Chapter Nine
Pax is practically panting. He turns to the boy. Both pairs of eyes darken: Pax’s like storm clouds, Nirav’s like pools of ink. “Who are you?” he asks of Nirav. I halfway expect him to bare fangs.
I blink. “You two don’t know each other?”
The boy shakes his head.
“Of course not,” Pax growls. It sounds as if he is fighting to keep his voice level. I understand his need to fight anguish; Max Blanck is in this painting, too? “You came to me, remember? Did you tell him to paint this, Stella?”
I know what he’s asking. Is this your vision, or the boy’s?
“No.” I place my hand gently on the boy’s shoulder. He flinches, but he doesn’t shrug away.
Ah, the poor young lad.
Stella, his gifts are dark but useful. He touches an object, and then he sees.
Past, present, future: If the energy is there, Nirav can read it.
“This is Nirav and it’s his vision.”
Pax tugs at his undershirt collar, stretches it. He can’t quite seem to catch his breath. My heart surprises me by feeling sudden, deep empathy. He is making me ache; he is so tormented by this painting.
Wanting revenge’ll do that to ye!
A man that tastes revenge keeps his wounds green.
Revenge? I think.
Spirit falls silent. It’s a question without me even meaning to ask one.
Pax gnaws at his thumbnail, then seems to realize he’s doing this, and spits his disgust. That sleek manicure of his—it’s to cover up bad habits. What other bad habits does he have?
Pax looks up at me at last. His eyes are red, glassy. “Do you know who this man is?” He practically jabs a hole through the canvas, he points at it with such force.
I didn’t, at first. But now I do. When he said the name, I knew immediately. I nod.
Pax takes a deep, steadying breath. “Max Blanck. He is the asshole who—”
Murdered my sister.
“Murdered my sister,” he says.
My every muscle clenches. Both of us? Both of us lost a sister in… “The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire,” I whisper.
His eyes are knives. “That’s him.”
I feel ill. I close my eyes, droop onto the settee.
We contain the same pain. The two of us are drawn together in our mutual anger and anguish. This is how we found each other. This is why.
I’m shaking my head as if I’m already rejecting whatever comes next. I don’t want any part of this. Of the brackish delicious ache that comes when the Darkness washes in. No, this desire to share our wrath? It is too intense. It’s unhealthy.
Pax studies the painting again. His steely eyes never scan past Max Blanck. A vein in his neck throbs, pulsing purple anger.
It is a low, angry note, the one my soul plays. One I am familiar with. My grief turns, catches aflame. I taste it. Revenge. It takes like fine wine, and it’s just as intoxicating.
This is destiny, is it not? That Pax and I would meet this way?
(Questions. Spirit is silent.)
“Can I see the others?” Pax lifts his chin at the stack of canvases I’d tossed onto an armchair. I’m still so shell-shocked, I forgot we’d brought the lot of them. “The other paintings.”
I pull out the first: a swollen-to-flooding river washing away a terrified cow. The second: dozens of dead bodies littering a beach. I shudder.
Aye, the earthly realm serves up much sadness.
“These paintings,” Pax says without looking up from the canvases. “They’re excellent. Technique, color, perspective, brushstrokes… they’re magnificent.”
Nirav’s presence lightens beside me, at these compliments.
The third painting is of a man, bearded and gray, sitting in a posh room, drinking brandy and smoking a cigar. Water streams down the walls, floods around the man’s ankles. The juxtaposition—the calm man, the gushing waters—is horrifying and oddly serene.
“It’s Stead,” Pax whispers. “My mentor.” He turns to Nirav. “Did you know this gentleman?”
Nirav shakes his head.
The next painting makes me want to vomit on sight. I realize now what it depicts. My eyes sting. The smell of smoke fills my nostrils.
“The Asch Building,” I mutter. “Where the Triangle Fire took place.” I don’t even want to touch the painted flames. I am unbearably hot. “I can’t even walk that city block. It’s too painful. The screams are so loud.”
Pax thrusts the canvas toward the boy. “And this one… do you know this tragedy?”
Nirav looks down, shakes his head. He can barely keep his eyes on his own creation. It’s almost as if he can feel the flames licking his skin, the smoke eating his lungs.
Before I realize it, Pax snaps the painting of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire across his knee. The wooden bars stretching the canvas crack.
Nirav nods at Pax, his eyes wet.
Pax picks up the original painting and sinks into a silk chair.
“We’re at a cocktail party?” he mutters.
“With Max Blanck?” And that setting—New York society.
Rich, colorful wallpaper. Long, expensive silk draperies.
Bright Oriental rugs. It sickens me, this wealth in the hands, in the bank account, of that murderer.
