Chapter 2 #2
I once read about a woman whose son died young.
She left his room exactly as it was the day he passed.
She locked the door and never went back inside.
Fifteen years later, when she died, her extended family finally opened the door.
Everything was exactly the same as it had been years earlier.
Dusty schoolwork on the desk. A half-finished peanut butter and jelly sandwich long turned to blooming mold, then to dust. A basket of laundry next to the dresser, folded but not put away.
And over it all was a layer of dust, a blanket of cobwebs, and the dead bodies of dozens of bugs that had been drawn to the empty room and had died in its tomblike stillness.
Well. Everything good that was in me had been locked in a room the day I became a mine.
I remembered who I was and what I was, and I remembered who I loved and what they meant to me, but for now, it stayed hidden.
It stayed safe. I knew if I opened the door, Jagger’s blood would destroy it—or I’d destroy it myself, because there was a new part of me that very badly wanted to destroy.
Lastly.
The final way I was different?
I was faster, stronger, and more powerful.
But here’s a secret. Keep it, please.
While being a mine made me faster and stronger, it wasn’t what made me more powerful. My brother had made me more powerful when he unlocked the power inside of me. Being a full-blooded, second-born conjurer was what made me powerful.
Tonight, I might die my final, true death, but not because I was weak. Like Rou said, it would be because I liked dancing with death.
Even though, no, I really didn’t.
I drained the last of the iced tea. There were only crumbs left on the cookie plate.
A slipshot, Harry, hurried into the kitchen. He was my favorite slipshot. Mostly because he’d only tried to kill me twice, unlike the rest of them, who’d tried countless times during my childhood.
Slipshots were funny creatures. They were born, I think, from greed turned to murder.
They sprouted up from the clink of money hitting blood.
The money was relative. It could’ve been murder for a car, a parking spot, a watch, or a pair of shoes—it didn’t matter.
All that was needed was an immense amount of greed and murder.
And then a slipshot was born. They came out as adults and didn’t live more than twenty or thirty years.
Greed wasn’t an emotion that could sustain life.
Slipshots were a bit like magpies or packrats. Anything shiny, anything valuable, anything someone else loved—they wanted it. So they stole it. If they got to kill in the act of stealing, even better.
Jagger used them when he wanted something stolen that didn’t require subtlety or skill. Slipshots weren’t known for either.
You’d think they might’ve considered me a kindred spirit, since I was Jagger’s thief too, but most slipshots hated me.
When I was little and a slipshot tried to steal my rubber ball and shove a knife through my throat, I asked Rou why. She said, “Asking why a slipshot steals and murders is like asking why water is wet. Don’t desire them to be what they’re not.”
So when Harry hurried into the kitchen, I palmed a knife and turned my attention to him.
He grinned, reached over, and tugged on the end of my braid. His fingers were so fast that when he held up the black band I’d used to tie my hair, I only raised my eyebrows.
“Are the tables all set? The plates laid out? Everything ready?” Roumelade asked, holding out a platter loaded with chicken, new potatoes, and sprigs of rosemary and thyme.
Jagger had requested swan, because in centuries past, swan was a delicacy eaten by the aristocracy.
But Roumelade had gone fiery-red and said, “If you wanted a cannibal for a lover, then you should’ve pulled a mermaid from the sea.
This house only eats creatures of the land, never beasts of the sea. ”
So we weren’t having swan.
“It’s set. Ready for the party, yeah?”
Harry said “party” like someone might say “billion-dollar bank balance.” He knew Jagger’s parties almost always included murder, and he, like any good slipshot, was looking forward to it.
Whether it was me, another slipshot, a pickpocket, a shill—anyone, really—it didn’t matter, as long as there was blood.
He grinned and reached for my other braid. I shook my head, and he paused mid-reach.
“I expect,” he said, dropping his hand, “once Mari’s initiated, she’ll bring us to an era of glory.
The streets’ll run with conjurer blood. We’ll loot their houses.
We’ll take their objects of power. We’ll .
. .”—his eyes glossed over happily—“use their skulls as piggy banks to hold their gold. Jagger hasn’t said it, but I know”—he tapped his nose—“Mari here is a mine after a slipshot’s heart.
She’s the pride of Hell Gate. Murderous thief.
That’s what it is. That’s what we like.”
He winked at me and held up the second hair band. My double French braid unraveled.
“Looks better down,” Harry said.
He grabbed the platter and hurried from the kitchen.
“He’s right,” Rou said.
I frowned at the loose, wavy brown ends falling against my pure white shirt. White shirt, white pants, pale skin, and dark hair. I was wearing what all mines wore the night they learned whether they’d live or die.
“I like it better braided.” I tugged on a strand.
Rou tsked and wiped the sweat dripping down her forehead with the back of her hand. “I meant he’s right about you. You’ve always denied it, but there’s a monster in you. What’s wrong with that? If you don’t accept the monster . . .” She shrugged. “Bad things happen when you deny your nature.”
That was the trouble. I didn’t want to be a monster.
When I looked in the mirror, what did I see?
I saw everything I’d missed before.
I looked like my father. I looked like Jacob.
I was forgettable. I was a quickly flowing river your eyes moved past. I was leaves flickering in the wind, casting shadows and light, keeping your gaze from settling and capturing my likeness. But when your eyes finally settled, what did you see?
Innocence.
Just like my twin brother, my final form was the personification of innocence.
Softly spun brown-gold hair, with wispy tendrils at my temples. Round pink cheeks flushed with uncorrupted youth. Soft pink lips. Unblemished skin. Blue eyes unpolluted and crystal clear.
Young. Pretty. Nonthreatening.
I’m sorry for the horticultural lesson, but my new form reminded me of a buttercup.
Bright, yellow, sunny, and poisonous.
Innocence packaged around deadly intent.
A monster.
“You want me to be a monster?” I asked.
Rou shrugged. “If you want to live past midnight, you’ll have to be.” She bent down and pulled a rack of ham from the oven. The heat blew over me, singeing my cheeks and bringing out the scent of charred meat.
“Mari?”
I turned. Justice was at the entrance to the kitchen. Instead of looking at me, he kept his eyes on the scorch-marked wall.
I stood and pushed my chair in. “Yeah?”
Was it time?
“Jagger’s asking for you.”
There was something in his voice that made the hair on the back of my neck stand and my blood beat in a slow, viscous thud. I studied him, but he refused to look at me.
Rou winked, her wrinkles scrunching with her smile. Be a monster, she seemed to say.
“All right. I’m ready.”
I followed Justice through Hell Gate, wondering the whole while, could I be a monster without being monstrous?