A Necklace of Water

  Fifteen minutes later, I was walking down Daedalus’s street. I’d been here only once and hoped I would recognize his door. I couldn’t exactly ask anyone for his address.

  I had a totally lame excuse ready—wanting to ask him about the history of the Treize, as though for a school report. All I needed was to get into his apartment for a minute, to get close to him somehow. I just prayed that he wouldn’t immediately be suspicious and kick me out.

  I slowed down, looking at tall, white-painted door-ways. He lived close to a corner, in one of the fancy apartment buildings that bordered Jackson Square. I thought it was this one, on the north side….

  Tourists streamed past me, most of them watching the sidewalk artists who had set up their stands around Jackson Square. Each one had a subject perched on a stool, holding very still. I’d watched them work before, when I lived in the Quarter with Axelle. Interestingly, every one of them started a portrait by doing the person’s eyes first.

  Anyway. Where was it—it wasn’t the one on the very corner. The second one in? An iron-gated doorway led down a short, very narrow alley to the back courtyard, where the stairs were. This had to be it.

  I rang his doorbell, wiping my sweaty hands on my peasant skirt. I had rehearsed what to say a hundred times on the way down here. Minutes passed. No one leaned out over his balcony, no one buzzed me in. Just then, a woman came down the alleyway. Not even looking at me, she opened the iron gate, then held it a minute for me to go in.

  “Thanks,” I murmured casually, pretending to put a key back in my purse. My heart in my throat, I headed down the alleyway. Could I do this? I had come this far.

  Now that I was in the courtyard, I was relieved to definitely recognize it as Daedalus’s. His apartment was on the second floor—all of the apartments were, since the first floor was for stores and restaurants. I cast my senses, sending my thoughts up the stairs I was climbing, seeing if I could possibly feel Daedalus or anyone else in his apartment.

  Impressions came to me from other apartments. I could tell if the occupants were male or female and what kind of energy they were putting out. It was amazing, and if I hadn’t had a mission, I would have been happy to sit on the top step, close my eyes, and just see what else I could pick up.

  At Daedalus’s apartment I leaned against the front door, hearing nothing and feeling no presence inside. Which didn’t mean anything—he could very easily cloak himself from me. Except none of them seemed to do that at home. We could always tell who was where if we were close enough. I didn’t know how to cloak myself very well.

  I knocked several times. No one answered. Maybe he wasn’t home. Damn. I needed to do this now so I could meet with Carmela later. Just thinking about her and the ingredients she’d demanded filled me with tension and a deep sense of foreboding. Making the decision to strip Daedalus’s powers from him had been my first step on this path; meeting Carmela had been the second step; and what I was doing here was the third step.

  Still, this was all reversible—if I changed my mind, no harm would have been done. But eventually I would be past the point of no return. What would that feel like?

  I took a deep breath and let it out, looking at his thick front door. Okay, what to do? It came to me in an instant: the memory of the secret room at Axelle’s apartment, which had been locked. One day I’d thought about the lock opening, and I think I had actually opened it. This was before I knew I was a witch—it must have been my latent, personal magick.

  This time felt different, clearer; my power seemed to flow in a clear stream from me to the lock. Within a minute I felt the tumblers fall into place, heard the faintest click of the bolt pulling back.

  A door opened at the other end of the balcony, and an older couple carrying several shopping bags headed toward the stairs. Quickly I opened Daedalus’s door and slipped inside, locking it behind me. I heard the couple pass, heard them bickering quietly the way old married people do.

  Now, quick, quick, quick. I scanned the room and saw the door to his bedroom. This was going to be horrible, but I had the grim knowledge that this was far from the worst thing I would end up doing. I took a plastic bag out of my purse and walked through his bedroom, seeing the fastidious neatness, the beauty of the antiques, the old mirror losing its silvering, reflecting my scared face across the room.

