This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(44)

He stretched out his hands and flexed his fingers. A haze clouded the air around them. I blinked, thinking maybe I had something in my eye. It was like looking at the space right over the sidewalk on a blistering hot day. The strange halo of rippling air enveloped his hands completely, and suddenly, they were gone. His hands disappeared.

My heart cartwheeled in my chest but I stepped closer. Isaac shifted and extended his arms toward the surface of the table. In the space where I estimated his hands were touching the tabletop, the wood took on a wavy, mirage-like appearance and then disappeared, too.

Marie watched with wide eyes. Everyone, including Persephone and Circe, was struck silent.

“What you transfigured for me was an invisibility token,” Isaac said. “It renders an object invisible for a set period of time.” He drew his hand away from the table and it slowly reappeared. “It is very hard to manage.”

“What do you even need something like that for?” Mo asked.

“I have my reasons,” Isaac said.

Marie huffed. “That’s not suspicious at all.”

I stared at the empty space where his hands should have been.

“Wait,” I said. “Could somebody do this on a larger scale?”

Isaac looked thoughtful. “I don’t know. How much larger are we talking?”

I glanced at the map, at the blank space in the center of the Black Sea. “Island sized.”

Circe looked at the map, too. Her lips parted but she didn’t—or couldn’t—speak. An improbable but intriguing thought bloomed in my mind.

“That would be next to impossible.” Isaac watched as his hands continued to rematerialize. “An island, even a small one, is still a huge undertaking. This single vial is barely enough to keep me completely concealed for a solid twenty minutes. Anything I come in contact with would also be affected for roughly the same amount of time, but imagine the amount that would be needed to conceal a piece of land.”

I walked over to Circe. “This has to be why nobody has been able to find Aeaea. If it’s the only island out there somebody should have come across it by now.”

“It’s been cloaked,” she said in a whisper. “Hidden.”

“It just isn’t possible,” Isaac reiterated. “The kind of skill involved, the amount of wolfsbane alone—”

“Medea and the original Circe were on that island,” Circe said. “Together. For who knows how long. They had more than enough skill to do it.”

“Why hide it at all?” Isaac asked.

“Because the island is sheltering something no one should know about.” Circe’s tone turned dark. “It’s there. The last piece.”

Lucille stood quietly by the fireplace, wringing her hands. “Must you go? There’s no other way to get what you need?”

“No,” Circe said sternly. “We have to go.”

Lucille nodded but still looked troubled.

“But you think we have a chance?” Mo asked. “Please be honest with me. Do you really think you can bring Thandie back?”

Circe came over and crouched in front of Mo. “I’m going to do everything I can. And I will have to do things that might look bad from the outside.”

“I don’t care what it looks like to anybody else,” Mo said, squeezing Circe’s hands. “I’m trusting you to bring Thandie back—” Her voice caught in her throat. “Please bring her back.”

A terrible silence gripped the room. What we were about to attempt was impossible, and even if there was a chance we could find the island, get past whatever creatures guarded it, locate the Heart and combine the pieces, we wouldn’t come out whole.

This was a hero’s quest and something would have to be lost.





CHAPTER 12

Isaac ran his hands over his neatly trimmed gray beard and glanced at Circe and Dr. Grant. “If you’re going to make this trip and it’s as dangerous as it appears to be, then maybe it’s best to let people know how you feel about them right now. Clear the air a little.”

Circe returned to her seat. Her face was tight, and it reminded me of the face I made when I was trying not to cry. She was holding her emotions in and it was starting to wear on her.

Dr. Grant slowly reached out and touched Circe’s knee. “Pops is always knee deep in my business,” she said. “I’m forty-five this year, and he’s still acting like me and you are in high school.”

Isaac just shrugged.

Circe scanned the room, then took Dr. Grant by the arm and pulled her down the hall toward the apothecary.

Marie cleared her throat. “Awkward as hell.”

“I think we should get going,” Isaac said.

Lucille joined him in the entryway, and as she went out to the car, Isaac tucked the small vial of invisibility elixir into my hand.

“I can’t take this,” I said as we walked out onto the porch. “I wouldn’t even know what to do with it.”

“Take it anyway,” he said. “It’ll make me feel better if you have it.” He sighed and looked up into the sky. “Miss Briseis, I have to believe that all of this is very overwhelming for you.”

“I don’t think that’s a strong enough word.”

“Maybe not,” Isaac said. “I hope that you get a chance to put things right, but so much of what you need to do is over my head. Please try to stay safe.”