Chapter 24
Luna hastened down the sidewalk, the heels of her boots ringing out against the cold pavers.
But no matter how quick a pace she set, she could not outrun the storm of feelings swirling in and around her.
The night had grown bitter cold, and she was glad of that.
The sharp sting of wintry air on her cheeks, particularly after the balmy sweetness of that Fool’s Spring day, was, at least, a partial distraction.
But as she reached the end of Addle Street and arrived at the turn onto Jolly Pidgeon Way, which led to the warehouse district by the docks, she paused.
Though the cold air knifed in her lungs, she forced herself to drag in a deep breath.
Then exhaled in a rough gasp of words, “Oh, what are you doing, Luna Talbot?”
Truth be told, she didn’t have an answer.
Yes, of course, she was worried for Tobias.
The boy was an utter idiot, but she didn’t want to see him slaughtered by some nameless Dark Sorcerer simply for trying to earn a little pocket cash.
That didn’t mean she should be going anywhere near anything to do with sorcerers and sorcery. It wasn’t safe. For her.
For the world.
Luna sniffed hard and bit her lip, rocking on her heels uncertainly. She couldn’t bear to go back now. Not after her vehement defiance of her boss. She couldn’t go back and . . . and face Mr. Grimm.
“Oh, Green Mother,” she whispered, and squeezed her eyes tight, tucking her chin down into her buttoned-up coat collar.
How had it all gone so horribly sideways?
She knew she shouldn’t kiss him. She knew it.
It just made everything so complicated, especially considering how much—how very, desperately much—she liked those kisses.
Gods on high, did that man ever know what he was doing with that dangerous mouth of his!
This was bad. Very, very bad. Because Wednesday was coming, but she still had to get through Tuesday first. And somehow, she had to do so without entangling her heart in something she couldn’t bear to leave.
She already felt as though she would have to rip out that essential organ and leave it in a bloody mess behind her just to board that train.
And now that she knew how he felt? Now that she’d seen his face in the thaumagraph?
Now that she’d experienced the passion of his kisses and his hands and his gasping breaths and his beating heart?
This was going to kill her.
Quite literally, if she wasn’t careful.
Perhaps she should tell him the truth. The whole truth, not the little partial half-truths she’d admitted along the way. Maybe if she told him everything—her real name, the reason behind her fugitive state, who it was who dogged her every footstep—maybe he could help her. Maybe.
Or maybe she’d just get him killed too. Like her parents.
The truth had nearly killed her aunties.
If she hadn’t abandoned them when she did, they would not have survived much longer.
But Mr. Grimm was not like the aunties. As powerful as Auntie Apolonia was, she couldn’t ultimately contain Luna, not once Luna had determined to leave.
She had only wielded Green Magic, and Luna had been able to elude that. Auntie Apolonia wasn’t a Dark Sorcerer.
But if Mr. Grimm decided to hold onto her, how could she stop him? Even the Sovereign Troth wasn’t the protection she’d imagined, for he had all his little workarounds. No, it was better if he didn’t know. Better if he didn’t try to protect her.
There was no other way; she’d seen the truth, long ago.
Scried a vision in her teacup as a young teenager, back in the early days of her training, back before her aunties forbade her from looking into her own future.
She’d obeyed their injunction, but obedience hadn’t changed the reality of what she’d already glimpsed.
A dark slab of stone. A circle of black-robed figures, arms upraised like cormorants, chanting in an ancient and long-damned tongue.
And herself.
Bound, gagged.
Struggling helplessly as a great, gaping Void opened in her chest, and something poured through, something twisted and malevolent and burning with clouds of anti-glitter.
Auntie Apolonia had seen it too. When she snatched the teacup roughly out of Luna’s trembling hands, she’d gazed inside, and her wrinkled face had turned ghostly pale.
But when she’d looked up and met Luna’s terrified, tear-swimming gaze, she’d said, “Now, now, child. Don’t take on.
Remember what Extremely Great Aunt Amelia used to say.
” Then she’d placed a comforting hand on Luna’s shoulder and enunciated firmly, “Fate’s my bitch. ”
But even Extremely Great Aunt Amelia hadn’t been able to stop the future. She couldn’t. The future was a cold inevitability. The best one could manage was to avoid it for as long as possible, but eventually, it always caught up. It always won.
