Tunnel of Bones (City of Ghosts #2)(5)

“Here, dear daughter,” says Mom, offering me the crêpe. “Educate yourself.”

I take a bite, and my mouth fills with the hot, sweet pancake, the rich chocolate spread. It is simple and wonderful. As we sit, passing the crêpe back and forth, Dad stealing giant bites and Mom wiping a smudge of chocolate from her nose and Jacob watching the turn of the Ferris wheel with his wide blue eyes, I almost forget why we’re here. I snap a photo of my parents, the carnival at their backs, and imagine that we’re just a family on vacation.

But then I feel the tap on my shoulder, the press of the Veil against my back, and my attention drifts toward the shadowy part of the park. It calls to me. I used to think it was just curiosity that drew me toward the in-between. But now I know it’s something else.

Purpose.

Jacob’s eyes flit toward me. “No,” he says, even as I get to my feet.

“Everything okay?” asks Mom.

“Yeah,” I say, “I need to use the bathroom.”

“No, you don’t,” whispers Jacob.

“I saw one, just past the food stalls,” says Mom, pointing.

“Cassidy,” whines Jacob.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell my parents.

I’m already moving away when Dad calls out, warning me not to wander off.

“I won’t,” I call back.

Dad shoots me a stern look. I’m still winning back their trust after the whole getting-trapped-in-the-Veil-by-a-ghost-and-having-to-fight-to-steal-my-life-back-by-hiding-in-an-open-grave thing (or, as my parents think of it, the afternoon I disappeared without permission and was found several hours later after breaking into a grave-yard).

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

I slip past the stalls and veer right, off the main path.

“Where are we going?” demands Jacob.

“To see if Jean the Skinner’s still here.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

But I’m not. I check my back pocket for my mirror pendant. It was a parting gift from Lara.

She would be furious at me for keeping the pendant in my pocket instead of out around my neck. She says people like us aren’t only hunters; we’re beacons for specters and spirits. Mirrors work on all ghosts, including Jacob, which is why I don’t wear the pendant. Lara would probably say that’s why I should.

Needless to say, she doesn’t approve of Jacob.

“Lara doesn’t approve of anything,” he quips.

They don’t get along—call it a difference of opinion.

“Her opinion,” he snaps, “is that I don’t belong here.”

“Well, technically you don’t,” I whisper, wrapping the necklace around my wrist. “Now, let’s go find Jean.”

Jacob scowls, the air around him rippling ever so slightly with his displeasure. “We were having such a nice night.”

“Come on,” I say, closing my fingers over the mirror charm. “Aren’t you curious?”

“Actually, no,” he says, crossing his arms as I reach for the Veil. “I’m really not. I’m perfectly content to never find out if—”

I don’t hear the rest. I pull the curtain aside and step through, and the world around me— Vanishes.

The carnival lights, the crowds, the sounds and smells of the summer night. Gone. For a second, I’m falling. Plunging down into icy water, the shock of cold in my lungs. And then I’m back on my feet.

I’ve never gotten used to that part.

I don’t think I ever will.

I straighten and let out a shaky breath as the world settles around me again, stranger, paler.

This is the Veil.

The in-between.

It’s quiet and dark, full night. No carnival, no crowds, and thanks to the deep shadows and the tendrils of fog rolling across the lawns, I can barely see.

Jacob appears beside me a second later, obviously sulking.

“You didn’t have to come,” I say.

His foot scuffs the grass. “Whatever.”

I smile. Rule number twenty-one of friendship: Friends don’t leave friends in the Veil.

Jacob looks different here, fleshed out and colored in, and I can’t see through him anymore. Meanwhile I’m less solid than I was before, washed out and gray, with one glaring exception: the ribbon of light shining through my rib cage.

Not just a ribbon, but a life.

My life.

It glows with a pale blue-white light, and if I were to reach into my chest and pull it out, like some kind of gruesome show-and-tell, you’d see it’s not perfect anymore. There’s a seam, a thin crack, where it got torn in two. I put it back together, and it seems to be working well enough, but I have no desire to test how much damage a lifeline can take.

“Oh well,” says Jacob, craning his head, “looks like no one’s here. We better go.”

I’m as nervous as he is, but I hold my ground. Someone is here. They have to be here. That’s the thing about the Veil: It only exists where there’s a ghost. It’s like a stage where spirits act out their final hours, whatever happened that won’t let them move on.

My hands go to the camera around my neck, and the mirror pendant wrapped around my wrist chimes faintly as metal hits metal. The sound echoes strangely in the dark.