Read Online The Tragedy of Knowledge by Rachael Wade - Free Book Online Page B

and I slid across the dirt to reach down and grab my knife again. Leaping forward to beat me to the weapon, his boots kicked dirt in his wake and we slammed into one another.
    “No!” My voice was vicious, completely unrecognizable. “We have to keep going.” My fingers curled around the dagger, and I summoned every ounce of power within me to shove myself into him and force us both upward and backward, until he was pinned against the same tree I’d used to charge him. My knife to his throat, our chests heaving, I realized he wasn’t fighting my grip on him. Instead, his eyes lowered to the knife, widening a fraction at the sound of the low growl that emitted from my throat.
    “Camille, it’s me, Gavin. Your husband. I know you’re in there.”
    Just like that, the force that had taken my body hostage was gone, and I staggered back, sliding the dagger back into my belt sleeve. “I saw Scarlet … or something that resembled her … and I’m going after her whether you like it or not.” Though weak and panting, my voice had returned along with my free will.
    Keeping his back to the tree and his intense gaze on me, he reached out and leaned forward to swipe a thumb over my cheek. The gentle gesture caused me to exhale and lean into his palm.
    “Something isn’t right, baby,” he said. “I don’t like this.”
    “I promise we’ll fly up and out of here the second something else feels off. You have my word.”
    “I don’t know if it’ll be much good if you pull another Linda Blair on me.”
    I felt the anxious lines on my face soften into a small smile at yet another cheesy horror-movie reference. First Audrey, and now my Hitchcock fan-boy husband. He returned my smile with a relieved grin, letting me take him by the hand. I started in the general direction I’d last seen the vision of Scarlet, shuffling forward through the thickets of sticks, mud and branches, stopping abruptly when we rounded a group of trees to find a nestled, off-the-beaten waterway, broken apart from the main bank, and what did you know …
    A baby-blue rowboat.
    “Cam, if Scarlet is the one who led us here … this could still be dangerous.”
    “Gav, this was the boat in my vision. This is right. I promise you, please trust me.”
    “It’s not you I don’t trust. It’s these visions … this thing , whatever’s taking over you.”
    “You saw the map in the Book of the Ancients with your own two eyes. Vivienne’s book. How dangerous can the vision be if it matched what the book showed us?”
    “The witches and frozen souls are enemies. We can’t necessarily trust everything the witches’ book shows us.” Threading his fingers through mine, his gaze flicked up and from side to side, monitoring our surroundings.
    “Well, we saw what happened with the prophecies in Amaranth, and we’ve been following Vivienne’s guidance even before that, so there’s no reason to stop now. We mean the witches no harm, and we can prove that if need be. Now come on.” I tugged him with me and stepped into the boat, Gavin and me sitting opposite one another, just as I saw in my vision.
    Pulling the Book of the Ancients from my bag and placing it on my lap, I kept my flashlight in hand and watched carefully as Gavin began to row. The fact that Scarlet—or a whacked-out hallucination of her—had led us to this boat was definitely discomforting, but I trusted the book on my lap, trusted what it had shown us just this evening. I only prayed that wherever the boat was taking us, it would be a safe place. And that it would lead to answers.
    Yeah. Answers would be really good right about now, considering the fact that I just attacked my own husband.
    Floating quietly across the waterway, the fog surrounding us became more and more disorienting, our flashlights only adding to the feeling of strangeness. The wider part of the bayou seemed to disappear; the off-beaten path we were on had been immersed in the swamp’s watery maze. We weren’t