The moment I recognize this, thousands of years melt away.
The memory of my time in the sanctuary slips and becomes the life of someone else. Some other Pell, not this one.
“There.” Pie is pointing to the rocks below her. “Start right there,” she yells over the roaring water. Then she turns and runs.
Young me dives into the pool of water. When he surfaces, he swims towards the rock where she was pointing. Then he is climbing up the ragged cliff and leaping onto the rock where she was standing moments ago.
“Pell!”
I glance to my right and find Pie in the tall grass on the other side of the door. Only now, she’s not a child, but a teenager, her round breasts not entirely hidden behind her silky hair. “Pie?”
Teenage me appears from the trees. She smirks at him, her eyes travelling down the length of his body, pausing where the Pie of this world would stop to pause. “Come on.” She holds out her hand, beckoning him.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
“You’ll see.”
I want to be him. I want to take her hand, and go with her, and stay here, in this world where I know I belong, for the rest of my life. It’s such a strong urge, I almost step through the door and do it.
But this is not real. And whoever this woman is, she is not Pie.
She is a trick.
I turn my back to the door and find a whole line of them before me.
How many? A hundred? A thousand?
I can’t count. But each one is open and on the other side is a view of the sanctuary.
These are my doors, I realize. I am inside… what? A key to Saint Mark’s? A portal that leads here? A stop on the way through to other worlds?
I realize I’m holding my breath and let it out. Then I turn my back on those doors too, and I run.
All the way back.
When I hit the antechamber, I pause.
Because I hear her laughing again.
The very same giggle I heard when I first entered.
You can come back, that laugh says. You can come back and stay here with me.
And then, a whispered voice in the dark—This is how you break the curse.
It’s Grant’s voice.
And I can’t help myself, I turn back to face him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - PIE
I’m just staring at my notebook, making no progress at all, when Talina says, “You should aim small.”
“What?” I turn to look at her.
“For your first try,” she clarifies. “Something easy.”
“Like what?”