Chapter 48
“Sophia, holy shit. You look like…” I can’t even think of the words.
“Heaven,” Peter supplies, joining our little circle by the bar.
He cleans up pretty nice too, scruffy hair slicked back, clean-shaven, dark suit.
While Deacon and I had stared down each other with enough tension to kindle a forest fire, Peter looks at Sophia with something different. Something pure.
She smiles back at him. That genuine, knee-weakening, full-toothed smile.
Heaven honestly is as good a way to put it as anything I was going to come up with. Her cheeks are gently shimmering, her hair blown out in soft waves. Amber, cinnamon, and bronze, depending on the way she moves beneath the dim gala lights.
The blush-pink dress isn’t what I’d expect from her, color-wise—Sophia is all about rusty reds and teal blues, the occasional glittering fuchsia on the right Saturday night out.
But the cut of the dress is the embodiment of her laid-back sensuality, her boldness, and her warmth.
Jutting V nearly to her navel, slinky chiffon all the way to the floor that puddles at her feet.
Thin straps that curve around her neck and leave her back bare.
“I was going to say chemically engineered to ruin men’s lives.”
Penny giggles. “And I was going to say like a Greek goddess.”
Deacon appraises Soph, who bats her lashes theatrically, waiting for his addition. “You clean up real nice, kid.”
All of the above answers are true.
“Thank you kindly,” she says. “We came over to tell you guys that Baz and Elliot have the goods.” She takes a breath. “It’s time.”
My heart rate kicks up. “That was fast.” I thought it would take far longer for them to lift a phone off one of Caspar’s men in order to track down Ada. Given the new moon, Caspar’s surely making the sacrifice at midnight tonight, which means there’s no way she’s being kept too far from here.
“They’re a good team,” Peter says. “Classic good cop, bad cop.”
Sophia snorts. “Don’t let Elliot hear you call him good cop.”
“I think they’re more like sullen cop, sunshine cop,” Penny muses.
My eyes scan the room for Caspar and the cloud of handsome, vicious men in suits who are never too far from him.
His security detail, all Brood tonight. I wonder if any of them are secretly aligned with Reid.
I wonder if Caspar’s figured out where his warlock’s gone.
If his own internal concerns might help us get to Ada without him knowing.
“So they’ve already left to go find her?” I ask Sophia. When she nods I turn to Deacon. “And Ward’s inside?”
“Got in about fifteen ago. We should head over.”
And I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. I take a bracing breath and move for the Rare Gems section, when I make direct eye contact with my mom across the room.
“Shit,” I curse as she makes a beeline for me. “Go,” I whisper, grabbing Penny’s hand. “We’ll meet you.”
“Hurry,” Deacon murmurs. “Ward can’t hold up his end without you.” Then he, Sophia, and Peter blend into the crowd.
Rushing through the gala is like swimming upstream. I step on trains and choke on clouds of perfume. Everyone is moving painfully slow due to their ridiculous heels and too-tight skirts and needs to stop for every person they see. “Agnes! What a delight to run into you here!”
The ten-piece jazz band plays a frenetic jaunt that scores my hurried heartbeat.
In one corner I spot Fiona with some Windsor colleagues and my sister, who does, to her credit, look excellent in blue.
They wave and make their way toward Penny and me as well, and my chest grows tighter as we all converge in the center of the lobby.
We exchange a minute of small talk. My mother gushes over how beautiful the museum looks bedecked in large bouquets of Duchesse de Nemours peonies—I know that’s the name of the creamy white blooms because I placed the astronomically expensive order.
I try not to fidget as I imagine a grandfather clock, ticking down until the new moon, each tock winding my jaw tighter.
“Fiona did a wonderful job.” Nora beams. But Fiona’s temples are pink, and I can tell she’s been rubbing her head from stress.
“Really,” my mother coos. “Just exceptional.”
“I just need to get through the night,” Fiona says tightly, eyes on me.
My chest jolts with anxiety. She’s as worried the Elders won’t stop Caspar as I am.
Maybe she’s beginning to doubt what she told me after we met with them.
Maybe she doesn’t think they are the “highest good in our world” any longer.
I almost want to tell her what we’re planning.
To let her know that the fate of the city isn’t in the Elders’ hands.
But I can’t risk her trying to stop us. So I say nothing.
My mom eyes Fiona and me strangely. Her gaze cuts to Penny, who remains quiet at my side.
She’s learning one of the first lessons of constantly lying to people—never ask What is it?
Or Everything okay? When someone is looking at you with suspicion, never give them the chance to ask about it.
Usually they’ll convince themselves everything is fine and move on.
It’s human nature to want things to be all right.
“Have any of you seen Caspar?” my mom asks eventually, proving my point. “He went outside to bring in some special guest.”
My skin tightens across my body.
“Who?” Penny asks, green eyes going wide.
“I’m not sure,” my mother says, scanning the room. “But I’m worried perhaps security hasn’t let him back in.”