I reach over Pax’s shoulder; the heat emanating off him could fuel a lantern. Do not touch. “That’s the Woolworth Building under construction there, out the window. Do you know which apartment this might be?”
“We can definitely find out.”
I try to push down the feelings that accompany this new connection I’ve just found: I am less alone.
I know someone else who feels the exact pain and anguish that I feel: a sister, murdered by greed and fire.
A bond like that is not safe. It knows no boundaries.
It is dark and hungry and filled with shame.
Does he feel it, too?
“Is this our future?”
Pax is nodding before I can even finish asking the question, and the force I feel near him, like an ocean pulling me under the surface, strengthens. “I can get justice for my sister’s murder.”
Why haven’t you told him about your sis, Stella?
Pax’s silver eyes connect with mine, clicking like the tumblers of a lock, snick. “If you could get revenge on someone who murdered a loved one, would you?”
Not everyone gets asked a question that pierces their soul so deeply. One question that becomes a defining moment of their entire existence. A pivotal query.
And of course it’s a question, what Pax asked. A blasted inquiry, so Spirit is mum.
I feel dizzy, I am so overwhelmed with desire for revenge. I didn’t know the Dark Legion could call me so loudly. I hear them beckoning:
You can have justice for Daisy. You can exact vengeance on her murderer.
I can’t… I don’t…
“Yes,” I whisper. My throat is dry with retribution.
This is a mistake. I feel it deep in my bones.
Joining Pax, it feels like looming death.
Mine? Or someone else’s? I’ve been able to keep the Dark Legion at arm’s length, but this feels like inviting them in.
Pax swims in darkness; his aura is tornadic.
I not only don’t trust this playboy and his intentions, but I sense deep danger near him.
In him. He’s a smooth talker, a secret keeper. Why trust him?
Questions.
Pax paces his apartment, the boards beneath his bare feet squeaking. “We’ll need to get you set up in a nearby boardinghouse.”
“No,” I force through my dry, tight throat. I cannot afford to be in such close proximity to him. “I cannot afford this neighborhood.”
Pax pshaws this. “William Stead left me a pile of money. I’ll pay your rent.”
I can’t possibly be indebted to someone as steeped in wrath as Pax Princip. “Absolutely not.”
Pax licks his lips. His face has softened slightly, but there are still hints of the wolflike anger from just moments ago.
He inhales deeply, and I sense that he’s forcibly softening his exterior. He smiles his extra-electric smile at Nirav.
“Nirav, is it?”
The boy nods. He’s leery of Pax, but he’s listening.
“I’ll pay for a room for you in the same house as Stella here. Would you do that? No strings attached. I promise.” He lifts his palms as if surrendering.
Of all the dirty—
Nirav’s eyes narrow on Pax. He’s smart enough not to agree right away. But he’s also smart enough not to pass up free, if temporary, housing. People like me, Nirav—we live day to day.
Nirav slips his hand into mine and squeezes it, tight. It obviously pains him to do this, to make contact with someone like me who is currently feeling so much anger, sadness, confusion. Nirav’s eyes meet mine. His eyebrows raise: We should do this.
I am furious that Pax would use a kid in this way, but I cannot deny Nirav a roof over his head and food in his belly. He was sleeping on a pallet in a stairwell. I can do this for him.
I agree through gritted teeth. “If you house both of us.”
Why am I agreeing to this? What are we plotting, exactly?
I blink at Pax and I know the answer to that. His eyes are knives. He’d draw and quarter that Blanck asshole if he could. Shadows ooze up through the floorboards of Pax’s apartment and rise slowly like smoke.
Pax paces more. “We’ll need a storefront as cover. A headquarters for meeting, planning. Probably need to do a few high-profile readings, build our name. And research, of course. We have to find Blanck’s Achilles’ heel.”
My skin feels like it’s blistering. Smoke fills my lungs. “I—I can’t—”
Spirit, you’ve been awfully quiet about all this.
Is it permission to proceed with the ultimate revenge? Am I to murder the murderer? Isn’t that justice?
Yes.
The shadows wrap tight around my ankles, slither up my bare leg.
But… no! Those were questions. Who’s answering me?
And he’s there, right beside me, closer than he’s been in over a decade.
I cannot look directly at him, but I can see that his eye sockets are drawn and gaunt, dark as an abyss.
Shadows crawl beneath his thin, papery skin like worms. His breath on my cheek is hot and smells of decay. I am paralyzed in his presence.
The brim of his hat lingers so close it almost dusts my temple. The Cold One lifts an arm, swooping his musty cloak over my head.
Yes.
I pass out.