Page 151 of Cherish

“Well, what’s the worst that could happen?” Eden comments, and we all gasp.

“You didnotjust jinx us with a god,” Macy says and makes several sweeping motions in the air as though to cleanse the space.

Everyone else just keeps their heads down and their mouths shut as we follow the Curator through the curved halls that line the outside of her circular home, and then up two flights of stairs.

“Have you been to all these plays?” I ask as the parade of playbills continues.

She looks at me over the tops of her glasses. “I record history, Grace. I don’t live it.”

The Curator sounds so matter-of-fact as she speaks, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard in my life.

“So you’ve never seen any of them?” I ask.

“I’ve seen all of them,” she answers. “But you asked if I had been to all of them. And that’s a very different question.”

Now I’m just confused. “But how did you see them if you didn’t go to them?”

“How do you think I record history all over the world?” she asks, brows raised. “I can’t be everywhere at once.”

“You record history?” Macy sounds as fascinated as I feel. “How?”

As does Hudson. “And who’s been recording history in the last hour that you’ve spent with us? What if something important happened while you were making breakfast?”

“One of the muses comes inside for a few hours every couple of days so I can sleep or shower or, occasionally, even entertain.”

“A few hours every couple of days?” Heather repeats. “That’s all the break you get?”

“History stops for no woman,” is the Curator’s obscure reply. “And on that note, I really do need to get back.”

We turn one final corner and head down a very wide hallway, doors lining both sides.

“In the meantime, there are twelve bedrooms on this floor. Choose whichever ones you’d like,” she tells us with a magnanimous wave of her arm. “And, of course, feel free to explore the grounds and the rest of the bottom floor. There’s a pool, some gaming courts, several art galleries. I just ask that you stay off the second floor, as it’s my personal quarters. Oh, and for those of you who need it, there’s a laundry room at the end of this corridor.”

With a friendly smile tipped in steel, she starts back toward the stairs, but she pauses after only a couple of steps. “I almost forgot. Lunch will be served at two on the first-floor veranda.”

“At two?” I repeat. “But we need—”

I break off as she disappears. And it’s definitely not awalking back down the stairskind of disappears. No, it’s definitely more of aone second she’s there and the next she isn’tkind of disappears.

Heather squeaks when it happens, her eyes going wide and a little wild. But the rest of us take it in stride. The Curator is a god, after all, and the laws of physics tend to work differently for them.

We spend the next few minutes exploring the entire floor. Hudson walks out to the balcony to take a phone call from someone at the Vampire Court, so I choose our room by myself. I pick the one next to the laundry room, because it’sTerminatorthemed and it’s only been a few days since Hudson was quoting the cheesiest—and the most romantic—line from that movie at me.

He’s not the only romantic in our relationship.

Although I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t half tempted to take theApocalypse Nowroom, but with the way the last twenty-four hours have gone, I have to figure, why borrow trouble? Especially when we’rethis closeto finally getting what we need to save Mekhi.

Hudson is still on the phone, pacing back and forth on the balcony as he talks. I think about going out and checking on him, but he looks more than a little frustrated at the moment. And since it’s no use wishing he’d talk to me about what has him so frustrated—I did promise I’d let him process and unfold on his own terms, after all—I text him about what room is ours, then take our dirty clothes to the laundry room and start a load.

My phone dings, and I glance down to see a new message from Remy.

REMY:I’ll be there

I tap out a text back.

ME:Where? When? What?

He answers right away with a thumbs-up emoji, followed by,When you need me most,cher.

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