“I wanted you to stay,” he confessed, the words so low and rough that Anne could feel them brush against her skin. “And put the pieces together for yourself so that you wouldn’t learn I had planned to betray you.”
“I would have understood,” Anne murmured, but she could taste the bittersweet flavor of a lie unfurling along the back of her tongue before she’d even had the chance to finish the sentence.
“It was safer to let you make the connection yourself,” Vincent said with a shake of his head. “And then, once the ring was back in its place and you could be sure the city was safe, I was going to tell you everything.”
Anne could sense the underlying meaning of what Vincent had said, as intensely as she had felt his magic sinking into her veins when she’d let him anchor her. But just as she was about to lean into the warmth of his hand, he drew it away from her face and began to speak again.
“Yesterday, when you let me anchor you, I was certain that you’d see the truth and give me the ring,” Vincent said, his voice growing harder as he took a step back, as if he needed to put some distance between them to stay on course. “But you didn’t, even though I could sense you found something in those memories that pointed you in the right direction.”
“I did see something,” Anne admitted, startled by how much she missed the feel of his fingers entangled in her curls. “Your grandmother being given the ring. And all those before her who’d received it, and finally . . .”
“Finally?” Vincent whispered, pressing her forward.
“You,” Anne said. “I saw someone passing the ring on to you.”
“Then why didn’t you give it to me and finish the Task?” Vincent asked, his voice so low and laced with confusion that the sound of it made her wince.
Anne thought of Vincent’s position and what it would be like to realize that her entire family was losing their magic, the skills that generations of Quigleys had worked to perfect and pass down fading into dust, though her ancestors had tended to the ends of the spells as gently as one might care for quilts that had an entire spool’s worth of histories stitched into their worn fabric. Just imagining the possibility made her shiver, and she understood why Vincent wanted so desperately to put things to rights. When she considered what she would have done in Vincent’s place, Anne realized that she’d already forgiven him for deceiving her.
But there were still Mr. Crowley and Philip’s destinies to consider. As startling as Vincent’s revelation was, Anne hadn’t forgotten what had brought her there in the first place: a desire to ensure that their threads of Fate would never be severed.
“I’m going to save Philip,” Anne finally confessed. “So that when we finish your uncle’s Task, they can be together.”
She waited for Vincent’s reaction, the texture of the silence thickening between them with every outdrawn breath.
“Anne,” he finally sighed. “Philip’s spirit has been lingering for too long now.”
“No,” Anne insisted, throwing her hands upward, as if the simple gesture would have the strength to hold back his doubts. “He can be saved. If we learn what is keeping him here, we can set him free.”
She marched over to the doorframe then and ran her fingers over the inscription carved into the woodwork.
“Is she alive?” Anne whispered as she turned back to face Vincent.
“Yes,” Vincent replied. “But do you even know where to find her?”
“Not yet,” Anne answered.
Vincent rubbed a hand against his temple, as if he could hear the conviction in those two words and knew that Anne would never relent.
“Can’t you wait for the ring until we save Philip?” Anne asked. “We’re getting so close. I can sense it. If we find May, I know that we can help them both.”
“At what cost?” Vincent asked, his voice hardening again. “If we wait any longer, the whole of Michigan Avenue could sink into the lake. And who’s to say my family’s magic won’t disappear entirely? Are you willing to risk the fate of everyone to save them?”
“I want to try,” Anne answered.
“You are making a dangerous choice,” Vincent murmured. “As the city’s Diviner, you know where your duty lies.”
Anne felt her cheeks redden in anger then, and before she knew it, she was marching toward him, ripping the fabric from her fingers and flashing the ring inches from his face. The closer it got to him, the warmer the gold became, until she wondered if it was going to singe her skin.
Anne should have been shocked by her reaction, but she knew that this eruption had been smoldering within her since that first night at the manor when she’d whirled around and found herself facing Vincent.
He always seemed to do this to her, draw the deepest parts of herself from the shadows and transform them into something that fueled her fire.
“Then take it!” Anne cried. “Take the ring off my hand if you want and finish your uncle’s Task, but I certainly won’t be theone to curse him to an eternity apart from the one person he ever truly loved. Not until I’ve tried everything in my power to find another way.”
She watched as Vincent’s eyes latched on to the ring and imagined what it would feel like when he grasped the flesh of her wrist and pulled the band from her finger.
But as the moment drew on, the tension that filled the room started to ebb, leaving behind the stark sound of their breathing and the overpowering scent of peppermint and myrrh infusing the parlor, signaling that their magic was ready to be unleashed at any second.
