Chapter 2
Two
Elodie
At Salvatore’s very reasonable question, apprehension crawls over my skin. I haven’t had time to think through all the possibilities.
If Kenneth had a shadowy figure egging him on to kill me, he might not be the only puppet in her reach.
Cole frowns at the mafia heir. “We inform the police, of course. They’ll take the necessary steps and unravel Kenneth’s connections.”
Salvatore arches his eyebrows at our Divination professor, turning his switchblade in a slow circle between his bare fingers.
“You figure they will? They’ve had a week to solve Elodie’s poisoning, and they’ve come up with shit all.
They didn’t stop the prick responsible from coming at her again.
What makes you so sure they could stop any other attacks? ”
Cole’s tone sharpens. “What the fuck are you suggesting we do, then?”
Byron steps a little closer, averting his eyes from the bloody corpse on the ground. “We can’t pretend nothing happened. Everyone’s going to want to know how our match sparked. The police will get involved whether we call them or not—and it’ll be worse if we don’t make the call ourselves.”
The thought of all the scrutiny and controversy that’ll come with revealing our bonds sets my heart thudding painfully hard. I never wanted to find myself in this situation again; never wanted to inflict it on these men again.
Asher glances at me. Maybe he reads something on my face, or maybe my behavior before has already made my feelings clear enough.
His right hand, the one that carries his own bond mark under his glove, clenches at his side. “Do we need to talk about our matching? Couldn’t we just… keep wearing our gloves, not mention it in front of other people, at least until we’ve sorted out the bigger problems we’re dealing with?”
Cole’s head ticks toward his younger brother with a trace of a wince.
I don’t know what to make of his initial reaction, but his reply comes out even—though gentler than he’s spoken to any of the rest of us.
“That would work for us because it’s just us two at home.
These three wouldn’t be able to get away with hiding their hands from their families for days on end. ”
Asher deflates slightly, but Byron lifts his head. “We could. We’re lucents, aren’t we? It’d be simple enough to cover the bond mark with a small illusion.”
“And then what?” Cole demands. “There’s still a dead body lying here. Even if we don’t say anything, whoever’s backing Kenneth will know what she sent him to do and how he must have died. Alerting the police will protect Elodie better than lying about it.”
Salvatore snorts. “How much have you dealt with any kind of police? They just want easy answers and open-and-shut cases. You think they won’t have all kinds of questions about how Elodie ended up killing Kenneth, why I was here, why she snuck out of her house?
I wouldn’t have believed he was psycho if I hadn’t seen him myself.
They’ll probably say we ambushed him for some made-up reason.
We’ll be handing them ammunition to screw over Elodie completely. ”
I hadn’t thought about that either, but he’s right. Tonight’s events barely make sense to me, and I lived through them.
The chill of the night washes over me with a gust of breeze, forming into clammy fingers that wrap around my stomach. My other three matches look at me, processing Salvatore’s words.
Asher speaks up tentatively. “What do you want, Elodie?”
Radiants help me. I want Kali to appear and twist time so none of this ever happened. I want to wake up in my dreary apartment in my own reality with the versions of these men I was supposed to belong to.
But if there are any gods watching over us, or if the supernatural beings who gave us our lucent powers still exist, none of them have shown any interest in intervening so far.
I draw in a breath, fighting to keep calm amid my panicked thoughts. “I’d never have wanted our bond to spark like this. To drag you all into my problems. But I don’t see how we can pretend all of it away, and—”
Salvatore breaks in with a cocky smirk and a flex of his hands. “Of course we can. It’s kids’ play, a shíorghrá. No body, no murder.”
Before I can ask what he means, he’s showing us. Magical power quivers through the air—and Kenneth’s body collapses in on itself.
No one could ever say Salvatore doesn’t have a sense of humor, dark though it might sometimes be.
As his alchemist glim breaks flesh and bone down into their component elements, a whoosh of expelled oxygen warbles through Kenneth’s clothes to mingle with the breeze, and then those clothes crumble too.
The fibers of his hoodie and jeans mingle with carbon and calcium and whatever else makes up a human body.
In the space of a few seconds, our classmate’s corpse transforms into what looks like a stuffed toy dog standing as high as my knee. White button eyes gleam eerily in the moonlight.
I don’t know whether to laugh or vomit.
Somehow I don’t think this is the kind of act the radiants envisioned when they mingled with humanity, if they had any idea they’d pass on some of their supernatural powers in the first place.
“What the hell—stop!” Cole bursts out, too slow in his shock. He lunges at Salvatore, grabbing his arm.
Salvatore flicks open his switchblade, and the professor jerks back, not so furious he’s lost his sense of self-preservation.
An angry flush still blotches Cole’s pale face. “You idiot. We didn’t decide—now there’s no way we can tell anyone what he did.”
“Exactly.” Salvatore keeps grinning as he draws back his foot. He punts the stuffed dog figure over the bridge’s railing. It hits the water with a faint plop.
And then all that’s left of Kenneth is the blood congealing on the boards.
