CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Jaime

When people talked about New York City being the city that never sleeps, they were often referring to the people who lived there.

But people were not the only things awake.

There were the gargoyles on the tops of buildings that seemed to watch as the cars passed by. The old portraits that seemed to glower at the guards who strolled museum halls, the skeletons of animals long extinct that seemed to move when no one was looking. Brownstones that looked like angry faces, or smiling ones, depending. The creaking of timbers and beams, wood and plaster, that everyone claimed was just “settling” but perhaps was something else. Something restless and fitful.

Unlike the people and the paintings and the very bones of the city, Jaime wished for a little rest. And, after the events of North Brother Island, a midnight trip to a cemetery sounded positively restful to Jaime.

Which could only mean that he had lost his entire mind.

He imagined what Mima might say if he were to tell her what he was doing. A stream of furious Spanish followed by swearing in five other languages, he guessed. And then a lecture about how he was acting a fool and she didn’t raise a fool, etc., etc., etc. She would be right.

And yet, here he was, packed into a van with a bunch of eager Cipherists excited to creep around a graveyard.

They’d all lost their entire minds.

The city out the window drew his eye the way it always did. The lights twinkled and the people in the bars and the restaurants laughed, clinking glasses. A line of folks dressed in satin and sequins and artfully ripped-up jeans waited by a velvet rope for a bouncer the size of a giraffe-owary to let them into some exclusive dance club. He opened the door for a lucky few, and the music thudded like a heartbeat.

“Whose world is this? Whose world is this?” Jaime muttered, drumming his fingers on his knee.

His thoughts drifted to the woman in gray. Again. He searched the streets for her, hoping that she was watching, that she was following. He hadn’t felt safe with her, exactly, but he hadn’t felt threatened, either. It was as if she’d had her own business to attend to on that island, and they’d messed up her plans, and she’d dealt with the situation as best as she could. He replayed her movements, spinning and kicking and punching her way through all those beefed-up dudes, and grinned to himself.

She’d dealt with the situation, all right.

The van reached the cemetery. It was hard to miss, with its ornate vampire-castle-looking gate, stone spires spiking the darkness.

“Creepy,” Priya whispered. And then shivered as if she found the concept delightful.

Jaime unbuttoned his pocket, and Ono piped up. “To the Land of Kings?”