Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(50)

He stares straight at me for a long moment, and then he scrunches up his face. “I know,” he says, as if I’ve lost my mind.

I throw my arms around his shoulders and try not to think about how light he feels, like he’s not all there.

“I thought I lost you,” I say.

“Rule number eighty-one of friendship,” he answers. “Friends don’t let friends get murdered by horrifying skull monsters on the bridge between the Veil and the place beyond.”

I laugh, and pull back to look at him.

And then I punch him in the shoulder.

“Ow!”

“You don’t feel pain,” I say.

“Says you,” he says, rubbing his arm. “What was that for?”

“You could have died,” I snap. “Again.”

“Yeah, well. It worked, didn’t it?”

“If it’s all the same to you,” says Lara, swinging her red backpack onto her shoulder, “I’d really like to get out of here.”

“Agreed,” says Jacob.

“Yeah,” I chime in. Even without the Emissary, the Bridge of Souls is not a friendly place.

We start back, side by side, Jacob recounting our adventure like a highlight reel, telling Lara about the hearse and the river before diving into the parts she was there for. It feels like we walked so far. But going back the other way, the bridge is short. Soon the mist clears, and the edge of the lake comes into sight. We step off the bridge, back into the pale gray landscape of the Veil, the space flat and blank as paper.

I’m already reaching for the curtain of the Veil, already dreaming of solid ground and a hot shower, and a long night’s sleep, when Jacob clears his throat.

“Hey,” he says. “Um, I think something’s wrong.”

I look back over my shoulder. “What?”

Jacob reaches out, as if for the Veil, opens and closes his hand, but there’s nothing there. His fingers fall back to his side.

“I don’t think I can …”

“Of course you can,” I say. When Jacob pulled me out of the land of the living, I pulled him out of the land of the dead. As long as I’ve known him, he’s been able to move between our world and the Veil. That’s how he can exist so far from the place where he drowned. That’s how he can haunt me, wherever I go.

“Take my hand,” I say.

He does, and I try to ignore how fragile his fingers feel—not so much skin and bone as humid air—as I reach for the curtain. But it doesn’t work. I can feel the Veil, waiting, but when I try to pull it aside and step through, Jacob’s hand slips from mine, turns to nothing. Like he’s not even there.

“It’s okay,” he says, his voice tight.

But it’s not okay.

I turn toward Lara, who’s been looking carefully away. As if she knew this would happen.

“You always said that Jacob and I were tangled up, and that’s why he was getting stronger,” I say to her. “So something came untangled back there on the bridge. How do I fix it?”

“Cassidy,” she says softly. “Maybe it is fixed.”

“Then help me unfix it!”

“Cass,” starts Jacob, “we knew this might—”

“No,” I snap, turning on him. “I almost lost you twice, and I’m not doing it again. I’m not saying goodbye. I shouldn’t have to.” I jab him in the chest. “We fought Death, and we won. So no, I’m not giving up on you. You’re Jacob Ellis Hale, you’re not like other ghosts, and you don’t belong in the Veil. You belong with me. And I’m not going home without you. Understand?”

Jacob nods.

I squeeze his hand, as tight as I can, as if I can pour some of my life back into him. I imagine the blue-white light inside my chest spreading down my arm and through my fingers, wrapping around Jacob’s like a rope.

He brightens a little, a tiny bit of color slipping back into his clothes, his skin.

And something inside me breaks, because I know it’s not enough.

He’s still too ghostly, too gray.

And then Lara reaches out and takes his other hand.

“Come on, Ghost,” she says, squeezing tight. I can almost see the red light of her life, spreading down her fingers and into his. I can only hope it will be enough.

I take a deep breath and reach for the Veil again. And this time, I feel the gray cloth catch in my hand. I grab the curtain tight, and pull it aside.

And hand in hand in hand, we take a step, and fall.





The sun is going down over New Orleans.

Philippa leans against the hood of the hearse, plucking petals from a flower stolen off the funeral wreath. Lucas sits in the passenger seat, reading a book.

I look down at my hand, where Jacob’s fingers were tight in mine, but it’s empty. I look over at Lara, and Jacob, who’s supposed to be between us, but he’s not.

It didn’t work.

Sadness washes over Lara’s face, and she pulls me into a hug.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I’m so—”

And then we hear a voice a couple of feet behind us.

“This sucks.”

Lara and I both turn to see Jacob standing there, the Causeway at his back.