I Should Die

came.
    Bran’s eyes flicked back to the space next to my head. “He has returned.”
    I nodded. “He says Violette will give you three days to find the solution to the power transfer. She is leaving Vincent with us to stay and watch, but will pull him back to her as often as she chooses.”
    “And he is the one whose powers Violette seeks?” Bran insisted.
    “Yes,” Gaspard affirmed. “As we explained, after murdering your mother, Violette killed him and burned his body in order to get the Champion’s power.”
    Bran leaned back on his pillow. “Well, that explains why the power transfer didn’t work,” he said softly.
    “What do you mean?” Jean-Baptiste asked.
    “It’s simple. This boy is not the Champion.”
    Jean-Baptiste, Gaspard, and I stared at one another, speechless. Bran continued, “As my mother and I suspected might be the case, it turns out that I am the VictorSeer. The one guérisseur from my line who has been chosen to identify the Victor . . . your Champion.”
    “But how do you know?” I asked, incredulous. “Just last week you told me you weren’t certain.”
    “Ah, but it only just happened,” Bran said, smiling weakly and shifting his gaze to JB. “From the moment you took my hand yesterday—the head of the revenants touching the representative of my family of guérisseurs —your auras all changed in my eyes.”
    “So that’s what happened,” JB said.
    Bran nodded. “I felt the power possess me, and . . .” He hesitated, choosing his words carefully, “I know quite definitively that I am the one who will identify your savior. And this volant spirit that is with us is not the chosen one. I am sure of it.”
    “But how—” Gaspard began to ask, but Bran cut him off.
    “Don’t ask me how, my new friend. I have agreed to help you as much as I can, but there are some secrets I am bound to keep.”
    There was radio silence in my mind as Vincent began talking directly to Gaspard. “Yes. I agree.” Gaspard nodded in response to something he said, and turned to Jean-Baptiste. “Vincent says that, if what the guérisseur says is true, we can’t let Violette discover her error. The more time she wastes attempting to achieve this fruitless task, the longer we stall her from bringing war to our doorstep.”
    “But if we stall, won’t that put you in danger?” I asked Vincent. The more I saw her in action, the more afraid I was becoming of Violette.
    Violette can’t do anything to hurt me, he responded reassuringly, but the way he said me inferred that Vincent wasn’t the only one at risk.
    “If we do delay for the three-day period Violette has set, we might have a chance to find the true Champion, now that we have the man who can identify him,” JB said, nodding to Bran. “We could call together all of Paris’s revenants so that you can see if he is amongst us.”
    “I will do what I can,” Bran said.
    “I will tell Ambrose to arrange a meeting of Paris bardia immediately,” said Gaspard, and bustled out of the room.
    “Vincent, does Violette actually hold enough power over you that she can force you to tell her what we are doing if she draws you back?” Jean-Baptiste asked. He listened for a moment and his eyes flicked to me, his expression dark. “She can’t compel him to do anything against his will,” he relayed. “However, as we suspected, she plans on using something dear to him to do the compelling for her.”
    Jean-Baptiste was silent for a second, and then said, “I promise you, Vincent. For the next three days we will not let Kate out of our sight.”

TWELVE
    THE DOOR SWUNG OPEN, AND JULES RUSHED INTO the room. “Just saw Gaspard,” he panted. “Is it true? Vincent’s back?” He listened for a second, and then practically threw himself on me, talking to Vincent while simultaneously squeezing my breath out. “Oh, man, am I glad we got you back.”
    I squeaked, “Jules! Oxygen!”
    “Sorry, Kate,” he said, releasing me. “I’m just happy to see both of you, and you’re the only one I can actually touch.”
    I laughed as I smoothed my scrunched-up T-shirt. “That’s okay.”
    Bran, Jean-Baptiste, and Gaspard began talking in earnest about the prophecy, the Champion, and what could be done once he was identified. Jean-Baptiste looked away for a second and said, “Of course, Vincent. But come back before long. We need to ask you more about Violette and her plans.”
    “They don’t need us right now,” said Jules, his