Free Unbreakable by Kami García

without a word. But I could still smell the salt on his skin.

11. OPHTHALMIC SHIFT
    W hen I woke up, Lukas, Jared, and Alara were hunched over the map again. After an hour of skimming articles for unusual weather patterns and bizarre accounts of unexplained events, I’d learned a few things about surges and paranormal activity. My mind had also taken hundreds of mental snapshots—from neglected houses and morbid crime scenes to used car ads—each one sorted and cataloged automatically.
    On Marrow overload, I offered to be Priest’s assistant for a while. He was determined to design the Big Bad of vengeance spirit hunting weapons to take down whatever Andras had waiting for them.
    “Hold this.” Priest handed me his blowtorch.
    “I don’t think—”
    “It’s totally safe. Unless you turn it on.”
    Like I know how to do that?
    “We need some serious firepower.” Priest scanned his journal for old designs he could tweak.
    Alara stalked in wearing loose cargos and a fitted tank that showed off her muscular arms. She grabbed a box of Pop-Tarts off Priest’s shelf and threw me a perfunctory glance from under her mascaraed lashes before disappearing again.
    “Alara seems nice,” I said once she was out of earshot.
    “Ah… are we talking about the same person?”
    I laughed. “What’s her specialty? Aside from intimidation?”
    “Wards. Her grandmother was a voodoo priestess or something. I forget what they’re called. But Alara’s pretty badass.”
    Badass and gorgeous. Great.
    Priest gestured at the journal and headed for the fridge. “Keep looking.”
    Turning the pages carefully, something caught my eye—a tiny symbol hidden in one of the designs. I’d seen it before.
    Priest came back carrying two sodas.
    “What’s this?” I pointed at the sketch.
    He glanced at the page. “Some kind of ocular device.”
    “Why does it have Andras’ seal on it?”
    “What are you talking about?” He leaned over, and Ipointed at the symbol. Priest dropped the cans, and soda exploded all over the floor.
    Lukas stuck his head between the sheets. “What are you two doing?”
    Priest gazed at the page, transfixed. “Get everyone in here. Now.”
    They crowded around the worktable to see the diagram—a mechanical cylinder with the words
Ophthalmic Shift
printed in tight script at the top.
    “Is it one of your grandfather’s inventions?” Jared leaned over my shoulder and examined the drawing. I remembered the way his hand had felt on my back as I cried, and the way he had smelled—the same way he smelled now. I edged forward, trying to put some space between us.
    Priest shook his head. “That’s not my granddad’s handwriting, and this sketch is really old.”
    A piece of clear glass was cut into one end like a window. Five looping symbols were etched around the outside. There were four other components—silver disks, each embedded with a different shade of glass: blue, red, yellow, and green. According to the diagram, the disks slid into the middle of the cylinder like trays.
    Alara twisted her eyebrow ring. “What is it?”
    “An ocular device,” Priest said.
    “In English?” Jared leaned closer.
    Priest tapped the top of the cylinder on the page. “You look through here and each piece of colored glass inside allows you to see a different layer of the infrared spectrum—things you can’t see with the naked eye. The way a black light picks up the color white and amplifies it.”

“Are you saying it’s a decryption device?” Lukas asked.
    How did he make that jump?
    Priest nodded. “A pretty sophisticated one, considering it’s completely mechanical. If you used the right type of ink, you could write on almost anything and no one would be able to see it without these disks. If someone knew what they were doing, they could actually design a written code that required all five pieces to decipher.”
    Lukas froze. “Five pieces?”
    “Yeah—” Priest started, but Lukas was halfway across the