Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page A

appointment?”
    â€œThey know we’re here. They’ll send for us when Yoshiro’s ready.”
    So we wandered the halls, waiting for a human to greet us—I mean a living human.
    One thing you could say about ghostkeepers: they liked their artifacts. The inside of the Knell could’ve passed for a museum. Not like Bennett’s house, which resembled a period-piece movie set; this was more like the Met. Ornate furnishings dotted the immaculate marble floor and left plenty of room for bronze sculptures, oil paintings, and antiquities on pedestals. The lighting was low, protecting the art and Oriental rugs, and creating a fittingly spooky ambience.
    I ran a finger along the etching of an ivory box. My skin began to tingle and I quickly pulled my hand away. I sometimes sensed the memories of antiques like these, impressions of the people who once owned them. In the case of my namesake, the first Emma, I actually relived her experience, and I was afraid something like that might happen here.
    And sure enough, I sensed something calling to me from one of the rooms. Not a ghost, but an object tugging at my attention.
    â€œUm, Emma?” Bennett said. “Where are you going?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    I followed my instincts, winding down wood-paneled hallways until I stood in a dark room, almost empty except for a tapestry on one wall and a blue velvet Victorian settee in the middle of the room, inviting you to sit and admire the intricate weaving.
    â€œThis is it, isn’t it?” I said, mesmerized by the tapestry. “The thing you should’ve told me about.”
    â€œUh-huh.” Bennett grew still, watching me, gauging my reaction.
    The tapestry reminded me of the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. We’d had a print of one of them in our hallway when I was a child. The colors and patterns were the same. The rich golds and burgundies, dark blue and forest green, the moons, trees, flowers, even the bunnies. A light-haired woman stood in the middle of this one, dressed in a red medieval gown, a sword held protectively across her body.
    But instead of interacting with the animals, she was circled by ghosts in different guises: in human form, wraiths, and what I guessed were ghasts, though I’d never seen one. One of the ghosts was even a serpent, delicately woven into the fabric.
    â€œIs that Emma?” I asked. Because she looked exactly like her—like me.
    â€œYeah, just not the Emma from Echo Point. This tapestry is centuries older than her, probably medieval European.”
    My Emma lived in the late 1700s, which meant that this tapestry was almost five hundred years old. “But—”
    â€œShe’s a mirror image of you,” a woman’s voice said behind us.
    I turned too quickly and caught a glimpse of the woman before the world started tilting. I stumbled, and Bennett took my arm and helped me to the settee. He crouched in front of me, holding my hands in his, his eyes concerned.
    â€œTake a deep breath,” the woman told me. “You’ve had a shock.”
    â€œI’ve got it,” Bennett snapped at her. “I’m sorry, Emma. I should’ve told you. But we don’t really know what it is or what it means. And I didn’t want you to … to take it too seriously.”
    I touched his shoulder briefly. “It’s okay. I’m not sure knowing it was here would’ve prepared me, anyway. It’s not every day you discover you’re the reincarnation of Emma the Ghostslayer.”
    â€œIt’s striking, isn’t it?” the woman said to Bennett. “Yoshiro says that Emma is the only ghostkeeper who can stop Neos—which is odd, given she’s so new to her powers. But when you see her resemblance to the lady in the tapestry, all that power, distilled through the ages, leaping from bloodline to bloodline.” She turned to me. “Until finally settling in you. I begin