Chapter 26 #2
gripped, or even her waist he’d kept afloat. He’d kissed Winnie. And his horrified expression afterward was likely his remembering that she was really Emmy.
Her heart sank, which was silly, for she was guilty of the same. She’d given him a face she found irresistible, and now she
was struggling to resist it. Even now, her body was mapping out every place his hands grazed her back, leaving invisible fingerprints
in their wake. But perhaps that was to be expected. An unintended side effect of their beguiling disguises.
She must have relaxed, for he arched a brow.
“It’s nothing.” It felt good to be at ease with him again. She’d gotten herself all tied up in knots over nothing. And that
was what was between them: nothing, save their shared vendetta.
The waltz ended, and he gave her hand a subtle squeeze before they both searched for their next partners.
As the hostess, Emmy had made sure that she knew all of tonight’s dances. It was freeing, not having to dread what the orchestra
might play next, or to worry about Clara whispering about her. Emmy might have enjoyed herself, had their lives not been hanging
in the balance.
During the third dance, she spotted Grace and nearly collapsed with relief.
As Emmy danced with some man in his late twenties who prattled on about stocks, she studied her former friend. Grace was dancing
with Richard Hamilton, the boy who’d been Emmy’s first dance partner at the inaugural ball, nearly a month ago. Her mask was
a glittering silver, much like her ball gown. If Grace was affected by Oliver’s arrest—and by the rumors swirling about Elizabeth’s
death—her face revealed none of it. Rather than appear humbled by the ordeal, she laughed airily as she spun with Richard,
her sky-blue eyes bright, her cheeks pink beneath her mask. She was beautiful, Emmy would give her that.
Their eyes met, and Grace’s smile faltered, just a smidge. A small victory, yet it didn’t bring a smile to Emmy’s face. It
was as if her loyalties were all twisted, as if some part of her still couldn’t take joy in Grace’s discomfort. She’d need
to squash that part of her—and quickly.
The dance ended, and Jack caught her eye, his face tense as he slipped from the ballroom.
She followed, politely excusing herself from the many guests who tried to engage her in conversation along the way.
“Where the hell are they?” she whispered as he pulled her into the empty parlor and quietly closed the door behind them.
“They should have returned hours ago.” Jack rubbed at his jaw, his knuckles brushing his mask. “Don’t let the Windsors leave
before the chancellor and Paxton arrive.”
Keeper Windsor and his wife were certainly not enjoying themselves, but the night was still young, and if Grace was having fun, they’d stay. With a curt nod, Emmy nearly opened the door, but—voices. Angry ones in hushed tones, heading down the hall.
“You have some nerve, showing up tonight,” a deep voice bellowed from the hallway.
“I could say the same to you,” a second voice snarled. The chancellor.
The breath rushed from Emmy’s lungs. It was happening.
A door slammed down the hall, muffling the angry voices, and Jack crept out of the parlor. Once it was safe, he nodded to
Emmy, his expression tight.
This was all wrong. Caleb was probably looking for them. Without speaking to him first, they didn’t have the slightest idea
what had transpired at the jail.
Jack’s gray eyes were steel as he glanced toward the ballroom. “Find him. I’ll watch—”
Shouting stole the rest of his words, and Jack took off toward it, Emmy on his heels. It was coming from the library. Reaching
the doors first, Jack threw them open.
Chancellor Stratton held a gun pointed at Keeper Windsor.
And Keeper Windsor, mask removed, held a gun pointed at the chancellor.
Neither man took their eyes off the other as Jack tucked Emmy behind him, exclaiming, “What is the meaning of this?” Quietly,
he added, “Get the guards. And . . . her.”
Grace. Of course.
She did not want to leave him with two armed men, but she slipped out of the library, breaking into a sprint in the hall,
her gorgeous train a liability. For once, she was glad to find the white-uniformed guards. “Come quick! The chancellor and
the keeper—hurry!”
They sprinted ahead of her, but Emmy paused in the ballroom doorway. No one seemed aware of the crisis unfolding, save Jimmy, who left his post as soon as he saw Emmy.
She pointed toward the library, and Jimmy took off, catching up to the guards.
“What’s going on?” Grace demanded, and for once, Emmy was thrilled to see her.
But Emmy didn’t need to answer, for the shouting grew louder. Gathering her skirts, Grace hurried toward the racket, Emmy
on her heels.
They reached the library doors at the same time—and froze.
