Chapter 4 #2
“How about a little gratitude?” Caleb rose from the couch. “We got you out, didn’t we?”
“Alton, Li, give us a moment?” Jack kept those gray eyes trained on Emmy.
With a reassuring clap on her shoulder, Jimmy slipped out the door before she could protest. As Caleb followed, he paused
to glare at her. “I could have gotten him out months ago, but he insisted we make a plan that included you. Remember that.”
A bald-faced lie. If Jack had spent even a single day in Grimsbane for a stranger, then he was a goddamn fool, and he did
not strike her as one.
As soon as they were gone, Jack kicked his legs onto the desk. “Emilia Vallillo. Eighteen years old. Only child born to Matteo Vallillo, an Italian immigrant with a healing gift unknown to the Society of the Charmed, and the late Bridget Vallillo, nèe Fitzpatrick. Was your mother charmed, too?”
She hadn’t been, but Emmy snapped her jaw shut. He was trying to unsettle her with what he’d learned from Jimmy, and she would
not give him the satisfaction.
Jack steepled his fingers. “Your mother died of appendicitis when you were eight. Your father raised you himself, with a little
help from your neighbor Mrs. Feinstein, for whom you sewed while he worked. You lived at 31 Baxter Street your entire life,
on the fifth floor, second door on the right. Your father made sure you were educated in the basement of the mission school
on Park Street. Your teachers must have been quite good, because you don’t speak like you’re from Five Points.”
She let the insult simmer as she stared at him, unblinking. Papa had gone to great lengths to ensure that both she and Grace
were not only well-read, but well-spoken.
“Conjury, your father taught you himself, usually after he finished his construction shifts with my dear friend Jimmy Li.
Your father’s gift worked only on living things, but you transform nonliving things. How am I doing thus far?”
Jimmy could not have told him about her and Grace’s nightly magic lessons with Papa.
Emmy forced herself to breathe. To blink. “Don’t you dare speak of my father’s magic.”
“The Society of the Charmed forbids us to use the word magic in case an ordinary person overhears it. Call it ‘conjury.’”
So he was a Society member. From her periphery, Emmy glanced at the door. Ten paces.
“Let’s continue. You spent most of your time with Grace Montgomery, who lived across the hall. You learned of the Society from her, and she learned of it from her father, the late Richard Montgomery, who came from a long line of charmed Montgomerys, every last one of them pricks. Mr.
Montgomery mostly ignored his illegitimate daughter, but once he realized the two of you were talented conjurers, he put you
both on the Society’s list.
“Your father had his doubts about you mixing with people like Montgomery, but he was never particularly fond of telling you
no, so he accompanied you and Grace to the ball. But neither of you knew what Grace had secretly learned: the Society would
select only one protégé that year. Given that you were attempting to make literal gold, she set into motion an intricate plan
with the help of two new friends she’d made. She tossed you to the vultures, then took your spot among my people while you were in hell for two years, three months, and seven days.” He grinned at her gobsmacked expression. “Which
brings us to yesterday.”
She’d been right; he was a monomaniacal cat after all, and she was the decomposing rat. The magnitude of his research should
have chilled her to the bone, but— “Only one protégé?”
Her question pleased him far too much. “A new rule, introduced that year to appease fears that the Society was growing too
large.”
And there it was. Grace had betrayed her. Emmy had known that from the moment she glimpsed her triumphant smile. But until
now, she hadn’t had the faintest idea why.
Grace had done the math. When the result wasn’t in her favor, she’d tipped the scale.
For once, Emmy’s raspy voice did not waver, as she asked, “Who helped her?”
“Oliver Stratton.” The muscles in Jack’s jaw ticked. Speaking that name cost him something. “And Clara Claremont. Either name
ring a bell?”
Clara Claremont was the enchanted dressmaker.
Grace had met her at etiquette lessons the Society provided for debutantes—at a steep fee, one Emmy had refused to even mention to Papa.
Grace had paid the exorbitant cost with the entire sum she’d inherited after her father’s death, and Emmy hadn’t been shy about her disapproval.
Learning to curtsy should not have cost two years’ rent.
But Grace, apparently, had made a strategic investment.
For protégés, the social rules matter far more than the magical ones, she’d said to Emmy, pulling her away from her studies. We should be learning to waltz, not reading old books.
“Grace mentioned Clara.” If he thought her cooperative, perhaps he’d reveal more than he intended. “She said Clara’s family
already belonged to the Society, so she was not debuting. But she wanted to use the ball to advertise her enchanted dress
enterprise.”
A free gown in exchange for crediting its designer, an heiress aspiring to be an entrepreneur. It was an alluring trap, and
Emmy had fallen for it. Hard.
“From what I’ve gathered, Miss Claremont sewed fool’s gold into your gown so that when you were searched, they’d find ‘proof’
of your deceit.”
Even now, the simplicity of it all filled her with fury. All her life, Emmy had prided herself on her sharp wit, her high
marks at school. Yet when she’d questioned the shocking weight of her ball gown, she’d believed Grace’s excuse that fancy
dresses were always cumbersome.
Pathetic.
Kicking his legs off the desk, Jack straightened. “Oliver Stratton sealed off your power so you could not prove your innocence.