Mr. Grimm wouldn’t accept the truth, however. He had dedicated his life to manipulating the essential whatsits of whosimacallit. He would believe, in his Dark Sorcerer’s madness, that he could do something. That he could make a difference.
And he would die for that belief.
Just as her father had.
Just as her mother had.
Luna blew out a slow, chilled breath, watching the air gently curl in the light of the corner streetlamp. “It’s better if you leave him,” she whispered softly. “Before it’s too late.”
He deserved a chance to make something of his life here in Ballycastle. It would be hard, yes. In fact, it might even break his heart. If she’d understood what she saw in his eyes today, what she’d felt while wrapped in his arms, as his mouth danced with hers—
“Miss Talbot.”
A little scream burst from Luna’s lips, as every tensed nerve in her body erupted.
She pivoted on heel, searching for the source of the voice which had spoken close to her ear, but saw nothing.
Nothing, that is, until, with a little shimmer of magic, Mr. Grimm appeared, slipping out of the celestial-embroidered dressing gown.
Luna caught her breath, pressing a hand to the buttoned breast of her winter coat.
“Mr. Grimm! You frightened me half to death!”
“I beg your pardon.” He spoke solemnly, not quite meeting her gaze. “That was not my intention.”
“What are you doing here?” Luna demanded. “Why did you follow me?”
“I came to let you know you can go back to the shop.”
“I already told you, Mr. Grimm, you don’t get to decide my—”
“Because I’ll deal with Tobias.”
Her breath caught. “What?”
“I’ll use the robe.” He shrugged. “What’s the point of having a robe of invisibility if one doesn’t take advantage of it now and then?
I’ll find the boy, give him the heads-up about the wardsmen, offer him a fair chance to make the smart decision.
I will not,” he added sternly, “drag him home to his mother kicking and screaming.”
Luna nodded slowly.
“It is his choice what he does with the information I give him.”
“I understand, Mr. Grimm.”
“Good.” Her employer swung an arm, indicating the sidewalk of Addle Street behind him. “I would escort you back, but . . .”
“I think I should come with you.”
“What?” He shook his head, that lock of pale hair flopping over his brow. “No.”
But Luna found that, while the prospect of venturing down to the warehouse district on her own was unsavory, the idea of sending Mr. Grimm into a potentially dangerous situation, all for the sake of a cause in which he did not believe, was somehow worse.
“It’s my fault you’re getting dragged into this,” she said. “The least I can do is—”
“Go back to Mrs. Goddard,” he said firmly. “You’ll do more good there than with me.”
“But if something happens to you—”
“Nothing will happen to me.” Mr. Grimm raised an eyebrow, the glow from the streetlamp casting the angles of his face into strange shadows. “I’m a Dark Sorcerer, remember? Nothing out here tonight is as scary as I am.”
“What about the other sorcerers?”
“I’ve only ever met one who caused me the least concern. And she’s dead.”
A shot of ice went through her soul.
He was talking about the Shadowbane Lady. The sorceress who killed his father.
Luna had often wondered about what had followed, whether or not Mr. Grimm had faced the dreadful Jastira himself.
It was said the Shadowbane Lady was taken out in a great battle of sorcery the likes of which the world had never before seen.
That the storm of anti-glitter had been visible from thirty miles distance, and the surrounding landscape had been utterly devastated, beyond recovery.
She’d never learned who the other sorcerer was.
Luna’s lips moved, beginning to form a question. A question to which she did not care to learn the answer, but which part of her felt she ought to ask even so. In the end, however, she didn’t have the courage.
“All right,” she said, dropping her chin and speaking to the middle button of his waistcoat. “All right, I’ll go. But please. Be careful, won’t you?”
She felt the pressure of his gaze on her. And when she dared to look up, the streetlight revealed once more that look of unmasked longing which she was beginning to realize had been there all along, only she’d been too blind to see it.
She couldn’t bear to see it now.
Turning sharply on heel, Luna strode swiftly back up the sidewalk the way she’d just come.
Only once did she allow herself to look back, but Mr. Grimm had already vanished.
Whether hidden in Yorik Balthazar’s old dressing gown or simply slipped down Jolly Pidgeon Way, she couldn’t guess.
He was gone, regardless, leaving Luna with a little shudder down her spine.