“Of course I do. She’s a member of the Guardians. A full member.” Bryan turned back my direction for a nanosecond. Long enough it burned me.
“And yet, she put some kind of Watcher symbol on her painting, whatever that means. Strange, don’t you think?” I stepped in, matching his pointed stare.
He backed up. “It’s still not enough proof to convict her.”
“What are you talking about?” I pounced forward, caught in some kind of cage match. “I’m not asking you to convict her, or whatever you full members do. I’m just asking you to believe me. Why would I lie?”
“Lucy, I’m not saying you’re lying.” His hand eased out, caressing my elbow. “I just think you might’ve seen things wrong, misunderstood something. There’s got to be some other explanation.”
“After what they did to me, all I wanted was a little trust. But I guess I’m asking too much.” I jerked back my arm. Pressure pounded up my eye sockets, threatening to spill over. I bit into my lip, hard. As a tear slid down my cheek, I ran across the room, into the darkness of the turret.
“Don’t be like that. C’mon, Lucy.” His words faded into the shadows, but his footsteps clomped closer. In seconds, he stood over me in utter darkness, no flashlight in hand. Moonlight from the turret’s porthole windows slid along the outlines of his features, outlining his forehead, eyelashes, the tip of his nose. Gritty fingers brushed my cheek. “I’m sorry, I really am. I want to believe in both of you.”
With his breath on my forehead, his hand on my cheek, I could barely breathe let alone think. “I get that, but I know what I saw. There has to be some kind of explanation.”
His mouth curved up as he came closer. “We’ll find it, together.”
I nodded up at him and he pulled me in, wrapping his arms around me so tight. I hugged him back, not ready to face the others just yet.
He pulled back an inch. “Hold up, you said the symbol was the mark of the Seer, right?”
Again I nodded, craning my neck up at him. “You think we could find it in one of these books?”
His lips spread, white teeth gleaming down at me. “It’s scary how you read my mind sometimes.”
A thousand tingles fluttered up and down my arms. If he was right and I said another word, somehow I knew he’d kiss me. And I couldn’t take that right now. Even one kiss could completely unhinge the tenuous peace we’d just brokered.
As if he’d turned the tables on me, he put some distance between us. “Bring the flashlight over here.”
A circle of light bounced around the turret, onto Tony’s face. “I’ve got the girls searching the card catalog for books on symbols.”
“Guess everyone can read my mind.” Bryan seemed further away now, and the space between us grew cold. “Lucy found some great books in here last week, maybe we’ll get lucky.”
Why did the Watchers want to brand me, anyway? All my questions about the Watchers would have to wait. But I wouldn’t forget, they were burned into my brain.
The boys each took a section, pulling out books, scanning the indexes. I ended up in the back section without a light, so I dug out my cell phone and scanned titles. They were hard to make out in the bluish glow, but something else caught my eye. The shelf’s boards were lined with carvings, intricate shapes in the wood.
And there it was.
The strange swirling eye inside a triangle, dashes radiating from the outer corners. My fingers bumped across the indentations and I dug out a clump of dust. As soon as I pressed into the triangle, a metal clanking sound clicked into motion like giant gears turning.
The shelf shot back a few feet, then shifted behind the section beside it. A gaping hole opened up in the wall.
“What was that?” Bryan aimed the flashlight at me. Its light spilled down a wrought-iron set of stairs, curling into the abyss. “What’d you do?”
“You said to find the symbol.” I pointed to the shelf carvings. “I pressed it and poof, there you go.”
“Cool.” Lenny peeked his head into the opening. “A secret passage.”
“Way to go.” Tony held up his hand and I high-fived it.
“Let’s check it out.” I gnawed on my bottom lip, shifting toward Bryan.
His mouth curled up again, and this time I wanted to smooth my fingers against his lips. But now wasn’t the time.
“Hey girls, we found a secret passage. Anyone ready for an adventure?”
About time he listened to me for once.
Chapter 23
A gaping black hole stared back at me. Secrets lay buried down there, I just knew it. The way you know it’s about to rain or where to look for the moon. I grabbed the flashlight from Bryan and tiptoed down the creaking steps, swiping at cobwebs the whole time. Ten or twelve feet later, my shoes hit some kind of crumbling stone floor, about as far down as a basement.
The circle of the flashlight illuminated a picture of truth right in front of me. As the others clambered down the spiral staircase, I stood perfectly still, palm flattened against my chest. Carvings etched into the ancient stone tile depicted intricate scenes that looked vaguely familiar. On a square tile, the flashlight beam highlighted a jewel hovering over a saint I now knew all too well.
I gasped as the piece clicked into place. Reaching into my hoodie pocket, I pulled out my brother’s worn postcard. With my cell phone light, I found what I was looking for—a stained glass window that depicted the exact same scene from the stone tile in living color.
“Is this what you wanted me to find?” I whispered to the postcard as if it might actually speak for James.
“Cool postcard.” Lenny breathed in my ear. “Why does it have the same scene down here?”
“Good question, Lenny.” My jaw dropped open. I reached my fingertips to the wall and traced the outline of
