Chapter 9 #2
Caleb’s hands fell to his sides. “In four days, Rose will have been gone a year.”
Jack’s perennial smile wavered, just a smidge. “And?”
“For once, I’m relieved she isn’t here, so she doesn’t have to watch you destroy the Fontaine legacy. Just as we all knew
you would.”
Jack’s wince was so brief, Emmy might have missed it, had she not been watching Caleb storm past him. A moment too late, Jack
chased after him, disappearing through the door.
Jimmy sighed. “We almost made it a whole day without them arguing.”
“Were they always like this?”
“Hard to say. Everything was different when Rose was here.” In the fading light, he managed a smile. “How are you feeling about all this?”
She considered telling Jimmy the truth—that she hardly felt anything at all, save the fear of capture that still plagued her
most nights, and a budding hope that Jack’s plans were not as far-fetched as they seemed. “I’m willing to give it a try. But
even if they let us in, a month hardly seems like enough time to ruin four lives.”
“If it gets too dangerous, say the word, and we’ll leave, yeah?” His face was grim. “Jack says this is the only known community
of charmed people. It’ll be easier to avoid them if we hide out West, away from New York.”
But if they left, Jimmy would lose his shot at his own business. And every day Emmy spent in hiding was another day Grace
won.
They wove their way back through Mistfield’s attic, the staffs’ quarters eerily abandoned. Usually, Emmy had a sixth sense
for Jack’s whereabouts, but there was no sign of him or Caleb in the main hall, so she and Jimmy settled into the library,
where Emmy continued sifting through illustrated books for inspiration. If Jack was leaving for the city tomorrow, he’d want
his new appearance tonight. For the three boys, she’d already found fairy-tale princes and pirates, but her own face was much
harder to design.
But Jack never came to the library. Nor did he come to her room, though as usual, Emmy spent most of the night lying awake,
steak knife ready. At dawn, she abandoned all hopes of sleep and ventured into the hall. If he was late because of her, she’d
never hear the end of it.
The door to Jack’s room was ajar but his bed was empty. If he’d gotten drunk and passed out in the driveway, better that she
find him, rather than the Society guards.
He was not in the driveway, mercifully. He wasn’t in the wine cellar, either, though she nearly slipped on muddy footprints. A tendril of unease nagged at her, but perhaps Jack had gone in and out for more wine. Unless Grimsbane’s guards— No, she could not think of them.
She had Rose’s relic. With it, she was far from defenseless.
A heavy morning mist hung low over the dew-kissed woods. Hugging herself for warmth, Emmy followed the footprints down one
of the winding trails, until they disappeared in a field with grass so tall, she nearly missed the headstones. There were
at least a dozen of them, though only the newest-looking one had a bouquet of dead wildflowers atop it.
Jack was curled against it. Asleep, though his fingers still gripped an empty wine bottle. His jacket was haphazardly spread
over him like a makeshift blanket. He’d probably done that for warmth in Grimsbane.
“Jack?” When he did not stir, she raised her raspy voice. “Jack, wake up.”
The mist was steadily becoming a faint rain, but Jack did not stir. Was he dead?
Careful not to touch the headstones, Emmy crouched beside Jack and shook him.
With a yell, he startled, his bloodshot eyes darting about wildly.
“It’s me,” she said quickly, jerking her hand back from his shoulder.
His eyes were unfocused as they settled on her. “She hated being alone,” he mumbled, his words heavy with sleep.
Emmy’s heart sank. Perhaps this was the scene from the picture Caleb had mentioned: the harbinger of ruin. Which was unfair,
really, because Jack was hurting underneath those smirks.
Ugh. Jack Fontaine was growing on her. Like a fungus.
As he tried to slip on his jacket, Emmy could not help but feel a pinch of sorrow for Jack, who had lost so much, so quickly.
Perhaps that was why he spoke of death like an old friend rather than the thief it was.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he muttered, “but I’m fine.”
“It might be better if we take more time to prepare. Maybe in a few months—”
“No,” he said firmly. “By July, half the Society will be back in the city while the other will be in Newport. Either way,
Mrs. Astor reigns over every guest list. Even if we won her favor in record time, the newspapers would scour for dirt on us.
They’d eventually discover we don’t exist. Besides,” he added, flashing her a weak imitation of his usual smirk, “if Rose
was right, I’ll be long dead by winter.”
