Chapter 18
Eighteen
Elodie
Icrouch behind the grimy window, palm sweating against the hilt of the scalpel. The hazy sunlight glints off the wickedly sharp blade.
Uncle Nik’s voice crackles from my earpiece. “The limo should be almost there. He’s alone in the backseat. Hard and fast, Elodie, before anyone can help him. You’re ready?”
My voice creaks past the lump in my throat. “Yeah.”
Not enough time for even the swiftest poison to work. This is the only way.
My hand trembles. I yank the scoop neckline of my tank top even lower.
As I brace the tip of the blade over my heart, my pulse thuds so loud it drowns out the rumble of traffic on the road below the apartment building and the chirping of the sparrows that nested on the railing of the Juliet balcony.
I’ll do this so fast, and then it’ll be over. I’m doing something no one else can do. Ridding the world of someone who’ll hurt so many more people if I don’t.
My hand keeps shaking. I swallow hard.
The limo glides into view. I train my gaze on the back window, reaching my awareness across the distance to the figure I know is sitting there, and focus my glim.
My heart stutters its next beat.
Then I plunge the scalpel straight through my flesh with a blare of pain and—
I jerk awake tangled in Other Elodie’s silk sheets. Again.
The ridiculously soft fabric sticks to my skin, damp with sweat the duvet’s temperature-moderating effects couldn’t prevent. My heart is racing away like it’s hoping to break right out of my chest.
I blink a few times, dispelling the fragments of the dream-memory clinging to my head. Nausea remains pooled in my stomach.
With a huff, I shove myself upright.
I can’t think about what’s already happened right now. I have to concentrate on what needs to be done today.
Today I’m going to get some answers. If I can keep my head on straight.
Toward that goal, I peel myself out of the covers and hunker down on the floor for my usual exercise routine. A more welcome sweat trickles down my back and coats my forehead, cooling during my grounding meditation afterward. Then the hot spray of my private shower washes it all down the drain.
I repeat my mantra silently with every motion. I have all I need. I have all I need.
I’m ready for this.
I go down to breakfast dressed in a typical Other Elodie weekend outfit of fitted blouse, flared skirt, and matching tights. Aunt Daphne breezes in as I’m gulping the last of my coffee.
“Looking forward to the social tonight?” she asks with one of her bright smiles, as if she yanked me across realities to party with my classmates.
I force a smile in return. “For sure. I’m going to go out and look into a couple of things this morning too.”
A shadow darts through Daphne’s eyes at the reminder of my actual mission. She recovers with a brisk nod. “I know you’ve been giving your… project your all.”
She has no clue how true that is.
I head out of the house with one of my double’s larger purses swaying at my side. Maurice drops me off at the uptown mall without comment.
I head straight into a bathroom stall and begin my transformation.
Cute outfit is traded for black dress pants, one of my white school shirts, and the indigo school vest. Not a perfect match for the uniform I’m going to emulate, but close enough to make the illusion easier to nail.
Before donning the shirt, I wrap my breasts with a long strip of gauze to flatten them as much as possible. Thank the radiants my chest isn’t worthy of bawdy poetry to begin with.
My hair I wrap into as tight a bun as I can manage at the nape of my neck. Like the clothes, it doesn’t need to look perfect, but having it tucked away will reduce the risk of it interfering with the illusionary magic.
Because I don’t want anyone yelling at me for being in the women’s restroom, I leave the last piece of my disguise for after I’ve headed out into the mall. I shove the purse into a pay-by-the-hour locker and then slide on the ring I picked out from Other Elodie’s collection yesterday.
It’s a relatively simple gold band with a few sparkling diamonds embedded in its surface. No one will notice the feminine touch once I’ve slid my gloves over top.
And I’ve wound several layers of ephemera around it, imbuing it with my illusion of Chuck the Eclipse employee.
Embedding magic in an object is usually a better choice for any effect you want to maintain for more than a few minutes. If I was conjuring the illusion continuously from scratch, I’d have to spend most of my energy and focus on that effort rather than investigating.
With the magic I poured into the ring, the illusion forms around me automatically. As long as I keep feeding it a little ephemera here and there, it should last for hours—maybe even days—without any further casting.