The two Society leaders still had their weapons cocked at each other. The guards, meanwhile, remained near the doorway, out
of the line of fire and utterly confused.
“. . . framed my son!” the chancellor shouted, his fury stopping Emmy in her tracks.
Keeper Windsor’s face and neck were as red as Emmy’s gown. “Your son confessed to murder of his own volition. A murder you investigated!”
Emmy took a minuscule step backward, keeping as close to the door as possible. In her periphery, Grace did the same. Their
eyes met, and Grace quickly looked away.
“‘Of his own volition,’” the chancellor snarled. “Your niece bewitched him, making him say outlandish things while you bribed
the police. You’re a disgrace to the Society!”
At Emmy’s side, Grace froze.
The guards exchanged a glance and drew their revolvers.
“Where’s Caleb?” Jimmy whispered, and Emmy jumped. With Grace so near, he shouldn’t have uttered Caleb’s true name aloud,
but his face was creased with worry. With a small shake of her head, Emmy quickly averted her eyes.
“I’m a disgrace to the Society?” Keeper Windsor laughed bitterly.
“You are the one who has been twisted by power, making a mockery of our ways.
Letting your own son flaunt his conjury in public.
Shooting anyone you perceive as a threat on a whim, even the parents of debutantes. Look at you now, making accusations
with a gun in your hand!”
Emmy blinked, and there was Papa, on the tiles, framed in crimson. Blinked again, and he was gone.
Jack was on Grace’s other side now, and Emmy had to force herself to stare straight ahead instead of watch him slide the charmed
hairpin onto her glove. It had to touch her skin in order to work, but if she felt its chill . . .
Grace flinched, glancing at her arm, but—
“Take off that mask, girl.” The chancellor was looking directly at her.
She pulled off her silver mask, her face paler than Emmy had ever seen it.
“You were there that night,” he growled, “when Lizzie Windsor perished. Now tell the truth: Did Oliver have anything to do
with her death?”
Emmy’s heart was ready to beat out of her chest. If the truth bracelet—truth pin—was touching her, she’d have no choice but to answer honestly.
At Emmy’s side, Grace’s eyes were impossibly wide. She was practically chewing on her lips to silence her involuntary response.
“Tell the truth.” The chancellor’s voice grew gentler. “The Society of the Charmed values the truth. I value the truth, and if you speak it now, I will remember how you helped my son.”
He was practically offering her Oliver’s hand in exchange for her lying about that night.
“I’ll ask one more time: Did Oliver have anything to do with Lizzie Windsor’s death?”
Emmy held her breath, her heart in her throat as Grace’s mouth flew open.
“Yes,” Grace rasped, her eyes tearful. “Yes, he did.”
The truth, at last. Emmy could have collapsed from relief—had she not seen the look that overtook the chancellor’s face.
It was a look she’d seen in Five Points plenty of times, a collision of desperation and ego. Grace might have recognized it
herself, had she not been yanking the hairpin off her glove.
The chancellor swung the gun toward Grace.
Shots rang out, and Emmy did not think, did not hesitate as she threw herself at Grace, crashing them both to the ground.
Grace screamed as Emmy crushed her against the hardwood floor.
They stared at each other, inches apart.
Shock. Pure shock widened Grace’s eyes, loosened her jaw.
Strong arms pulled Emmy off Grace, searching her frantically. “Are you hurt?”
Jack. The hands flitting over her were Jack’s, his expression so crazed, a strange laugh bubbled in her throat.
She blinked. Shock could hide furious pain, but Emmy felt nothing. She blinked, her ears ringing. Blinked again and shook
her head.
She’d saved Grace.
Why the hell had she saved Grace?
The cacophony of shouts flooded her ears. People were pouring into the library, guards and guests, craning their necks to
see. As Jack helped Emmy to her feet, Keeper Windsor helped Grace to hers, anxiously pressing his tuxedo jacket to the harsh
red streak on her arm. She’d been wounded. It was hardly a comfort.
Keeper Windsor was alive.
And Chancellor Stratton was lying on the floor, his cold eyes unblinking. Dead.
A guard was emptying casings next to him. Another was checking the chancellor’s vitals, but Emmy had seen enough death to recognize when it looked her in the eyes.
“Are you absolutely certain you’re all right?”
A third guard lifted an ornate knife from a strap around Chancellor Stratton’s ankle and held it in the light. Blood glinted
on the blade, as red as her gown.
