Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Elodie
With each step down from Cole and Asher’s porch, the enormity of what just happened hits me harder.
I told my matches the truth—well, most of it. The important parts. What happened with Uncle Nik doesn’t matter when he doesn’t appear to have any part in my life here.
And all of the men seem… happier now that they know. A little confused, sure, and we obviously have a lot more to hash out, but it’s almost as if they’d rather I was an interloper from another dimension than the Elodie they thought they knew.
I’m not sure how to process that. A weight has lifted off my chest with the confession, but I still feel as wrung out as a bean-nighe’s washing.
When we reach the sidewalk, I motion vaguely to the right. “I’ll book a ride to pick me up over there.”
Salvatore tucks a protective hand around my arm. “I’ll come with you. Who knows what jerks are hanging around in this neighborhood?”
Byron clasps my other hand and shoots the mafia heir an imperious look. “Then I’d better come too, because radiants only know how Cosgrave might fly off the handle if someone so much as looks at him wrong.”
Salvatore scowls. “I only crack down on the people who deserve it. You’d probably be too busy worrying about messing up your fancy shirt to get your hands dirty on her behalf.”
Byron’s tone gets haughtier. “I’d do whatever it takes to look after my match, including thinking the situation through rather than risking making it worse.”
“Whoa, whoa.” I shake off both of them and step away, holding up my hands in appeal.
“That’s enough. Neither of you is following me, because we’re trying to avoid being seen together, in case you forgot.
And if anyone does come after me, joke’s on them, because my glim will turn the tables before they can blink. ”
The thought of my innate power wrenching the life out of anyone turns my stomach, but my point lands. Both of the guys look mildly abashed.
“Fine,” Salvatore grumbles. “Doesn’t mean I won’t still be keeping an eye out.”
He touches my jaw to guide my face up to meet his kiss. The passionate force of it makes my knees wobble, even as I nudge him back, because if we don’t want to be seen together at all, we definitely don’t want to be seen smooching.
Byron moves in before I can voice my protest, cupping my face and kissing me with just as much enthusiasm, if more tenderly. Now my pulse is wobbling too.
As he draws back, Salvatore makes a scoffing sound. I back up another couple of steps before this can turn into an ongoing kissing competition, as delicious as that might be.
“Thank you for the lovely goodbyes. I’m sure there’ll be more time for making out later. Just not in full view of a public street.”
My cheeks must be flushed from the kissing that’s already gone on, because Byron takes on a triumphant air as his gaze lingers on me. He glances at Salvatore. “Try not to get yourself arrested.”
Salvatore snorts. “Try not to get lost up your own ass.”
I summon as firm a tone as I’m capable of. “Let me remind you that if you’re both on my side, you’re on the same side.”
Salvatore rolls his eyes skyward, but his shrug is more accepting than dismissive. “I know. I’m just not going to pretend Worth is good company.”
Byron offers him a polite smile and a coolly even voice. “Right back at you, Cosgrave.”
I rub my hand over my face. Kali, kill me now.
Thankfully, the goddess of death and destruction doesn’t actually answer my prayer, and my matches finally let me walk away to a discreet spot where I can call a ride. As soon as I’ve clambered into the car, I sag against the seat and close my eyes.
Maybe I’ll just sleep for the rest of the weekend. That feels like a very productive use of my time.
It’s a nice thought, but I do have a little more truth to tell. When the car drops me off outside the grand Devine house, Aunt Daphne is puttering around the garden, the breeze gusting through her tawny hair.
She looks up and notes the car driving away with the cannier gleam that comes into her eyes now and then in contrast with her usually whimsical demeanor.
“You could have called for Maurice,” she says as I come up the front walk. “That’s what we have a chauffeur for.”
A lie springs to my lips automatically—what I might have told her if I hadn’t just spilled my guts to the men who matter most to me. I catch it and pause.
If I’m going to open up to her more, I should set the right tone from the start.
