CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“OF COURSE,” Carter added, “there is another scenario. The stone uses you for whatever it wants, and then it moves on by itself.”

That didn’t take away the sudden chill at the back of my neck at my imagined vision of the wreckage left in its wake. “It—it can do that?”

“Historically, that’s exactly what it’s done. It’s far more likely to choose its next partner than it is to be acquired. It has a mind of its own.”

“I don’t want to be the chosen one.” I felt as though I’d been trapped in a hobbity storyline.

He looked like he wanted to take hold of my hand again but didn’t reach for it. “No. The only good thing about it is, you’ve found your father.”

“Sort of. He doesn’t think he’s dead, but he doesn’t know. Brian and Steptoe think he might be transitioning or caught between this place and another dimension. Do you have to be dead to do that?”

“Not all the time.”

“What could have forced him between?”

“No way of knowing, but if we could find out, then we’d have a better idea how to get him back. Or.” He stopped.

“Help him go forward.”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

I twisted my fingers together. “You didn’t have to, because it stands to reason he can’t just hang where he is. We have to find a way to get him free, and that means going forward if that’s what it takes, right? It’s not like I haven’t already thought of him as dead these past few years anyway. But, if we have to do that, I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to my mom.” My words choked up in my throat and I stopped talking because I ached and my voice went mute on me. He still didn’t take my hand back in his, but he leaned against me a little. His body was both strong and warm, and I drew comfort from it. I glared at my hand in case the stone started sparking but it didn’t. If Carter Phillips were dangerous, the stone was not reacting.

That didn’t stop me from thinking he was dangerous, just a different sort of threat than the stone might sense.

“You might be about telling ’er the whole truth.”

I twisted about, to see Steptoe standing in the shadowed end of the upstairs hallway, stepping out of the darkness as if he’d manifested himself there, rather than coming in the front door like everyone else. He walked toward us, snapping a rolled-up paper in one hand against the other. Carter’s jaw tightened.

“That’s the truth as far as I know it.”

“No, it ain’t, and don’t let him tell you it is, ducks.” Steptoe lowered himself to sit, not quite next to us, but back against the corner of the hallway.

“Maybe I haven’t had access to the same sources you have.” Carter pointed at the rolled-up paper.

“Well, now that might be a bit true, although I would think your lot had a copy or two of this in its study, eh? Maybe you just weren’t allowed to see it.”

Carter made a muffled noise, rather like a muted snort.

I craned my head at Steptoe. “What truth would that be?”

He eyed me solemnly. “It’s possible the man you greeted as your father is not him. We know Malender can project if he gathers enough power, rather than greet us in person, like. Maybe he’s stretching his influence here.”

I made a funny sound from deep in my throat, words that stuck and wouldn’t come out.

“How would he even know anything about John Graham Andrews? Why would you be telling her something like that, Simon?”

“Because it’s the truth.” He sighed. “Not that I ain’t above twistin’ it now and then to my advantage, but Tessa ’ere has been nothing but kind to me. After our first meeting. I call us friends. It’s not like that with most folks, is it? You can’t call just anybody your mates.” He unrolled the pamphlet. “The stone is chaos. Not lawful or unlawful, just simple chaos. It can reach for whatever it wishes and who’s to say that it didn’t jump into our girl here because that one ordered it to?” He underlined a paragraph with his finger as he spoke. “Says ’ere it doesn’t ’ave to be attached to do its user’s bidding.”

“One would have to be very strong in using magical energy.” Carter’s voice went flat.

“Oh, and our guy wouldn’t be? C’mon.” Steptoe poked him in the chest with his pamphlet.

Carter put a hand up as if to snatch it before stopping, and his gaze never left the pamphlet. I could almost feel the itch in his fingers to grab it.

“Wot? Got to see it yourself? Here then.” He pushed the fragile missive forward.

Carter spread it out carefully and began to read. I watched his face, my throat still a bit knotted up from that momentary jump of fear. I felt it melt away entirely as I took note of his lips moving slightly while he read. The schoolboy concentration rounded some of the hard edges off him.

