Now that I wasn’t nervous, I accessed the location quickly, and when I opened my eyes again I was back in the library, where Trey, Katherine, and Connor were staring at me, with slightly anxious expressions.
“Lincoln sends his best,” I said with a grin.
A few minutes later, I walked Trey to the door, since he still needed to get across town for our meeting. “Unbelievable,” he said, when I kissed him good night and slipped the last little sliver of the mint into his mouth with my tongue. “You taste like minty onion rings. I was going to surprise you, but it really doesn’t seem like a surprise now.”
“It was very sweet of you and it will be a surprise. Or was a surprise,” I amended. “Take your pick.”
13
Trey left around ten on Saturday, a bit earlier than his usual weekend departures. I wanted him to get a good night’s sleep, since he would be picking me up bright and early the next morning at the Lincoln Memorial. I’m personally more of a night owl, and it would be easier for me to “sneak out” when Katherine and Connor were asleep, so I planned to head down to the kitchen around midnight. It would have been safer to make the jump from my room, but I was reluctant to add another stable point to the list. I wasn’t exactly sure how to delete them and didn’t really want to draw attention by asking.
I constantly found myself forgetting that my closet and dresser didn’t hold the same contents as their counterparts in my old room, so it didn’t occur to me until shortly after Trey left that I had no appropriate “church clothes.” I sorted through the few outfits that I’d ordered online and selected the dressiest shirt in the bunch, which was a loose floral tunic, and a pair of slim black jeans. My only shoes, other than a pair of sneakers and a pair of sandals, were the black flats I’d last worn to school. I couldn’t entirely remove the scuffed mark from where Simon had smashed my foot on the Metro, but they would have to do.
I put on a bit of makeup and some small gold hoop earrings, then pulled the sides of my hair back with a peach-colored clip that matched the blouse. The pocket copy of the Book of Cyrus that I had ordered a few weeks earlier was on the nightstand, where I’d left it the night before. It was one of two core documents of the Cyrist faith—the other, the Book of Prophecy that Connor so wanted to get his hands on, was an internal document available only to higher-echelon members. Cyrist International was very protective of its copyright on the Book of Prophecy, and the few disgruntled members who had leaked sections of the book online or in exposés about the church’s leaders had landed in the middle of costly lawsuits. In every case, the Templars had won.
The Book of Cyrus, on the other hand, would have lost any copyright battle, were it not for the fact that the scriptural sources it cribbed content from were well past the copyright expiration date. The short volume was a mishmash of quotes from the Bible, the Koran, and other religious texts, with a few original ideas added in here and there. I’d found it much more effective than a sleeping pill—five minutes of reading and my eyelids began to droop.
I tucked the small book into the back pocket of my jeans, slipped the CHRONOS key inside the tunic, and surveyed my reflection in the mirror. From what I remembered of the service I’d attended with Charlayne, I’d never be mistaken for a devout Cyrist—with or without the lotus tattoo—but I looked presentable enough that I might pass as a prospective convert.
At the last minute, I turned back. I’d gotten used to seeing the blue glimmer of the CHRONOS medallion through the fabric of my clothes on the rare occasions I ventured beyond the protective zone, but it occurred to me that I might actually encounter others who could see the light from the key once we were at the temple. I slipped off the tunic and began layering camisoles over the top. The first two were thin and I could still see the glow pretty clearly. I pulled a third from the dirty clothes hamper and added it, and then finally a black tank top—pretty much every item in my limited wardrobe. When I was finished, I could still detect a very faint blue, but it was masked by the floral pattern of the tunic and I decided it would have to do.
Sneaking out felt wrong. I’d never so much as broken curfew, although there had been a close call after a party at the house of one of Charlayne’s cousins. If Katherine or Connor saw me headed downstairs, it wouldn’t usually be a big deal—I often got the urge for a midnight snack, but never fully dressed and in makeup. I kept all of the lights off and was still nervous when I reached the kitchen. My hands shook slightly as I pulled up the Lincoln Memorial, locking in the location and setting the time for just over seven hours later.