I lower my voice so no one but her will be able to hear me. “I was meeting with my matches. I thought it’d be better to travel somewhat incognito.”
Daphne’s big brown eyes go even wider than usual. “Have you made more progress? Should we—” She brushes her hands against her trim slacks. “Let’s go to my office and talk there.”
I couldn’t have made a better suggestion myself.
I follow her to the third floor, pushing through my emotional exhaustion to decide how to approach this discussion. Given Daphne’s reluctance to believe anything questionable about Other Elodie’s actions, I have to tread carefully even if I’m determined to lay out the facts.
We step into her bright office with its soothingly pale furnishings. Daphne motions me to one of the two armchairs by the window, where the mid-afternoon sun streaks warm through the window.
As I sink onto the firmly padded surface, she folds her hands on her lap, her gaze avid. “What have you learned?”
“A lot of things.” I glance down at my own lap and then force myself to meet her eyes. “But first I need to admit something. I wasn’t totally honest with you about the night I sparked my matches.”
Daphne’s mouth draws tighter. “I had a feeling you were leaving some things out.”
“I’m sorry. I was so shaken up, and my first thought was protecting my matches, and I was worried you wouldn’t even believe me…”
The frown fades into a more confused knitting of her brow. “Believe you about what, Elodie?”
I gather myself. “That night, I left the house hoping I could lure out the person who’s been after me. And it worked—partially. Kenneth Hearst attacked me near the river, tried to stab me to death.”
At this point, my aunt’s eyes might pop right out of her head. “Kenneth Hearst? The Hearsts have never—we’ve always gotten along reasonably well with them… Well, it seems absurd to ask if you’re sure.”
My lips twitch into a small, wry smile. “Yeah. I was surprised too. In the struggle, I ended up stabbing him while trying to defend myself… and one of my matches used his glim to cover up the death before I had much say in it. So there wasn’t any evidence to show the police.
We were worried the blame might be placed on me anyway, since it’d be hard for people to picture Kenneth as a potential murderer. ”
“I suppose with the kind of life you must have had before you came here, being wary makes sense, even if I’d rather we brought the culprit to justice by more traditional means.
” Daphne rubs her hand over her face. Her gaze fixes on me again.
“But you’ve said you’re still investigating. If he’s dead…”
My smile fades. “Kenneth made a comment about someone encouraging him to come after me. He was a tool, not the person calling the shots.”
Daphne’s stance stiffens with a sudden flash of her eyes. “What exactly did he say?”
“Nothing specific other than it was a woman. But my matches and I have found evidence that he was associating with a group of lucents who must be very powerful but also incredibly secretive. It seems like they’re reaching out to other Luminary students, and maybe older lucents too.
All from major families, as far as we’ve seen.
Have you heard anything about a group like that—offering help or a boost in skills to the ‘right’ people? ”
Daphne’s gaze goes distant, sliding past me to the brightly lit window.
“I mean, there are plenty of discreet clubs and alliances and so on in the community… And there are lucents who offer mentorships… But I’m not aware of a specific group that operates the way you’re describing.
And you think these people persuaded Kenneth Hearst to attack you? ”
I nod. “That’s the best we can figure. He met up with a woman we think was part of that group the day before he attacked me in the park, and she gave him something—maybe the weapon he used.”
I pull out my phone and show her a screenshot I took of the coffee shop’s security video. I brace myself to explain how I got even a photo, but Daphne doesn’t ask. She just stares at the picture, the furrows of confusion digging deeper into her forehead.
“Have you seen her before?” I prod.
She shakes her head slowly. “I don’t think so. I mean, I might have in passing, but not in any way that I’m sure I recognize her.”
As I pull back the phone, her hands dart across her lap.
A nervous note creeps into her voice. “If these people are powerful enough to convince a boy like Kenneth to commit murder and skilled enough to stay secret—maybe you should back off now, Elodie. Let me look into this. We could keep you home until it’s settled, have your teachers send the schoolwork; you can hand in your assignments through the computer. It’ll be safer.”
