For months, I was in denial. But now that all hope of denial was gone, I was desperate for answers. If this thing inside me was real, then I wanted to know everything about it.
He gave me his handwritten notes. He drew me maps. He showed me old books hidden in false bottoms of his desk drawers. Our history was kept on scraps, written in margins. There was an old story about an Oddity—the Chronicler—who kept our stories in one place, but no one alive could confirm an Oddity like that ever existed. So we learned what we could.
My dad opened doors to this world, but he wouldn’t tell me what I’d almost pulled out of him. I tried to ask him about what I saw—the alleyway. The man. My dad’s gaze hardened then, in the way it did when I knew I pushed him too far.
I’d been nursing a hope for months, and I finally got a chance to ask about Rippers; my father saw the look on my face and quickly shook his head, dousing any spark of an idea that he worried might be blooming in my mind.
“That’s what happened to you?” I asked, pointing to the scar on his chest.
I knew I had him. He’d walked right into the questions that had danced between us for months. Finally, my father nodded.
“Mom said it was a motorcycle accident.”
“Mom thinks it was a motorcycle accident.” He looked down, fingering the pages of the notebook in front of him.
“Did you want to lose your powers?” I whispered. The moment was fragile, made of the kind of glass I worried I’d break if I spoke too loudly. He looked up, his eyes blazing.
“It wasn’t my choice, at the time. But now? I would risk death a thousand more times to stop being a Harbinger, Vesper. It was the only way I could’ve married your mother. The only way, I thought, I could have kids.” His eyes filled with tears. “I thought when they pulled it from me, there was no possibility of me passing it on.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m so sorry.”
I reached out, my cold fingers finding his over the paper. After a moment, I found my voice.
“I want to do it, Dad. I want to try.”
He looked up, eyes bright. I sensed an argument coming, so I pulled my fingers from his and stood.
“If you could survive it, then so can I. I’ll find a Ripper and—”
He stood up then, all traces of the tears gone. “The only Rippers still alive work for the Wardens, and you had better pray you never cross one. He didn’t mean to leave me alive.”
We locked eyes—a stare-down I could feel myself losing with every second. I wondered if the man I saw in my father’s fear had something to do with it. There was a thick, inky layer of terror that came up the back of my throat at the thought.
“How do you know so much about the Wardens?” I pressed.
I didn’t expect an answer from him. After all, I’d asked the question dozens of times before and simply fumed in silence as he changed the subject. I don’t know why it was different that night. I don’t know why he closed his eyes, the crepe-paper skin around them looking thinner than it ever had before. But when he opened them, there was heartbreak in his gaze.
And he told me that he’d once killed for them.
Eight
I wake up with a jolt; I’m in the back seat of the van, which is now still. I blink, my heart beating in my throat as my eyes adjust to the dark. Something moves near the door, and I raise my hand, searching for something to latch on to. It’s instinct.
“You really don’t want to do that.” Sapphira’s voice is low, almost bored. As my eyes adjust, I see her sitting on the track of the open sliding door, her mess of blue-black hair thrown over one shoulder. Beyond her is darkness tinged with flickering light.
“Did someone drug me?” I ask, not lowering my hand as I shift. I was curled up in a ball, and both my legs are asleep.
She turns to face me slowly. “No.” Something about the simplicity of the answer makes me believe her. I was exhausted. I’ve been exhausted for months. Maybe longer than that. I don’t know if I can remember when I wasn’t tired down to my bones. I’m just usually more careful about where I let my guard down.
“You okay? I was going to let you sleep, but you kept thrashing around,” Sapphira says. She hands me an unopened bottle of water. I take it and wrench the cap off. She’s quiet while I drain the bottle.
“What do you mean, I ‘don’t want to do that’?” I ask when I finally come up for air. I can see farther through the van windows. We’re in a gutted parking garage that seems to go on forever in each direction, lit by a handful of trash can fires. There’s no one else around.
Sapphira stands, pushing the sliding door all the way open. It’s an invitation to step out with her. “I mean, you wouldn’t like the fear you’d bring out of me.”
I eye her for a moment. I don’t really want to get out into the open with no clue where I am, but it all seems an equal amount of unsafe at this point.
She waits for me, and I jump out after her, my legs buckling slightly as I hit the gravel. Sapphira reaches out to steady me, and I let her. Her grip is stronger than her frame would suggest it could be.
“How do you know what I am?” I ask.
Sapphira levels a look at me. It’s unreadable. Normally, that would feel like a threat. Harbingers aren’t exactly welcome company in most circles. Hi, thanks for inviting me. By the way if I get too worked up I might accidentally pull out your worst nightmares and make them material— Is this the door? Cool, I’ll just show myself out.
“And I don’t like anything I pull out,” I correct her, because I can’t seem to deny it.
“I didn’t say you did. You might want to calm down—Vesper, right?”
We lock eyes. Hers glitter in the dim light.
“Hell of a name,” she says.
“Sapphira, right?” I shoot back.
She laughs. It’s a nice sound, and I find myself letting out a snort despite myself.
She turns and walks, her Magdalena boots crunching the gravel beneath her. “Usually, Aldrick does the introductions. But he’s helping Theo get Alanna to the medic.”
I look down. “Is she going to be okay?” I didn’t want anyone to get hurt because of me tonight. Or ever. But tonight especially. Sapphira stops and looks over her shoulder. “She signed up for this. You don’t have to feel bad. She’ll be better after some rest.”
When I don’t move, she holds her hands out. “We’re all monsters here. You’re going to have to learn to stop worrying about what we’re going to think of you.” She turns and keeps walking, without another backward glance. Without another plan, I’ve got nothing left to do but follow her. Besides, as much as I hate to admit it to myself—I’m intrigued.
“I’m not staying,” I call after her as I jog to keep up.
“That’s what everyone says when they first get here.”
“And what is here?” I ask as soon as I’ve reached her side. “I’ve seen dozens of safe houses . . . but none like this.”
A faint smile curves up the side of her lips.
“Some entrepreneur started this huge business development over fifteen years ago, only to have the whole thing crash two years in after they discovered an uncharted, defunct gold mine deep in the ground right next to the property. San Fran is full of them. Watch your step,” she says, pointing to the ground where rebar is sticking out of the pavement like a forest of naked trees. We veer left—me following, her leading.