Chapter 28 #2
Emmy’s hand. “If you help us, I’ll transform your face to protect your identity. And then I’ll make you so much money, you
can live as far away from the Society of the Charmed as you like.”
With a gasp, the little boy gathered greenbacks in his fists and hurried to his sister, who had wisely shut the door. Her
eyes bulged as she examined the money, and Emmy could not help but think of herself and what she might have done for this
sort of sum only a few years ago.
She kept that thought to herself. The money, apparently, was distracting enough for the truth wielder to let go of her conjury.
“I need to think this over.” Tucking the money into her apron, the girl opened the door once more. “Give me three hours. Then
you’ll have my answer.”
Three hours was enough time for her to send word to Grace.
Jack dragged his feet toward the door. “We really don’t have time.”
“If you don’t leave now, then my answer is no.” She forced them into the hall—
But Emmy held on to the door frame. “Should we come back?”
“Stay local and I’ll find you.”
“How?”
The door slammed in their faces.
Jack scratched his head. “I can’t tell if that went well or not.”
“I’m not sure.” Emmy leaned against the opposite wall. “Maybe we should wait here.”
“I don’t think she’d like that very much.” With a sigh, he stared at the door. “Well, we found her. And she took the money.
That ought to count for something.”
The walls were too thin for them to continue this conversation. Emmy nodded to the stairwell, and Jack followed.
The sun blinded them as soon as they stepped outside. With nothing to do but wait, Emmy leaned against the wall for a bit
of shade. Heated by the pounding sun, the stench of the waste that littered the street turned her stomach.
Jack smiled at a pair of older ladies walking past, who quickly hurried away. “Why does it feel like everyone is staring at
me?”
She could not look at the asymmetrical face she’d given him once again. “No reason.”
With a sigh, he settled beside her. “If I have to sit here for three hours, I’ll lose my mind.”
“What else can we do?”
“You heard the girl. She said she’d find us.” He watched the pedestrians weaving between the carriages. “I was thinking . . .
I know where your father—”
“No.” She could not spit the word out quickly enough.
“The cemetery’s not far from here.”
As if Emmy did not know that herself. Pushing off the wall, she glanced back at the tenement house. Everything felt wrong.
Being here while Caleb was in a hospital in Westchester: wrong. Waiting for that girl while she might be running to Grace:
wrong. Sitting in that flat, its layout nearly identical to her home’s, yet far too small, as if the haven of her childhood
had shrunk: wrong, wrong, wrong.
And being in Five Points without Papa? Infuriatingly, mind-numbingly wrong.
Jack rose, too, loosening the top buttons of his shirt. “What about that dumpling place?”
“I don’t want to see you cringe at all the places I loved.”
“Hey. Hey,” he said more urgently as she turned away. “I’m not cringing. I’m just—”
“Disgusted.” She pinned him with a hard look. “I can read your face like a book.”
“All right, fine. I didn’t know . . . I thought tenement houses were just small apartments. But that flat?” He lowered his
voice, his expression pained. “It had to be a hundred degrees in there. They didn’t even have a window. And the whole time,
I kept thinking, Does my family own this building? Am I the landlord who didn’t put up a railing? Yet another part of my life I never questioned. And that makes me sick.”
He turned away, and Emmy felt a stab of unwanted sympathy for him. As worldly as he seemed, this was likely his first time
ever setting foot in a home smaller than a mansion.
“I’m not cross with you,” she finally said. “It’s just, it all used to feel so wondrously vast and unruly, but now . . .” She could not bring herself to say what it looked like to her now. How dingy. How bleak. “I suppose a few months at Mistfield have changed my perspective of ‘big.’”
The hint of a smile teased his lips. “Emilia Vallillo, have I turned you into a snob?”
“Stop.”
“I have, haven’t I?” Straightening his posture, he offered her his arm. “Let’s get something to eat while we wait. Unless
it’s only lobster and caviar for you now.”
“You really are terrible.”
“I’ve heard that my whole life.” He leaned closer, as if he might touch her face. But her plain blonde disguise was far from
Winnie’s beauty, and he turned away.
Reluctantly, Emmy brought him to Chatham Square, where the elderly gentleman who made the Cantonese dumplings hadn’t aged
a day. Two orders came to twenty cents, a price that would have cost her sorely the last time she was here, but now Emmy handed
him a five-dollar bill. “Keep it.”
