Unraveling Threads
“I’m not sure how many books there are,” Nike continues, “but it seems Tessa hid them away in the different places she lived in the last three years of her life.”
“Cardiff,” Raven groans. “Madrid. Austin. Croatia. Albuquerque. Austin. Zagreb. Boston. Tampa. Vegas. Faroe Islands—”
Nike squints at him. “How did you know?”
“Because that’s where she dragged me when we were on the run, starting when I was fifteen. Must have been a dozen countries, sometimes twice or more in different cities. Always one step ahead of Siobhan and Aoife’s goons. I never really understood what was going on. I just wanted a normal life where I could play drums in a garage band or play baseball with my friends at school. I thought Siobhan was after me, not revenge against Tessa and my mom and dad for trying to stop passing the reins to Aoife.”
Nike and I exchange looks. Raven had surely heard everything as a teenager but never understood. Aoife must have loved the irony of forcing him into the priesthood to become the Last Priest. She probably hadn’t counted on him having a mind of his own so young.
“I didn’t go to all those places you and Tessa did,” Nike says tenderly. “I promise to be there for you, Raven, for as much as you want to talk through this later, but right now, let’s focus on the next steps. Maybe Tessa hid books all over the world, but I found what I was looking for—for now—in Cardiff and Madrid.”
Jaws tight, Raven gives her a single nod. They’re friends just as Virgil and I are friends.
With careful fingers, Nike finishes unwrapping the first book. The cover, aged leather that still faintly holds a hint of its original rich brown hue, looks time-worn under her touch.
“This,” she says, “is not just a book. It’s an instruction guide for how to alter destinies.” Nike jerks her head up and pauses to stare into my face. “It could potentially have been used to delay The Shift. That’s what the coup was about. But no, it’s been used to reweave lines of time. Yours in particular, Zephyr. Between this book and another, the knowledge is there, even for a relatively inexperienced witch.”
Raven reaches out tentatively to touch the cover and then yanks his hand back. “I’ve seen this book. You’re right, Nike: it’s one of a set. The other one went missing when Tessa died. She had just acquired it. We were to courier both books to…to someone. Sorry, I can’t remember who. I don’t know if Tessa ever said. But someone powerful who would help us.”
The leather-bound cover creaks softly as Nike opens it, revealing parchment pages inscribed with elegant Latin text. She traces the meticulous strokes of hand-drawn letters with a sense of reverence.
“Look at the precision in these charts and diagrams,” she notes, her fingers hovering above the faded lines and symbols that have remained surprisingly sharp over the years. “Even the silver and gold leaf additions, they still glimmer faintly, don’t they? It’s like a celestial dance frozen in time. That’s actually how this book is referred to—”
“The Dance of Heavens,” she and Raven say at the same moment.
I have a feeling they would normally yell, “Jinx!” and laugh, but not this time.
“These are star maps? Rituals to change the position of the planets to prevent a disaster?” My gaze darts from the manuscript to Nike and then to Raven. “You’re saying someone used this book to alter time and stop The Shift?”
But I distinctly remember The Shift. Had someone done good at the expense of my life?
Nike starts to speak, then sucks air through her teeth. “No. Maybe if they had both books. This one references the second manuscript of the two. They’re meant to be used together. All I know is that the second book can change individual destinies, and the other package in my suitcase isn’t a companion to this one. In fact, there’s no trace of the other book in any of our libraries or outposts. It vanished the night Tessa died.”
She pauses for a moment, waiting for Raven to chime in, but he doesn’t. Instead, he seems lost in thought. In the future I remember, I was never aware of this book and its partner. If I had been, I would have tracked them down and found a way—if I could—to prevent the massive loss of life across the globe.
“I know what you’re thinking, Veronica.” Raven doesn’t even look at me. “But using these books to prevent the eminent pole shift would have had to have been done at least a decade ago. There was a point when a calculated shift of the heavens would have prevented The Shift, but it’s too late now. I remember Tessa saying that the clock was ticking to use both books to change the future. If we missed the window, then these two books could make changes only on a personal level. She believed some of our leaders didn’t want to stop The Shift and intentionally prepared for it as a time of great power for us in the next age rather than intentionally preventing it. To have changed the bigger picture, Aoife’s mother, Siobhan, or even Moira, the leader before her, should have used it. But I don’t think it was a failure to plan. From what little I remember, Tessa claimed it was the—what did she call it?—the ‘planned obsolescence of mankind’ in favor of a physically altered version of the human race, ruled by the priesthood.”
I hold up both hands for him to stop talking, for both of them to stop. I can’t think.
“So, this book can’t change the end of the world as we know it—because it’s too late now—but its companion book can change—maybe has changed—my timeline?”
Nike slowly nods. “That’s correct.”
“But who would want to change my timeline? And who would want me dead at forty-five instead of ninety?”
“I have a pretty good idea.” Raven wrings his hands in slow motion. “You told me that in the future you remember, Aoife was deposed, and you took over the priesthood. A few years from now. Sounds like a pretty good motive to me.”
“She recruited me. Aoife did. Aoife sought me out and brought me into the priesthood. I already had the Gift of Knowing. I always thought that was why. Was it? Or was it ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’?” I feel the color drain from my face. “But with the other book, I can change the timeline back, right?”
A split second of guilt slices through me. Maybe in the altered timeline, Nike and Illyria live happily ever after. Who’s to say the timeline where my life is cut short is any worse for the rest of the world than the one where I live to be an old woman?
I shake off the guilt. “All I need to do is find that book.”
