Severed(30)

His head shot up. There  –  again, a footstep on gravel. He was on his feet instantly and merging with the shadows cast by the stairwell. A few seconds later Grace appeared in the open doorway before him dressed in a long, dark coat, her pale hair illuminated by the moon that had risen above the trees behind her. He stepped out from the shadows.

‘Lucas,' she said, taking him in with a coolly appraising stare.

He scanned the woods behind her, checking that she was alone. ‘Grace,' he answered when he'd confirmed she was.

‘You wanted to see me.'

‘Yes.'

She glanced at the dark and empty hallway behind him, as if she had no intention of crossing over the threshold of the building. Her arms were wrapped around her body defensively. It made him wonder what she'd seen him do. ‘You know,' she said, ‘you didn't need to choose here.'

He nodded. ‘I realise. I just needed to see this place again.'

Grace raised an eyebrow. ‘Why? To make sure they were all dead?'

He flinched, then took a stride towards her, seeing her head fly up in surprise at the speed at which he had moved. ‘You knew it was going to happen, didn't you?' he shouted. ‘You knew they were going to die and yet you let them go anyway?'

Grace took a step back away from the onslaught, but Lucas carried on. ‘You could have stopped them! You could have warned Neena at the very least. Why? Why didn't you  … ?' His voice caught and he paused, pressing his lips together to try to stop his voice from shaking with all the pent-up rage.

‘I didn't see it all, Lucas,' Grace answered calmly. ‘It all changed so quickly. If you hadn't gone back that night, then it would be done by now. And, likewise, if Evie had killed you then the prophecy would have come true already. But you did go back. And she didn't kill you. And that changed everything. Well,' she paused, ‘not everything. But it's brought us to where we are now.' She sighed with what could have been boredom or could have been sadness. ‘And Neena dying  –  I didn't see that coming at all. She made the choice so quickly. As soon as I saw it, it was done.' She shook her head and her hair flew like a curtain caught in a gust of wind. ‘It's all so pointless though.'

Lucas frowned at her, something sliding into place with a certainty that stopped his breath. ‘You've always known about the prophecy being marked, haven't you?' he asked quietly.

She held his gaze. ‘Yes,' she said with a shade of defiance in her voice. ‘That's why I tried to stop you, Lucas. Don't you see? Nothing you have done in the past or will do now or in the future will make any difference. It just brings you closer to death.'

He contemplated her for a few moments. The moon had disappeared behind some clouds and without any light to illuminate her all he could make out were the two enormous pools of her eyes, like sunken cavities in her skull. ‘So everybody keeps telling me. I guess I still choose to believe we can be masters of our own destiny.'

‘Your fate needn't be the same as Evie's,' Grace answered, her voice cracking like a shot against the walls.

‘What do you mean?' he asked, feeling the shudder prickle up his spine.

Grace's expression hardened, her chin lifting defiantly, almost in challenge. Suddenly everything became clear to Lucas. ‘You know the rest of the prophecy, don't you?' he whispered in a hoarse voice.

Grace paused for a second and then nodded. ‘Yes. I know it. The Sybll have always known it. We just broke it into pieces and hid those pieces from the rest of the realms because it was the only sensible thing to do.'

For several seconds they stood in the gloom of the doorway staring at each other in silence. Lucas frozen, and Grace's eyes fixed on him, trying to foresee what his next move was going to be. So Issa knew too, Lucas thought to himself. She had known all along and had lied to him. Why? He couldn't understand. He found his voice, forcing the question out. ‘What does it say, Grace? What does the prophecy say?'

Grace studied him. She gathered herself before she spoke, drawing back her shoulders. ‘A sacrifice is called for,' she said. ‘A life to close it. The White Light's life. She has to walk through the Gateway.'

For what felt like whole days Lucas stood there, the air growing still around him, his body frozen in place. Then he shook his head and said simply, ‘No.'

Grace's expression shifted, pity welling in her eyes. Rage exploded out of him in response. ‘Why didn't you tell me  –  back then  –  why didn't you warn me?' he yelled, lunging for her, but she had foreseen his move and darted backwards out of his reach.