The man dabbed at his sweaty forehead. “You want more dumplings?”
“Just . . . consider it a gift.”
He beamed, and something stirred in Emmy. It was an irrationally large tip, but Emmy had an irrationally large wad of money
stashed in her dress. Maybe that extra four dollars would buy much-needed medicine. Maybe it was the difference between making
rent and eviction.
There wasn’t an inch of shade available, so they sat against a sun-soaked brick wall, dumplings in their laps. “You have to
blow on them,” Emmy warned, “or else you’ll—”
Jack hissed, midbite, pain erupting over his face.
“—burn your mouth,” Emmy finished.
“Worth it. God, that’s delicious.” Jack lifted the next dumpling, lips pursed to blow on it. Damnit, she’d forgotten to transform that distracting mouth of his.
Averting her eyes, she blew on her own dumplings as she watched the crowds. Everyone was heading in the same direction, the
children bouncing and skipping ahead. Their giddiness soothed her mood, just a smidge. She was not misremembering everything
about Five Points. For most of her life, she’d been happy, too.
“How much money have you got in those secret pockets of yours?” Jack asked.
“About eighty dollars. Need more dumplings?”
But Jack was digging his leather wallet from his pocket. “I’ve got about three hundred—”
“Put that away,” Emmy gasped, pushing the wallet out of sight. “Are you trying to get robbed?”
“Why not? We don’t need it.” Seeing Emmy’s frown, he shrugged. “It just feels like we should do something good with our money.
You made that man’s day.”
“That man is a dime a dozen in this city.”
“I’m not trying to eliminate poverty in an afternoon; I’m trying not to lose my mind while we wait. C’mon.” He hauled her
to her feet. “If you don’t want to be mugged, let’s spend it.”
She could not argue with that. And with their fates in limbo, a distraction couldn’t hurt.
Spending hundreds of dollars was surprisingly challenging. They bought lemonades and ice cream, tipping the vendors enough
to make them suspicious. Following the flow of foot traffic, they came across a street festival, one with music and dancing
and dozens of vendors hawking goods at their carts. From cart to cart, Emmy bought Neapolitan cakes and gelato and paper cones
bursting with popcorn, handing them to any child in sight. Even after that, they had much more to spend.
With his absurdly asymmetrical face, Jack’s frown made him even more unsightly. “I keep trying to give sweets away, but no one will go near me.”
She tried—and failed—to bury her smile behind her ice cream, and Jack eyed her suspiciously. “You did something to my face,
didn’t you?”
Before he could glimpse his reflection somewhere, she pulled him deeper into the festival. A stage had been erected, upon
which four organ grinders were playing in unison, for once. Italian folk songs. To her shame, she couldn’t name a single one.
As they moved through the crowd, Emmy slipped greenbacks into ladies’ aprons, stuffed them in the fists of wide-eyed children.
“For the festival,” she told them. “Enjoy yourself.”
It didn’t take long before a crowd gathered around her, and Emmy emptied every secret pocket she had, doling out quarters
and dollars, change and greenbacks. But it wasn’t enough. This money could change these people’s lives, and it cost her nothing.
It could keep their children healthy, or pay for a doctor, or fill hungry bellies, or allow for a much-needed day of rest
from work.
And it cost Emmy nothing.
She was dizzy with the need to give it out, drunk with their exclamations of gratitude. The music thrummed and swelled with
the crowd, and Emmy slipped dollars into unexpected pockets. She paid for every street vendor’s supply so that everyone could
eat and drink their fill.
And how they thanked her. How they hugged her and pinched her cheeks and made her feel more alive than she had felt in a long
time. Why hadn’t she done this the moment she first grasped the relic? That was what Papa would have done.
Have you considered what you want to do next?
Jimmy had asked her a few nights ago, and Emmy hadn’t been able to see past the masquerade ball.
But maybe she’d return to Five Points with Rose’s relic.
Maybe she’d use it to help people. She could transform all the greenbacks and gold they needed to feed their families, could teach the other charmed folks about the brume, about grimoires and bone fragments and all the wondrous gifts people like them wielded in this very city.
A school, perhaps. One that welcomed immigrants and outsiders.
It was hardly the seed of an idea, but already she was protective of it, burying it deep in her chest. If they managed to
ruin Grace, she’d let herself dream of such things.
