Not unless…
I don’t have my goggles. I can’t see anything at all. I don’t know what’s on the other side of this aqueduct wall, and I’venever—never—taken anything as complex as a human being with me before.
But we’re out of options unless we want to die here for sure. I have to try.
Tuning out the roar of the water, I reach for Trinity’s song. It sounds so far away right now, cocooned in this icy torrent, but I pull it to me note by agonizing note. I let it grow wild inside me until that blue-white halo of light starts to gather on the edges of my vision, painting the backs of my eyelids. I push it through my chest, my pounding heart, into Orion’s and Dani’s bodies, linking them to me.
Then I reach for the space beyond the water, beyond the aqueduct wall.
And I phase.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“PROOF OF LIFE.”
—SAMUEL COVENANT
My body thrums with the rhythm of Trinity’s song. It’s so loud inside my head, so soaring and bright, that it wraps around my bones and fills my chest with its fierce, wild beat. I let it pull me along, coming back together slowly, so slowly that it takes me a moment to recognize what it feels like to be solid and whole. To be a person in my real, human body.
And then, in a snap, it all catches up to me. I exhale violently, coughing and sputtering on aqueduct water, my fingers still gripping the handle of Orion’s saw. Freezing wet clothes plaster against my skin as I try to sit up or roll over, but there’s a tangle of arms and limbs all around me. I can’t move. I don’t have the strength to move.
“Dani? Dani!”
Orion’s panicked shout cuts through my muddled brain. He scrambles off me, and I push up onto my elbows with effort, tryingto make out the scene next to me. Trinity’s song still rings in my ears, making me lightheaded, and I have to shake my head to clear it before it pulls me back inside.
My blood goes cold—even colder than it was already. Dani lies perfectly still next to me, her eyes closed, her skin tinged purply-blue. She looks…
No.
Orion kneels next to her, beads of water trickling down his face and neck as he slips a hand underneath Dani’s neck and lifts it up just a little. Just enough for Dani’s head to tilt back, her chin lifted, exposing the length of her throat.
“Orion, what—”
“I got it, V, just—” He cuts himself off, bending low over Dani’s face and placing his lips against hers. Pinching her nose closed, he exhales hard into her mouth, and her chest visibly expands with his breath. She doesn’t move on her own, though; she remains still and cold.
Cursing, Orion repeats the movement again, and then again. Panic and anger creep up the back of my throat. A hollow echo of the helplessness I’d felt when I lost Halle. I see Dani’s cold, empty body. I see Halle falling into the Depths. Their faces blend together, back and forth, swamping my vision—
Suddenly Dani jerks upward. She gags hard, water bubbling out of her mouth, and Orion and I move in sync to roll her over onto her side as she retches up what looks like a gallon of liquid. Gently, I brush the hair from the sides of her face and hold it back as she purges everything out of her system until there’s nothing left.
Dani sits up, shaky, her breathing starting to even out asshe pulls her knees into her chest. “Y’know, Booker,” she says hoarsely, looking up at him. “You could’ve just asked me for a kiss. You didn’t have to go to all that trouble.”
Orion chuckles, halfway between relieved and irritated as he drags his hands down his face, wiping the remaining water from his skin.
Impulsively, I reach out and put a hand on Dani’s cheek. “Glad you’re okay.”
She looks at me, a little stunned, the hint of a pleased smile hovering around her lips. “You know me, ghoulie. I’m hard to get rid of. Nice move getting us out of that thing, by the way. Didn’t even know you could do that.”
Neither did I.
“Hey.” Orion’s gaze drifts behind me, out toward the horizon, and he slowly climbs to his feet. His face is stretched with shock and bewilderment, and he opens his mouth multiple times before finally saying, half jokingly, “Is it just me, or does everything look a little… different?”
I turn, following his line of sight, and my mouth drops open.
I’ve never seen anything like it before—except in my dreams. Greenery explodes everywhere, carpeting the ground, crawling up the sides of the aqueducts. Here and there, enormous—I have to dig deep in my brain to find the word—treesshoot into the sky, their branches laden with thin dark-green needles, their trunks too big for even all three of us to wrap our arms around. Silvery starlight paints the delicate petals of flowers in shades of violet and white, bright yellow and pale pink, intermixed with the long blades of green.
Above us, a huge, glittering orb of stained glass sits atopseven massive, curving prongs of black metal that sprout from the ground below it, the facets of its jewel-toned panes reflecting the stars and the night sky.
The Gate of Heaven.
