Chapter Eighteen
Pax and I walk to the Bureau headquarters in heated silence. Kiyoko immediately props open doors and begins sweeping. “This place is just asking to take us all down with consumption,” she mutters. She hands Nirav a rag and a bucket, and they get to work.
I pick up a small knife and begin stripping ancient wallpaper.
Pax leans against the wall I’m scraping and crosses his arms. Anguish darkens his features, anger sharpens his lean angles. I sneak a glance sidewise. He is wounded, the very picture of devastation.
“Your sister, too?” Pax asks. His voice is thin, and the pain it contains somehow angers me, rather than summons my guilt.
I scrape the wall more furiously.
I nod. I don’t talk about Daisy to others.
Ever. Except, well, to Snuff. And look what happened there.
My stubborn cat, spilling all my secrets.
I wonder exactly how much Kiyoko knows. I pray not all of it.
I hope that my blame wasn’t also relayed.
How guilty I am, how my selfish choices led to my sister’s demise.
I believe in emotional currency. I don’t reveal things that can be used against me. Used to manipulate me.
“Can I please talk to you for a moment outside, Stella?” There is a bladelike tone in his voice, sharp and steely. Kiyoko and Nirav both stop what they’re doing and look to me, but I know that his tone isn’t wrath, it’s agony.
I did not sign up for more agony.
“Can’t we discuss in here?” I don’t look away from the stubborn patch of wallpaper I’m attacking. The clocks next door tick. Those damn clocks never cease chipping away at our minutes. “There is quite a lot of work to do—”
“No,” he says, his voice a cleaver. “I’d really like to talk outside.”
You should go, Stella.
You and he are drawn together, and you should go.
We absolutely are NOT is my immediate reaction to that.
But I am often surprised by Spirit’s insight, so I set down my scraping knife and follow him through the back door.
The alley is wide and relatively free of debris, thanks to the stables next to us.
They load horses and carts in and out through this passageway, so they’ve kept it relatively tidy, if not bemired with a few spotty droppings.
It smells of hay—fresh and airy, like bales of sunshine.
The pleasant scent does nothing to soften the storm brewing in Pax.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your sister?” His voice is too calm, too level, his eyes tight.
Immediately, my hackles rise. He’s asking too much of me. He’s asking for that final grain of rice, the one that will tip the scale. “We work together,” I reply. “You don’t have to know everything about me.”
“Work together. Okay,” he says, nodding too much, too quickly. “We’ve made plans. Promises. We’re in a painting together, Stella. With Max Blanck. I told you about Julia. You didn’t think you should tell me about your sister as well?”
I don’t like the way he said that. “Daisy,” I spit at him. “Her name was Daisy. And no. I didn’t.”
Pax paces the alley, his jaw working to and fro. His aura is stabby lightning bolts. Ire rises inside me.
“I see how deeply you want revenge against Blanck,” I say. “If you knew about Daisy, I thought—” I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to articulate my argument through my anger. “I thought you’d manipulate me into murder. I thought I’d lose myself. And I’m not doing that. I’m not.”
Pax stops short and looks at me with searching, quizzical eyes. “Manipulate you? Is that what you think of me?”
“It is. Am I wrong? You seem to have awfully strong powers of persuasion.”
We stand there a moment, silent, eyes locked.
This is it, I suppose. This is where I walk away.
Stella…
Spirit says gently,
Watch his posture change.
Watch his eyes soften.
Watch his jaw loosen.
He wants to make amends, Stella.
Let go of your anger and listen.
“That hurts,” Pax says at last. “I suppose I understand where it’s coming from, but it still hurts.”
Pax reaches for my hand, but no. I jerk away. I cannot switch off this much anger like a light bulb.
He laces his fingers together and leans toward me. His eyes plead with mine.
“I have kept no secrets from you. Not a one. And I will not do that. If we’re doing this, if we’re going after Blanck—”
His voice catches, and I soften. His pull is so very strong; we are two planets in space, orbiting each other, reliant on each other to maintain our paths. The vastness of this image frightens me. It’s too massive, too dark and delicate. One wrong move and we both implode.
He must sense my fear, because he gently reaches forward, then stops, his hand inches from my face. He raises his eyebrows, a question: May I? But I shake my head no. I cannot bear to have him cup my face. He lowers his hand to his side.
“If we’re going after Blanck, there must be no secrets. None. Do you agree?”
No secrets.
It goes against my every instinct, my every defense mechanism. I want to run away, far and fast. Can I even live without secrets? Do I know how?
But the idea sounds so lovely. So freeing.
The clocks next door shave away the seconds, tick tick tick. My heart ticks alongside them.
Spirit shows me the image of a butterfly, flitting from flower to flower. Is that what it would feel like, to put my trust in someone? It is unfamiliar, this image. I am unsure how to interpret it.
“No secrets,” Pax repeats. His hand is balling into a fist and uncurling, over and over. I feel the hurt and anger radiating from that gesture.
I can’t believe I do this, but I reach forward, grab his hand. It’s smooth and strong. I squeeze once.
The sudden scent of vanilla—overly strong and sickly sweet—fills my nostrils, and in my mind’s eye, I picture oleander, beautiful and poisonous.
Do not trust.
Spirit, warning me. It breaks the spell. No trust. I almost fell. I know better.
I find my gravity, release his hand, and push him gently away. I cannot have what Daisy cannot have, I remind myself. And I will not live through the pain of losing someone else.
But I can agree to his request. I can get revenge. For Daisy.
“Okay.” I am terrified, saying this. “Okay. No secrets.”
Except, of course, for one.