That’s his gift: conjury binding.”
“But why?” Emmy’s voice pitched. “I’ve never even met him.”
“Grace did. Clara introduced them, and they became rather fond of each other.”
“Fond?”
“Writing love letters. Meeting privately.” He waved a casual hand. “A sordid love affair.”
Emmy scoffed. “Grace would never do such a thing.” And, Emmy longed to add, she would have told me. A ridiculous notion, given all that Grace had hidden from her. Still, Grace was far too savvy to risk her reputation by
meeting with a man in secret, let alone kissing one. That was something her mother would have done, and Grace was obsessed
with being seen as her father’s daughter. A true Montgomery.
Something like pity crossed Jack’s face, which was far worse than his smirk.
Emmy’s patience was thoroughly depleted. “What do you want from me?”
“Your help.” Gone was the humor in his voice. “Grace, Oliver—the people who had you wrongfully imprisoned also framed me.
And I intend to make them pay.”
So he’d spent time with Grace while Emmy was imprisoned. Unsettling, that Grace had lived entire chapters of her life after
she’d ruined Emmy’s. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you once you agree to work with me.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
“Evening the score.” His mouth curved. “I have a plan. One that requires your conjury.”
Emmy remained rooted to the floor. He claimed he wanted revenge for being wrongly imprisoned, but he’d learned everything
he could about her before he’d set foot in Grimsbane. “Why did you attend my father’s funeral?”
“My father passed me the gold nugget you’d made. It seemed far realer than whatever had fallen out of your skirts.” He leaned
back in his tufted chair, a prince relaxing on his throne. “I went to your father’s funeral to see if he was charmed. Because
if he was, chances were that you’d inherited some version of his gift. And I was right.”
“No one knew of my father’s magic.”
“His conjury. And he might not have told anyone about it, but person after person called him San Rocco, the Italian saint who performed
healing miracles. Someone even claimed he’d made a dead heart beat again. Is that true?”
It had been a little boy, crushed in the railyard. His heart had stopped beating on their kitchen table for ninety seconds.
But Emmy would protect Papa’s secrets, even in death.
Ignoring her silence, Jack shrugged. “He transformed injuries. You transform tin soldiers.”
“So that’s what you want from me? Gold?”
“More than that.” He was growing restless now, frowning as he studied her. “Don’t you wish to avenge your father? Yourself?”
It didn’t matter what she wanted. Emmy had no magic. No Papa. Nothing.
“I see.” He rose from the desk and dug into his pockets. “Stratton binds the conjury of every prisoner in Grimsbane. But this
amplified my power, allowing me to break through.”
He flipped the strange coin to her, but Emmy kept her gaze fixed on him, not missing his wince as it hit the floor. Loath
as she was to believe anything he said, he’d made an inferno without breaking a sweat. And when his friend had held the coin,
he’d read her mind without so much as wincing.
Hope. Treacherous, fickle hope. “What is it?”
“It’s called a relic.” As he picked up the coin, a ribbon of dark fire danced between his fingers. “Had Grace Montgomery not
stolen your patronage, you would have learned all about these amplifiers. Most of the time, they make someone marginally more
powerful, but my sister made this one particularly . . . potent. I want you to use it to help me ruin four wicked lives.”
“Four?” Thus far, he’d mentioned only Clara Claremont, Oliver Stratton, and Grace.
“Oliver’s suppression abilities are a derivative of his father’s power.” Jack arched a brow. “You’re familiar with Chancellor Stratton’s suppression conjury. He shot your father.”
Emmy stilled.
Stratton. The name of her father’s murderer was Stratton.
“Sleep on it.” Slipping the relic into his pocket, Jack strode toward the doors. “Caleb and I left two charred bodies floating
in the Harlem River, one wearing the ball gown you hid near the riverbank. Once the Society realizes we’re not dead in our
cells, they’ll think we’re dead in the river.”
Two more bodies. He’d killed four people yesterday and spoke of it without a morsel of regret. Emmy backed away as he passed.
“Why should I believe a word you say?”
“You shouldn’t.” He flashed her a puckish smile.
As if her disdain was yet another amusement for him. Just like her suffering, in that cursed cell, had amused him. “And if
I refuse to help you?”
“Then you’re free to go. I’ll even give you a horse.”
Liar. She kept her glare pinned on him as he sauntered from the library.
Once his footsteps faded down the hall, Emmy sank to the floor and closed her eyes, trying to stop the room from spinning.
Revenge. Magical amplifiers. Grace’s alleged romance. Emmy was far too exhausted to think straight.
The picturesque library was still there when she opened her eyes, shelf after shelf climbing over her head. Plush sofas basked
in the sunlight streaming through the windows. Through the budding trees, the Hudson River shimmered like an ever-shifting
mirror.
She and Grace had spent years imagining what life might be like if they were selected as protégés, and Emmy had pictured a
library just like this one.
Too good to be true, just like Jimmy’s presence. Just like a coin that would rejuvenate her magic, making her impossibly strong. Too good, too good.
Emmy rubbed her tired eyes. Jack might have lured her into his mansion, but leaving right away would do her no good. She needed
to be patient, to keep her wits about her so she could figure out what, exactly, to do about Jack Fontaine.