Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(97)

“Metaspell.” She spoke urgently, snatching a breath between every few words. “I should have . . . seen the curse, but it was . . . it was lost in . . . all that warding. . . .”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“No,” she said, looking up at me with tear-filled eyes. “I’m going to die.”





45


Terror tried to rise up in me like a tide of ice water, but I clamped down on it hard. I left my glasses on, hoping they would conceal what was going on in my head. “We’re all going to die eventually,” I said evenly. “Can you give me an ETA on your demise in particular?”

Caryl’s gaze lost focus, as though she were searching inside herself. Her breaths were labored and shallow, and her lips were turning blue.

“Massive pulmonary embolism,” she said. “Blood oxygena-tion dropping rapidly—I’d say—minutes, not hours.”

I jumped to my feet and began to climb the steps to the soundstage door. “Is Vivian powering this ward?” I asked Caryl without looking at her.

“It seems to be . . . independent of her. But the curse—curses are always linked to essence.”

“Is the curse still in the ward, or did you use it up when you touched the door?” I reached out.

“I don’t know. Millie, don’t!”

But I had already put my hand on the doorknob. I felt nothing, of course; one moment the soundstage was a seething mass of bruised magic making me want to look away—the next moment it was just a building, even through my glasses. I inhaled experimentally and found myself unhurt.

“Well then,” I said. “We’re good to go.”

I turned to Caryl. When I saw her still struggling for breath, part of me crawled into a corner and died.

“Caryl,” I said flatly, “before you expire, could you be kind enough to dispense with the lock?”

“Millie!” It was Gloria, her voice blurry with tears.

Caryl sat gasping in the middle of the pavement, pulling off her gloves and wiping her bare hands on her knees with an intensity worthy of Lady Macbeth. No one knew what to do, since the person who usually gave orders was busy imploding. I moved to Caryl again and crouched nearby, leaving a bit of distance between us. I stared at the discarded gloves where they lay limp and bloody on the pavement. “Caryl, I need you to unlock that door.”

Teo advanced as though he wanted to choke me, but then stopped short, flexing his hands. “Millie, for God’s sake, let’s just get out of here before somebody gets killed.”

“I’d say we missed that boat, wouldn’t you?” I turned back to Caryl. “Are you sure the curse is lethal?”

“This is how . . . she killed Martin,” Caryl gasped. His name fell from her lips like “Mommy” from a lost child’s, and for the first time I realized the depth of her love for him.

I had to look away. It wasn’t the blood at the corners of her mouth that got me, or the corpselike tinge to her skin. It wasn’t even the grief for her mentor, or the fear that made her eyes look so young behind their dark liner. It was the trust mixed into it, the way she looked to me with irrational hope simply because I was the only person pretending to be calm.

“Vivian could undo the curse,” I said.

Caryl shook her head. “She would have to . . . be here.”

“We can call her.”

“No,” Tjuan interjected forcefully. “She’d kill all of us and have our bodies paved over.”

“Also, she’d have to take the 405,” added Gloria with a -sniffle. “It’s a parking lot this time of night.”

Tjuan frowned. “Wouldn’t she just take La Cienega?”

“Still, it’d be forty-five minutes at the very—”

“Shut up!” I snapped. To my surprise, they did. I turned, forcing myself to make eye contact with Caryl. “What do you want to do with the time you have left?”

She set her jaw, staring at the soundstage. “I’d like to . . . unlock that door,” she rasped.

“That’s my girl.”

She looked up at me. “I’m your girl?” She didn’t sound nineteen; she sounded nine.

“Damn right.”

Caryl started to get to her feet, one hand positioned as though to keep her heart from bursting out of her rib cage. I reached to help her, hesitated out of habit, then remembered that the damage had already been done and gave her my hand.

Caryl gasped as she stood up straight. A deep gasp, a sweeping inhale of relief. It took me a moment to realize why.

“I fixed you!” I said breathlessly, my fingers tightening convulsively on hers. Her hand was as soft as a baby’s.

She shook her head and laughed, tears glistening on her lashes. “No,” she said. “It’s like the facades. You interrupted the circuit.”

An incredulous snort escaped me. “So you can live a long, full life, so long as I never let go of your hand?”

“Something like that.” She actually giggled, giddy as a cheerleader.

“Well then, this will work out dandy until one of us has to pee,” I said, just to hear her laugh again. “Come on.” I tugged her toward the soundstage.