Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(42)

Jacob peers through the glass, then pulls back, shaking his head. “No one’s here,” he says. “Except the cat.”

This can’t be happening. Not now.

I need the Society.

“Cassidy,” he says, “we know where one of them is.”

Of course. Lucas Dumont.

Official Inspecters guide. And Society historian.

I’m breathless and queasy by the time we get back to the LaLaurie Mansion, the heat smothering my lungs. I’m secretly hoping that my parents and the crew will all be standing on the curb waiting for us, but it hasn’t been an hour yet, and they’re not outside, and I don’t have time. Lara doesn’t have time.

I push open the gate, step back into the arched alcove, and the Veil rises in warning. I step through the door, into the darkened foyer, and the other side groans and pushes at me, but there’s no sign of my parents, or the film crew, or Lucas.

I listen, trying to make out their voices over the pounding in my head, and hear footsteps overhead. I hurry down the hall, but the moment my foot hits the stairs, the Veil surges around me, carrying the clink of champagne glasses and the wave of an anguished scream, as high and long as a kettle whistling on the stove. Waves of anger and grief fold over me as the Veil forces me to my hands and knees on the steps.

No, no, no, I think as it reaches up through the floor, the thin gray curtain wrapping tight around my wrists as it pulls me down.

Jacob pulls me back.

The airy pressure of his hands on my shoulders: the only thing holding me here in the land of the living.

“Don’t let go,” I plead, throwing all my energy against the other side.

He shimmers a little with the effort. “I’ve got you,” he says, holding as tight as a ghost can as I look up and see Mom and Dad coming down the stairs.

“Cassidy?” says Mom.

I don’t know what they’ve felt or seen in here, but the EMF meter is shut off in Mom’s hand, and Dad’s mouth is set in a grim line. Lucas trails behind them, along with Jenna and Adan, their cameras hanging at their sides, their faces drawn. Lucas looks at me, brow furrowing when he sees I’m alone, but Dad’s the one who asks.

“Where’s Lara?”

I swallow, struggling to form the lie. “She’s … with her aunt.”

The words are weak, my voice cracking.

“Are you okay?” asks Mom, and the question makes my eyes burn. I can’t bring myself to say yes, so I shake my head and say, “I don’t feel well. Can I go back to the hotel?”

Dad presses the back of his hand against my forehead, and Mom looks worried. It’s only been a few days since I fainted in Paris.

“Of course,” says Dad.

Only Lucas seems to sense that something went wrong, though I don’t know if it’s the lie, or the pleading in my eyes when I look at him.

“I’ll walk Cass back to the hotel,” says Lucas.

“Are you sure?” asks Mom. “We have the B-roll to film but—”

“It’s no trouble at all,” he says, and I gratefully follow him out the door, Jacob on our heels.

“What happened?” Lucas asks as soon as we’re outside, and it spills out of me: our idea to lure the Emissary, the setup in the séance room, how everything went right until the moment it went wrong, how the Emissary took Lara instead of me, the horseless carriage I saw in the square, the Society headquarters closed.

“I have a key,” says Lucas, pulling it out from his pocket as we hurry toward the shop.

“I don’t know where it’s taking her,” I ramble. “She wasn’t in danger until I—”

“She was always in danger, Cassidy,” Lucas says. “She understood that, even if you didn’t.”

Tears spill down my face, and I dash them away. She’s not gone. Lara Chowdhury is the smartest, most stubborn girl I know. She’s not gone.

I just have to find her.

I can’t read Jacob’s mind the way he reads mine, but I can tell he feels guilty, too. We couldn’t have known the spell would hurt him.

The tarot card reading whispers in my head.

No matter what you choose, you will lose.

“You should have let me go,” Jacob whispers now, and if he were flesh and bone, I would punch him.

Instead, I snap, “Well, I didn’t. I couldn’t. I won’t. I’m not losing either of my friends today.”

Lucas looks at me, but doesn’t seem flustered by the fact I’m yelling at someone he can’t see. I wonder if he’s ever been flustered. He reminds me of Lara in that way. If Lara were here instead of me, she would know what to do. I try to summon her voice in my head. Slow down, it would say. Stay calm, just think.

I take a deep breath. “One of the past members of the Society said that if the Emissary caught me, it would take me back, to the place beyond the Veil.”

Lucas nods, pushing his glasses up his face. “That makes sense. According to most of the accounts I’ve read, the world is broken into three spaces. The land of the living, the Veil between, and the place beyond.”

“I know how to get from the living to the Veil,” I say. “There’s a kind of curtain. But how do you get from the Veil to the place beyond?”

“I’m not an in-betweener,” says Lucas, shaking his head as we cross a busy street. “But I’ve read enough to know it’s called the Bridge of Souls. It sits at the far edge of the Veil. The good news is, it isn’t a curtain, or a door. It’s a place that must be crossed. Sometimes it’s a road, sometimes it’s a tower filled with stairs, sometimes—”