This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(28)

“To bear witness,” Dr. Kent said matter-of-factly. “I cannot interfere and neither can Hecate. She cannot persuade you to move away from something that is fated for you. Imagine what it must be like to watch your family over thousands of years, hundreds of generations, and be able to do nothing in the face of their suffering.” She sighed heavily. “She did turn away for a long time, but she made her way back. She watches because that’s all she can do.”

Marie turned back to Circe. “Why are we here?”

Circe took a deep breath and chewed at her bottom lip before speaking. “I need to know if we can get Thandie back. If it’s even possible to reunite the pieces of the Absyrtus Heart. I need to know if we can survive it.”

“I thought we came here to find out more about Medea,” I said.

Circe nodded. “I did, but— we’re here and Clotho—Dr. Kent—knows so much more than that. I need to know how this is going to go because I can’t lead us into this and lose everything all over again.” Her eyes filled with tears, and her breath caught in her throat. “I’ve lost almost everything and everyone who has ever meant anything to me. All for the sake of the Heart. I don’t know if I can do that again.”

I didn’t know what to say. I understood. Maybe just as much as she did. The Heart had taken from me, too.

Circe clasped my hand between hers and pushed her glasses up. “I won’t put you in harm’s way. Especially if it leads to nothing.”

Dr. Kent suddenly cleared her throat, and we all turned to look at her.

“You want a glimpse into the future?” she asked. She stood and marched up to Circe. By the time they were face-to-face, Dr. Kent loomed over Circe, glaring down at her. “Maybe I give you exactly what you’re asking for, but then what? What happens when you see something you wish you hadn’t? Something you can’t unsee or undo?”

Marie moved to my side, and I took her hand in mine.

Circe stood tall, her chest poked out, her chin up, defiant. “Maybe I could do something about it since you won’t—or can’t.”

The silence that followed was awkward and uncomfortable as the two women stared at each other. Then, in one quick motion Dr. Kent swept over to the spinning wheel and grabbed it by the spoke, yanking it down. It spun so fast the shape of it was lost in a blur and the gold thread began to shimmer, making long shadows in the dim light.

“Please have a seat,” Dr. Kent said.

Marie moved to one of the chairs and pulled me down next to her. Circe balanced herself on the chair’s armrest and watched as Dr. Kent walked to the shimmering pool in the middle of the floor. She crouched and stirred the strangely luminescent water with her fingers. When she pulled her hand back the skin hung from her exposed bones, ragged and wet.

I stifled a scream as the skin quickly re-formed around her hand. She opened and closed her fist.

“Come forth, sisters,” Dr. Kent said. “We have company.”

A rumble from somewhere deep under my feet shook the ground. Little bits of loose rock bounced across the tops of my sneakers. The legs of the tables and chairs rattled against the stone floor.

Dr. Kent backed away from the pool as the water inside it sloshed against the sides, spilling out across the floor. As the rumbling settled, I took a deep breath, but the relief was short lived as a skeletal hand reached up from the water and clamped down on the pool’s rim.

I was on my feet without thinking. I grabbed Marie by the arm and yanked her back. She clutched Circe by the collar of her shirt, and the three of us stood frozen in absolute shock as a figure clawed its way up and over the edge of the shallow pool.

A strangled cry escaped its throat, which began to re-form from bits of naked bone and flesh.

“What is that thing?” Marie asked as her black eyes grew wide.

“Atropos,” Dr. Kent said. She wasn’t answering Marie. She was addressing the thing that had just emerged from the pool like a monster from a nightmare. “I have guests, and you are scaring them.”

“Atropos?” Circe asked breathlessly. She was trembling so bad she could barely keep her feet under her. Marie kept her upright with one hand while keeping a death grip on me with the other.

The strange figure clambered to its feet and straightened up. The bones popped and snapped as they oriented themselves. The skin plumped up on its bones and the face became something more living than dead. She was an older woman, though she looked remarkably similar to Dr. Kent, draped in a pale yellow dress that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. She took a few steps on wobbly legs as the water dripped from her face and beaded on the mass of black coils atop her head. Her skin was the color of boat orchids, her eyes a stunning chestnut brown. She swept the water droplets from her bare arms and sighed. She leaned over the rim of the pool and took hold of something that almost pulled her off her feet. She braced herself against the pool’s wall and drew something up from the water.

Another person.

This figure was more flesh than the other had been, almost fully intact as she emerged from the water, and was clothed in pale blue robes. Instead of looking like an older Dr. Kent, she looked like she might have been her younger sister.

“We haven’t long, Clotho,” said the younger-looking one.

Her voice sent a shiver through me.

“I won’t keep you, Lachesis,” Dr. Kent said. “Look who I have here.”