He felt her before he heard the almost-silent footsteps on autumn-dry grass. A deep thrill went through him—this was almost unimaginable, what was happening. Every tiny hair on his arms rose. He felt so tightly strung with tension that if he stood up suddenly, his bones would snap.
There she was.
He didn’t turn as she seemed to glide across the grass toward him. In the deep shadows of new sunset, he saw her place a white rose on his brother’s tomb.
Finally he spoke. “I’m here, as you directed.”
She turned and, if possible, was even more beautiful than he remembered. Unusually tall for a woman from their time, slim, dark-haired, and black-eyed—she favored her father much more than she did Petra, and Armand had been an incredibly handsome man.
He remained seated as she bent down to brush kisses against each cheek. When she sat next to him, he picked up the scent of spices he couldn’t name.
“Of course you are.” Her voice was at once foreign and frighteningly familiar, the voice that had commanded more dark magick than he’d seen before or since. “Now, tell me everything.”
“You’ve come very far, very fast,” Carmela said as I sat, dazed, my eyes on the black candle that only moments before I had actually levitated. By myself. I felt drained and queasy, as usual.
“I’ve been practicing,” I said, wondering if taking Dramamine would interfere with magick. I also wondered if my eyes had changed so that I could now see in the dark. I was in the same dark red, windowless room that Carmela had first led me to. Then I’d felt like I was moving through fog, unable to see more than a foot in front of me, unable to see Carmela clearly.
Now, after working with her for only five days—was today Wednesday? Thursday? It was hard to keep track without the regular school rhythm—I felt like a cat, able to see in complete darkness. I’d worked with Carmela every day this week, sometimes for five or six hours at a time, sometimes for only an hour or two, depending on how long I could sneak away. I’d learned more in this past week with her than the last two months with Petra and Clio.
“You come from a long line of witches?” Carmela asked, picking up the black candle and setting it back in its stand.
“Yes.”
“Light the candle.”
I loved doing this. I’d done it for the first time yesterday, after Carmela had explained how it worked. Basically, everything exists all the time all around you, wherever you are. Every element, every substance can be called out of “nowhere” because it already exists and is there for the taking. Magick is simply a way to call something to you so that it takes on a form or substance.
I focused on the wick, already burned black. Closing my eyes, I pictured tiny molecules of the element fire all around me, infinitely small, dispersed so widely that they had no form, no cohesion. I began a spell to gather them to me, then direct them to the wick, then coalesce them into something strong enough to take form and ignite.
The best part? This took about twenty seconds. Carmela had made me do it over and over yesterday until it became second nature, like plucking a feather out of the air.
I opened my eyes in time to see a teardrop of fire swirl around the wick, lighting it. This one candle seemed to light the room like a stage because I was so used to the darkness.
Carmela’s bright black eyes were on me.
“What?” I said.
She gave me an odd half smile and shook her head, still wrapped in its African-print turban. “I enjoy our lessons, Thais.” She sounded bemused.
“Oh. Does it… bother you, what I want to do?”
“Strip an old man of his powers? No.” Carmela laughed, the sound echoing off the painted walls. “I’ve done far, far worse.” Immediately her face was solemn, and a chill made me shiver.
Yes, of course you have, I thought, remembering that I was afraid of her.
“No. It’s just—you’re very strong, unusually strong in a way I haven’t seen in a long time,” she went on. “I enjoy it. It seems familiar. You remind me of someone I used to know.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “When do you think I’ll be able to do it? Strip him of his powers?”
“Sooner than I had imagined when you first asked me to teach you,” she said.
“When?”
“Perhaps even… on Monvoile?” she said. “I can’t be exact.”
I nodded. Monvoile—Halloween—was about two weeks away. “That would be perfect.”