“So,” Steptoe said, as he hooked his arms about his knees companionably. “I heard you got exposed while you were in th’ Middle East. What’s that about? Got a touch of the djinn, did you?”

“I don’t talk about it.”

“Never? Now that’s a right injustice, that is. People want to know. I want to know.”

Carter turned his head slowly to meet Steptoe’s stare.

“It’s private.”

“Sure, and I wouldn’t wonder, ’cause it puts you on the same rung as me. Your power is just as chancy as it can be, init?”

“If it came from a djinn.” Carter turned back to his paragraph. “It did not.”

“Well, that’s wot you might say, right?”

Carter grabbed him. Then he took up my hand. “I don’t talk about it, but I’ll show you.”

In the blink of an eye, we stood in a desert. That wink hit me in the gut with a whirling sensation that made me think my head might pop off, but deposited me neatly on my feet under a velvet, starlit sky. Sand crunched under my sneakers. Dry air reached down and tried to suck my breath away the way only a desert could.

Nighttime had cooled it down but not all the way, never all the way I was guessing, and the desert held sandy dunes and far away, dun-colored hills. The silence—so complete. I realized that the city I inhabited buzzed crazily with noise, barely heard but always there, intruding, and here—nothing but the sound of our breathing. Out here, nothing distorted or took the stars’ shine away. They hung, crystal clear and in force, overhead. I felt a sense of awe and knew why early man must have seen godlike forces in them, fates that operated for and against us, the ordinary. The night began to fade and lift. The sand we inhabited looked almost pink, its hue coming from the sun on the horizon as it started to crown, and far away misty shreds of cloud and night pulled away. I lifted my face to the sun and felt as many had before, I’m certain, awe and fear of the power shifting to the sky. The sun brought life. It chased away fear. It could also melt you down into a mere greasy spot on the ground. As it rose, I could feel its beams angle across my body, draining away hopelessness and cold.

Carter spoke, his voice wrapping around me. “I died in Afghanistan. Under attack, trying to save what I could of our patrol, but my buddy and I, we got hit. Hard. I woke in Egypt.”

This was Egypt? Woah. I wanted to see the Sphinx. The pyramids. The great museum in Cairo. I twitched with all the wants. Then I caught what he’d said. “You . . . died?”

“I did. Maybe just for a second or two, but I died. And when I opened my eyes again, I was here. Cradled in Amel’s elbow, he on his knees in pain. We were bathed in sunlight.”

“You were gifted by Ra?” Steptoe murmured.

“My buddy was Egyptian-American. He brought us here. It took less than a heartbeat, and then I felt myself breathing—and bleeding—again. He didn’t move. He held me in what was . . . I don’t have words for it . . . a corona of sunlight. And blessing. And an otherworldly interest, as if we’d caught the attention of something so vast, there were no words available. Another blast of sun-heat and we were back in Afghanistan, with the med-evac chopper landing next to us. I made it. He didn’t.”

But the rest of his patrol had, too. That had been the whole hero incident for which we knew him when he came back home to Richmond.

“As bright as the sun is, it casts mighty shadows.”

Carter took a deep breath, echoed by Steptoe. I think I kept holding my breath until something growled at me, from behind.

“Don’t look back.” Carter’s fingers tightened about mine.

My stone grew very warm in my left hand, but Carter couldn’t know that as he held tight to my right. I didn’t want to look, but neither did I want to have my spine ripped out of my body by whatever growled back there. Without more thought than that, I began to turn my head. Sand crunched under a stealthy footfall or paw step.

Carter pulled us close into his hold and the scene whirled again, going absolutely black, and sending my stomach into a whirlpool before our feet thudded down on carpet and we were home again. Sitting, even, on the stairs.

I wanted to tell him how awesome it looked and felt, but my stomach revolted. I pitched to my feet and barely made it down the hall in time.

When I came back, wiping my mouth and cringing at the taste of mouthwash, Steptoe and Carter were more or less ignoring each other at the top of the stairs. I knew why the two of them sulked: Steptoe thought he’d had an ally even if Carter didn’t want to be one; Carter didn’t like having his secrets pried out of him. Of course, maybe the prowler at our backs had been more in sync with Carter than he wanted us to know. Bright sun, dark shadows. Sounded rather chaotic to me, so maybe Steptoe was right after all. The lesser demon would know all about the flip side to good things. Carter wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, naturally.

