Every Exquisite Thing
PROLOGUE
A full moon hung low over the mir-rored sur-face of the lake, round and sil-ver as a ten-pence piece.
A dark-ened fig-ure knelt on the shore, scream-ing like a wounded an-i-mal.
Blink-ing sleep from my eyes, I squinted through the arched win-dow in my dorm room. With a sick-en-ing lurch, I rec-og-nized the spi-dery limbs and the short black hair.
Davina.
I don’t know what made me run to her. We hated each other with a venom I’d never ex-pe-ri-enced be-fore—our ev-ery ex-change left punc-ture wounds—and yet there was some-thing so ex-is-ten-tially ter-ri-ble in her cries. Some-thing that called to me like a siren.
Stuff-ing my feet into sheep-skin boots, I tossed a trench coat over my pa-ja-mas and hur-tled out of the flat. The night air was so cold it felt solid, and the Great Lawn was slicked with dew as I sprinted down to-ward the lake. A low mist gath-ered in the Cross-woods be-yond, swirling with moon-light to cast a spec-tral glow over the grounds. Ev-ery-thing smelled of frost and silt.
As I grew closer, Davina’s howls ebbed to a low sob, and some-how that was worse.
Breath-less, I skid-ded to a halt be-side her. Her head was in her hands, nar-row shoul-ders shak-ing vi-o-lently in-side her leather jacket. Her knees pressed into the wet lakeshore, and damp was spread-ing up her black jeans—she must have been freez-ing.
“Davina,” I said, torn be-tween soft-ness and fe-roc-ity, the words com-ing out some-where in be-tween.
She stilled at the sound of my voice. “Leave me alone, Penny.”
“No.” I pulled my coat tighter around me, teeth chat-ter-ing. “You’re up-set.”
Her hands clasped her face with a kind of fierce des-per-a-tion, as though try-ing to hold her fea-tures in place. “Just fuck off.”
“No.”
Usu-ally she would fight back, spar for spar, dodg-ing and par-ry-ing with vi-cious words, but her fe-ro-cious spirit seemed to aban-don her. In-stead she be-gan hy-per-ven-ti-lat-ing, rol-lick-ing gasps wrack-ing her whole body as she tried to take in air.
Then she said some-thing else, but it was so ob-scured by her la-bored wheezes that I didn’t catch it.
“What?” I asked. I’d been crouch-ing be-side her but had to give in to my trem-bling mus-cles and lower my knees to the ground. The cold wet earth turned my silk pa-ja-mas into ice in an in-stant.
Slowly, silently, Davina low-ered her hands from her face, turn-ing to look at me.
My stom-ach heaved, and I fought the urge to cry out.
Her left eye was gone.
But there was no blood. The socket was sim-ply welded shut, bi-sected by a ragged gash from the arch of her brow to the ridge of her cheek-bone. Even in the sil-very moon-light, it was clear the scar was a faded pur-ple, as though the wound were weeks or even months old.
Im-pos-si-ble. I’d seen her only hours be-fore.
Plant-ing a palm on the ground, I stared at the earth and fought to keep from faint-ing. My vi-sion blurred, shim-mer-ing like mist and silk and shad-ows.
“Oh my god,” I whis-pered, bile sting-ing the back of my tongue.
I looked up at her again, dizzy and dis-ori-ented, the feel-ing of land-ing into a par-al-lel world where ev-ery-thing was wrong.
Davina was shak-ing un-con-trol-lably now. “It’s real, then. Not a night-mare.”
Pull it to-gether, I told my-self. This isn’t about you.
Ex-cept it was.
“I’m so sorry,” I all but moaned. Blood thun-dered in my ears. “I’m so sorry.”
She cov-ered her face once more, and my heart broke for her. She started mur-mur-ing lowly, ur-gen-tly, like a litany. “Not my eye. Please, not my eye, I— It can’t be gone. No, no, no. I’ll do any-thing.”
My skin prick-led with vi-car-i-ous dread. “Does it hurt?”
A fran-tic sob. “I felt the blade, I— It doesn’t make sense. There was no real knife to my face. How can— Argh-h-h-h-hhh.” She drove her fin-gers through her cropped black hair, grab-bing des-per-ate fist-fuls of it.
“Were you awake?”
She shook her head fiercely. “The pain woke me up pretty quickly.”
“And you came here?” My stom-ach was gripped in a vice, threat-en-ing to empty at any mo-ment.
“I don’t know why I was com-pelled to.” She dropped her bone-white hands into her lap and stared out to the eerily still wa-ter. The swans barely caused a rip-ple as they cir-cled hyp-not-i-cally. “It was like my feet dragged me of their own ac-cord. I didn’t even scream, at first. I thought it was a dream.” Her whis-per-ing voice rose an oc-tave. “It has to be a dream, Penny. It has to.” I’d never heard her sound so young.
A strange kind of pro-tec-tive-ness came over me. I grabbed her by the shoul-ders, look-ing at her straight on, not flinch-ing at the sight of the wound even though I so badly wanted to. “We’re go-ing to find who did this.”
But her trem-bling only in-ten-si-fied. She once again be-gan pray-ing to a face-less de-ity. “No, no, no, please, please don’t be real, please—”
“Davina…”
Then she let go, let the pain and an-guish and fear roll out of her in vis-ceral screams. She dug her fin-gers into the earth, drag-ging deep claw marks along the shore. “No, no, no, no…”
The ghostly swans on the lake watched with fu-ne-real am-biva-lence.
Fear gripped me by the ribs as I ran a fin-ger over my own warn-ing scar—carved as I slept by an in-vis-i-ble blade, a dis-em-bod-ied hand.
There were al-ready three dead bod-ies in the Masked Painter’s wake.
The mes-sage was clear: If we didn’t find the killer soon, we would both be next.