Chapter 16
Two down. One to go.
I crept through the marble halls of the Bard mansion, tiptoeing around moonlight, burying myself in shadow. The sightless eyes of the marble statues lining the hall pressed into me. Could they see me, even in the dark? No. Statues couldn’t see. Not even Bard statues.
The mansion was a silent mausoleum. The entry was filled with hundreds—thousands?
—of white roses. It was a snowy landscape of crystal vases filled with roses in varying states of decay.
There was the perfect waxy white of lead-paint petals; the curling, yellowed edges of half-fallen petals; the brown, soggy petals with their pungent, fetid stink; and finally, the dried near-translucent petals that crackled like molted grasshopper husks under my feet.
Even after I’d left the entry, the sweet-decay stench lingered with ghostly persistence.
The Bard mansion was haunted with funeral roses.
It was different than it had been only a few weeks ago. Before, there’d been an air of drama, opulence, and danger. Now, the mansion had an eerie, abandoned feel.
No one was here.
No one had been at the Ward mansion either, although Justice had made sure to be seen in his Finn illusion by both cameras and passersby.
The Clarks were home, but I hadn’t lingered, especially not when Primus had roared, “Smith! Take note! A headless corpse cannot wear a crown!”
Rou’s fire concoction worked fast. At both the Wards’ and the Clarks’, I’d hurried for the office. I’d quickly sprinkled the liquid over desks, books, couches, fabrics—anything combustible. Then I’d set it ablaze. The blue inferno had consumed both homes in less than a minute.
Both times, Griff had asked, “Did it work?”
He couldn’t see beyond the facade illusion the conjurers had built around their homes.
“Yeah,” I’d said, watching the wall of flames devour the Ward mansion. “It worked.”
Justice had smiled when I said it.
“Having fun?” I’d asked.
He’d lifted his eyebrows. “I have to, don’t I?”
He did. So did I.
Even as I’d burned my family’s home, there’d been a joyful throb pulsing through me. It was a giddy, drunkenly happy feeling that reveled in the destruction of something beautiful.
I knew this about Jagger, but destroying the Wards’ home had made it very clear. Jagger loved to ruin good things. There were some beings in the world who loved to create, and there were some who loved to tear those things down.
What was more joyful? Building a tower of blocks, or smashing it and watching them tumble? Building a system, or burning it? Falling in love, or breaking a heart?
With each twisted flame consuming the conjurers’ homes, the joy of destruction had fizzed and popped in my veins. More, it sang. More.
It was a seductive joy. Wouldn’t it be lovely to destroy a home, a dream, a love?
Wouldn’t it be fun? Thoughts of all the other things I could ruin whispered insidiously.
Griff. His innocence made him weak. Justice.
I could break him—snuff out that last desperate dream. Finn. Would it feel good to hurt him?
I’d stabbed him on the lighthouse. Had that felt good?
Yes.
No.
No.
I shook out of the seductive hold, ignoring the siren lure singing in my veins, and slipped into a pool of shadow. My breathing was heavy and pained. I was panting as if I’d run miles instead of climbing stairs and sneaking down hallways.
The decaying rose smell filled my nostrils and hit my tongue with its sweet, rotting flavor. A drop of sweat slid down my forehead as I listened for any noise. A footstep. A curtain shifting. A creak or a groan.
Nothing.
The house was a quiet tomb.
I turned a cold brass door handle and darted into a darkened room.
I waited with my back pressed to the wall as my eyes adjusted to the lesser light.
There was only a long, rectangular spear of streetlight shining through the window in a muted strip over the room.
It was enough. It reflected off mirrors and metal objects, lighting the room in a ghoulish haze.
I tiptoed through the room, careful not to bump anything or jar any objects. I’d been here before. It was where Finn and I had been strapped to the inquisitor’s chair and questioned by Philoneas. The chair was in the center of the room, glowing silver in the light.
Stacks of newspapers and magazines cluttered the room. They stood taller than me, like termite mounds in the desert. There were couches. Paintings. Hats and metal urns. An opened jewelry box filled with glittering gems.
I turned, searching.
A woman was staring at me. Her face was contorted with rage, her arms high.