I sat down. “That can’t be all that happened.”

“Well, no. But I won’t talk about the rest. It’s different for each and every one of us, unless you’re born into it.”

“Was Brian born into it, you think? The professor, I mean.”

“I couldn’t say. He’s not talked about much, except for now, of course, with all that’s been going on around him. I won’t even venture to say how much power his last incarnation had or didn’t have, though I know his influence could have been great.”

“Could have been?”

“He refused to play politics. Said it demeaned all those who should have been working toward a common cause. It’s one of the reasons Remy left him. She thought he was both impractical and arrogant. She is ambitious. Some would say too much so.”

I considered my professor. Impractical, sometimes—but arrogant? No. If I would put that label on anyone, I’d put it on her first. So maybe she’d wanted to rise through the ranks to become, what, Imperial Overall Wizard or something? Would that have given her more power? Or did power come out of study and learning, not greedy acquisition? I had no way of knowing. “So how does one go up the ladder? Is there one?”

“Yes, and no. There are always those who like to lead, but they’re not necessarily the most powerful in the Society when it comes to their personal magic. Sometimes the detail oriented and the diplomatic are more valuable. And then there’s the Enforcers.”

“Enforcers?”

“Right up your alley, eh guv?”

Carter sniffed. “Not me, unless I’ve been cornered into it. Frankly, I’ve little time for the Society. I’m building a career here that is important to me, and they know they’re on the backburner as far as I’m concerned. They helped place me here, but had no idea how much I wanted to be where I am. So they’ve lost a bit of their hold on me.”

“You’ll boil that pot when you come to it?”

“Exactly. Which reminds me.” He gathered himself. “I’ve got chores waiting at home.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Clothes don’t get cleaned and pressed on their own.”

“You can’t wave a wand?”

He nudged me. “Say good night, Tessa.”

I nodded. He carefully handed back the pamphlet to Steptoe. “Keep an eye on her.”

“Always.”

The two nodded in silent agreement at one another, which frankly gave me the creeps. What had Carter picked up in those papers that Steptoe also knew, and all of a sudden, made the two coconspirators?

Plus, I wanted that pamphlet myself. The stone contaminated me. Might control me. I had a right to know as much as they did. I peered at what I could see of the booklet in Steptoe’s hands. “I could use that.”

“For wot?”

“Knowledge, Simon. Shouldn’t I be in on all this?”

Steptoe looked, really looked, at me, his dark eyes narrowing a bit as if he had to bring me into focus. Then he shook his head vigorously. “I don’t want that mark on th’ soul I’ve got left. You want educated, you talk t’ Brian.” He stood up and tucked the mystical tome inside his suit coat pocket, away from sight, as he left.

His words didn’t change things much, but my brief look at the pages not hidden by his handhold did. I hadn’t recognized a symbol. Maybe one needed special eyesight to get past the gibberish or illusion? Or translation into a modern language? That was ridiculous. I needed to know. I’d have to hope the professor thought so, too. I didn’t like being kept in the dark, but it looked like I didn’t have much choice at the moment. When Brian felt stronger, Brandard might be easier to convince. Or not.

I decided I’d had enough of magical thinking and went down the hall to my room to practice wearing insanely tall high heels. They slipped onto my bare feet as if they’d been made for me. Cobbled for me? Whatever. They fit. And they did hurt when I stood up on them, all my weight sinking down to my toes and pinching them tightly. That and the loss of mobility was why I didn’t like wearing heels. Others did because they liked being taller. Me, not so much.

I didn’t set my phone up to video until I could glide confidently across the floor. Tough to do with pounding and muted shouting downstairs as the crew worked. It seemed that Hiram and the boys made the decision not just to repair but improve the whole basement floor of the house, ceiling, floor, and Wi-Fi included. Not that it wouldn’t be nice having an entertainment room all to ourselves, but a resident ghost would frankly creep most people out. Mom had told me to be thankful we didn’t have to pay for it, but she hadn’t seen the remodel up close. Yet. When they finished and cleared out, then I’d take Mom down and see if I could help Dad manifest for her. I didn’t know if that was a wise thing to do or not, given the circumstances, but it seemed like I had to try. If it was truly Dad, she needed to see him again and he needed to know that there might be a way back. If he got back.

