Page 75 of Truthfinder’s Promise
Meredith pursed her lips. Technically, they didn’t. “I don’t like the idea of handing this over without any idea what all these pieces do. More than that, I don’t trust Julian, and he would be an idiot to trust me.”
“So what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we split this room and take a picture of everything here. In theory, I’m supposed to be considering working with him, for Analisa. I’ll bring him one item in good faith and he can have the location when I meet her.”
Jensen took the left half of the room while she took the right. The buzz beneath her skin hadn’t let up. As she moved from podium to podium, snapping pictures with her phone, it increased steadily.
“Do you feel anything weird?” she finally asked.
Jensen finished capturing a picture of a case that held an ordinary looking china cup. “Weird how?”
The nonchalance in his tone answered her question: he didn’t. “Never mind. This place just creeps me out.”
“I think that makes you normal.”
Except she didn’t feel normal. Her fingers were itching now, little needles pricking beneath the tips. It was the same sensation she’d felt each time she’d come to visit her mother’s mausoleum, but far more powerful. The sensation intensified as she walked deeper into the room, becoming almost unbearable the further she went, until breathing became increasingly difficult.
She took a step forward and her chest constricted. She took two steps back and the pressure lessened. She found herself playing a bizarre game of hot-and-cold as she moved through the room. Move right—pressure. Left—less pressure.
“Meredith?”
She barely heard Jensen say her name. The push and pull consumed her, an itch that had to be scratched, a call that had to be answered. She followed the unseen guidance, rounded one of the pedestals, and saw it.
The circlet wasn’t hidden, precisely, but it was on a podium in a back corner of the room, nestled on a bed of white velvet. As soon as her eyes locked on it, the hum in her body snapped into a taut line, drawing her forward.
Her hands closed on the edges of the glass case. Intricately woven white-gold wire formed the circlet, loops and whirls that conveyed elegance but also power. The design was neither masculine nor feminine, but somewhere in between. The strands of wire met in the front and tapered to a triangular point that would rest between the wearer’s brows. Nestled in that V was a brilliant, pear cut yellow orange diamond.
She could practically feel the weight of the cool metal pressed against her brow, the way the circlet would fill out the hollow places inside her. If she put it on she wouldn’t lack purpose or fulfillment, wouldn’t need to prove herself to a dead mother or the friends she still felt like she didn’t measure up to.
She would only need this. Her purpose was truth; it was the primary affinity that ran in her blood, and the circlet was made for truth. No more hiding from the full extent of her abilities, no more second-guessing herself. With the crown on her brow, she would become the embodiment of her affinity. She would finally see what her power had tried but so far failed to reveal: the world, as it truly was.
Glimpses of that truth had come her way lately—the feel of places and things—but not the entirety. And she wanted it all.
She lifted the glass cover, distantly aware of a nearby presence but unable to focus enough to know who it was. The cover didn’t budge. She scrabbled at the edges before blindly beating at it, desperate to get through, to get—
Hands gripped her wrists, hauling her back against a hard, warm chest. She struggled futilely as the person dragged her away. The buzzing that had abated roared to life again, burning like the rasp of sandpaper beneath her skin, and she screamed.
