“So . . . a scar opened when Chiara made a prediction?” Tennyson asked. “Is there a scar here now?”
Jack’s gaze darted to the right of a cabinet filled with Snow White china. He waved a finger. “Yes. Right there. It’s smaller than the other scars, but definitely there. And before you ask, it wasn’t there before last night.”
“Why are scars appearing and rifting open around Chiara now? That makes no sense.”
Dante shook his head. “Just when I figured this situation couldn’t get any more confusing. The scars and Chucky-slime are baffling. We need a breakthrough of some sort to help us understand all this.”
Tennyson snapped his fingers. “Yes, breakthrough. I almost forgot.” He jumped up and snagged his satchel off the floor by the couch, before turning to me. “I found the pages you wanted from the archive.”
“Pages?” Dante asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Jack found some black scans in ol’ Cesareil Pompaso’s stuff we wanted to double check.”
“Cesareil Pompaso? That windbag?” Branwell scoffed. “Why are you bothering with him at all?”
“That’s whatIsaid.” I shot a pointed look at Jack.
“Fortunately, I did,” Jack said. “I found a passage in Cesare’s writing where he spoke of the gaps and ragged tears in the fabric of our world. But the pages after it were black.”
“So I asked Tennyson to find the originals for us,” I finished.
“Interesting. Good work.” Dante gave a bro-chin-lift to Jack.
We crowded around as Tennyson placed his bag on the kitchen table and carefully pulled four plastic sleeves from the leather bag.
Every single item in the D’Angelo archive had been placed into acid-free archival sleeves to preserve the original documents. These were no different. A white label in the corner of the sleeve identified the document’s place within the archive. It was a brilliant system that some hard-working soul (*cough*me*cough*) had come up with about a decade ago.
Tennyson scooted his satchel out of the way and laid the papers out on the table.
“Unfortunately, I’m not sure that these pages are going to be helpful,” he said.
Looking at the documents, I instantly understood.
The pages hadn’t been poorly scanned; they were legitimately black.
“Huh.” Dante came to stand beside me. Reaching for the nearest one, he held it up to the window, peering into the black.
Branwell joined him, snatching another one with a gloved hand.
As antiques experts, both of them dealt with things like this on a daily basis.
“Opinion?” Dante asked his twin.
“Vellum and lamp-black.” Branwell noted the material and ink.
“What year is this approximately? When did Cesare live?” Dante asked me over his shoulder.
“Early eighteenth century.”
“Way too late for vellum to be common,” Branwell said. “Vellum is a medieval material.”
“So why did he go to all the hassle of writing on vellum?” Dante asked. “It’s not paper; it’s leather. Thicker, denser and infinitely more expensive.”
“Is all Cesareil Pompaso’sstuff on vellum then? I don’t remember.” Another question thrown over the shoulder.
The twins were standing shoulder-to-shoulder before the window, examining the document in the bright sunlight. From the back, their similarities were definitively pronounced. Same dark heads, same broad shoulders, same exact height.
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “Very little in the archive is on vellum. This must have slipped through everyone’s filters.”