  The bathroom was through a set of narrow double doors like shutters. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it throbbing in my ears. I tried to listen, tried to feel if anyone was coming, and got nothing. Quickly I opened drawers, looking for—

  His hairbrush. This was so gross. Putting my hand inside the plastic bag, I plucked several gray hairs off the brush, then turned the bag inside out and sealed it. I stuck it in my purse, tried to set the brush in exactly the same position it had been, and carefully closed the drawers.

  I was almost to the front door when I felt Daedalus coming. Was someone with him?

  I froze; then instinct kicked in and I bolted into the dining room, on the other side of the living room. My first thought had been to hide under the bed, but I couldn’t cross to the bedroom without being in clear sight of the front door.

  Instead I crouched under the dining room table, climbing on its crossbeam and holding my skirt up tightly. I squeezed my eyes shut, realizing that Daedalus would pick up on my vibrations any second. I said all the “hide me” words that popped into my mind, but clearly this was going to end in complete disaster.

  I started formulating an excuse and, better yet, an attack. The best defense is a strong offense, my dad used to say. About football.

  Damn, damn, damn. Hide me hide me hide me.

  I heard his voice in the living room, and I realized who was with him. Clio! So she had already started on her plan to increase her power. I bit my lip, feeling angry all over again. How could she do this after what he had done to me, to our father? After I’d asked her not to?

  I heard books being moved around on the living room shelves.

  “Here, take this,” said Daedalus. “This will help paint a broader picture.”

  “Okay, thanks,” said Clio. She sounded tired or maybe sick, and I remembered how sick she had seemed just two days ago. What had she been doing then?

  “Are you all right to get home?” Daedalus asked. “Did you come down on the trolley?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Clio said shortly. “Thanks for the stuff.”

  There was a pause, then Daedalus said, “I’ll drive you. I didn’t realize you were so affected.”

  “I said I’m fine,” said Clio, but her voice was muffled, as if her hand were over her mouth.

  “No arguments,” said Daedalus, and I heard the jingle of keys. “You’re ill. I’ll drive you home. What you tell Petra is your business.”

  I heard a muffled assent, and then, unbelievably, they left! I felt them going down the stairs. Oh, I couldn’t be this lucky—it seemed like even thinking about what I wanted to do would be enough bad karma to ensure that I got caught immediately.

  I waited several minutes in case one of them forgot something. Finally, feeling shaky with adrenaline, I scuttled out from under the table, made sure my plastic bag was still in my purse, and slipped out the front door. My breath felt stuck in my throat, and I had literally broken out in a cold sweat, like people do in books.

  I hid in the shadows of the courtyard for at least a minute, making sure the coast was clear, and then I zipped out the iron gate and lost myself in the crowds in Jackson Square. Inside the square I sat on a bench in the sun and tried to calm my shaking. It was almost half an hour before I felt like I could drive and made my way back to the rental car.

  Clio, I thought, starting the car. She was really studying with Daedalus. How could she do that?

  Probably the same way I could do what I was doing.

  Her Face

  Luc locked his car and headed up the block to Petra’s house. You couldn’t tell from looking that it had been in a fire, but there was still a faint scent of c
harred wood, burned plants, wet ash that would linger for years. It was Saturday afternoon. Would the twins be home?

  Luc paused for a moment before he rang the bell. He felt Petra inside but neither twin. Both a good and a bad thing. Probably mostly good, considering his appearance. After three days of Petra’s wash and mask and spell, Luc thought he noticed a slight difference. He was still a complete monster, though.

  Richard was eating it up, the jerk. In general, they got along all right. But Luc knew he was everything Richard wasn’t; he had things that Richard never would. Not that Richard’s young face had held him back with women—Luc smiled ironically, wondering how many times Richard had pretended to lose his virginity to snag a girl.

  Petra opened the door.

  “I’m not sure which of us looks worse,” Luc said bluntly, shocked by Petra’s change.

  She smiled wryly and stood back to let him in. “You do, I assure you.”

  Luc sighed and followed her back to the kitchen. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Sit down,” Petra said. “Iced tea?”

  “Do you have any wine?” He glanced outside—it was about two o’clock. He’d grown up drinking wine with every meal except breakfast, and it still seemed civilized.