“Today you’re ready to practice on something more complicated than a plant,” said Carmela. Standing, she went to the small black table by the door and picked up a basket that I hadn’t noticed. She set it in front of me. Timidly I peeked inside, expecting a snake or something to leap out. But it was empty. I looked harder, and then in the basket’s black interior, two amber eyes blinked. Instinctively I jumped; then my brain processed that they were cat eyes.
Smiling, Carmela reached into the basket and pulled out a sleepy black kitten. “Cats and humans are similar enough that if you can strip it of its power, you’ll be seven-eighths of the way to being able to do it to a person.”
I stared at her and at the chunky, fuzzy kitten that was now wandering within our drawn circle, unable to cross its barrier. “You want me to strip this cat of its powers?” I asked. After the orchid, I’d felt repulsed and tainted and had gone to sleep crying. Two days ago we had done an earthworm. After that, I’d felt almost crazy. You’d think an earthworm—slimy, faceless, not cute—wouldn’t even cause a ripple across your conscience if you stripped it of its powers. I mean, it wasn’t like I’d killed it.
It had still been alive when I finished.
I had thrown up outside in the alley. And again in the gutter after I’d pulled the car over. About a stupid earthworm. How would I feel after I took magickal power from this kitten?
“Use the same form as before,” Carmela said in her rich, slightly accented voice. “When you get to where you identify your subject, I’ll fill in the words to cause the spell to surround this cat.” Absently she stroked the kitten’s black fur, and it arched slightly and purred.
I looked up at Carmela’s dark eyes. She was watching me intently. This was a test, of course. How far was I willing to go? How far into the darkness? What I wanted to do to Daedalus would take me very far down the road of dark magick. So far that I might not ever be able to return. I knew that. I wanted to do it anyway.
By stripping this cat of its magick, I would be closer to my goal.
The cat was a mammal, a vertebrate. If I could do it to a cat, then I could do it to Daedalus. The cat sniffed closer to the lit candle. I felt its consciousness, its simple feline instincts. It was alert but not afraid.
I sat back. “No.”
Carmela frowned. “No? No, what?”
“I’m not going to do the cat. The orchid and the earthworm were bad enough.”
A look of surprise transformed Carmela’s face so that it looked almost … clear for a second. Not so … well, blurry. She frowned, and her eyes narrowed. “Thais,” she began, a dangerous, impatient note in her voice.
I raised my chin. “This cat is an innocent creature. I won’t do it.”
Carmela opened her mouth, but I interrupted her.
Leaning forward, practically over the candle’s flame, I said, “Look, don’t question whether I can do this to Daedalus. He killed my father and ripped my life in half. Believe me, when it comes time, I’ll be able to strip his powers without a second’s hesitation.” My voice was tense, taut—I felt unlike myself. Stronger, more ruthless. “Daedalus is guilty and deserves what he gets. Every person, every human, is guilty. No animal is.”
All I could see were her black eyes, which were focused narrowly on me.
“You believe every person is guilty of something?”
I thought for a moment. “Maybe not little kids,” I conceded. “But even they have the capacity to be evil, to do wrong. Animals don’t. The cat is out of the question.”
 
; “You believe that you’ll be able to put your squeamishness aside and take the magick of another person because of how guilty you think he is?”
“Yes.” I had no doubt about that. It was hard and even devastating to realize that about myself—that I was in fact willing to perform this heinous, horrific act on another person for revenge. But I was coming to terms with it.
I stood up and broke our circle, not caring if my lesson was over for today. I put on my jean jacket, then picked up the kitten and tucked it inside. I still had that hollow, sick feeling that seemed almost incessant these days, but I managed to stay on my feet without swaying. I turned to look at Carmela, barely able to see her sitting deep in the shadows of the room.
“I’ll be back,” I said. “Tomorrow.”
I walked down the old curving steps that led from Daedalus’s apartment to the courtyard below, holding on to the rail for balance on my shaky legs. I felt like crap. Again. Though it was beginning to feel less intense, as Daedalus had promised.
