Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Though Emmy had expected to surprise Mary with a pair of siblings from Five Points, Mary had an even bigger surprise for them:
Caleb was home.
They burst into Caleb’s quarters, where Jimmy had already made himself comfortable in an armchair beside the bed. “How is
this possible?” Jack exclaimed.
“The hospital had no private rooms.” Caleb’s weak voice carried a hint of arrogance that brought a smile to Emmy’s lips. “And
if I had to spend another night in that crowded ward, I was going to rip out my own stitches.”
“He’s supposed to stay in bed.” Jimmy shot Caleb an ominous look. “If he does anything strenuous, the wounds could reopen
and he’ll bleed to death.”
Caleb huffed. “The giant won’t let me so much as blink.”
“And you better get used to it.” Jimmy folded his arms over his broad chest. “Because this giant is going to be watching you,
night and day.”
Mary’s gaze shifted between Jack and Emmy. “Any luck?”
In hushed voices, they told the others about the truth conjurer, and how the little boy and his sister would accompany them
to tomorrow’s Golden Gala. Once the Society understood how the truth conjury worked, Jack, as Nathaniel, would confront Grace
about her role in Mistfield’s fire. If—and only if—Grace was ruined, Emmy and Jack would reveal themselves, clearing their
names once and for all.
It was a risk, to say the least. Even if the Society believed him, they might not look kindly on their duplicitous quest for vengeance. Even more discomfiting, they’d know of Rose’s relic. Jack swore he would not let them so much as touch it, but Jack was not invincible.
But if it worked, Emmy would see the look on Grace’s face when she realized that her perfect life was aflame—and Emmy Vallillo
was holding the match.
“So let me get this straight,” Caleb said once they’d finished. “You kidnapped a little boy and his sister?”
“Their names are Tobias and Agnes,” Jack replied smoothly, “and they came willingly.”
Willingly, with new faces and the promise of enough money to buy their own city block.
Jimmy sighed. “It doesn’t feel right, dragging a little kid into it.”
Emmy exchanged a look with Jack. Neither of them was proud to involve a six-year-old. “We understand if you want out, but
we’re finishing this. Tomorrow.”
“I’ll help,” Mary said softly. “The Windsors deserve to know the truth.”
Emmy couldn’t help but hug her. With Mary, they’d have invisible eyes on Grace all night.
Jimmy sighed. “For the first time in my life, I wish I had magic, so I could help keep you all safe.”
“You help plenty,” Emmy said gently. “You keep us sane.”
“And charmed or not, you know how to handle yourself if everything goes to hell.” Jack’s steady gaze met Jimmy’s. “You know
what needs to be done.”
A heavy look passed between them. “Fine. I’m in. Unless Alton needs me here.”
“Why would I need you here? I’m going, too.”
Almost instantly, the four of them replied with a quick and resounding no.
Caleb was affronted. “I’m sure we can scrounge up a wheelchair from somewhere!”
“If you so much as blink without a doctor’s approval,” Jimmy growled, “I will carry you back to the hospital myself.”
Caleb and Jimmy stared at each other for a long beat. Finally Caleb gave a reluctant nod, his ears pinkening as he turned
away.
“Enough plotting, everyone.” Jimmy nodded toward the door. “Alton needs his rest.”
Jack’s gaze met Emmy’s. She gave him a small nod, ignoring how her pulse ratcheted from a single glance, or how, without uttering
a word, she knew he’d burn a hole in her wall tonight. Two months of conspiring together had tightened this bond between them,
but she could not confuse it for something more. Especially on the eve of their final takedown.
“Emmy?” Caleb called, his voice faint. “Do you mind staying back for a moment?”
Just her. That was a first. She glanced at Jimmy, who looked equally surprised, but he shut the door quietly, leaving them
alone.
“I was going to thank you,” Caleb began, “for saving my life—”
“You don’t need to do that.” Emmy could not even look at him without seeing his feet protruding from the woods, his skin sallow
and gray.
“I knew you’d say that. So I thought I’d show my gratitude a different way.” He nodded toward his desk. “Can you fetch that
brown leather book?”
“Another ancient magical text? You know me too . . . Oh.” It was no ordinary book; it was Rose’s portfolio.
Accepting it from her, Caleb set it on the bed between them. “I assume Jack has shown you these?”
Emmy nodded, trying not to think of Jack on his knees, Oliver looming over him.
“You’ve asked me, maybe a dozen times, about Rose’s prophecy for my own death. So . . . here.” He flipped open the portfolio, his fingers deftly turning to the proper page.
The thick ink lines possessed the same cursory sharpness as the other morbid drawings, but there was no fire. No knives in
throats. Only two lovers in bed, fast asleep, with deep crinkles around their eyes from decades of smiling.