I only hoped he’d kicked the gambling habit for good wherever he’d been stuck all those years. If he hadn’t, I’d be tempted to lose him again. I think I have this terrible character flaw of being unforgiving.

I crossed the floor twice, looked at the phone, decided I didn’t look like an idiot and texted it to Evelyn.

I swear her phone was grafted to her. Worst case of phone dependency I had ever known. She shot back, Well done, grasshopper.

I sent back a grin with the tongue out emoji before heading downstairs to start a dinner of sorts, because Mom would be home.

The kitchen table stood piled with ten, I kid you not, ten extra-large pizza boxes. Nine of them were demolished and empty. The tenth stood, steaming and inviolate, waiting for Mom and me. Steptoe too, I guess, but he’d disappeared again. I opened the lid to smell the delicious combo flavors.

Mom came in, purse in one hand and computer bag in the other. She took a whiff. “Pizza? Again? Though it does smell delicious.”

“Roll with it, Mom.”

“Guess I’m going to have to. They’re all still here?”

Hiram shouted up from the bottom of the kitchen ramp. “Packing up now, Mrs. Andrews. Left you some dinner.”

“Bless your heart,” she shouted back, “Yes, I saw, thank you.” She perched on a kitchen chair. “And how was your day?”

“Fine. Assignments all caught up, and I really don’t think anyone missed me. I wore my wrist brace in case anybody asks how I’m feeling.” I flashed her the stone. “Seemed best to hide this, all things considered.”

She peeled a slice up and began to eat it. “What does that do, exactly?”

It’s not easy to lie with a great pizza in front of you. I picked a black olive off it and nibbled it. “Think of it like a protective shield.”

“Oh, so when you’re biking down the street, I don’t have to worry about your getting hit. Or hijacked on the bus.”

“Nooo. More like a barrier against errant magic.”

“Ah. So next time Brian yells ‘Avaunt!’ and breaks something, I don’t have to worry about you being in the way or getting caught by a ricochet.”

“Yeah. Like that.” Maybe. I pried off a mushroom and chewed. I decided I had better get to eating and finished a slice to be safe.

The front door opened and someone called, “Yoo-hoo” gently. Mom jumped to her feet. “Aunt April! We’re in the kitchen.”

We traded looks frantically. She hadn’t been told about the mudroom floor yet, but there’d be no missing it as she came in. Not to mention the dust and noise of the wrecking crew in the cellar. Mom washed her hands at the sink and had a glass of sweet tea ready for my aunt as she came in, puzzlement all over her.

“What on earth happened?”

“The mudroom gave way. Did you know you had a basement down there?”

“Oh my.” Aunt April took a sip as she sat down carefully. “I had truly forgotten. First things first—was anyone hurt? Do I have to make an insurance claim?”

“Nobody hurt, and the man who fell through brought his family in to make the repairs. He’s in construction. It won’t cost you a nickel.”

Up to his neck in construction, at the moment, I thought. I wrangled a paper plate. “Pizza, Aunt April?”

“Don’t mind if I do. No pepperoni though, gives me dyspepsia.”

“Right.” I served her a Canadian bacon and pineapple slice. She beamed when I handed it to her. Pizza fed crowds. I wondered when she’d last had any on her own. She’d dressed in prim navy slacks and a navy and white pinstriped blouse today and looked not a bit wilted from the warm weather, her hair swept back and pinned neatly in place.

“The basement?” I prompted. For good measure, I added, “Did Dad stay here after he left?”

“Oh, no. Not that I know about. He had keys so he might have. I don’t come here often anymore. I was lucky to keep this place when the Great Recession hit, but I managed.”

“Why did you hold onto it?”

“Because I thought someone might need it, dear.” Aunt April neatly bit off a bite. “I was born in hard times and remember them well. I wasn’t necessarily thinking of y’all but I knew someone might need it, some day. A lot of my friends are widows now. I wasn’t sure if they would have a place when their husbands passed. I’d been lucky to own several properties, and it didn’t hurt me to keep holding on.”