The ephemera I shaped grazes my skin as I walk out of the mall, just a whisper of sensation. It keeps me aware of the fact that everyone I pass is now seeing a black-haired, stocky guy in his mid-20s rather than me.
After a taxi drops me off a few blocks from the club, I hang around with a second illusion concealing me until another, unfamiliar figure in The Eclipse’s staff uniform appears. I hustle to catch up with him.
Through the first stutter of my pulse, he nods to me without any sign he notices a difference. “Hey, Chuck.”
“Hey,” I reply, keeping it short and sweet and hoping Chuck isn’t usually more talkative with this guy.
I included a voice-deepening element to the illusion, but anyone who knows Chuck well will notice he sounds different from usual.
I’d have needed an extended voice recording to replicate his cadence accurately.
Thankfully, an exclusive elite club isn’t likely to want its staff to do much talking.
My companion taps in the code to open the side door for us. I take surreptitious note of the numbers for future use.
He lets out a soft sigh as we step inside. “Let’s see what the bastards want from us today.”
Apparently the staff simply wander around waiting to discover what the patrons will call on them to do. That’s both convenient to my purposes and a little unnerving.
Here’s hoping whoever upset the real Chuck so much two days ago doesn’t stop by the club this Saturday.
I trail behind the other guy down a hall and into a large lounge area that must have once been an oversized living room, dining room, and maybe sitting room as well.
The walls separating the rooms have been taken down, but the edges of the ceiling still boast what look like original crown moldings with elaborate plaster flourishes.
Crystal chandeliers dangle from two fixtures, spreading a golden light over the antique furnishings, the brocade curtains, and the greenish wallpaper depicting delicate leaves and flowers.
It’s not yet noon, but the several men sprawled in the armchairs and seated on the sofas throughout the space have already gotten started on their day’s drinking. A sharp alcoholic odor drifts from wine glasses and crystal tumblers scattered across the side tables.
My gaze slides all the way to the far end of the room, and I almost give myself away with a flinch of my nerves. I stiffen against my startled reaction and the abrupt tug in my chest.
Byron is standing near the cloaked picture window that would look out onto the street if not for the curtains. He’s talking with a middle-aged man I don’t recognize, a polite smile fixed on his face but no enthusiasm showing in his commanding posture.
Of course he’d have been invited to join this club. No doubt his dad and grandfather are part of it too. A lot of lucent high society might continue to see the Worths as interlopers just because of the color of their skin, but they still want to benefit from the family’s skills and wealth.
It’s only the Luminary students like Salvatore, whose family’s criminal associations are well-known and who goes out of his way to antagonize the old guard, who’d be completely shut out of places like this no matter how highly ranked he is at school.
My Byron never mentioned The Eclipse to me—but from the ages of the students I’ve seen entering and the comments Daphne made about typical activities here, I’m guessing membership is only offered to those eighteen or older.
His invitation would have vanished along with his family’s favor when his parents disowned him.
Just one more thing he lost because of me.
Not that he looks as if he’s enjoying his time here. I can read his boredom in the set of his shoulders, the shift of his jaw.
He probably feels he needs to stop by regularly to keep up appearances and show he’s playing the social game of posh pricks.
Dragging my gaze away from my would-be match, I note how the two other staff members in the room are conducting themselves: hovering a discreet distance from the patrons, sidling over to ask if one or another would like their drink refilled when a glass is emptied. I mimic their stance.
A burly man with iron-gray hair lumbers into the room and prods my arm just hard enough to hurt. “Scotch, neat, pronto.”
I bite back the urge to say, “Can I get a ‘please’?” and duck down the hall to find the kitchen area.
The room I discover has been renovated to look like an upscale but old-fashioned bar, with a varnished counter that stretches the length of the room and leather-topped stools along it.
A couple of patrons have gotten serious about their early drinking, grousing to each other from their neighboring stools, but the bartender is free to make the drink I request right away.
Mr. Scotch doesn’t even acknowledge me when I set his drink on the table next to his chosen chair. Well, at least he’s not peering at me and picking out some flaw in my illusion.
A quiet summons brings the staff back to the bar to collect trays of hors d’oeuvres we cart around for the patrons to graze from. As I’m returning with a second tray after emptying the first, animated voices from the front of the building catch my attention.