Chapter Thirty
The streets of Manhattan are tattooed on my heart, but William convinces us we should walk the pathways of our plan, now that we are only three days from the party.
He’s not wrong, but he insists on staying behind to manage the Bureau.
Spirit shows me a finger laid across a set of lips, a secret.
I hope Spirit is not telling me to be suspicious of William.
I feel my instincts are stronger than that.
So that afternoon, we take the IRT to the city hall stop.
The City Hall station is glorious, with domed tile ceilings in intricate patchwork patterns and hundreds of globe lights dotting the air like stars in constellations.
A busker plays the violin on the platform, a striking Vivaldi tune echoing in this massive chamber, and Pax drops a dollar bill in her case.
She tips her chin at his generosity, bow flying, and I can’t help myself; I lean into him and tease, “Her, you pay? Where’s that nickel you still owe me? ”
I am delighted to my core by the crooked smile Pax offers; it’s the first normal interaction we’ve had since Central Park. “It’s coming, Stella Bohdan. I always pay my debts.”
As I climb the majestic stairs of the station shoulder to shoulder with Pax, Nirav, Kiyoko, and Clarice (who has been glaring at me since that lean), my heart races.
In three days, my life will be different.
I might be wealthy, I might be on the lam, I might be in jail.
But it will be different, at long last. The possibilities are endless, and I can practically taste the danger and excitement of it all.
We cross the few short blocks to the Potter Building, Pax laying out our plans with whispers and points, drawing routes in the air, noting spots that are free from streetlamps and doormen.
We round the corner of the ornate Potter Building, and gathered there is a group of reporters, flashbulbs popping, shouts erupting: “Mr. Blanck, over here!” “Max Blanck! Can you tell us more about which celebrities to expect at your soiree?” “Mrs. Blanck! Will your friend Evalyn Walsh McLean wear the Hope Diamond to your celebration?”
Pop! Pop! Pow! The smoky stench of flashbulbs turns my stomach. I blink, startled and stumbling.
Slick Max Blanck and a highly coiffed woman—his wife—duck their heads and dart into a waiting Rolls-Royce.
Spirit shows me an image of the zealots, shouting and crowding and pushing. Yes, the paparazzi is similar. I am dazed.
“No,” Kiyoko whispers, discreetly covering her face with her hand. Some of the photographers, while aiming their cameras at the Blancks, face us. “We cannot be in photos. Disperse.”
We do, quickly. I duck into an alley that smells of a rotting carcass.
I gag, cover my nose with my collar, and run.
Pulsing Vivaldi music thrums in my head, a fast-paced tune sawing across violin strings.
I don’t look up for three blocks. When I do, I stand alone on Broadway.
I don’t know where the others are. I feel lonely and lost without my friends.
Lonely, I remind myself, is how this all started. I can’t be sure if these people truly are friends, or if I’m just filling the hole of my longing.
And reporters? How had we not prepared for reporters? So na?ve!
Don’t you see, Stella?
You are ill-prepared for this.
Drop this charade, my love. Thievery is not in
your wheelhouse.
I begin the long walk north, up Broadway to Julia’s Bureau. I’ve covered but a block or two, when a man leaps in front of me.
My defense mechanisms kick in, and I find myself shoving the person against a brick wall, my forearm across his windpipe, before I realize: It’s Pax. My heart thrums for a different reason now.
I release him with an awkward chuckle. “Oh! Sorry!”
He grunts. “Never apologize for roughhousing someone who likely deserved it.” It’s meant to be funny, self-deprecating, but there’s an undercurrent of sadness there that makes me wonder why he thinks he deserves a little roughhousing.
The sun is setting, and the empty steel beams that make up the shell of the Woolworth Building cast long, interlacing patterns on the sidewalks.
It’s a warm May evening, and the breeze smells like earth and blooming dogwood trees.
Pax’s hand brushes mine, sending shivers through me.
His fingers find mine as if it’s instinctual, and our hands lace together like the shadowy patterns that envelop us.
I want to run. Away with him, or away from him—that part is unclear.
“How are you doing, partner?” he says. The tease is sprinkled on his voice like cinnamon.
“I’m excited, honestly. Unsure. Nervous. Anxious…”
“So you don’t have the words to describe what you’re feeling. Got it.” Pax bumps shoulders with me. It’s like a hot arrow to my core. But he straightens quickly. Business partner. Got it. Why do I keep forgetting that he’s using me for my gift? Why do I trick myself into thinking it’s more?
So I say it: “Why me, Pax? There are so many mediums in this city.”
Pax drops my hand, scurries ahead, pivots, and walks backward, facing me. It’s playful and forces eye contact. “Why you? Your abilities are enticing.”
My abilities. Not me.
Temporary.
He walks by my side again. Our pace is brisk. “Have you thought about…” I sigh. “What if something goes awry, Pax? What if it all goes horribly wrong?”
“We’re going to be fine. It’s a good plan and it’s going to work.”
I nibble my bottom lip. That answer—it’s not enough. How can he be so certain? How can he be so aloof? Why has he been so standoffish of late?