“But you had to sell the great house,” Mom said.

“True, but that place was grandiose, wasn’t it? A manor and a half. I rattled around in there like a dust bunny. The summer place is fine for me, and I do love it. Gardens and my sun porch.”

Mom and Aunt April laughed while I tried not to choke on a meatball at the mental picture of her as disheveled as a dust ball.

When I could swallow and breathe decently, I pressed. “But Dad . . .”

“Well now.” She went very still for a moment, thinking. “As I said, he did have keys, but he never mentioned it to me. I always thought he’d have come home in a few days, but then it became weeks, and then . . .”

We all went silent. Aunt April cleaned her hands on her napkin. “Mind if I have a look? They’re certainly making a racket.”

I jumped up to pull the pantry door open. She looked amazed for the tiniest moment.

“My. I had forgotten all about that door. It must have been painted over four, five times. Always was the coolest place in the house. My brothers used to sleep down there when it got hot as blue blazes.” She leaned in the doorway and looked down. One of the gingers and the bald dwarf waved to her. “They’re working to beat the band down there. Renovating everything?”

Mom shrugged. “They insisted. Hiram, the young fellow in the blue and green plaid shirt and jeans, felt awful when he fell through. It should look really nice when they’re done. They’re saving the goods that were stored down there.”

“My, my. I should imagine we’ll have some fun opening them up.” Aunt April backed out of the stairwell. “That should be something.” She gave me a glance as she sat down to finish her pizza. “Now, my brothers would be your father’s uncles, so they’d be your great-uncles.”

“But gone now.”

“Yes.” Her mouth turned down. “World War for one of them, and road racing for another.”

“Road racing?”

“Died running moonshine, trying to outrace a treasury agent.” She winked at me. “We have a bit of a history, young lady.”

“I’ll say. Wow.” Not much of one when they ran out of luck, it seemed, or maybe she’d just inherited all of it. Moonshiners. Huh. I still had no idea why my dad had been trapped here, but it seemed neither did she.

I was cleaning up my plate when the doorbell rang twice. The meals for delivery now sat on the porch. I wiped my hands off. “Save me another. Got to go.”

“Okay. Watch yourself on the streets, please.” Mom arched an eyebrow at me, meaning more than she said.

“Always.” I kissed her on the cheek. She looked perky today, always a nice thing to see. I hugged Aunt April, who looked pleased that I did, and I bolted off.

The food envelopes smelled meaty. They hadn’t taken the professor off my route yet, so I decided to double up one of my regulars in case they had a friend. Someone had oiled the bike and chariot for me, probably someone on the wrecking crew, and the set waited for me in the driveway next to Mom’s car. Her vehicle makes creaking noises as it cools down, and I figured it was due for some kind of maintenance work and would probably get it before nightfall, as Hiram’s guys seemed to be the Obsessive Fix-It types. I pulled my brace on and set off.

My legs had caught a bit of a tan, too, the last few weeks in shorts under the sun, freckling a bit as I tended to, but I looked okay. That dress for the auction wouldn’t entirely go to waste on me. Nice to know. I biked along relatively happy until I got to Mrs. Sherman’s. She always waited for me, peeking from her snow-white curtains, her Texas-red bouffant hair easy to spot through her drapes, her lipstick to match her hair gracing a generous smile. The spot at the window looked empty.

I put the kickstand down in her driveway and pulled an envelope free, as it leaked a warm but unidentifiable smell into the air. What dinner was tonight, I had no earthly idea. Approaching Mrs. Sherman’s door, I noticed the absolute quiet. It reminded me of the blazing moment when I’d stood in the desert with Carter, surrounded by wilderness and silence. Especially that second when I’d thought something awful stood behind us. Right now, it felt like something waited in front of me.

Where was she? Had she fallen? Was she really sick? Each step I took dragged a bit, because I didn’t want to know. The league had told me I’d lose a few route members if I did this long enough and tried to prepare me for it. Most moved in with relatives for support and a few went to residential homes, and a very few, well, died. What had happened to the professor went beyond a technicality of life.

