“Do you want me to swear on my brother’s life? I have never come across that thing in my life. None of our ancestors did, they’d have recorded it otherwise. And in case you didn’t know, Merton and I were trained to read every scrap our line left behind. We were getting taught different old languages before we could even walk. So growing up, we read all their records, research, and even diaries, just to know where one stopped and the other began. Therefore no, I haven’t read a single thing about how his curse can be broken or if it can even be broken in the first place.”
I leaned back, studying her face for any flicker, any lie buried in the cracks of her expression. She might be lying, and she might not.
“You mean you guys stalked him for centuries without knowing that?”
“Maybe because there is no such thing as that.”
I arched a brow. “Really?”
She opened her mouth, then stopped, her gaze fixing on me as if the pieces of a puzzle she hadn’t even known existed suddenly clicked into place. Her expression shifted, hungry for information I didn’t have. “What do you mean by that? The Soulless Man’s immortality curse can be broken?”
Of course. To her, discovering something not recorded in history books would be better than gold, the best thing that could ever happen to a researcher. As I watched her drag her fingers through her hair, eyes flickering like storm-light as she mentally ransacked everything she’d ever read, I knew I’d just struck a dangerous mission inside her mind.
“Who told you this?” she demanded. “The Soulless Man? I am not questioning everything I know if you got this from an unreliable source.”
I wasn’t about to tell her. Not when she was this starved for answers. Instead, I shifted. “Have you guys really been to the cave?”
“Answer my question first—”
“It’s like you’re forgetting I’m the one asking the questions here.”
She rolled her eyes, falling back in her chair with all the arrogance of someone unused to being told no. “Ugh.”
“So? Did Merton lie about going there?”
“Yes. No one must step foot in its perimeter. Except the Soulless Man, of course.”
“Then how does Merton know what the cave rock looks like? Was he lying about that one too?”
She shook her head. “No. My grandpa had taken a photo of it from a distance forty years ago. The cave only got deadly, I think, twenty-something years ago. Presently, if you stand where my grandpa had stood, your legs will rot in an instant. I don’t know what the Soulless Man has been feeding it, but it’s gotten insanely dangerous since he started visiting.”
I frowned. “What?”
She rolled her eyes again, displeased at letting her hard-earned knowledge slip so easily. “There was no record of him being spotted there until I was born. He’s been going to the cave for more than twenty years now. And that was when the cave started emitting strange energy.”
Damn.
I would have never thought he’d been at his “unfinished business” for more than twenty years. What exactly was he doing there?
I looked up, only to find Amelia’s eyes locking on mine at the same time, the same wheel spinning in our heads.
Did it have to do with breaking the curse?
Was it also connected to the cut he always had on his palms? He was always back with healed scars, and it made me wonder if he’d been tearing himself open in the cave.
“Show me the picture,” I told her. I needed to confirm if it was the same with the one in the dream.
Sighing, she fished out her phone from her pocket, checking through her gallery before standing to retrieve Merton’s instead. She passed it to me and slumped back in her chair.
On the screen was a photograph of a photograph. And on it—
The cave.
The. Exact. Same. One.
My breath stuttered as I stared at the cave’s mouth. It was the same. Only this time, the rock glimmered faintly in the sun.
Merton had been right, it did look kind of shiny. But the one I’d seen in the dream hadn’t.