Emmy had forgotten such a death existed. A peaceful one. And Rose was quite the artist, because even though he was half a
century older, one lover was unmistakably Caleb. And the other—
Sweet relief washed over Emmy. “The other person, that’s—”
“Yes, that’s a man.” Caleb sighed. “And now you’re the second person I’ve told my secret. Third, if you count Jack, who happened
to be present when Rose drew this.”
He was trusting her with something precious to him. “I’m honored,” she said softly. “But what I was going to say is . . .
that’s Jimmy, isn’t it?”
“What?” Caleb squinted at the picture. “No it isn’t!”
Emmy traced the handsome face of the elderly Chinese man curled around Caleb. “Look how tall he is. And look at that half
smile.”
Pink blossomed across Caleb’s cheeks. “How could you possibly tell? This is sixty years down the road, at least!”
“I know my friend,” she said simply. “And I think you do, too.”
She saw it then, in his frantic expression as he looked at her. Hiding beneath his panic, beneath every dismissive jab he’d
slung at Jimmy.
He was in love with him.
“You can’t tell him,” Caleb rasped. “I don’t think he feels the same. I don’t even know if he likes men. Even suggesting that— Oh God. I think I might be sick.”
It was wrong, really, to feel so delighted while Caleb was so flustered. But the more she studied the drawing, the lighter she felt. Jimmy and Caleb just might live long enough to have decades etched into their faces. Together.
“I think,” she said gently, “you should have more faith in Rose.”
He lifted his gaze, and a quiet smile blossomed over his face, revealed itself slowly. And Emmy was absurdly glad that he
had survived the chancellor’s attack.
“You and Rose would have gotten along swimmingly.” He chuckled. “In fact, she was almost as desperate to meet you as Jack
was.”
“But she’d never even heard of me.”
“Of course she had.” Grief weighed on his smile. “We called you ‘woodland girl.’ Rose and I teased him to no end about that
prophecy.”
Emmy stilled. “What prophecy?”
Caleb opened his mouth. Shut it. His eyes darted to the portfolio.
They lunged for it at the same time, but Emmy reached it first, swinging it off his bed. Caleb hissed, his hands flying to
his stitches. A better person would have stopped to check on him, but Emmy raced from his room. “Emmy, don’t you dare,” he
called after her. “Don’t you dare!”
Ignoring his irate yells, she shut the door and dropped to her knees in the hallway, spreading the portfolio in front of her.
The hall was dimly lit, making the charcoal drawing of Jimmy and Caleb seem more ominous than it had a few minutes ago, though
not nearly as morbid as the ones of Rose and Elizabeth burning in black flames. She flipped past those quickly, flipped past
Jack on his knees, not letting her eyes linger.
The next few drawings contained color, though they were rudimentary. Almost childlike, but with enough skill for Emmy to recognize
a young Rose and Caleb laughing in an empty ballroom. An elderly woman playing a grand piano. With each turn of a page, Rose’s
skill improved until the drawings possessed an ethereal quality, dreamy but clear.
A moonlit night swim, Caleb’s smile freer than Emmy had ever seen it.
A dark-haired man with eyes just like Jack’s, only older. He stood on Mistfield’s balcony in the Society’s uniform, a letter
crinkled in his fist.
Jack slumped in Mistfield’s cemetery, eyes red rimmed, empty bottles littering the overgrown grass.
She flipped to the next drawing—and stilled.
Jack was lying on his back in the woods, grinning at a girl leaning over him. No, at Emmy.
With trembling hands, she angled the drawing toward the dim light. It was, unmistakably, her true face. Thin and hollowed
out, courtesy of Grimsbane, but with a wild smile, as if she was midlaugh. Branches and leaves were caught in the long skirt
of her gray wool dress, dirtied and torn from running through the trees. There were even twigs caught in her loose braid,
making her look downright savage.
Woodland girl.
It was the moment after they’d narrowly escaped the Society headquarters. After she’d transformed Jack back to himself, instead
of her horrid rendition of Oliver Stratton. That was why she was touching his face. Why their cheeks were flushed. A perfectly
reasonable explanation, yet in Rose’s hand, their expressions were downright amorous.
No wonder Caleb had gaped at her when he’d come across them that night.
As if in a daze, Emmy hugged the portfolio to her chest and walked back to her room.
Jack was waiting for her, a tendril of smoke rising from the fresh hole between their rooms. He grinned—until he spotted the
portfolio.
She’d seen him escape a heavily fortified prison. And on his knees, frozen in front of Oliver Stratton. In neither of those instances did he look as frightened as he did now.
With surprisingly steady hands, she laid the drawing in front of him. “Tell me there’s some reasonable explanation why your