I balanced the food envelope on my left arm and knocked hesitantly on the front door, totally unused to not having Mrs. Sherman there, smiling and waving me on in before I’d even taken the last step onto the porch. Uncannily, the door swung open before me with no one apparently waiting on the other side. It missed the chance to creak ominously.

“Mrs. Sherman? Dinner’s here.” My voice went a little hoarse and thinned too much to be louder. I swallowed tightly and took two steps inside. My presence echoed in the too-quiet house. My heart thumped a quick “Oh, no” and my feet wanted to turn around and head back through the doorway. Surely nothing could have happened to her, but my tingling nerves told me something had happened here. Or maybe my nerves were just shot from the past few days, which I could hardly be blamed for, considering everything that had happened.

“Mrs. Sherman?” I tried again, thinking I really couldn’t bear just one more thing. I slid rather than walked toward the kitchen, my sneaker soles squeaking just a little, as if someone dragged me. The hairs on my arms stood up even as I thought I’d feel really stupid if she walked in from the garden now, arms full of early summer corn and green tomatoes, and a big ol’ smile on her face. Whatever aroma wafted up from the insulated envelope began to smell less and less inviting, and my stomach knotted.

No one sat in the sunny kitchen. The morning dishes hadn’t been done, either, a first for the vivacious redhead. I sat the meal down and knew then I’d have to go through the house, room by room, and then the yard, until I had an idea what had become of Mrs. Sherman. I thought of calling for backup. Mom would come. I might need more help than that. I should tell her to bring the wrecking crew with her. You know. Just in case.

I sashayed quietly out of the kitchen, past the little laundry room and side door, which might have qualified as a mudroom once upon a time, but it was really too small. The whole house was much smaller than ours, Aunt April’s, that is, and only one story. I should be able to go through it quickly, if I could just get my body to move.

I rubbed my left palm under my brace but the stone stayed quiet and neither warm nor chill. “Big help you are,” I muttered and retraced my steps through the entry, wishing I had those sky-high silver heels. Not on my feet, but in my hands where I could wield them in my defense like sharp, shiny little daggers, drop ’em and run.

My physical ed classes had been filled with field hockey the last few years, with off-season fitness like cross country. Now the idea came to me that I should take a martial arts class and learn some serious moves instead. Maybe they taught stiletto heels right alongside nunchucks and morning stars. I should take the time to learn some awesome martial arts defense. Right?

Mrs. Sherman’s house had a small, tidy front bedroom, which she’d turned into a crafter’s room. I could see homemade quilts she’d hung on the wall, two sewing machines, tubs of fabric against another wall, and a table for measuring and cutting. A chair in the corner came with a diminutive and ruffled footstool, and a pair of those antique knitting needles she’d bragged about once, or maybe those were crochet hooks, wrapped in yarn and waiting on the seat. It all looked and felt as though she’d just stepped out for a moment. I grabbed one of objects, sliding it out of the yarn, IDing it definitely as a knitting needle, and it did look fairly sturdy and sharp, despite its ancient and yellowing ivory color. I ran my hand down it. Seriously, bone? Could it be? Feeling lethal, I wrapped my fingers about it tightly.

Nerves tighter than strings on a family fiddle, I backed out of the crafting room and headed toward the living room, the center of this small but neat house. That’s when the sight of her hit my vision.

If she’d gone, she’d gone sitting up, straight as a board on the far end of the divan, near the fireplace and hearth. Her bouffant red hair sat in her lap with her natural head nearly as bald as an egg under thin and wispy strands of gray, a sight I knew the public had never been meant to see. Her Texas-red wig must have been her glory. “Mrs. Sherman?” She didn’t move a muscle as I came through the arch.

“She’s occupied, dear.” Remy glided up at my flank, smiling and smelling like a perfumery of Paris. She managed to make those three words sound sinister.

“You didn’t kill her, did you?”

“Oh, no. No. She’s enjoying a memory, if you will, fond thoughts of the past.”

“Then why did her hair fall off?”

“I had a bit of a tussle getting her to sit down and relax. It’s just a wig.”