Nike sinks down on the chair beside me. “I don’t think I was clear. No one knows where the second book is, and Tessa probably lost her own life over it. My guess is that Aoife has it somewhere. But yes, if we could get that book, I think you could change your own timeline without changing anyone else’s. I just don’t see that happening soon enough to be any use.” She releases a long sigh. “Although….”
“Although what?”
“There are other ways to shift time to a different future. Aoife might have used those.”
“Like?”
Nike shrugs at me. “It’s theoretical.”
“I don’t care. I’ll take it.”
“Terre’s journals referenced another book about parallel universes. Initially, I was going to try to find that one. Then I read the description of The Dance of Heavens and changed my mind. There’s a practice that some people refer to as quantum jumping, quantum shifting, multiverse shifting, paralleling. Basically, you tap into other timelines—more successful or happier timelines—through meditation or magic, and you move yourself into a more favorable timeline one degree at a time. I’ve read about it, but I don’t think it’s possible to move someone else across timelines. Non-witches who are friendly to the concept of shifting timelines think of it as a Law of Attraction technique. You can manifest for yourself, but you can’t manifest for others.”
“Oh.” I try to honor my hopes over my fears. “So, probably not something Aoife used.” I understand Nike’s choices better.
“Possibly, but I think The Dance of Heavens fits my sister’s style better. I can imagine her using dark magic to change your future but not to manifest a better one for you. Anyway, you both need to see this other book.”
She takes her time to unwrap the second package. I can hardly sit still. Nothing seems to move fast enough. With one last flourish, she removes the cloth and places the book on the table in the center of us.
Large. Velvet-bound. Silver adorned. Beautiful.
“This one, I found in a rare bookshop, a Daeganean outpost, in Cardiff. It’s a sketchbook. All of it hand-written and hand-drawn. Most likely early eighteenth century. Here, look at these. Either Siobhan was using this book as a guide for how to create an enhanced human race or Aoife was using it as a warning of what was to come.”
Colorful illustrations and cryptic messages fill the pages. One catches my attention. The image of a woman with an aura and what looks like antennae picking up waves of pictures in the sky.
“An empath!” Daeganean prophecy says that both an empath and an angel are necessary for the ascension of the Last Priest.
I signal for Nike to turn the page. Seeds. Seeds that grow into fully formed men with angel wings.
“Well, shit,” I murmur. “It’s a glossary of the End Times.”
Nodding, Nike pushes the hair from her eyes. “A glossary of all the things available to get you through a pole shift. Here. Look at this one.” She points to the figures that resemble angels. “Siobhan, like her daughter, used her position as Secretary of State to gain access to areas of the world the average High Priestess can’t. Siobhan started a top secret program thirty years ago, carried out in a lab in Slovenia. According to Tessa’s notes, Siobhan had been obsessed with finding angel DNA. I’m not sure how many people she and Aoife turned into a chimera by injecting them with something she found in what was once Chaldea.” Nike sighs heavily. “Or maybe I should say, I’m not sure how many people she, Aoife, and my father turned into half-human, half-angel, all monsters.”
Raven groans from behind me. “Project Angelseed. I’m aware of it from my time as Aoife’s bodyguard, though obviously not all the details.”
“What about this one?” I ask as I wipe my hand on my skirt and turn the page. “These are soldiers, but it looks like they’re healing super fast and they’re super strong.”
“Biomedical nanotechnology-enhanced soldiers. That one, I’m intimately familiar with.” He swallows and gazes at an imaginary spot on the wall of the cottage. “Let’s just say that I was involuntarily treated with a dose of it when I agreed to be Initiated into our priesthood. Aoife used me as a guinea pig.”
“Another of my father’s genetic manipulation programs. All these are. It’s like a sketchbook of everything I grew up hearing him talk about in his labs. My father was a true believer, not in the return of our God or the pole shift, but in the need for the human race to evolve—mutate—to survive changes in the climate.”
“Nike? Raven?” I stare at the next page.
Both follow my fixed gaze to the sketch of a dead man with a small square mark being cut from his right wrist and a baby emerging from the graft of tattooed skin, growing to adulthood in four quick and easy steps, and then…and then a soul being called forth from a field of reeds and directed into the new body with the words of a chant floating in the air above.
I blink at the page. I can hear our shaky breaths.
“That’s why someone desecrated Terre’s body. They needed his DNA. Someone’s planning to clone him, and then use a resurrection ritual to bring him back into a fresh body and Initiate him to be the new Last Priest!”
“Aoife,” Raven growls. “It has to be. She’ll turn him into her pawn. She’ll disempower me, get rid of you, ensure she stays in charge. That’s why she had to verify Elodie Rousseau wasn’t pregnant—if Terre’s soul doesn’t reincarnate into the Rousseau baby, then he can reincarnate into a clone.”
I grab his arm and squeeze. “It’s not just my life on the line. It’s yours, too. We’ve got to find that skin sample and stop her!”
From the chair next to me, Nike begins to laugh, her exhaustion hiccupping out in what sounds more like sobs—or losing her mind. “I know my father’s work,” she chokes out. “He can’t grow an adult clone overnight. I heard him telling Aoife that it would take six months to accelerate a body to adulthood and then normalize the growth. But the body won’t survive without a soul. That’s where Aoife comes in. She says she can call a soul to a body. Until then, Terre’s soul could go anywhere that—” Laughter overtakes her again before she can finish. She can’t seem to swallow.
“Nike?” Raven grabs the half-glass of water and hands it to her. “Are you okay? What’s so funny?”
She chugs the rest of the glass before she speaks, then wipes away the dribbled water on her chin with the back of her hand. “Because the last time I saw my stepsister, she called me useless. ‘A useless waste of a human shell.’ I guess she was wrong. Because I know exactly where that stolen skin sample is.”
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