Now she’s worried so much about my safety, after she’s the one who dragged me across dimensions to flush out a killer?
I shake my head. “I don’t want to sit around waiting to see what’ll happen.
Some of the pieces seem to connect to things I saw in my old reality.
They involve people at school I can easily hang around but you can’t.
And”—my tone turns dry at the very thought—“I don’t think you or I could convince my matches to stand down now. ”
Daphne stands up and paces to the window and back. Her skinny frame stayed tensed. “That’s very admirable of them and you, but you don’t know… If the wrong people have set their sights on you… I don’t even know why anyone would be so set on harming Ellie…”
I clear my throat. “I have found things in her room and heard things from her friends—she was monitoring people and places she didn’t tell anyone about but that she obviously thought might be important. If someone noticed her interest and got worried she was going to expose their shady dealings—”
“No.” Daphne jerks to a halt. “If she’d gotten into anything that serious, she’d have told me.”
I hold my voice steady. “You can’t keep believing that. You know it’s not true. You have no idea what she was even doing out in that neighborhood where she was killed.”
“It doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t she have trusted me? She never seemed worried…”
A sickly cast comes over her skin as acceptance must sink in. She inhales sharply and focuses on me again. “Then that’s all the more reason we need to take you out of the equation. It’s too dangerous. We don’t know when they might try again or who poses the real threat.”
And she thinks she can figure that out on her own?
“I can defend myself,” I say. “And like I said, my matches—”
She waves her hand through the air. “Tell them it’s already resolved. The police have taken someone into custody. They don’t know the whole story, how far these people have already gone.”
My chest constricts. I push out the words. “Yes, they do. I told them everything.”
Daphne freezes, staring at me. “You don’t mean—”
“I told them about the other Elodie’s murder and how you brought me here to find the killer.” The corners of my mouth tick upward again. “They took it pretty well once I finally convinced them.”
“You… They…” My aunt rakes her fingers back through her cloud of hair. “No. This isn’t good at all. If anyone else finds out…”
“They won’t. We’re still not even telling anyone that we’re matches yet. I don’t think the possibility of me being a doppelganger is going to come up in their regular conversations.”
It doesn’t seem like that big a concern to me, but I guess I do know my matches much better than Daphne does. She resumes her pacing, her arms coming up to wrap around her torso in a rigid embrace.
My brow knits. “I promise, they won’t mention it. If they did, it’d sound crazy—and they all know that. They’re working with me on this. They don’t want anything to happen to me either.”
I can’t tell if my aunt even hears me. She murmurs to herself so quietly I only make out fragments. “—come for me too—if anyone would know—”
Abruptly, she draws to a halt in front of me.
“All right. It’s better if we don’t change anything too obvious and alert whoever’s targeted you that you’re being more cautious than before.
They took their time even when Kenneth was still in play.
As long as they don’t feel threatened, I don’t think they’ll act again for at least a few more weeks.
Maybe they’ll wait until the summer holidays when you’re roaming more widely… ”
“So I should keep going as normal?”
“Actually normal. No investigating. No prying. Just be regular Elodie, and leave the case alone for now—tell your matches the same thing if they want to look out for you. I… I need to sort some things out and see what I can uncover.”
She heads for the office door.
I get up, my pulse stuttering. “You’re going somewhere right now?”
“For a few days, maybe a week. It’ll make everything safer for both of us. Lay low until I get back.”
She bustles right down the stairs and out the front door. I follow her as far as the driveway.
A pale green sedan pulls out of the garage, Daphne’s pale face behind the windshield. She propels it onto the street without so much as a wave goodbye.
I stare after her, my thoughts reeling. Only one clear impression stands out in my head.
In that last glimpse I got of her… I’d swear she looked terrified.