address of the warehouse across the table to me. I was surprised at how vivid it all was, the colors, the sounds, even the smell of Underwood’s plentiful cologne. With Gabrielle along for the ride, the memories felt as fresh as if I were living them for the first time.
She laid open my mind, picking over my most private memories like Thanksgiving leftovers. She effortlessly pried them free and told the others what she saw—a thief who couldn’t remember his past, the low-level Brooklyn crime boss who took him in, and the mission to steal the box for an anonymous buyer in return for the information Underwood claimed to have found. I felt exposed, helpless, but most of all, hearing it spelled out so matter-of- factly, I felt foolish for having believed Underwood for as long as I did. He was a criminal, a master of lying to get what he wanted. I’d been an idiot to think he wouldn’t lie to me, too.
“So Underwood gave him the address of the warehouse,” Bethany said, talking about me as though I weren’t there. “That explains how he got past the ward. I thought there was something off about his story. But how did Underwood know we were there?”
Gabrielle found another memory: Underwood disappearing behind the black door. “He heard it from a mobster named Bennett, who belonged to a syndicate that owns the warehouse,” she said. “Underwood tortured him for the information. He killed him.”
“So Trent was telling the truth about that, at least,” Bethany said. “Bennett was the name of the dead man he saw at the safe house. He told me he knew Bennett, he just didn’t say how.”
“Now we know,” Isaac said. “Bennett is connected to Underwood, too. They all are. So who is he, and why haven’t we heard of him before?”
My breathing fell into sync with Gabrielle’s, to the point where I couldn’t tell which breaths were hers and which were mine. The longer she spent inside my head, the more our minds became entwined, knotting together like tree roots. Other memories began to bleed through into my own, memories I didn’t recognize until I realized they weren’t mine. They were hers. Most of them were of Thornton; her thoughts of him were still the rawest, closest to the surface. The fallout shelter faded from my mind, and I saw Gabrielle and Thornton kissing on a hilltop beneath a bright full moon and a sky full of stars. Their hands were clasped, their wrists bound by shiny white ribbons that reflected the moonlight. Figures moved around them, squat and low to the ground, dressed in ceremonial robes and intoning in high-pitched voices. Her memory filled in the blanks for me: They were goblins, and with that knowledge came a sudden understanding of what it was I was seeing.
Gabrielle and Thornton were engaged to be married. They’d done it in secret in Prospect Park, in a ritual the goblins called the Binding Oath, but they hadn’t told the others yet. They’d planned to surprise them with the news once Thornton had finished securing the box, but now … Now she didn’t know what would happen. Her concern for Thornton, her deep regret at not being at his side when he needed her, the overwhelming fear she felt at the prospect of her beloved dying in pain, the infinite sadness she’d pushed down just so she could function—it all put a crack in her heart, a crack that I felt, too. I knew with certainty now that she wasn’t the traitor. She loved Thornton too much to ever put him in danger.
She winced suddenly, and the memory was yanked forcefully from my mind. I felt her defensiveness, her outrage that I had seen something so private. It shouldn’t have happened. Distracted by her worries, she’d carelessly allowed her own memories to seep through.
Isaac spoke again. “Does Trent know who Underwood was planning to sell the box to?”
Gabrielle dug tentatively through my mind once more, this time making sure to keep her own memories shielded. “He doesn’t know. Underwood never told him. The buyers are always kept anonymous.”
Isaac grunted, frustrated. Suddenly I was very happy that Underwood hadn’t told me anything. Probably, Isaac only wanted to know who his competition was so he could send the shadowborn after them, too. The longer he was in the dark, the harder it would be for him to keep up the charade. Sooner or later he would slip up and the others would learn the truth about him.
“He doesn’t trust you, Isaac,” Gabrielle said. “He thinks you’re the one who summoned the shadowborn to kill them at the safe house. He thinks you want the box for yourself.”
Damn. That was stupid of me. I should have realized Gabrielle could do more than see my memories while she was in my mind. She could hear my thoughts, too.
Isaac bent closer to me. “
“So why did you do it?” I asked him. “Why send the shadowborn after the box when Bethany and Thornton were going to bring it here anyway? Was it because you wanted it all to yourself, or were you just impatient?”
His eyebrows lifted in indignation. “What? You’re the one who summoned the shadowborn, not me. You were gone when they came to the house. That’s a little suspicious, don’t you think?”
“How long do you think you can keep this up?” I asked. “You’ve got them all trusting you, but sooner or later they’ll figure out all roads lead back to you. What are you going to do then? Kill them all?”
The confusion on Isaac’s face looked real. He was a good actor, I’d give him that. He straightened up and said, “He’s lost his damn mind.”
“No, he’s just gotten very good at lying,” Bethany said.
I ignored her and kept my focus on Isaac. “You almost got away with it, too. Luckily, I came back to stop you.”
He shook his head. His eyes dipped down to the blood on my collar and shirt. “That blood is yours, isn’t it? Bethany told us what happened, how you died and came back.” He pulled something white and crumpled out of his pocket. It was an old, used bandage, stained dark on one side with dried blood. “We took this off your back while you were sleeping. There was nothing under it. No scratches, no scars. Your wounds were gone. No more games, Trent. I want the truth. What are you?”
I laughed in his face.
Isaac clenched his jaw. “This is getting us nowhere. Gabrielle, find out what he’s hiding. He’s obviously something more than human.”
She dug deeper, a drill boring through my mind. Images sped by like a flip book as she moved back through days, weeks, months, a year—all the way back to my first memory: the brick wall. She tried to peel that memory back, too, to see what was under it.
She flinched suddenly, opening her eyes and letting out a small gasp. “I can’t.”
Isaac put a hand on her shoulder. “I know it’s a lot to ask. I know you’d rather be with Thornton right now, but I wouldn’t ask this of you if there weren’t so much at stake. You have to try.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “I can only see what Trent knows, and he doesn’t know what he is. Beyond that, there’s a barrier, a mental block I can’t get past.”
“Can you force your way past it?”
She blew out her breath. “I don’t know.”
“We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with,” he said. “Please try.”
She sighed and closed her eyes again. Her mind pushed hard into mine, trying to force its way through the barrier to whatever lay on the other side. There was nothing I could do to stop her, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Because if it worked and she got through, she could unearth the answers I’d been looking for.
Then the pain came. It was excruciating, like a razor-sharp knife filleting my brain. The harder she pushed the more a sharp pressure mounted in my head, as if someone had put my brain in a vise and was turning it tighter. Bright spots flashed behind my eyes.
“Push past it, Gabrielle,” Isaac said. “Push past the barrier.”
Blood trickled from my nostrils, and still she pushed. It felt like my head was going to explode.
Gabrielle screamed suddenly and broke contact with me, both physically and mentally. She stumbled suddenly, thrown back as if some invisible force had pushed her away from me. I slumped forward in the chair, as far as my bound wrists would let me. Breathing hard, I spat on the carpet between my feet. My saliva was tinged with blood. The pain in my head dampened slowly, the vise unwinding.
Gabrielle swayed, dizzy, and put her hands to her head. Bethany held her steady. “Are you okay?”
“What happened?” Isaac demanded.
Gabrielle shook her head and stammered, “I—I don’t know. It felt like something attacked me. Pushed me away when I got too close. It was like touching a live wire.”
Isaac turned to me, his face red with anger. “What did you do to her?”
