“Yes.”
“I know,” Amy said. “It’s, like, enough with the tea. Tea does not actually fix everything.”
I really did smile this time.
“Are you feeling better?” Reyn asked politely. He’d already seen the big gorefest of my face, so it wasn’t a surprise.
Such a relative term, better. I shook my head. “I just don’t even know.”
Reyn opened his mouth as if to say something else, but then we were at the top of the stairs and were joined by Charles and Jess. Jess made no comment on my appearance, but Charles nodded. “That’s a good look for you.”
I punched him lightly on the arm, and he grinned. It struck me: These people were nice. Nicer than most people I had known. I was the one instrument that was out of key in this little orchestra.
In the dining room, Anne bustled through the kitchen door, her oven-mitted hands carrying a large enameled stew pot. She set it heavily on the table and turned to me, examining my face. “It already looks better.” She stepped back and smiled. “Damn, I’m good.”
“It was the tea,” Amy said solemnly, and Reyn grinned. For a moment there was a glowy warmth in the room—his face was so transformed when he smiled, when his eyes lit up.
Soon we were all seated, passing bowls of stew and baskets of bread and serving spoons. I felt self-conscious—everyone must have known about my accident—and when I caught sight of myself in the large gilded mirror on the wall, I recoiled, surprised at how ugly I looked, how unlike myself. I had felt out of place before all this. Now I felt like a neon sign blinking glaringly in a soft desert night.
I was taking a piece of bread when movement caught my eye. I dropped it quickly: There were maggots on it, in it. Live maggots, writhing through the bread.
Brynne shrieked and dropped her bread, too. “Look at the bread!” she cried.
“What in the world—” River began.
“I made that bread today!” Rachel said.
Charles had just eaten some stew, and now his eyes widened. He leaped back off his bench and ran to the kitchen. We could hear him spitting it out into the sink.
“Taste the stew,” Asher said quietly to Solis. “Just a tiny bit.”
Solis barely dipped his spoon in and then licked it cautiously. His face screwed up and he put the spoon down. “Um…”
Standing quickly, Anne stuck a finger into her bowl and tasted it. She spit it right back into her bowl—no niceties of running to the kitchen to spare us. She looked shocked. “That stew was perfect five minutes ago in the kitchen,” she said.
“I tasted it,” Rachel agreed. “It was delicious.”
“Now it tastes like we used carrion. Toxic.” Anne sat down limply.
“And the bread,” River said. Her face was solemn. “When did you make it, Rachel?”
Reyn had gotten to his feet and was gathering up all the maggoty bread. When he had all of it, he pushed through the kitchen door, and then we heard the slam of the back door.
“I made it this afternoon,” said Rachel. “Just a while ago. That’s why it’s still warm.”
“And you didn’t use the maggot recipe,” said Solis, making a weak joke without smiling.
“No,” said Rachel. She and Anne looked stunned.
I was as freaked out as the rest of them, but then it finally hit me: my darkness. I had done this. The food had been perfect until I had come downstairs.
“Oh my God—it’s me,” I muttered.
Next to me, Jess said, “What?”
I glanced around the table, already pushing off my bench. “It’s me. I did this. I made the accident happen. I made the library explode. I’m making all the bad stuff happen.”
“What are you—” Asher started, but I interrupted.
“On New Year’s Eve, I tried to cast off my own darkness,” I admitted, getting more and more upset. “But I just released it. Don’t you see? It’s me! I’m the cause of all this! It’s me!”
“Nastasya,” said Solis, “I don’t think—”
“I can’t stay here!” I cried, and fled the dining room. I ran up the stairs as if the devil we didn’t believe in was chasing me. I was ashamed of my past, my stupidity, how much I had resisted knowing for so long. Horrified about my parents, whom I had loved so much, and my heritage. If I’d thought reflecting on my life was painful before, now it seemed like searing, burning pain, the raw agony of acid thrown on my brain.
When I’d left here before, I had needed to stay but hadn’t wanted to stay. Now I both needed and wanted to stay. But obviously I was bringing destruction down on everything and everyone here. After a lifetime of running, my past was catching up to me.