Since Mrs. Sherman wore it every single waking moment, I knew it was more than a wig; it was an age-defying act and a matter of dignity. But I had a feeling this elegant woman talking to me wouldn’t appreciate any of that one bit. Wait until she was old and lost her hair, if magicians ever got that old before someone bumped them off. No wonder the professor didn’t consort with the Society. Along the way, members must—at least this one had—lose their moral compass. I knew she’d probably sold it off. I closed my eyes a moment, thinking I really didn’t want to see that happen to Carter.

“She’ll be all right?”

“I give you my word, depending on you, of course.”

“I’d rather have a string-free commitment.”

Remy laughed. “Of course, you would, clever girl. But that’s not the way it works.”

“What are you doing here? Besides meddling with Mrs. Sherman?”

“Waiting for you, of course. You have something I need.”

“I thought Brian held all the goodies you wanted.”

She smiled sadly. “Not this time. It fell upon me to single you out.”

I leaned a little against the end of the couch, the knitting needle tucked alongside my forearm and, hopefully, out of sight. My hip thoughtfully pushed my cell phone against the furniture and, I also hoped, butt dialed. After having been embarrassed once or twice, I’d programmed the thing not to dial so easily, except for one number. Home. “I’m a little confused,” I told her. “Are you or are you not a member of the Society? Or with the other guy?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not the answer I wanted. So, another question: what is it I have that you want?” I had that one figured out, but confirmation would be nice.

“The maelstrom stone. There are some of us who felt it, quite keenly, activate, so there is no sense in your lying about it or saying that it hasn’t attuned to you. I’m not asking if you have it. What I know, I know well.”

She almost came around to face me head on, but not quite. Why, I wasn’t sure. I took a glance at Mrs. Sherman, who seemed oblivious. I shucked the brace and lifted my hand, palm out, toward her. “That would be this.”

“Precisely.” A longing filled her expression and I shifted my weight, thinking that I’d once thought her beautiful in a way, and elegant, but the naked want now glistening through her expression erased all that. It etched heavy lines in her face. Left purpling puffiness under her eyes. Creases across her forehead. When she got old, she was going to need a lot more than a bouffant wig to look presentable.

“It seems rather attached to me but even if it wasn’t, I don’t think I’d be giving it to you.”

“You really have no choice.” She angled toward me now and I straightened, my right fingers curled about the knitting needle. “I will take it, one way or the other.”

“Meaning you’d kill for it.”

“If I must. I’m sorry to say that, but he gives me little recourse. If I take it from you, it goes straight to him and that—” She paused sharply. “Well, that is unacceptable. If you knew him, you’d know why.”

“I’ve seen him.”

“You have?” That stopped her in her tracks, her eyes widening and her complexion paling delicately. “I’m sorry for that. Before or after, this,” and she indicated my hand.

“Before.”

Remy nodded. “I didn’t think he would let you live if he’d seen it.”

“And you don’t intend to, either.”

“But that’s not the only option, Tessa. If you give it to me, then I’m the one who has it and I can keep it from him. I can fr—well, that’s no matter. It is a better choice, trust me.”

“You were going to say you could free yourself.”

Remy tilted her head slightly, and her hair fell in a silken wave down her cheek and about her shoulder. “I was. Clever, clever girl.”

Now she had me feeling like a velociraptor in a classic movie. I flexed my hand. “I can’t give it to you. Or won’t. Either way.”

She sighed. “Such pain this will cause your mother. I have to stage a crime scene here, you and Mrs. Sherman. It won’t be pretty.” She reached for me.

Like that velociraptor, I struck, the bone knitting needle sinking deep into her side and up into the ribcage. It felt almost as if the needle knew the way. Remy let out a scream of pain.

She unleashed a violent wave of force, grazing me as I pitched myself in the other direction and frying a bit of my own formerly silken hair. I rolled on the floor and came up under the coffee table as a shield, to catch another high-power bolt. She yowled a second time, throwing the needle to the floor. It spun my way on Mrs. Sherman’s spotless plank flooring. I scrambled to grab it and lunged, stabbing Remy down and through the foot as I bowled past her.

She screamed a second time just as the front door burst into splinters.