  Petra got out a bottle of red wine and poured two glasses. She didn’t usually drink during the day, and Luc watched her, wondering what was up.

  She sat across from him and they toasted each other silently. Petra cocked her head and examined his face, illuminated harshly by the slanting sunlight coming through the window.

  “It’s a little better,” she said.

  “A little.”

  “We’re on the right track,” Petra said. “I’ll work another healing spell with you, and that will speed things up.”

  “Are you sure you should?”

  Petra met his gaze. “The rite seems to have sapped my strength,” she admitted quietly. “But magick is a muscle—if I don’t use it, it will atrophy.”

  “What happened to you during the rite?”

  “I don’t know. A lot of things happened that I wasn’t aware of. I was so focused on Marcel….”

  Luc nodded. “The lost boy.”

  Petra’s clear gray-blue eyes looked at him. “Did you ever have sex with either of the twins?”

  Luc almost spit wine all over the table. He coughed several times and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “What? No! You know I didn’t.”

  Petra just looked at him.

  “Petra. You asked before, and I told you. No, things didn’t get that far with either one.” The memory of Thais in his arms, moaning as he kissed her deeply, touched her everywhere, rose in his mind. He shut it down, feeling the familiar sharp pain in his heart, a pain that hadn’t lessened. He tried not to obviously catch his breath, to keep his face blank.

  “Which one do you love?”

  He frowned. “What is this? Look, if you don’t want to work on this”—he gestured to his face—“that’s fine. No problem. I appreciate what you’ve done so far. But what’s going on?”

  Letting out a breath, Petra sat back in her kitchen chair. “I don’t know.” She shook her head and put one hand to her cheek. “I don’t know. I’m getting weird stuff—”

  Luc waited, concerned. Petra was usually very calm, very centered. Right now she felt kind of ragged around the edges, unbalanced.

  Finally she met his eyes again. “I don’t know,” she repeated. “There seem to be—plots in the air around me.” She waved her hand gracefully. “I feel like things are developing, plans and schemes, like they’re becoming thicker all around me. But I can’t see them, can’t tell exactly what they are or who they’re from.”

  Tread carefully, Luc. “Plans and schemes? Like what?” He felt the pressure of tension in his chest and tried to release it.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s this have to do with me and the twins?” Just put it out there.

  Petra didn’t say anything, looking at her hands resting on the scrubbed wooden table. She took another sip of her wine. Luc waited, wondering if everything was about to be blown apart.

  “Cerise was pregnant at the first rite,” Petra said slowly. “If someone was trying to re-create the rite more exactly, if they really needed it to work for reasons of their own, then someone might think that a member of the Treize has to be pregnant. Only the twins are capable of getting pregnant.”

  “Oh, come on!” Luc scoffed. “That’s crazy. Who would think that?”

  Petra looked at him steadily.

  Luc shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re feeling, Petra. I can tell you that I myself am not involved in any plan or scheme involving the twins or the Treize or whatever. My only goal right now is to fix this face.”

  She wouldn’t try to get into his mind. Surely. They never did that to each other, or almost never. A minute slowly ticked by, measured by the almost-imperceptible creeping of the pepper shaker’s shadow on the table between them.

  “I don’t know what I’m thinking,” Petra said finally. “The twins both feel odd to me, off. I don’t know what’s going on.” After another moment, she shook her head, as if to shake off bad feelings. “Don’t listen to an old woman, Luc. It’s probably nothing. I’m still trying to figure out what happened at the rite.”

  “Are youall right?”

  “Yes, I’m sure I’m fine. Anyway. Let’s see what we can do to speed up the healing.”

  Luc nodded and sat forward, waiting to do whatever Petra told him to do. Then an impression of Thais seemed to press against him, filling his arms and his heart. He caught his breath, putting a hand to his stomach to hold the feeling of her tighter.

  The front door opened. Petra looked up.