But his cavalier words no longer fooled her. Death haunted him, too.
“You need to stop drinking. I mean it, Jack.” She pried the empty wine bottle from where it was half buried in the grass.
“You could have been seen last night.”
“If you’d give me my new face already, it wouldn’t matter if I’m seen.” He was impossible, grinning as though he’d said something
profound.
“Fine. Come here.”
That took him by surprise. “You’ll do it? Right now?”
Relic in hand, she motioned for him to scoot closer. If he wanted to treat his family’s cemetery like a perfectly normal place
to lounge, so be it.
“Make me irresistible. And try to remember what I look like.” He shivered as she touched his cheek. “Once we clear our names,
I’d like to be me again.”
Emmy made a noncommittal noise, but she studied his face. Jack was not perfect. No, he had a little scar cut into his right
brow, partially obscured by his chocolate waves. And his dark lashes were a bit too long, too innocent against those gray
irises, which sparkled with a dozen shades of mischief, each more infuriating than the last. He was the love child of an angel
and a devil, equal parts alluring and ruthless. It’d be easier to tolerate him once he had a new face.
As soon as she focused on the relic, that ethereal mist mixed with the faint rain, cool and soft as it flooded her.
Tentatively, she touched his still gaunt cheeks.
Power rushed to her fingertips, transforming them just as she’d envisioned.
Moving to his nose, she pictured the straight one of the fairy-tale prince she’d found in the library books, and his nose shifted.
His skin was warm and soft and far more distracting than any object she’d transformed.
As her fingers grazed his jawline, she forgot what, precisely, she was about to alter.
“What is it?” He eyed her suspiciously. “Are you cross with me, too?”
A flush swept through her. “Tell me again how relics work.”
His gaze flitted to Rose’s headstone. “She made it in secret, following steps she found in an old book—the Fontaine grimoire,
Caleb thinks. An ordinary relic is an entirely different creation. It wields the power of an ancestor, but only if their conjury
is the same. If my father hadn’t insisted on cremation, for example, I could have created a relic to add his brume access
to mine, doubling my flames’ strength. But Rose found a way to activate the dead witch’s amplifying conjury. Even though she’s
not our relative and we’re not amplifiers.”
And the power coursing through Emmy was far more than double her ordinary strength. She was performing magic that was impossible
on her own. Easily. Though she was not above using a bone from a dead charmed person, she’d prefer to know how, exactly, it
worked. “I’d like to see that book.”
“Then I’ll get it for you.” Their eyes met, and for a moment, he looked at her with the same disarming intensity that he had
at Grimsbane. She nearly asked him what he was thinking, but he glanced away.
Soon Emmy fell into the rhythm of her work, her fingers growing bolder as she erased his handsome features.
Rose’s relic operated on instinct, anticipating Emmy’s intentions the moment they took shape.
His faint scars, the pale sheen a month of daylight hadn’t shaken—with a caress of her fingers they were gone.
She tamed his unruly waves and lightened them until they were fawn brown.
In all the family portraits, the Fontaines shared Jack’s striking gray eyes, so she kept those but brightened his irises until they glittered like the metal of a gun.
“Done.” She leaned back to examine her work, nearly bumping into a nearby headstone.
Jack prodded his face with his fingertips. “Well? Am I infuriatingly handsome?”
Still handsome. But Nathaniel’s face was tamer, somehow. Less intimidating.
With his back to her, Jack began picking up the empty wine bottles.
“Jack?”
He turned, brows raised. “It must be serious. You rarely call me my given name.”
“Caleb said that the chancellor arrested you to protect Oliver.” She waited for him to confirm, but of course he didn’t. “What
did Oliver and Grace do?”
“The same thing they did to you.”
Her temper flared. This sort of purposeful evasion was precisely why she hadn’t bothered to ask. “Why do you keep so many
secrets?”
“And you’re the epitome of trusting?” Despite the strangeness of his new face, his steely gray eyes glimmered with a familiar
taunt. “We’ll be back in a week. Try not to miss me.”
“I’ll survive somehow.” A week without Jack and Caleb would have been much more appealing if it weren’t full of dance lessons.
And if she didn’t have to face Grace’s darling friend Clara Claremont.