The rest can follow.”
“Oh, bugger me.” He threw his hands up in the air.
I was pretty sure he’d just cussed at me.
“What’s wrong with you, Arik?” Sinead said from across the room. “Stop being nasty. Her family is threatened, and you are not sympathetic.”
He growled and said in a softer voice, “I apologize. I didn’t mean—”
“I’m scared.” The tears I’d been holding back flooded over my lashes.
“Oh, now, don’t do that.” Arik’s eyebrows pulled together with concern. “I won’t let anything happen to your father and the others. Will you trust me on this? We need help, or we’ve lost before we’ve even started.” He towed me into a tight embrace. “You remember the hunter in the subway. We’ll be much more help to everyone if all of us are working together. Look what we did as a team against Veronique.”
Every second of delay was killing me, but he was right. We needed all the Sentinels.
I sagged against his firm chest. I believed he’d probably give his life to keep that promise, and it scared me. As much as I didn’t want anything to happen to Pop or my friends, I couldn’t accept anything happening to Arik, either. I inhaled his manly scent, my head spinning. I needed time to get to know him better. Tell him how brave he was, how much I admired him, too. I swallowed back the emotions cramming in my throat, unable to gather the courage.
“I trust you,” I said.
“Today is Sunday.” His posture was more relaxed. “Your father is at work, Deidre is at your practice, Nick’s just finishing his shift at his parents’ restaurant, and Afton babysits for her neighbor. We should have a good hour before any of them returns home.”
I tilted my head to see him. “How do you know all that?”
“From the guards that watched you during the days following the gateway breach—”
His reassurances relaxed me a little.
After each Sentinel had come through the book, I performed truth globes on Kale and Jaran, while Lei sat on a chair, cleaning her nails with a small dagger. After they both passed, Arik informed them of the situation. Sinead motioned for Sean to follow her and Jaran.
“Good luck,” Sean said, glancing at me with honest sincerity in his eyes. “I hope your da and friends make it.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Good luck to you, too.”
He took Sinead’s offered hand and grabbed Jaran’s arm.
“Wait,” I said. “The letter from my mother and the picture of my parents, do you still have them? They were in your wallet.”
He pulled out his wallet, examined it, and held it out to me. “This isn’t me billfold.”
I took it from him and retrieved the note and photograph from inside, then handed the wallet to Sinead. However small, they were another connection to my mother, just like the faded umbrella. I slipped the photo and note into my vest pocket and gave the rest to Sinead.
After Jaran spoke the key, the book sucked them into the photograph of the Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland.
“Poor Sean.” Demos chuckled. “When Sinead clouds his mind, he’ll never quite grasp all this was actually true. I bet he won’t ever drink whiskey again.”
“Or be tricked by hot blondes,” I said before walking off to the nearest bookcase. I scanned the titles on the shelf, trying to stay calm. My head pounded and my throat tightened. I just wanted to get to Pop. Arik came up beside me and rested his hand on my back, the warmth of his hand soothing me.
“It’s going to be fine,” he said.
“I hope so.”
Jaran and Sinead’s return interrupted him. “That Dublin library needs a good dusting,” she said, brushing her hands on her pants. “He’ll have to wait until it opens tomorrow to leave. After I clouded his mind, he fell asleep behind a bookcase. He won’t budge until someone wakes him. They’ll think he got locked in.”
Arik addressed the Sentinels kicking back around a table. “Let’s make a plan.” They all stood and gathered around him. I rushed over to join the circle.
Demos settled his arm across my shoulders. “How are you faring?”
“Fine, I guess.”
He handed me a tan trench coat. “Here, put this on.”
“What for?”
“Do you want all of Boston to see you in fighting gear? We all wear them.”
“You do realize it’s summer, right? We’ll look suspicious in these.”
“Just put it on.” Demos winked. “Cheer up. Perhaps we’ll be lucky and it’ll be raining.”
“I just want to go, already.”
“We’ll have to split up,”