I burst through the door to my room, feeling like my head was going to split open in huge shards. Inside I looked around wildly, no idea what to do. Now that I knew about my own darkness, there was no way to unknow it—and this knowledge was going to make me crazy.
I turned at a sound and saw that River had followed me into my room. She took my arm.
“Nastasya, listen to me!” she said strongly. “You should—”
“I should—what?” I was aware of a hysterical unraveling happening in my psyche. I thought of everything River didn’t know about me. Including—“Oh God!” I put my hand to my mouth, then dropped to my knees and squirmed under my bed.
“What are you doing?” River said.
I pried open the molding and shoved my hand in, then wriggled it back out, holding the knotted scarf. I’d never, ever shown anyone else my mother’s amulet. I quickly untied the scarf, then practically threw the heavy gold object at River. “Here! You take it! It’s dark—evil! I can’t have it anymore.” I was wild-eyed and breathing hard. Part of me felt like a bystander, watching this scene play out but unable to stop or affect it.
River caught it, then slowly uncurled her hands and looked at my amulet, broken and without a stone. Her eyes widened. Weirdly fast, she went over and shut my door, tracing her fingers along the doorjamb so no one could open it from the outside.
“What is this?” Her voice was hushed.
“You know what it is,” I said shakily.
She stared at me, astonished, and then examined it again. Her long fingers slowly traced the ancient runes and other markings on it. “The tarak-sin of the House of Úlfur. I can’t—it’s… very beautiful,” she said, sounding odd, then tried to hand it back to me.
“I don’t need it,” I said bitterly. “I carry it with me always.” I whipped my scarf away, turned, and held my hair off my neck. Another first: willingly showing my scar to someone else.
River actually gasped. “Oh, Nas,” she breathed. “How—”
“It was burned on there. By accident,” I bit out. “So you keep that one. Away from me.”
“It’s broken,” River said, turning it over in her hand. It seemed to glow with a golden warmth, as if coming alive in the presence of a strong immortal.
“There were two halves. And a moonstone.” I swiped my hand across my eyes. “You have to destroy it—it’s evil. It’s brought evil here.” I chocked. “It brought me here.”
“No, you’re wrong,” River said, seeming transfixed by the amulet.
The idea that my tarak-sin might be dark enough to seduce Diavola out of hiding revolted me as soon as I thought it—and I didn’t know what to do. Everything I did was bad, with bad consequences. I was poison, as toxic as that stew downstairs, and I had to get out of here before I destroyed everything that River had worked for.
I’d never left my amulet—had always had it with me or nearby—and the thought of it staying in River’s hands made me feel like shrieking. But I wasn’t strong enough to deal with it—maybe River was. I hoped. If she wasn’t—
“I’ve gotta go,” I said, and brushed past River. I opened the door and raced down the hallways even as River started to come after me again. I sped up, pounding down the stairs, and then shot through the front door into the night as if pursued by wraiths.
CH
APTER 16
I ran.
I ran through the thicket where Reyn had kissed me just, like, last week. The cold air seared my lungs and made my eyes water. I’d hoped that running would warm me up, but I was already shaking with cold or emotion or fear.
Thin branches whipped against my face and arms. The snow crunched underfoot and deadened my footsteps. I had a sudden flashback to that awful dream I’d had about Incy, where I had warmed my hands on a fire made of my friends. I hit my shoulder hard against a tree and raced headlong out of the woods. I saw I was way at the back of the farm, in a pasture no one used. I ran along the fence for a long time, until each breath was like a shard of ice being shoved down my throat. Cold sweat froze on my brow; my lungs were working like bellows because I never run and was totally out of shape.
I staggered to a plodding walk, then finally stopped, unable to go on. I was horrified and panicked. I was outside alone at night. With humiliation I realized that a small part of me hoped that someone would track my footsteps and come find me—but then that would be worse because I would have to go back. Again. Have to face whatever awful stuff awaited me in Reality Land.
