“Still…” I move a few steps closer, leaning against the edge of the table and staring down at him. As much as possible anyway given how tall Orion is, even while sitting. “It’s not like we really have any other leads…”
He chuckles, his grin big and broad. When I keep staring him down with that same expression, though, the laughter fades into shock. “You’re serious. You want to try and find theGate of Heaven?”
“Ghoulie, you’vegotto be joking.”
Dani’s voice cuts across the small space, and I turn to see her standing in the doorway with Kelda beside her, holding the Ember creature in her arms. It’s nestling its little black nose against her neck, looking sleepy, and Kelda’s hands are latched tightly around it. Tears shimmer in the corners of her hazel eyes, and she blinks furiously, trying to push them back.
Dani glares at me, her jaw clenched tight. “We need arealplan to get you two out of here and hide you somewhere safe. Not some bullshit notion of hunting down a place that doesn’t physically exist.”
“We don’t know for sure that it doesn’t.” I sit down across from Orion and put a hand on the Aaldenberg knot. It still hums a little beneath my fingertips, even now that it’s open. “And if it does… then I think I can find it.”
Orion sits forward, eyebrows raised. “I’m sorry, you can what now?”
“The song that I used to open this,” I say, slowly tracing the symbols on the outside. “I hear it all the time, and it… pulls at me. Always in the same direction. I think all we have to do is follow it, and it’ll lead us to the Gate of Heaven.”
Orion holds my gaze for a long moment and then sits back inhis chair again, staring off into a middle distance as he rubs his knuckles along his jaw, turning over everything I just said.
“That actually makes a lot of sense. Elsje Aaldenberg had a little brother who was a saint, and it was his childhood drawings that inspired her theory about the Aaldenberg knots. She left behind writings talking about it, and in them, I remember she mentions that her brother used to hum a song all the time and turned in the same direction every time he did it.”
“North and east,” I say. It’s not a question. I know I’m right before Orion nods.
“Exactly.” He exhales a shaky breath. “Shit, you might be onto something here, V.”
“Ontowhat?” Dani seethes. “I’m not hearing a plan here.”
Orion holds my gaze, and for a second, I’m a little breathless because we used to look at each other this way when we were younger. Connected on a wavelength that was ours alone, where the soft beauty of his face was my only true fixed point.
“We find the Gate,” he says softly, speaking for both of us. “We dig up whatever secrets they have there. And one way or another, we make sure the Archangels can’t snatch up any saint ever again.”
Not ever. I’ve been playing a game against death for half my life, acting like if I struck first and hard enough, if I ran fast enough, I’d be able to keep all of us safe. But I was never going to win a game like that. I want Kelda to have a life free of these shadows. I want to be the last saint born who has to watch the skies in fear. And that only happens if I stop hiding and face what I am head-on. I’m going to change things for the better. Like Halle would.
“Why can’t we just run away?”
I glance over at Kelda, who’s still standing just inside the doorway. Ember is trying to wriggle its way around the back of her neck, and Kelda patiently plucks the little creature off her shoulders and re-situates it, cradled against her chest. There’s so much going on in Kelda’s expression all at once—grief, worry, fear. After everything she’s been through, she’s still trying to be so brave. I want to be honest with her, lay everything on the table, but it’s not as simple as that. So I give her as much of the truth that I can.
“We could,” I admit. “I want to. But there are Archangels everywhere. My face has been blasted all over Trinity. Wherever we go, they’re eventually going to find us. And next time they do, it could be you who gets hurt.”
I can hear the tremble in her body as she takes a deep breath. “I’m coming with you, then.”
“No.” Pushing up from my chair, I go over to her, taking her face in my hands. “No, you should stay here with Atlas and Liren and Mira and Garian. They’ll be able to keep you safe.”
She frowns up at me, so serious, looking so much older all of a sudden. Her hands grip Ember like a warm, breathing lifeline. “You’re not going without me. I don’t want to be left behind again.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Everyone leaves.” Her voice isn’t much more than a choked whisper. “Papa. Mama. Halle. They go and I’m left here, and I’m just really tired. I don’t want to do it anymore.”
I could argue. I could put my foot down. But I don’t know what’s going to happen to me at the end of this road, and selfishly,I don’t want to say goodbye to my littlest sister just yet. So I wrap my arms around her shoulders, careful not to squish the troublesome critter in her arms, and drop a kiss on the top of her head.
“Okay. You win, smalls. You can come.”For a little while, at least.
I glance over at Dani, whose scowl has only gotten deeper.
“This is a stupid plan,” she snaps.
“Are you saying that because you really think it is? Or because I haven’t asked you to come yet?”
“Both.”
