A Surfeit of Annas #4
She thought, Either Anna is the most successful cheat in all history, or something else is going on. There was not the slightest suggestion of perfume or grass or smoke or anything that would suggest Anna had been anywhere but this flat all night.
Ari leaned up to kiss Anna again and Anna smiled against her mouth. “What is going on with you this evening? Not that I mind.” She began unbuttoning the jacket of Ari’s patrol gear.
“I just missed you,” Ari said, and helped Anna shrug the dressing gown off, where it pooled onto the bed behind them. “Sorry about being short a moment ago. Patrol was just fine, but I think we discovered that someone is trying to stir up some trouble.”
“Oh?” said Anna, and then “Oh,” and then words departed from the scene entirely until the next morning.
—
“I am on Anna’s side,” her mother said. “Unequivocally.”
Ari was having lunch with her mother. They’d met at the pale green tearoom at Fortnum when Ari looked back down the street, the false Anna had disappeared.
—
“We have to leave London,” Ari said. She was pacing in front of the couch. Anna was waiting for the kettle to boil, tapping her foot impatiently. “We should clear out for a week or two and let all this die down.”
“Clear out?” Anna said doubtfully. The kettle whistled, and Ari almost leapt in the air at the piercing sound, but managed to keep herself on the ground.
“Someone or maybe someones,” Ari said, “are clearly upset about your announcement last week, and weren’t satisfied with dead flowers and weepy letters. So they’re sowing chaos.”
Anna filled the teapot. “Maybe,” she said thoughtfully.
“Maybe?” repeated Ari. “You’re remarkably calm, considering someone is going around pretending to be you.”
Anna put down the teapot and came to block Ari’s pacing. Ari held up her hands to protest and Anna took them in hers.
“I know you want to find out what’s going on and make it right,” she said, her voice gentle. “I do too. But we are Shadowhunters. We do not ‘clear out’ when there is a problem. We are the ones who find and fix the problem.”
“Surely,” Ari said, “we are excused from doing that when we are the intended targets of the problem.”
Anna smiled at Ari fondly. “You’d think so,” she said, “but haven’t you noticed that the Nephilim of London have a peculiar tendency to run headlong at danger? Especially if they are the target?”
“Well,” said Ari, calming down a bit. “Yes.”
“It’s not only that,” said Anna. She sat down on the couch and, after a second, Ari sat down next to her. She reached over and took Ari’s clasped hands in her own. “Perhaps this is about us, and about the Hell Ruelle and all this silliness this past week. But it might be something bigger.”
“You’re thinking very clearly on this,” Ari said. “More clearly than I would be if I encountered my doppelg?nger.”
“I was thinking,” Anna said, “while the kettle boiled. And I didn’t actually encounter this doppelg?nger, except as a figure receding into the distance. I only came because I heard you shouting.”
Ari thought for a bit while Anna fussed with the tea things. “All right. But we can at least start with some obvious suspects. Like our warlock friend Emerald.”
“She’s first,” Anna said grimly, “and second are all the ladies who have left tributes at our doorstep for the past week. Only a few of whose identities I could even guess.”
“To be able to create a false you would require real magic. It would have to be a warlock, or a powerful faerie.”
“Mm,” conceded Anna. “Well, all right, let’s try from another direction. Who or what is this false me?”
“She, or it, was really a very good imitation in terms of appearance. It had your face, your movements, your voice, your expressions. Though not at all your personality—it was like someone doing a cheap parody of you.”
“Some possibilities,” Anna said. “Eidolon demon.”
“It’s the middle of the afternoon.”
“Good point. Shapeshifter.”
“The only shapeshifter with that kind of power I’ve ever heard of,” Ari said, “is Tessa Herondale.”
Anna raised her eyebrows at Ari.
“It’s not Tessa,” Ari said.
“I know,” Anna said. “I just wanted to see your reaction. Er, could it be an evil magic of some kind? Maybe a Greater Demon?”
“A Greater Demon?” Ari said, smiling. “Are you suggesting that in your romantic past there is a Greater Demon? Perhaps more than one?”
“Is this really the time for teasing?”
“Is there a time not for teasing?” returned Ari. “Not in this flat, in my experience.”
“I have never had an assignation,” Anna said, “with a Greater Demon.”
“It doesn’t have to be someone who’s jealous,” Ari said. “It could be someone who’s angry. I agree the likelihood is warlock or faerie magic, whatever the motive. But Emerald remains the first suspect. We should confront her before this escalates any further.”
“And if she isn’t involved?” Anna said.
“Then we must find a second suspect.”