I started to cry.
Just a few weeks ago, I’d seen a tiny crack of sunny promise splitting through the dark tarmac of my soul. I’d been able to count the things I was doing right. I’d seen progress—I really had. What had happened? Everything felt ruined: my whole time at River’s Edge, my relationships with everybody, my magick, my learning…. I’d faced so much—my heritage, my past, my emptiness. I had faced it all, and for what? I was worse off now than when I’d come, because now I actually understood how bad off I was.
What was wrong with me?
I slumped onto the icy grass, which crumpled stiffly under me. Freezing to death was, sadly, not a possibility. I would get hypothermia and pass out, but I wouldn’t die. I blinked tiredly, feeling my tears ice-cold against my lashes. Just like in London, I’d reached a point where I couldn’t handle the pain.
I cried until my ribs ached and I felt like I might throw up. The grass scratched my face, which already stung from the branches in the woods, and my salty tears burned in the scratches.
I closed my eyes. Maybe I would wake up, find myself back in Tahiti, find this had all been a wretched dream. I had been Sea Caraway, in Tahiti. Incy had been Sky Benolto. I’d made stuff out of seashells, sold it at local shops. This had been back in the 1970s. After I’d been Hope Rinaldi, in the sixties. Before I became Nastasya Crowe, in the eighties.
My head ached. The cold made it throb more insistently.
I just wanted to be happy. When had I been happy?
I remembered laughing.
When had I laughed?
My head swam and I tried to remember laughing, tried to hear what my laugh had sounded like.
I heard the tinkle of crystal champagne glasses gently touching one another on a silver tray. One of the servers was moving through the crowd, penguin-y and proper in his tux. I reached out and snagged my sixth glass, feeling the golden bubbles tickle my nose.
“Dearest.” Incy smiled and raised his glass at me.
“Love.” I smiled back at him. James. His name was James. We’d been friends for about thirty years. Best friends for twenty-eight.
“Prentice! Darling!” Sarah Jane Burkhardt pushed through the crowd and we air-kissed. Sarah Jane was a savvy, sophisticated twenty—one of the daughters of our hosts. We’d met some months ago at a house party out on Long Island. She held her ivory cigarette holder out to the side so it wouldn’t spill ash on my gold evening dress.
“How did you ever get away from Sir Richard?” I giggled, remembering how I’d gaily waved good-bye as Sarah Jane had been forced to listen to that blowhard’s war stories. It was 1924. The Great War was long over, never to be repeated. America had had five years of no longer conserving food, no longer being urged to buy war bonds or send extra grain to England or France. It was a time of beautiful parties, beautiful people, once again. Sure, the ridiculous Prohibition had required people to be careful about sloshing liquor around, but there were so many workarounds that it was almost as if it didn’t exist for some people. People like us.
“I pawned him off on Dayton MacKenzie,” Sarah Jane said.
“She deserved it,” James/Incy said. “Did you see what she wore to 21 last week?”
Sarah Jane and I both laughed meanly. Then Sarah Jane’s eyes widened. “Goodness gracious. Who is that lovely man?” She drew on her cigarette holder and blew the smoke out through her nose, which we’d been practicing all day.
I looked. An unusually handsome man was standing in the foyer. A huge palm in a marble planter partly obscured his head, but he was tall and blond and wearing a beautiful, beautiful linen suit.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never seen him before. James?”
“No,” said James. “But he looks like someone we ought to get to know. Do you agree, ladies?”
“Yes indeedy-do,” said Sarah Jane, and James boldly led us over to meet the stranger.
The man turned, as if sensing us approaching, and I heard Sarah Jane’s slightly indrawn breath. He was too pretty for me, with smooth skin, blue eyes, and long lashes that would have looked better on a girl, but clearly he was Sarah Jane’s dream come true.
Sarah Jane held out her hand, palm down, at chest height. The stranger obligingly kissed it. She almost purred.
“Delighted,” the stranger murmured. “I’m Andrew. Andrew Vancouver.”