Emmy blinked. Jack grabbed her cheeks, saying something she could not hear. Just over his shoulder, Grace stared at Emmy from
her uncle’s arms.
Someone let out an ear-piercing, soul-crushing scream. Mrs. Stratton.
Blood on the blade.
All the air rushed from Emmy’s lungs.
“Where are you going?” Jack followed her as she burst into the hall, pushing past the surge of partygoers heading toward,
not away from, the gunshots. Emmy elbowed past them, her gaze snagging Jimmy, a head above the rest as he searched the crowd,
worry still etched across his face. Their eyes met, and he made his way toward her and Jack, following them through the foyer
and out the front door.
“Have you seen my brother?” she called to the footmen stationed by the entrance, but they shook their heads. The remaining
Society guards watched her impassively.
The chancellor could have left him in New York, in some back alley—
“What’s going on?” Jack kept pace with her as she hurried across the lawn.
“The chancellor returned without Caleb.” Jimmy looked pained.
“He’s all right. We’ll find him.” Jack sounded as confident as always—but he hadn’t seen the blood on the knife.
Emmy hurried her step, the knot in her throat growing by the second.
The stable boy met them by the door, looking alarmed to see Winnie Fairchild in full ballroom regalia. “Have you seen my brother?”
“Saw ’im when the carriage pulled up with the chancellor, miss. But he ain’t been out ’ere since.”
With her hands on her knees, Emmy tried to catch her breath, tried to hold it together. If Caleb wasn’t inside, where the
hell was he? She searched the driveway, but nothing. Searched the woods beyond the stable, but it was dark, Jack’s flame their
only light—
Jimmy let out a strangled noise. Before Emmy followed his gaze, she knew. She knew.
Only Caleb’s shoes jutted out from between the trees, toes pointed at the ground. As they cut through the thicket, the rest
of him came into sight: face-first in the twigs and dirt, the dead leaves caught in his crumpled hair, some sort of bug crawling
over his jacket, which was dark and sticky and—
She did not remember hitting the ground, did not remember pulling his jacket off him, sliding her hand underneath his shirt
so that her palm was against his skin, sticky with blood—
Oh God, so much blood.
He could not be dead. He hadn’t even wanted to do any of this, but he’d done it for Jack. For Rose. And he’d wanted to stop,
but Jack had kept pushing. She’d kept pushing . . .
He could not be dead. She screamed it at him, over and over, as her trembling hands traveled over his back, envisioning his skin its usual healthy
pink, the tissues underneath whole once again. She’d never healed anyone in her life, but if she had even a smidge of Papa’s
gift . . .
His skin pinkened beneath her trembling fingers, but dark pools of blood continued to gather deeper in his flesh.
“Heal him!” Jimmy’s hands were on Caleb now, his eyes wild as he begged her, over and over.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Emmy called to the brume, a torrent of that ethereal mist rushing over her.
The relic hummed against her chest, but she could not penetrate beneath his pale skin, no matter how much she tried to picture the muscles and organs pristine and healthy.
Jack and Jimmy flipped him, and his front was somehow worse than his back, for his face was puffy and white and all wrong.
Four, five, six, seven bloody stains, old enough to stick his shirt to his skin.
She ran her trembling hands over them, screaming for the skin to close, to heal, like Papa could have done.
But her conjury kept skirting over the surface, making superficial transformations. It was as if
she were trying to speak a tongue she’d never heard, trying to flap her arms and fly without wings. She was not San Rocco.
And whatever morsels of his conjury she’d inherited, it wasn’t enough.
But she was his daughter. She’d witnessed him heal plenty of knife injuries.
“Get the carriage!” Emmy tore at her crimson gown, willing it to be thick cotton bandages, which she wrapped around his abdomen.
Blood darkened the cotton over his stab wounds, but still, Emmy kept adding bandages. Jimmy held Caleb’s torso as she circled
it with more, more bandages. She had to stop the bleeding. Had to make everything tight enough to keep his blood in his veins,
enough to keep his heart pumping—if it hadn’t already stopped.
Only when Jack returned with the footmen did she press her bloodied fingers to Caleb’s neck, praying like hell for a pulse
to thrum through—there was a pulse. A faint one.
And then he was gone, Jack and Jimmy loading him into the carriage, Jack reaching back for her to join, but Emmy shook her
head, unable to find her voice. She couldn’t go to the hospital—someone had to stay at Mistfield.
And she was too selfish to witness another person die.