I tripped over a stack of magazines. Fell. Hit the ground. Who was it? Who? I rolled, grabbing my knife. I was about to throw it when I realized the woman hadn’t moved. Not an inch.
“Oh,” I whispered. “Hello.”
My mouth was dry, and my hands were shaking.
I sheathed the knife. I’d forgotten the mannequins.
The room had half a dozen of them spaced about, wearing luxurious gowns from years past. They were proportioned like a human, with pale alabaster skin and human-hair wigs.
They looked surprisingly lifelike. This one had on a mint-green gown covered in sequins and feathers.
A small feather hat was perched on her head.
“If I had to wear that hat for eternity, I’d be angry too,” I told her.
I stood and wiped my hands on my pants. Then I patted the jar of liquid in my coat pocket. Not broken, thank goodness, or I’d have been the one going up in flames.
I darted another glance at the mannequin. Eerie things. The back of my neck prickled. It felt like a mother spider hatching her nest of eggs on my skin. I looked around. No one here. Just me and the mannequins.
I pulled out the jar and set to sprinkling the anise and cinnamon scented liquid over the newspapers and magazines. I drizzled it on the couch. I poured the last of it on a wardrobe full of fur coats.
Then I fiddled with the lighter in my pocket, searching the room. This was the Bard’s storage room, where they kept some of their objects of power. There were objects of uselessness too, and just regular old objects. But for the most part, I was about to burn up . . . power.
There was a mirror—not like the “mirror, mirror on the wall” kind, but one (I think) that was a portal into fractured, figment places.
There was a copper bowl—probably one that, once filled with food, never went empty, although it might make you endlessly hungry.
There was a piggy bank that looked like it was from the 1950s.
It might have a never-ending supply of coins, or it might swallow money and never let it out.
There was an ivory comb with a design of sparrows and ivy.
That comb was a Bard invention. The comb of discernment.
I’d read about it. Supposedly, it separated truth from lie.
I ran my hand over the ivory teeth and then slipped the comb into my pocket.
Then my gaze caught on a small, clear glass vial filled with a golden liquid. The cap was gold, and the liquid inside floated with tiny flakes of gold dust and deep blue lapis. I lifted the vial and turned it so the flakes swirled and fluttered in the honey liquid.
What was this?
I read the cap. In tiny, barely discernable type, it read: “Take in event of emergency.”
I smiled and dropped it into my pocket.
Then I came back to the mannequin. There was a gem-studded brooch on her dress. It was a bee. Yellow and white diamonds. Onyx and jet. A ruby eye. A sapphire stinger.
I couldn’t let this brooch burn. First, it was beautiful.
Second, it was a famous object of power.
It made the wearer seem as sweet as honey, as alluring as nectar, as lovely as a bed of roses.
All the famous Bard women had worn this brooch.
It had graced the stage, the opera, and many palaces of the past.
Plus, if you pricked someone’s finger with the pin, making them bleed, then pricked yourself and held your fingers together, you became . . . entwined.
I unlatched the pin and drew it from the mannequin’s dress. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m taking this.”
“She doesn’t. But I do.”
I whipped around, my knife in my hand.
Luvic smiled from the dark.
I let out a sharp breath.
Luvic.
He wore a predator’s face. Hard eyes and hollow cheekbones. He was like the Bard mansion: no longer dramatic opulence, but instead a bleak darkness. I’d never seen him look like this—not even after weeks in the conjurer’s cage.
He’d always had a spark of mischief, a quick smile, an invitation to have fun. In the past, whenever Finn had gone quiet (thinking about his mom), or I’d died, or things had gone topsy-turvy at Hell Gate, Luvic had always been the one to bring us back to laughter.
Where had my friend gone?
He studied the knife held between us, and his smile grew sharper.
Maybe he was wondering the same thing.
I took a step back, dropping the brooch into my pocket with a sleight of hand. Luvic’s gaze remained on my knife.
“Is that the knife you killed Finn with?” His voice was melodious—a soft song. He sounded like he was asking what my favorite movie was, or whether I liked oranges.
I pocketed the knife. “No.”
“Hmm. What are you doing here?”
I studied his features. He stayed in the shadows. He’d been here the entire time. Or perhaps he’d come in from one of his hidden passages. All the same, I’d mistaken him for one of the mannequins.