She obviously knew what she was doing. The door to the stairs was twenty feet away, but he’d have to get by her first. Which meant exposing his back to her if he made a run for it.
She raised her knife again, pointing it at his chin.
Luc’s pulse was roaring. He turned his head. He had no choice. He’d have to jump. He spotted a string of shirts and pants that hung motionless on one of the crisscrossed laundry lines despite the stiff breeze blowing off the ocean, as though they were a photograph. Goose bumps sprang up over his skin and the back of his neck tightened, as if someone were squeezing it.
That was his way out.
A certainty powered through his body, just like it did when he was on the field. He didn’t know how he knew it, but it was as clear as his own name.
Jump.
Luc turned back toward Corinthe. She paused, and a gust of wind lifted strands of her hair, making it dance around her head chaotically. For a second, insanely, he wondered how it would feel to have her body pressed up against him one more time. When her hair settled back down, he noticed a tiny light darting about near her head, its glow buzzing softly in and out. He could swear it was a firefly.
“Who are you really?” he asked.
When she didn’t respond, he took a small, involuntary step forward. The soft grayish-purple color of her eyes was unlike anything he’d ever seen, and he couldn’t keep from staring. Her pupils dilated and the color changed, deepening to a wild violet hue that reminded him of dark storm clouds in a summer sky. The air between them felt charged with something electric.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and for a moment he thought she looked troubled.
It finally registered: she was dead serious about hurting him.
Luc stepped up onto the ledge. His heart raced so hard he thought it might explode from his chest. Corinthe stared at him with narrowed eyes, releasing a small bit of air between her lips, a cross between a hiss and a sigh. It was as though she knew what she had to do but wanted to stop herself. And then her eyes went cold, her body tensed, and she arched her arm back. The blade glinted in the sunlight.
She threw the knife straight at him.
He launched off the edge of the roof. The world seemed to slow down, and for several seconds he felt as if he were flying, weightless, through the air.
Then his Giants cap whipped off and sound rushed back like a freight train. Luc knew he was falling. He reached desperately for the clothesline, stretched his arms and fingers toward it.
Panic, white-hot and blinding, raced through him.
His fingers brushed the edges of a pink blouse, and then they were empty. The wind was rushing, roaring, all around him. He wasn’t going to make it.
Suddenly, he couldn’t see. Everything had broken apart into mists and vapor. He spun through the nothingness, half aware, wondering with a sudden pang if this was what death felt like.
8
Corinthe watched Luc disappear in midair. She felt as though she’d swallowed a mouthful of dust. The only thing left of him was the black-and-orange Giants baseball cap, sopping wet on a dark corner of the roof.
She knew this roof. The way the water tower’s shadow grew across the south corner. The way the blacktop looked a little like it had steam rising from it where the early sun hit it. This was the place where she’d first appeared in Humana ten years ago, by the gateway she’d passed through as a child.
This was the way to the Crossroad.
The memory of it made her shiver. She’d been plucked from Pyralis and pulled through a swirling, misty darkness—tumbling through the chaos for what had seemed like hours. Every muscle in her body felt stretched to its limit, and she knew the Unseen Ones were angry, pulling her apart in every direction to see if she’d break.
Corinthe had never felt such violence or confusion, and when she landed on this roof, her body ached. Her lips were cracked, her dress torn, and a matted nest of hair replaced the precious braid she’d worn in Pyralis. This was the same roof where Miranda had found her, cowering from the sun.
She hadn’t been back since—hadn’t known where to find it—until now. It couldn’t all be a random chance. Being a Fate had taught her one thing: there were no coincidences. Perhaps the Unseen Ones were testing her.
When she’d looked into Luc’s brown eyes in the ocean this morning and realized that she would have to kill him, she’d felt as though the water had opened up momentarily, about to swallow her in darkness.
The way he had looked at her, the hunger in his eyes, made something ache deep inside of her. His square jaw. His strange half grin. That stupid Bay Sun Breakers T-shirt, revealing broad shoulders and strong arms.
She was an Executor, and feelings had no business in her life, but for one second, she wondered what it would be like to kiss him.
How could a boy she’d met only twice before make her feel like this—hot and cold and shivery, both sick to her stomach and full of adrenaline? These were human sensations. In all her time exiled to Humana, no one had affected her quite like Luc did.
It didn’t matter.
It couldn’t matter.
But why did it have to be his fate? That part still bothered her, even though she had never questioned Miranda, or any of the other fates she had had to execute before. It was why she had hesitated when she could have slashed her knife across his throat and been done.
What did it mean?
Was it because she hadn’t stopped thinking about him, thinking that somehow, he had been chosen for her? But that was insane. Her thoughts didn’t matter. That was the whole point. She must do as the marbles dictated.
She had to follow him, to find him. The Unseen Ones didn’t care about reasoning or second-guessing; all they would see was that she had failed, just when she was so close to being restored to her home.
Her fingers found the locket around her neck, and she pulled it out from under her shirt in preparation. She closed her eyes. There could be no confusion, anger, or helplessness. Only one thing: determination. She would enter the gateway to the Crossroad and find him. She backed up so she could get a running start. She sucked in a lungful of air, trying to calm her pulse.
Then she ran.
Her boots thundered across the roof. Pushing up and off the small ledge, she launched herself into the air. Wind tunneled straight through her, making her gasp.
This is going to hurt.
Suddenly, she remembered the face of a terrified woman; she’d been standing on the Golden Gate Bridge, swaying like a reed in the wind. About to jump. It had been Corinthe’s job to catch her, to pull her back from the edge. She remembered how the woman had suddenly turned and started to weep, how she had thrown her arms around Corinthe, squeezing until Corinthe’s chest hurt.
Corinthe had pulled away. She had not understood the touch, the rush of feelings that had overwhelmed her.
I’m sorry. The thought flashed through her mind but then was gone as a sharp burst of pain took away her breath.
Nothing else mattered.
Corinthe fell into the swirling chaos of lights and sound that was the Crossroad. Inhuman noises echoed around her: screams and howls, the laments of all the corrupted or lost souls that had been banished to the spaces between worlds. She felt as though her head would explode. She fell, tumbling out of control, into vast emptiness.
She would stay lost in the Crossroad forever unless she could calm down. Concentrate. Breathe. Still gripping the locket, she pulled at the clasp and the top flipped open. The ballerina immediately began to spin to the tinny melody.