Even more reason for us to split. I’m starting to sweat beneath my bloodred dress. “I’ll keep an eye out.” I pretend to check my phone. “Shoot. I have to go find a new jacket for one of the board members. Cigar burn incident.”
Fiona narrows her eyes at me. I swallow tightly.
My mom’s delicate fingers loop around my arm before I can bolt. “Viv, is everything okay?”
Penny looks at me—still a lying novice; never exchange a guilty look—but I keep my expression cool and confused. “Besides the cigar thing? Yeah, of course.”
Behind the irritation in my mother’s eyes sits a knowing worry.
Worry that perhaps had always been there, but I’d never noticed until things began to shift between us.
It hits me that maybe all the anger my mom spews at me is actually grotesque, distorted fear.
She lost her husband, and it nearly killed her.
Maybe she’s terrified of losing her daughter too.
Soon, I think. I’ll tell you everything soon.
But we are running out of time.
I’m about to yank Penny toward the staircase that leads down to Rare Gems when glasses clink and murmurs sound. The band quiets, and Penny and I look to Fiona in tense confusion. She doesn’t seem to have any better idea of what’s going on than we do. Panic skates along my bones.
I’m still gripping Penny’s arm when Caspar Harlock sweeps into the lobby, flanked by his security—his Brood—and an older woman in a sparkly black dress.
My heart stops beating.
He’s guiding Ada, the woman I met at Shiloh all those months ago, toward the top of the grand stairs. Cameras flash. Someone on his team hands him a mic. I cannot breathe.
“Good evening, esteemed guests. I’m honored to be one of the chairmen of ACFAC and to bear witness to yet another spectacular event. And tonight is uniquely special—”
For a horrific, indescribable moment, I wonder if he’s going to kill Ada right there and use the power to rip the Chasm wide open right through the very lobby at my feet—before I remember that he can’t until midnight. The new moon. The censer.
“It’s the fiftieth annual gala to celebrate the meaningful work done to keep the lower half of this city crime-free. Try as we might, corruption has been on the rise as of late. Just a few weeks ago, a car chase that originated down South of the Chasm left eleven innocent Asterans dead.”
My blood heats. Those innocents were killed by his Brood. I don’t make eye contact with Penny for fear of my mother seeing.
“Last fall, an orderly at our very own Shiloh Asylum was killed during a break-in, which resulted in this woman right here beside me being displaced from the only home she’s known for almost thirty years.”
Ada stands next to him, more clear-eyed than she’d been that night at Shiloh, but still dreamily in the clouds.
“Did you know about this?” I whisper to my mom.
“Not exactly,” she whispers back, face held in elegant neutrality for the cameras. But I can see suspicion behind her eyes. He used her ailing family as a prop.
“Unacceptable doesn’t even begin to cover what has been transpiring in our city,” he says to the mass of rapt gala guests.
“Just a few months ago, the CEO of one of the most valuable real estate businesses in our city, Stan Pine, had his own daughter kidnapped by South of the Chasm criminals looking for a hefty ransom.”
“Where is he going with this?” Penny whispers in my ear.
But I am too furious to speak. My scar is whirling in my back. My daggers wailing against my skin. Let his blood rain down on them all, it says. Cleanse them with his ashes. The bloodlust cresting in my eyes.
Caspar stares right at me, and I have the chilling thought that the tan, weathered flesh of his cheeks and his brows are actually the disguise. The hood that he wears might as well be his real skin. Though no frost snakes through the room, I feel my entire body grow cold under his glare.
When I move without thinking, Penny yanks me back. “Calm down,” she whispers. “Viv—”
“How much longer can we live in an Astera rife with criminals who aim to take our siblings, our spouses, our grandparents from us? How much longer can we allow violence to run rampant in our city? It is time we elect a mayor who is committed to putting a stop to people such as these. And nobody in the entire Half City is more suited for the job than our district attorney, Beatrice Abbot.”
“There it is,” Nora breathes beside me. “God, he’s good.”
The room erupts in generous applause for him and my mother. Flashes burst as photos are snapped of all of us. My mom offers Caspar a look of true gratitude. I smile through the flourishing pain in my back. Dig my nails into my palms until I break the skin.
Caspar is turning my mom’s platform into something that serves him—fear. He’s no different from the Elders. He’s building an environment that will suit his new world order, my mother at the helm.
“While we celebrate Astera City Foundation Against Crime, where Beatrice’s own daughter, Nora, serves as executive vice president, we should focus on electing a leader who will clean up our tarnished city,” he says.
“I hope you’ll all join me tonight in making significant donations to Beatrice’s campaign. ”
I watch, mesmerized in my aching need to kill, as men and women pull checkbooks from designer purses and shoot off emails to accountants.
“And know this,” Caspar says, taking Ada’s wrinkled hand in his. “To anyone who tries to stand in the way of what we have planned for Astera—” Caspar’s eyes land directly on me and I go still as the dead. Even my scar stops whirling. “—your days are numbered. And what comes next will hurt.”
Riotous applause sounds.