The Fortune Teller(87)

The heavy wooden doors resembled the entrance to a church. A bolt and chain wrapped around the wrought-iron handles like a snake. It had been cut by someone to allow them entry—an ominous welcome.

Semele felt like she’d located a needle in a haystack. She couldn’t believe she had managed to find her mother in all of Europe with the sheer force of her mind. She watched Theo take the chain off, and her pulse began to race. Whoever—whatever—was waiting on the other side of those doors terrified her.

“Semele, you can do this,” Theo said.

She nodded, knowing she had no choice.

Ionna had foreseen these events and had tried to prepare her: The road must be walked whether you are ready or not.





The World

Semele stepped inside and let her eyes adjust to the darkness. The boarded-up windows allowed in little light. She moved through a hallway filled with cobwebs and dust. Cracks riddled the walls like veins.

“Apropos. Don’t you think?” Viktor’s voice rang out from a room up ahead. “Nettie’s sanctuary for years. The place where she tried to forget. The place where you must remember.”

Semele walked toward the voice, leaving Theo to follow behind.

She found Viktor Salko in what could only have been the library, though its bookshelves were now empty. He sat on the far side of the room in a high-back chair, like a king at court waiting for an audience. An oxygen tank stood next to him and a mask covered his mouth. He had thinning hair, and a pained expression dulled the hawkish lines of his face; he wore an ivory suit with a matching shirt and tie, as though he were dressed for a wedding … or a funeral.

Her eyes landed on her mother.

Helen was gagged and strapped to a chair twenty feet away. Wires had been hooked up all over her body and led to a strange contraption at the center of her chest. Semele had no idea what she was looking at.

Her mother’s eyes watered when she saw her, and she tried to call out through the gag. The sound brought Semele out of her stupor and she took a step forward.

“That is close enough,” Viktor ordered in a sharp voice. He had taken off his oxygen mask. “Stand still and let me look at you.”

Semele glared at him, her body emanating cold hatred.

“I’m quite impressed you made it in time. It seems my experiment worked.” He laughed in relief. “I really wasn’t sure it would.”

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded, her voice unsteady.

He answered her question with a question. “What battles intuition? The haze of doubt, the fog of the mind. You have been in a fog all your life. Now it is time to step out of it if you want to live.”

Semele’s body quivered. Every atom within her vibrated with fear and anger.

“Your grandmother hid you away, and your intuition was buried with the help of a workaholic father and an alcoholic mother. I’ve been attempting to liberate you. It’s been very difficult.”

“We know who you are.” Theo spoke up, his voice strong.

“Do you really?” Viktor gave him a condescending smile. “My father was a brilliant man. But he was also cold, with no understanding of life or the human heart. I understood why Nettie and Liliya ran away. My father spent years trying to find them.”

He turned to Semele. “For him, Nettie was the key to unlocking a future world. He never stopped looking for her. I used to dream that I too would meet her someday. I so wanted to.”

Viktor drew from his oxygen. “You see, you belong to that rarest group of observers—the truest of seers—who can take the full measure of life, filled with all its infinite probabilities, and see the future that has been set forth. Just look at Ionna’s manuscript. She didn’t write to Nettie. She wrote to you—she singled you out because you are next in line. Her heir. Your sight, your ability has even greater potential than your grandmother’s.”

Semele shook her head in denial.

Viktor’s gaze shifted to Theo. “Tell me, did you inherit Liliya’s gift?”

Theo didn’t answer, but his eyes hardened.

Semele looked to Theo in surprise. She had never considered that he might possess Liliya’s ability.

Viktor chuckled. “It is no matter to me if you can see through walls.” His eyes searched Semele’s again. “Nothing in the world is more powerful than time. It is the only thing that controls us, until we can grasp how to break free.” His next words made her freeze in terror. “There is a device strapped to your mother, and the countdown has begun. I will leave it up to you to free her. Me, I am happy to watch. My greatest triumph would be to see you become your ultimate self or to die trying.”

“You’re crazy,” she whispered.

“Am I?” Viktor shrugged. “I’ve gotten you this far, dear girl, when no one else could.” He held up Ionna’s cards and the manuscript. “Are you really going to let her down?”

Semele instinctively took a step toward him.

“For the first time since Elisa died so tragically in Gundeshapur, the cards, the manuscript, and the heir are all united. It has taken a long time for this day to come. If it wasn’t for me, Ionna’s legacy would have been kept hidden by both of your fathers, and you would continue to forget who you are.”

Semele found her voice and hated how weepy she sounded. “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”