Page 141 of Harnessed in Gold

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Once I’ve hadmy cry out, Leo and I rejoin the decoding effort. All that’s left to figure out iswhere. Where in the hell did Browne hide the bracelet? We scour the journal for something—anything—a general area, a longitude and latitude, a single clue that can narrow the field.

I stay one step ahead of Leo and Avery, writing down all the letters each symbol could stand for. And since we English majors are masters in the art of reading too much into things, I’m also handy at figuring out the subtext of the literal words.

“Uh, Leo?” I gulp, after trying on every possible interpretation of Browne’s October 30th entry. “Are you coming to the same conclusion I am?”

He stares at the page. “For the love of the gods.”

Browne went to the riverside, to the site of the massacre, and raised the spirits of his two dead friends.

I ask, “Did heconjurethem?”

Avery peers at her notes. “That’s what it looks like.”

“And that’s not the same as talking to them?” Please tell me it is.

“No,” Leo replies.

Shit.

“When he was contacting spirits, he was talking to them where they were. Like a phone call.” Leo taps his pen on the page. “Here he’s talking about literally summoning their spirits from the underworld and bringing them to this realm.”

“Wait,” I gasp. “There’s an underworld?”

“Yes.”

My head buzzes, threatening to go off-line. “Like a hell?”

“More like the ancient Greek land of the dead.”

Oh, my god, I can’t even think about that right now.

I. Just. Can’t. Even.

Leo grips my hand under the table, and within seconds his grounding warmth washes through me. I can’t blame him for calming me; we don’t have time for me to freak out. Because whatever, or wherever, this underworld is, there’s no record of Browne sending his buddies back there.

“Was it them I felt by the river?” I clench Leo’s hand tighter. “Did I feel ghosts?”

“I’m guessing you feel ghosts all the time. They carry all sorts of emotional energy.”

I seriously want a refund on this psychic ability. It’s a nightmare.

In two steps, Rime clears the distance between the couch and the table. “Those were ghosts you felt at the river?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did Browne have a reason for conjuring them?” Aaron asks from the kitchen where he’s pouring himself some iced tea. “Or was he just trying to see what he could get away with?”

Liv approaches, pale and wavering on unstable legs. “Ghosts?”

Rime pulls out a chair for her.

Topaz sits in the remaining seat while Aaron leans in the kitchen doorway and Rime grips the edge of the table, his shoulders tense and his knuckles turning white.

As they breathe down our necks, Avery, Leo, and I finish interpreting the last few pages writtenin Enochian.

Leo drops his pen and announces, “Browne buried the bracelet on the other side of the river. Exactly opposite the site of the massacre.”