I hate this particular brand of self-doubt and worry. Before I met Pax, my self-doubt and worry had one nexus: the zealots. Now, I feel it every time we’re planning this heist. Every time I’m around Pax. Every time I’m around Clarice.
“Are you with her?” It tumbles out of my mouth before I even fully realize I’m thinking it. “Clarice?” I don’t know why I care. No—I don’t care.
He blinks. Is it shock and confusion on his face, or is it surprise and guilt? “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I stop and tug his hand to get him to pause alongside me. “Is she sure?”
Pax laughs at that. Laughs! And again I imagine strong, dark coffee. Coffee can be bitter. Coffee can burn.
“Stella,” Pax says. The shine of his iridescent eyes makes my pulse kick a notch. His look is flirtatious, but I detect a hint of malice, too. “Clarice is just another business partner.”
Ouch.
Whew, Stella. You walked right into that.
I can’t stop the sheen of tears that glass my eyes. “Partner,” I repeat, nodding too fast. I swallow, hard.
Pax realizes how deeply this cut: Partner is what we have. It’s how I tease him. It’s how I get to both have him in my life and keep him at arm’s length. Partner is both intimate and sterile and I want both, dammit. Can’t I have both?
He doesn’t want both. I see that, feel that, now.
He cups my face with both of his hands. Tilts my chin up. “Stella, no, I—I misspoke. A partner? That’s you. That’s only you.”
He leans in. His breath is hot and sweet on my lips.
I can’t stop this, his immense pull. I know he is likely bad news, that he is temporary, that he is a playboy. But we are fated. Destined.
Pax’s kiss is immediate and deep and full and complete.
He pulls my body against his, his arms lean and strong, his fingers grasping my hair, hands skimming across my every curve, his tongue probing and tickling, his breath tasting of spicy cinnamon.
I run my fingernails up the base of his neck and across his scalp, through his hair, and he breaks the kiss to sigh.
He places a kiss below my jawline and drags his lips, his tongue down the length of my throat. I sigh, too.
The electricity, the magnetized pull I feel when our fingertips touch? This pull, this electricity, is cosmic. It feels massive, as tempting as standing on the edge of an abyss: The call to leap is overwhelming.
He spins me, and now my back is against the cool brick wall. He lifts his eyebrows, a question: Shall I continue? I pull him by his shirt collar to me, to my lips.
His touch is like lightning, my heartbeat as loud and rumbling as thunder. Is that a message from Spirit, or my own yearning?
I’m panting; I am shortened breath and red, swollen lips. He leans in to kiss me again and again, and each kiss is a raindrop opening a parched flower. It heats every part of me. I run my fingers down his chest, his abs. He inhales sharply.
His chest heaves against my chest, both of us grasping each other, grasping for breath between long, deep kisses.
I feel nothing but want. It’s overwhelming, my ache for him.
I can almost taste his darkness, as strong as hunger.
It makes my very teeth ache for moremoremore.
I am losing myself in his shadows. Here is where I can hide.
No. This is an avalanche. Too dangerous, too fast.
Did I hear a scream, or is Spirit sending me signals of danger?
It takes every bit of my willpower to pull out of this kiss. Our lips part with an audible pop. I am stunned and breathless and dizzy and weightless. Lost. “What was that?” I meant the scream. I meant the kiss.
We stare at each other, transfixed.
And then I hear it again.
A long, terrifying scream.
A scream that guts me to my core.
I snap backward. “Did you hear that?” Did I hear it, or did Spirit make me hear it? I never know!
Pax’s brow furrows. “No, I—”
The screams continue. Screams, now. Plural.
Bile creeps up my throat.
I peer over Pax’s shoulder. There, a mere two blocks down Washington Place, stand the shadowy remains of the Asch Building, its burnt, ten-story facade looming like a giant blight.
The metallic tang of the Dark Trio makes me salivate.
I am freezing, my blood ice. My hands shake as I point to the building over Pax’s shoulder.
I don’t see anything—no flames licking the sky, no plumes of black smoke.
But I hear things, like echoes—bodies plummeting toward earth.
Oh, heavens, I hear the roar of the inferno.
I hear their screams. Feel them, all around me. Falling.
Daisy is here with us, the Dark Trio whispers like a blade scraping bone. Join us. Come see your sister.
NO. Lies!
Pax takes long, steadying breaths. “How did we end up here?” he mutters. He looks back down Broadway as if it’s a mystery, how we are here, at this place we both so adamantly avoid. The site of our sisters’ murders. His jaw tightens.
I realize: His pain is as vast and piercing as my own. He is just as hurt and vulnerable as I am.
He grabs one of my hands, then the other. His silver eyes lock on mine, and even though he can’t hear the screams, can’t feel the evil lurking nearby, he seems to know they’re there. “I am making a vow to you right now, Stella Bohdan. We will be okay.”
He swallows hard, and his hands, knotted in mine, tighten. It almost hurts, but I need his hands, his eyes, his warmth, to ward off the cold Trio.
He lowers his chin so that he’s looking at me through the very tops of his eyes, his dark brows lifted high. “Stella? I always pay my debts. Trust me. Max Blanck is about to get what he is due.”