Page 17 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 1

With the array’s might, a choice must be made, to preserve harmony, or let light fade.

For destiny’s path is etched in the heart, the Seeker’s courage shall set worlds apart.

I let the paper fall to the desk and looked up at Gabriel. I almost asked him if he’d taken a crack at solving any of the clues but refrained. He’d done plenty for me already, and I hadn’t even started to look into the missing vampires. I opened my mouth to apologize for that, but Gabriel spoke before I could.

“You were impressive yesterday,” he said. “You’re a lot more competent than I expected.”

“Wow,” I said coldly. “Thanks. That means so much to me.”

“I meant—” Gabriel began, but I held up a hand to stop him.

“Don’t bother. It’s pretty clear what you meant. Impressive for someone who isn’t a vampire. I get it.”

Gabriel glared out the window at the rain. Thunder cracked above us. Neither of us flinched.

“Well,” I said. “Thanks for bringing this by. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of important vampire prince stuff to get to, so…”

Gabriel’s mouth twisted. “My schedule’s pretty flexible.” There was a tone in his voice I couldn’t identify, but something about it bothered me. “If you could use the help, I could… I’d like to help.”

I gave him a thoughtful look, and he met my eyes solidly.

“Why?” I asked.

He hesitated. “I prefer to direct my energy where it’s going to have the greatest effect.” It wasn’t the whole truth, I could see it in his face, but I let it lie.

“You and me both,” I said. “All right, fine.”

I stood and crossed the room to the wall by the bookcases. With a snap of my fingers, the concealment charm that kept my corkboard hidden from curious clients dropped, and I pinned the prophecy right in the middle of it.

“Let’s start from the top,” I said as I grabbed a folder from my desk and began pinning up the information I’d found so far about the ascendancy array in loose clusters.

“I don’t mean to question your methods…” Gabriel walked incredibly quietly. I hadn’t even realized he’d come over to stand next to me. “But wouldn’t it be more convenient to organize information with a visual aid? You could use something to connect the pieces of information. Perhaps some string?”

I grinned, pulling a spool of red twine from my desk. “Gabriel,” I said. “I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”

Soon, we’d turned the corkboard into a web of string and notes, some in my loopy, messy handwriting, and some in Gabriel’s angular script. We’d printed out the picture of the original text and added it to the collection of pictures and scribbles. Gabriel was standing right in front of it, studying it closely as I made my way through a BLT. Making a murder board was hungry work.

“We’re going to run out of sticky notes,” he said, scribbling something down on one and adding it to the board. At least a dozen neon yellow sticky notes were scattered across the setup.

“Don’t worry, I buy them in bulk. What are you even writing on those ones?”

“Possible alternate translations for some of the phrases in the prophecy,” he explained. “I don’t want us to miss out on something important just because I chose the wrong word.”

Us. When had he decided this was going to be an ‘us’ situation? And why couldn’t I bring myself to mind it? I could appreciate his looks, sure, but it took a lot more than that for me to bring someone in on one of my investigations.

“For instance, this line here,” Gabriel said, gesturing at the board. “I translated it as ‘destiny’s call’, but the more literal translation would be ‘the echo of fate’.”

“Wait,” I said, straightening up in my chair. “The echo of fate… I’ve heard that before somewhere, I know I have. An Abridged History of Augury and Sortilege, please.” That last bit was directed to my bookcase as I waved my hand.

A thick leather-bound book floated off one of the crowded shelves and made its way through the air to land on my desk with a thump. Gabriel watched with more surprise on his face than I expected.

“I worked a charm into the bookcase,” I explained absently, thumbing through the pages. “Simple but convenient.”

“Impressive.”

I shrugged. “Not really. I just tweaked a few runes and then carved them into the shelves. The most impressive part was how I managed not to maim myself with the chisel.”

“Isn’t rune modification an extremely difficult—?” Gabriel began, cocking his head to the side, but I’d found what I was looking for in the book and turned it to face him.

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