‘Because, Lucas,' she said softly, ‘you can't change anything. All these decisions that you are making are pointless, like throwing a paper towel onto a forest fire in an attempt to put it out. No matter what happens to delay it, nothing changes the final outcome. You can't stop this from happening. The way through will close. And the White Light will be the one to close it. She will die. And the only difference will be whether this realm, and everyone in it, gets destroyed along with her or not.'

‘What are you talking about?' Lucas asked, stunned.

‘There's an army massing on the other side of the way through. Unless the Gateway closes in the next forty-eight hours you may as well forget about having anywhere to run to. They will try to kill Evie before she can fulfil the prophecy. The prophecy is marked but the Elders refuse to believe it. So they will try and they will fail, just as the Brotherhood have tried and failed several times already, and you will die for no reason. As will countless more innocent people.' She paused and took a step forward towards him, her fingers gripping his wrist. ‘You have the power to change their fates as well as your own, Lucas.'

He ripped his arm free from her grasp and tore past her without another word, jumping the steps and hitting the driveway at a sprint.

Grace's voice, soft as snowfall, pulled him up short. ‘She's not there,' she said.

Lucas reeled around and was back in front of Grace in the next second, holding her by the arms. ‘Where is she?' he demanded.

Grace smiled and her smile, though sad, seemed tinged also with victory. ‘She's with Margaret. The Hunter,' she said finally. ‘She's taking Evie to Victor. They're on their way right now to Riverview.'

Lucas let go of Grace's shoulders as if she'd burnt him. ‘Why? Why is Margaret taking Evie to Victor?' he asked.

‘Because Margaret knows. She knows the rest of the prophecy too. All that research she's been doing over the years, it was always to find the prophecy. She's going to give it to Victor when she delivers Evie to him. She wants the way through to be closed. That's all she's ever wanted. She sent you off to find me so you'd be out of the way.' She paused, looking at him pityingly. ‘Do you see how it's all falling into place, Lucas?'

Lucas shook his head, trying to understand, then he let go of Grace and ran to the car. He needed to leave. He needed to get to Evie before  …

‘You won't ever be in time to save her,' Grace called out after him. ‘Do you understand?'

He climbed in the car and shoved the key into the ignition.

‘You just keep delaying things,' he heard Grace whisper, her words cutting across the revving of the engine, ‘but it's all going to end soon anyway.'






     
 

      Chapter 28



Evie stared at the clock on the dashboard watching the neon display blink like the countdown timer on a bomb. It was close to midnight. Her foot was tapping the floor and Margaret kept glancing down at it every few seconds and frowning. But Evie couldn't stop the bouncing, or stop her fingers from twisting knots into her T-shirt. She was worried that Lucas wouldn't know where she had gone. She didn't trust Vero and Ash to tell him if  …  no, she shook her head, when he got back. She should have written him a note but Margaret hadn't given her time to even scrabble for pen and paper. And Lucas didn't have a phone on him. In fact she wasn't even sure he owned a phone.

But it wasn't just concern about Lucas that was making the adrenaline short-circuit her body. Ever since Margaret had shoved her backwards into the Prius and snatched the keys from Cyrus, Evie had been feeling as if she'd tumbled over the edge. And it wasn't Margaret's driving and it wasn't the fact they were heading back to Riverview. No. She took a deep breath and glanced sideways at Margaret  –  it was something else entirely that had sent her into a freefall spin.

Cyrus's mum had barely said a word to her since they'd got in the car. Her hands were gripping the steering wheel as if she was sat in the front seat of a rollercoaster car without a seat belt on, and she was leaning forward over the dashboard, her nose nearly pressed to the windshield, as if by sitting that way she could exert some extra forward motion on the car to make it go faster.

She didn't trust Margaret. That's what this weird, knotted feeling in her stomach was. It was the same feeling she'd had around Lucas when she first met him  –  something pricking at her, her senses screaming that she shouldn't trust him. Back then she'd known instinctively that Lucas had been hiding something from her. It just turned out that the effect he had on other parts of her body overrode her gut suspicion and all her instincts. This time, though, she recognised what her gut was telling her and she wasn't going to ignore it. Margaret was keeping something from them. Something Evie didn't think was going to be a pleasant surprise. She pressed her hand to the hilt of Lucas's blade and felt it dig into her spine. Her foot instantly stopped tapping.