I’d parked the rental car three blocks away on another street and at the time had congratulated myself on my clever stealthiness. Now, of course, realizing I had to walk three blocks (even short Quarter blocks), I cursed myself. It was barely five o’clock, but clouds covered the whole sky and made it seem later. When I passed a tiny corner store, I bought an orange soda and chugged it. The jolt of sugar immediately made me feel stronger, and by the time I got to my car, the bottle was empty and I felt vaguely human.
A tall weeping willow hung over a brick wall, shading the sidewalk where I’d parked my car. I unlocked the door and practically fell into the front seat, so thankful to be sitting down. Goddess, I needed to get my act together before I drove home. This wasn’t like being drunk, where I could do a spell to clear out my blood. This I just had to get through. I needed to go home and get under a hot shower. Though Nan was still weak and preoccupied, Thais had quit freezing me out since our pact. I still felt bad about studying with Daedalus, knowing how much she didn’t want me to, but it was getting easier to not feel as guilty about it.
“What the hell are you doing with Daedalus?”
The tense, quiet voice from the backseat made me jump about a foot and stifle a shriek. Even before I hit the seat again, my brain had registered that it was Richard, that he had somehow gotten into my locked car, that he’d waited for me.
“What the hell are you doing in my car?” I shot back, my hand to my chest as if it would slow down my electrified heartbeat. Then I really looked at him and almost gasped again.
He wasolder, like Thais had said about Manon. Richard was older. I mean, of course he was ancient. But he’d always looked like a kid, about fifteen. Now he was bigger—his baggy clothes seemed almost too small. His face, once smooth and almost pretty, had harder planes. He still looked young, under twenty, but so, so different.
And he was stunning. I was so taken aback I just gawked at him while my brain went, Damn, he’s hot. Then I shook my head to clear those thoughts and remembered to frown at him.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I look older. What the hell are you doing with Daedalus? And why do I think it’s something incredibly stupid and dangerous?”
“You do look older,” I said snidely. “I can’t wait to see what you look like when you’re two hundred and forty-two. And what makes you think I’m doing anything with Daedalus?”
“If I keep going, I’ll be two hundred and fifty-seven,” he corrected me. “Maybe because I saw you go into his place six hours ago and just saw you come out. And you look like that.“ He pointed a finger at me.
Irrationally, I thought about what I usually looked like when I left Daedalus’s apartment (pale and sick) and wished I looked better. I hated Richard seeing me vulnerable, not at my best. Then his words sank in.
“Are you stalkingme now?” I put total outrage into my voice.
“Yes.” Richard actually climbed over the seat and dropped down next to me. He was at least three inches taller and maybe fifteen pounds heavier than he had been—it was hard to tell.
My cheeks heated. I wanted to kick him out and race home, but if I did anything too vigorous, I was pretty sure I would hurl.
We faced each other with narrowed eyes.
“What do you want?” I said impatiently.
He looked at me so intensely that I leaned back an inch, and then his beautiful, hard mouth smiled. My breath caught. Slowly he looked me up and down, like he’d done before, and I crossed my arms over my chest when his gaze lingered.
“Stop it and get out,” I said, trying to sound bored.
He leaned against the car door, calmer, not as angry. No one had ever defied me as much as Richard did every time I saw him. It was infuriating.
“Okay, if you won’t get out, I will.” I wrenched open the car door and got out, then realized of course that I had nowhere to go. Richard came and stood face-to-face with me on the sidewalk.
“What are you doing with Daedalus?” he demanded.
“Nothing.”
He changed tactics. “Why’d you tell ole Luc that we’d had sex?”
Oh my God—I had managed to forget about that. It all came back in a rush, what I had shouted angrily when I left their apartment. Crap.My face flushed with embarrassment. Good—at least I wasn’t pale and pasty anymore.
“To shut him up. Now it’s your turn. Go away.” I looked for an escape route—and saw a small wooden door set into the brick wall I was parked beside. Someone’s private garden. I leaped for the door, pushed it hard, and tried to slam it in back of me.
