Page 95 of In Her Own Rite

Ivo eyes me, uncertain. We’re not close, but I know him through the gym and his role in my training pack. I lean in, hoping he’ll see reason.

“Please. You have to. You know I spoke to Thalia.”

He eyes me for another second, then finally nods, gesturing for me to follow him to the van. I hear Sigur taking a second car behind us. As we drive towards the eastern harbor, I watch as the thick clouds of smoke get bigger and take up more of the sky. I’m racking my brain, thinking about what Em told me about the place she grew up. The places she and her family used to go for trips, along the eastern shore.

As we near the beach, I see the rocks along the sea, and it finally hits me.

“Do you know the grottos?” I ask.

Ivo looks at me quizzically.

“Here, here, take a right,” I order, and at my direction, he turns off of the main road onto a small side path leading towards the rocks of the shore.

“What do you know?” he asks.

It’s all clicking into place now. How could I have been so stupid?

“Em grew up near here,” I say. “She and her parents used to come to these grottos for day trips. She said it’s completely isolated, and if you’re on the beach you can’t even see inside. It would be the perfect hiding place.”

Ivo pulls into the parking lot and I run out of the car, up towards the rocks. With the adrenaline coursing through me, I scramble up them in seconds. The scent hits me as soon as I’m in: sweat and unwashed clothes, urine, the last remnants of food. I look around and see empty cans and the food wrappers of preservatives, along with the peels of a few oranges and a soggy carton of cigarettes. But no people.

I hear Ivo climbing up the rocks behind me and turn to see his face as he enters the grotto.

“Uikbaane,” he mutters as the scent hits him.

“They were staying here.”

“The scent is fresh,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “It would have been as recent as this morning.”

“How many people do you think were here?”

He sniffs again, and I can see the gold ring in his eyes flash. “I can’t tell from the scent—the ocean has taken too much of the smell. But this can’t be enough food for more than one person,maybetwo, for the week or more they would have had to hide.”

“Where would they have gone?” I ask.

Suddenly the walkie-talkie at his hip goes off, the rattle of static noise echoing through the cave. Sigur’s voice comes through, nasal and flattened by the device.

“Reports of a boat stolen from the west harbor. Looks like the suspect is taking the straight between Saroe and Keist, heading south.”

I look out towards the sea, where I can make out the very farthest parts of Keist’s shore in the distance. The stolen boat should be visible soon, if it’s heading that way.

“How many are in the boat?” Ivo asks into the walkie-talkie.

“Just one. I’m radioing the volunteer squad on Keist to take boats from the cape and block him before he gets farther.”

“I’ll do the same for the south shore,” Ivo says.

I half-listen as he makes a call to the volunteer security at the southern harbor, which we set up after the first attack. As he talks, I look down at the remnants that the person staying here left behind. The cigarettes are completely waterlogged; they must have come with the group on the first boats, and gotten wet when the boat crashed on the rocks. I kick over one of the food rappers. Walnuts.

Wait. Walnuts?

I try to think back to that day with Em at the Halluk house, before the others arrived. She’d never hadweijnotbroduntil she moved into thefikarig. Her dad was allergic, she’d said.

Ivo’s voice gets louder, his words coming faster now as he describes something in the distance. I turn to follow his gaze and look out again at the ocean. There it is, a white speedboat tearing through the water, heading south. And, clear as day: just one person in front. He’s too far for us to see his face, but I make out tawny skin and a full head of dark hair. Far younger than Em’s dad would be by now.

I feel something cold roil in my gut as it hits me. Have I really been so stupid? Letting myself get hypnotized by thekattakato believe in ghosts, when the truth was in front of my face the whole time? Em’s dad can’t have been here. Maybe he knew this group before they left, and gave them instructions on how to navigate Saroe. Hell, if the group had access to a phone, they could have even called back to him for advice after their boat crashed.

I think of Thalia’s words—I hope Emerson’s okay. Was it a threat, or a lucky guess because she’d met Janus and just hoped the name would land?

---