“Sarah Jane Burkhardt. This is Prentice Goodson and James Angelo.”
I saw, when we met eyes: Andrew was immortal. He recognized us also—some instantaneous flicker of expression that no one else saw.
“Sarah?”
We turned to see a girl with Sarah Jane’s features and coloring but more refined, prettier. Sarah Jane was attractive, elegantly dressed and skillfully made up. This girl was maybe sixteen, young and untouched, but she held the promise of becoming a truly beautiful woman eventually.
“Yes, Lala, what is it?” Sarah Jane’s voice was kind.
“Is that champagne?”
Sarah Jane laughed and held out her glass. The girl named Lala smiled shyly and took a tentative sip while we all watched, amused. She swallowed and her large blue eyes became larger. “It’s like… drinking flowers.”
“What a pretty way to put it,” said Andrew. “Miss Burkhardt, your guest is charming.”
Sarah Jane laughed. “She’s not a guest. This is my younger sister, Louisa. Louisa, say hello to Mr. Vancouver, Miss Goodson, and Mr. Angelo.”
Louisa shook Andrew’s hand, then mine, then took James’s and looked into his eyes.
And that was how Incy had met Lala Burkhardt, and put in motion that awful scandal with that poor girl. After her suicide attempt, I think she’d ended up in a sanatorium in Switzerland. The whole thing had been abominable. She must be dead by now.
And Andrew Vancouver? That was how we had met Boz. Boz was working on another heiress at that party, very successfully, at least for a while. But just short of his completely ruining her, her father caught on and kicked Boz to the curb.
After that the three of us hung out together: birds of a feather.
The twenties had been such a fun, glamorous time. Parties and summer homes and all the brand-new cars (horseless carriages!) just starting to hit the market. Women were at last done with corsets for good, thank God, and in some places we could vote. Incy and Boz and I had had such a great time. The thirties were less fun, after Black Friday; the forties were grim; the fifties kind of weird and high-pressure and artificial. Things in America wouldn’t get fun again until the sixties.
Lying here now, all my senses were deadened—I was practically frozen stiff. Moving was going to hurt. And I was still: alone, dark, homeless, coatless, and friendless. I took in another icy, shuddering breath, wondering dimly how this would all play out. I didn’t have the energy to move or make any decisions.
Graduall
y I felt a prickle of awareness, a very slight disruption in my field of energy. An animal? A person? River or someone from River’s Edge? Reyn? I closed my eyes, awash with despair. Maybe if I was very, very quiet, they wouldn’t find me. Such a pointless hope.
It was impossibly dark out here, with no moon, and clouds scudding over the stars. But I definitely felt someone moving closer to me, and I opened my eyes. I could barely make out the edge of the tall grasses, where they were bent and heavy with snow. Then a dark figure emerged from them, walking toward me.
Not Reyn. Not River.
I lay motionless, watching. It was Incy.
CHAPTER 17
Incy.
I’d met him right before the turn of the century, in 1899. You’d think that with such a long friendship as ours, and how bound up we were with each other, we would have had some dramatic beginning, like he’d saved my life or I’d stolen his horse.
But we’d met when he was peddling forged artwork in New York City. I’d gone with a friend to examine a “recently discovered” print by del Sarto. This was before sophisticated forensic techniques were used to determine the age and authenticity of artwork. Though legitimate experts were often consulted, it was so easy to perpetrate fraud. Ah, the good old days.
“Mrs. Humphrey Watson,” the doorman announced. “Mrs. Alphonse North.”
I liked Eugenia Watson, and we’d been close friends for at least five years by then. There was no Mr. North—I’d made up a dead husband for myself because a married woman, even a widow, had more freedom than a single woman.
We took Eugenia’s carriage to our friend’s house, and her footman helped us haul our stupid full skirts and layers of petticoats down the little carriage steps and onto the sidewalk. Bustles were finally smaller, thank God, but my waist was cinched to a fashionable eighteen inches. Make a circle eighteen inches around, with your hands. Yeah. It was a wonder my digestive system worked.