Chapter Twenty-Five Shea #2
It takes her a minute to absorb every vast, glittering thing.
A dazzling old-world chandelier hangs overhead, throwing light into the ornate stained glass, its colors jewel dark.
A sprawling main staircase descends into the middle of the room, carpeted steps flush with bodies.
Everything glimmers and churns and throbs.
Beneath it all, raising the hairs along the back of her neck, is the coppery smack of blood.
“Do you like it?” asks Paris, directly into her ear. She leans back to read his lips, struggling to pick out the lines of him in the swirling lights. “The party—are you impressed?”
“I guess so,” she says, and shrugs. “I’ve seen better.”
His smile stretches wider. He’s just like Lys, delighted by the push—captivated by the possibility of a chase. “Don’t tell me you prefer it up north in Oliver’s chilly little lodge.”
“I do. It’s quieter there.”
He regards her over the thin bridge of his nose. “I can bring you someplace quiet, if that’s what you’d prefer. We could discuss your mother. Would you like that?”
The warning bells scream louder. “I wouldn’t like that, no.”
“Oh, you’re afraid.” Paris’s eyes crinkle at the corners.
“You don’t want to be alone with me. Let me reassure you—your instinct is misguided.
Do you think I need to usher you away somewhere quiet to hurt you?
That I couldn’t do whatever I wanted to you right here, right now?
” He steps behind her, his chest at her back, his mouth at her ear.
She strains to hear him above the noise.
“Look around. I could drain you of every drop right now, and no one in this room would bat an eye. And it isn’t because they’re occupied.
It’s not because they’re distracted. It’s because I own everyone here, body and soul. ”
“You won’t do it.” Her bravery is a facade. She’s certain he can hear her heart hammering.
“You sound very sure of yourself.”
“I am.”
“And why is that?”
She turns to face him head-on in the swirling miasma. “Because the only audience you care about isn’t even here.”
His eyes glitter. He looks like a cat with a bird trapped between its paws. “Is that so?”
“There’s no point in killing me if Lys isn’t around to see you do it.”
“Oh, you’re clever. I can see why he’s drawn to you.”
“I hold my own.”
“I’ll bet you do.” He’s watching her a touch too closely, and it makes her skin crawl. “You remind me very much of a girl I fancied myself in love with, once upon a time. She was human, just like you. Did Oliver ever tell you that sordid little tale?”
“He doesn’t talk about you at all, actually,” says Shea.
She’d meant for it to hurt. Instead, Paris’s smile sharpens. “The two of you must not talk about very much, since you seem to have no idea what it is we’re doing here this evening. Tell me honestly—do you not have a single clue what all this pageantry is for?”
“It’s the hunter’s revel,” guesses Shea, taking a desperate stab at an answer. “You’re celebrating the full moon.”
Paris lets out a laugh, loud and full-bodied. “The full moon ? How pagan. Is that really what you think?”
She scrambles for something to say. Something witty, like Lys. Something clever, like Poppy. Something brave, like Asher.
She comes up empty.
“I can hear you panicking,” says Paris. He tucks her hand back into the crook of his arm, tapping his fingers in time to the tempo of her pulse. “It’s such a pretty sound. An aphrodisiac. Has Oliver ever told you so?”
“He hasn’t mentioned it,” she lies.
Paris cuts her a pitying glance. “He’s behaved very poorly, then. It’s unsporting, to keep you in the dark. This is a birthday party. A very special one.”
Through a slit in the paint, a Scorpio moon leers in at her.
A coincidence , Lys called it. Fear cramps her stomach.
“Enough small talk.” Paris guides her out of the crowd and up the stairs. “I have someone here that’s been waiting for you. Another young woman who stumbled into my path at a most fortuitous time.”
Just as he says it, Shea becomes aware of a girl standing at the top of the stairs. She’s dressed in a gown of poured gold, her platinum hair falling in waves down her back. At the sight of her, a sick trepidation slithers into Shea’s chest.