  “Thais,” she said, and Luc’s stomach tightened more. He saw her so rarely—actually, when he thought about it, he’d probably seen her fewer than fifteen times ever. Could that be possible? She was part of him, in his blood, under his skin. Every memory he had, Thais was part of. Every thought of the future contained Thais. She was still the first thing he thought of when he awoke and the last image in his mind before sleep. Luc would look at the moon’s shadows moving across the walls in gray trapezoids and relive all the moments he’d had with Thais.

  Of course, she hated him. Or did she? The night of the rite, he’d suddenly felt a burst of emotion from her. He’d looked up in surprise, found her eyes already shying away from him.

  Now he looked like someone had thrown lye in his face.

  “Hi, sweetie,” said Petra. “Did you get everything you needed?”

  “Yes,” Thais said, moving to the counter. “I did.”

  Luc watched Thais set down her grocery bags. Her face was closed to him, her back stiff. He’d held her like that, her back to him, his hands curving around her stomach, pulling her to him. How had he made such a tragic mistake? How had he miscalculated so disastrously?

  He knew how. He was used to getting away with everything. He’d left a thousand broken hearts behind him without losing a moment’s rest over any of them. Things went his way—everything went his way. No problem had ever been so big that he couldn’t just leave town over it. Ten, twenty, thirty years, things died down, people forgot. He’d gotten too sure of himself. He’d seen himself as untouchable.

  And it had cost him the only person he’d ever loved, besides his sister.

  And look how well that had gone.

  There, she was turning around; was she going to ignore him? He felt heat rising to his scarred, ruined cheeks, felt his swollen eyelids widen as he watched her.

  She put milk in the fridge, then emptied a plastic bag of apples into a basket.

  “Thais—will you come join us? This healing spell would be useful to know.”

  Luc felt his face stiffen into an expressionless mask.

  “Um, I’m supposed to go to a movie with Sylvie,” Thais said, looking only at Petra.

  “All right,” said Petra, nodding.

  Again Luc felt h
eat wash his face. He’d broken her heart and broken his own at the same time. Now, with the way he looked, he’d never have a chance to make it up to her, ever. She’d moved on already. He’d seen her wrapped in some kid’s arms.

  “How’s your boyfriend?” He was as surprised as she, hearing the words.

  For the first time she met his eyes. He searched her face, waiting for her to flinch at his appearance, the way everyone did on the street. But she showed no reaction.

  “He’s fine,” she said shortly. “We’re breaking up.” Immediately she frowned: she hadn’t meant to say that.

  His brilliant flare of hope was instantly extinguished by the knowledge of what he looked like. He had no hope of this pain being eased, and he looked down at the table.

  “I won’t be late,” Thais told Petra; then she turned and left the kitchen.

  “All right, honey,” said Petra. “Be careful.”

  “Okay.”

  He heard her run lightly upstairs, imagined the way her full, colorful skirt would swirl around her legs. She was down again in a minute; then all that was left was the fresh lavender scent of her hair and the echo of the front door closing.

  Slowly he let out a deep breath, as if that would ease the pain. His eyes met Petra’s. “Can we do the spell?”

  Perhaps Thais

  Clio was an apt pupil, Daedalus thought again, entering his apartment. True, she was affected badly by the magick they’d made—but that would lessen in time. It was like anything else: one became inured to it. One developed calluses.

  But really, she was gifted. He had to show her something only once, and she remembered it with certainty the next time. It was very gratifying.

  And she seemed grateful for his lessons—she had a goal and, like himself, was single-minded in her pursuit of it. It was a quality he admired. The twins, more than anyone of Cerise’s line, seemed to embody the old spirit of the time they sprang from, in their looks as well as their strength.

  He couldn’t kill Clio to make room for Melita. It would have to be someone else. Someone had to go, and Daedalus was biding his time, waiting patiently to make the best decision. Should he kill the weakest? That would be Sophie. The one most likely to betray him? That was harder to discern. Petra? Jules? Not Jules, not after all these years. But he could do the most damage if he did betray Daedalus. Jules was above reproach, though, Daedalus was sure of it.