Still, as she found Jack at the edge of the festival, she felt lighter, somehow, though Jack looked far from it. “Did she
come back?” Emmy asked.
“Haven’t seen her.” His cavalier smile might have fooled her a few months ago, but by now, she could see it for the mask that
it was.
“Is it Caleb?” Even just saying his name racked her with guilt that he was in the hospital while she was here. Enjoying herself.
“No, it’s just . . . this is really nice.” The strangely uneven eyes she’d given him were full of sadness. “But in my experience,
happiness is a prelude to disaster.”
He was right. Enjoying themselves was like juggling with knives. At any moment, a sharp end was bound to cut them.
Giving him such a ridiculous face felt cruel all of a sudden, so she led him into the mouth of an empty alley. “Stay still.”
He obliged, and she pressed her hands to his heat-flushed cheeks. It should have been quick, but her cursed mind kept picturing
Jack’s face instead of Nathaniel’s. As she completed the transformation, he watched her intently. He’d been Nathaniel for
hardly a few seconds, and already, she was drawn to him.
Although she knew better, she let her thumb brush his bottom lip as she took it away.
“Emmy.” He uttered her name as if it pained him to say it.
A curse and a prayer. His hands captured hers, and he looked as though he might bring it to his lips.
He had to feel it, too, this current thrumming between them—between Winnie and Nathaniel.
But she didn’t even look like Winnie right now, and he was still gazing at her as if she was someone to be desired.
She tried not to succumb to his gravity, she truly did. As his hands found her waist, she meant to push away, but instead,
her hands settled on his arms. As he leaned closer, she swore she’d turn away, but she met him in the middle. Wings beat wildly
in her stomach as he bowed his neck, bringing those cursed lips closer. Only a lunatic would kiss him again after he’d called
her a “poor choice,” but Emmy, apparently, was destined for a sanatorium. She lifted onto her toes as he cradled her cheek,
the need in those gray eyes sending a thrill down her spine.
Their noses brushed, a delicate dance.
Their mouths touched.
If the last kiss had been a furious shout, this one was a silent promise. Those cursed lips moved with agonizing tenderness,
flooding Emmy with the dizzying sensation of being cherished. Utterly foolish, given that he was kissing her blonde persona.
As his hand cupped her face, she leaned into his touch, greedy for more. At this rate, she was going to die in this alley,
because she was never coming up for air.
He broke the kiss to search her face, and she felt a twinge of disappointment that it was Nathaniel, not Jack, looking at
her with such longing. But she was already waist deep in bad decisions, so she changed him back to his true self.
Oh, this was the epitome of foolishness, kissing Jack Fontaine. Their kisses grew hungrier, and she backed him against the
alley wall as he gathered her in his arms. His hands trailed her shoulders, her back, setting her aflame. She swore she’d
stop, over and over, but she was kiss drunk and deliciously dazed. Last time, she promised herself with each pass of his lips. Last time.
Finally she broke the kiss, letting her head fall against his chest as he folded her against him.
It was as fragile as a snowflake, this moment.
She could already feel reality melting it, could once again hear the ruckus of the street fair.
But she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to drown it out, listening to the racing thump thump thump within his chest.
“I have one more question.”
For once, Emmy moved quicker than Jack, spinning to face the person at the edge of the alley. The truth conjurer. Her little
brother skipped to Emmy, taking her hand.
“What is it?” Jack called back—and damn it, his face was truly Jack’s.
For the first time, the girl seemed uncertain. “How can you guarantee my safety?”
“I can’t.” The truth rushed from Emmy. “All I can do is transform your face like I did his, and give you a carriage to leave
as soon as you’re done.”
“Grace Montgomery doesn’t ask me to risk my life for revenge.”
“Justice,” Jack interrupted. “It’s justice we seek. And it is dangerous, but you wouldn’t be the target. Oh, hello there.” Jack patted the little boy on the head as
he took Jack’s hand.
The truth conjurer watched her sweet brother closely. Too closely.
Emmy glanced back and forth between the teenage girl and her brother, wishing it to not be true. “You don’t have truth conjury.”
The girl’s gaze snapped to hers, that protective fire unmistakable.
The little boy was clever, climbing into her lap earlier. Cleverer still for doing it so playfully, she hadn’t realized their
act.
Emmy pointed to the little boy, her heart sinking. “He’s the truth wielder.”