Effortlessly, Richard held the door open. “I don’t scare off that easy,” he said, pushing his way in, shutting the door behind him.
I looked for another way out, trying not to show how mad and sick I felt. This was me, Clio, actually on the run from someone. This had never happened before—I was a different, weaker person, and it was freaking me out.
A marble bench gleamed faintly in the twilight, and I sank down on it before I fell down.
“Please go away.” I rubbed my eyes, keeping my hands over my face.
Slowly he pulled my hands away, waiting until I looked at him. I wasn’t used to older Richard, his appearance.
“Daedalus can’t be trusted.” His words were quiet, and in the shadowed garden, it felt like we were the only two people alive.
I swallowed. “I know.” But of course, I wastrusting him.
“He has his own agendas that you can’t know anything about.” With big-cat grace Richard sat next to me, and I felt his warmth from inches away.
“What do you mean?”
“Daedalus is playing out a couple of centuries of history right here, right now, in this city. You and Thais are caught in the middle of it. I don’t know what he’s doing or what his plan is, but I do know that when the hellfire shows up, the only person he’ll save is himself.”
I didn’t understand. There was so much that wasn’t clear. I swallowed. Why did Richard seem so incredibly caring sometimes and so angry and bitter other times? Why should I trust him when I knew he’d tried to hurt me and Thais? I looked at him, his dark brown eyes, hair still tortoiseshell-colored, summer-streaked, his skin still tan.
“What hellfire?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I just know he’s got something going. And it won’t be good for anyone but him. I mean, I can’t help caring about the old bastard. He’s helped me out of some hard places. But in the end, he would gladly throw me into the furnace if it would save his ass.”
“Why are you telling me this?” The bench was hard and cold. I was exhausted and prayed that I wouldn’t end up crying.
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“You mean, by anyone else but you?”
His face didn’t change; he wasn’t going to rise to my bait.
“Clio,” he said very seriously, “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Why? Why do you care?” Impatiently I met his eyes, took in his new face again. “W
hy are you even here?“
I saw his indecision.
“Because you want to use me against Luc? Because you care about Petra and she’d be upset if something happened to me? Because you’d rather hurt me yourself?“ I was fed up—fed up with him, with everyone, with feeling this way.
“No!” He was frowning again, taking on his look of perpetual irritation. “You know that’s not true.”
I stood up. I was done. I was leaving, and if he still hassled me, I would—
Typically, he moved fast, standing and yanking my car keys away. He stuffed them into his pants pocket as I gaped at him.
“What the—”
“Shut up,” he said, holding me hard by the shoulders. “You know I—” He looked like this was really costing him, and I thought, Good.“I—want you.”
My mouth almost dropped open. “That’s it? That’s the big drama? Give me my damn keys back! Of course you want me, you idiot! Everyone wants me! What are you—”
“I’m not everyone,” he interrupted me furiously. “You stuck-up, full-of-yourself bi—witch! This is me! I don’t want anyone.I don’t loveanyone. I don’t need anything.“ He took a deep breath. “I’m telling you that—I… want you.I—” He looked awful, as if saying this was ruining his life. Wait a second, was he trying to say that he …?
I didn’t know what to think. Richard had loved Cerise, a long, long time ago. As far as I knew, he hadn’t loved anyone since, though I was sure he’d been with a million people.
What did this mean? Was he setting me up? If he was serious, how did I feel about it?
“I know you think you still love that joker,” he said, his voice bitter.
I did still love Luc. I would always love him.
“But he doesn’t even see you.”
“What does thatmean?”
Richard’s face was hard and set. “He looks at you and sees … Thais’s sister.”
My eyes flew wide. “Shut up, you bastard!” I spat. “You don’t know anything about it! You don’t know me or him or anything!” On top of the intense magick I had made today, this was pushing me over the edge. I rushed toward the exit, not caring that he still had my keys.