It isn’t because it’s Camellia Thorley. It’s because of the look on her face.
There’s hunger there, the Rot weaving just beneath her skin in pale blue fibers.
The hazel of her eyes is slightly off-color, her pupils blown.
A thousand memories of Camellia cycle through Shea’s head.
Camellia under a starry sprawl. Camellia passing her a note in the back of class.
Camellia in the bathroom, her cheeks wet with tears.
“Camellia?” Her voice is smoke. “Ellie.”
“You’re here.” Camellia’s voice is remote. A moon knocked out of orbit. “I was hoping you wouldn’t come.”
“She finally made it,” booms Paris, beckoning Camellia closer. “Isn’t it fantastic? Looks like your big brother kept his promise after all.”
“I left you a note,” whispers Camellia. “I told you to stay away.”
Shea barely hears her. She’s looking at Paris, a wordless something imploding horribly inside her chest. “What promise? What are you talking about?”
“Answer a question for me first,” says Paris, tapping a finger to his lip. “I’d like to parse out if you’re truly as clever as you pretend. How do you think it is that Asher Thorley knew to come looking for you after his sister’s tragic disappearance?”
Lys’s voice wings through her: I think Thorley is hiding something.
“He needed help,” coaxes Paris. “He tracked you down. Why?”
Shea cuts a glance toward Camellia and finds her staring at her feet. Skeins of blue fracture across her throat, her jaw, her cheeks. Bloodlust, endless and all-consuming.
“Because I’m her best friend,” Shea whispers. Even as she says it, she knows it’s wrong.
Thorley is hiding something. Thorley is hiding something.
“I’ll tell you why he did it,” says Paris. “Because I told him to.”
The world shifts beneath her, the ground crumbling out from underfoot. She grabs hold of the railing, knuckles white against the sleek varnish. It was right in front of her nose. She saw it, and she ignored it. Lys saw it, and she called him a liar.
“Come on now,” goads Paris. “Did you really think a first-year ranger came up with the brilliant idea to assassinate me all on his own?”
“I don’t understand. Why would you put out a hit on yourself?”
Paris’s laugh rings out like a bell. Several heads turn their way, a dozen hungry eyes glittering in the light.
“At no point in any of this did Asher Thorley intend to hurt me. He was, however, doing whatever I told him to do in order to rescue his poor sister from my clutches. Isn’t that right, Camellia? ”
A single tear tracks down Camellia’s cheek. She doesn’t look at Shea at all.
“This whole thing was a trap,” says Shea, understanding nearly knocking her off her feet. “You used Asher to lure Lys away from Mercy Ridge so you could kill him.”
“ Kill him?” Paris looks genuinely aghast. “How appalling. Contrary to what Oliver might have told you, I think very highly of him. I’d never harm one raven hair on that beautiful boy’s head.”
“Then what?” Her voice wrings out of her, hoarse. “What was the point of all this?”
“Why, you , of course,” says Paris, as though it should have been obvious.
“You are a wrecking ball, Shea Parker. You smashed your way into Oliver’s life.
You blew up his infuriating little idiosyncracies in a way that I’ve never quite been able to do.
And now, you have one last role to play.
The festivities are about to begin. Asher Thorley’s job was to make sure you didn’t miss even a minute of the party. ”
A coincidence , pulses Lys’s voice in her head. A coincidence.
Suspicion crawls into her, cold and skittering. “Whose birthday is it?”
Paris’s smile is heartrendingly familiar. “Why, my son’s, of course.”
In the distance, the music clicks off. A hush falls over the crowd.
It’s as if someone placed a glass jar over a living flame—everything snuffs out all at once.
In the open door stands a devil in a three-piece suit, his dark hair slicked into a hard part.
Oliver Lysander, the night falling in around him.
“He prefers to go by his middle name these days,” says Paris. “But I have always called him the name his mother gave him, the day he was born.”
Understanding is a fist around her throat. “And what name is that?”
“Oliver,” he says. “Oliver Keeling.”