering stopped. He smiled broadly. There was blood on his mouth from his split knuckle. The dimple in his cheek appeared, but a shiver crawled up my spine.
“If it were true,” I continued, trying not to show my apprehension, “why did you come here?”
“I came here to kill you.”
I flinched. I stared at him, and now it wasn’t what I saw in his eyes that caused horror to grip me—but what I feared he saw in mine. Perhaps he could see into me, the way I had seen into him. Into that flicker of doubt I carried, the tiniest fraction of the smallest of seconds when I had wondered to myself if I should kill him. That instant when I hadn’t been his friend.
“Why?” I whispered, the only word I could manage.
“You killed Brooke.”
“No—I didn’t.”
“Your Kin did.”
“I’m so sorry,” I repeated.
“I don’t want your apologies. I want your death.”
But there was hesitation in his voice. I felt it. Clung to it. “You cared about Brooke,” I said. “I remember. You tried to comfort her after Miss Gustafson died. Verrick only wanted her power. Gideon loved her. You loved her.”
“I am Verrick, Audrey.”
The weary resignation in his tone frightened me almost more than the look in his eyes had.
“No,” I protested. “I saw Verrick. I saw Mom fight him. You’re different.” He spoke differently I realized. Not just his voice, but his words. The cadence. The slight hint of sadness in them. Though it wasn’t quite Gideon, it wasn’t quite Verrick, either. “The Circle changed you. It made you into something else.”
“You know the truth. That’s why you hid it from me.”
“If you’re here to kill me, why haven’t you? Why are you just sitting there? Why break into my room and wait? You wanted to talk to me. You want my help. Because we’re connected. We can figure it out, Gideon. We can find some way to fix it. I know we can. We just—”
Abruptly, he rose to his feet and walked toward me. The rest of my words died unspoken. He was no longer Gideon. Something within him had shifted, distorted. His entire posture changed. He no longer had that hint of a slouch that sometimes bent Gideon’s shoulders, and he didn’t have his long loping stride. He moved with a sleek animal grace, stalking forward, that bloody smile once again on his lips. But it wasn’t his motion that made my heart freeze and my throat close up; it was the malice that thickened all around him. His wrath seeped into the air, and the hate that coiled inside him burned so hot I was surprised it didn’t sear the ground where he stepped.
I remembered the first impression I’d had of Verrick—that if there was a hell, he’d surely crawled out of it.
Crawled out and carried it with him, I thought now.
But he wasn’t looking at me, I realized. He was looking past me.
I spun around and collided with Leon’s chest.
He wrapped an arm around me, holding me tightly to him. Face-first in his shirt, I squirmed, trying to wrench myself from his grasp. His arm didn’t loosen. But he didn’t teleport right away, either. In his left hand, I saw the flash of Guardian lights beginning to glow.
“No!” I said, feeling a stab of horror. I broke free long enough to turn toward Gideon, then Leon caught me again, clapping my back hard against his chest. His grip was firm and unyielding. “You can’t fight him!” I cried.
“I know you,” Gideon said, gazing at Leon. His tone had altered, too. There was a chill in it I recognized, and didn’t want to recognize.
“You should,” Leon answered. His own tone was clipped.
“You’ve known each other for years,” I said, still struggling in Leon’s hold.