Well, almost all. The mafia heir nods to the murder weapon lying where Kenneth once was. “I left you the knife. In case there’s ephemera in that you’ll want to read more. And for evidence or whatever.”
“Or whatever,” Byron mutters, but his voice is nearly as impressed as it is incredulous.
I wish I could tell him that his glim will be impressive too, in ways much more suited to him.
Cole sounds as if he’s restraining a growl. “You have no idea how much more trouble you’ve probably landed us in.”
Salvatore shrugs. “I don’t think so. We’re Elodie’s matches. It’s our job to take care of her. We can do it better than any fucking cop. Aren’t you the most brilliant lucent of the decade or some shit? And Worth here is top of the class—when Elodie’s generous enough to let him have it.”
He turns his smirk on Byron before his attention shifts to Asher. I can’t stop myself from tensing.
As the only of my matches not to have established any reputation beyond “charity case” in the eyes of our classmates, Asher tenses up too.
He speaks confidently enough, though. “I’ll help any way I can.
Whoever’s behind the attacks—we can’t let them get away with it. No matter how powerful they are.”
Exactly like my Asher would have said. My throat constricts with a faint ache.
Apparently we’re working together. I’ve plunged my matches into danger whether I like it or not.
But I still have some control over just how much danger they’re in. I’m not letting them paint targets on their backs if I can help it.
“Should we hide our bond marks, then?” I say cautiously. “If people find out we sparked our match the same night Kenneth disappeared, there’ll be a lot of questions.”
Cole sighs raggedly and swipes his hand over his face. “I suppose there isn’t much choice left. For fuck’s sake.” He narrows his eyes at Salvatore. “That means you’ll need to keep your glim under wraps if there’s anyone other than us around.”
Salvatore rolls his eyes. “I do know a few things about avoiding prosecution, Professor Raith.”
“And the rest of us…?” Byron’s mouth twists as if he’s not sure exactly what he’s trying to ask. I don’t like how off-balance my normally poised match looks.
Why wouldn’t he be off-balance? Just a week ago, he was worried he’d accidentally assaulted me. The last time we spoke, I acted like I hated him.
And a matching like this… If his family tree is like my original Byron’s, he’ll be the first Worth heir in generations not to be the core of his union.
Technically, I’m stealing him away from his family into mine. Not what he or his relatives would have anticipated—or wanted.
Cole lets out another huff of breath with authoritative firmness.
“Before this mess gets any worse, we’ll hold off on waking up more of our glims. When we do, it’ll be following the proper procedures to make sure there are no destructive consequences.
” He scowls at me as if I sparked with Salvatore while nearly drowning for kicks and giggles.
“We’ll need to start our own investigation,” Asher puts in. “Cole, you could access all Kenneth’s academy records, right? They might have some useful information.”
Yes, that seems safe enough. There’s nothing odd about a professor looking at student records.
My attention returns to Byron. He looks back at me warily.
There’s one obvious place he could ask around, but I’m not supposed to know it even exists. None of the other men do.
Fine. I can be subtle about my suggestion.
I manage a faint smile. “You and Kenneth ran in some of the same circles… extracurricularly, didn’t you? You could ask a few discreet questions, see who else comes around asking about him.”
He nods with a short jerk of his head. “Of course.”
“And I,” Salvatore begins, brandishing his switchblade, “will—”
I clutch his arm. “You’ll wait until we’ve covered the basics. You said yourself how powerful this woman must be. We don’t want to do anything risky that could backfire on us or make her realize how much we know.”
“I’m not afraid of her.”
I tighten my squeeze. “I know. But I am. Can you be careful for me?”
It’s a cheap ploy, but it works. Salvatore’s expression softens as he looks down at me, sending a giddy stutter through my pulse.
He hugs me close. “Whatever you say, mia amata. But I’ll be ready when we find that bitch.”
Okay, loose cannon temporarily defused.
Thunder rumbles louder with a dimming of the moonlight. New clouds are rolling in above us.
I’ve diverted disaster for now, but I’ve got a long tightrope walk ahead of me. I have four lives I need to avoid ruining and a history of doing the opposite.
Cole swipes his hands together. “All right. We know where we stand and what our next steps are. Let’s tie up the loose ends here and get some sleep so we can go forward clear-headed.”
He picks up Kenneth’s knife and motions the rest of us back. With a heft of ephemera, he sends a torrent of river water over the boards. It washes the blood away.
Salvatore slings his arm over my shoulders. “I’ll see that our match gets safely home, and then I’ll come back and get rid of the wall I conjured in the river. You three can take off for now.”
His dismissiveness of the other men provokes a sharper pang through my heart. The situation is tense enough without me looking like I’m giving preference to one of my matches.
I seek out Byron’s gaze again. “You’d be heading the same way—”
The Worth heir shakes his head. “I drove, since I didn’t know how far I’d be going…
Went across one of the bridges before I got a clear sense of direction and parked in a lot on the other side, same as them.
” He tips his head to the Raith brothers and gestures vaguely back the way we came on the east side of the river.
“We’d better get going before the sun’s coming back up,” Cole mutters, giving Asher a nudge.
The words pop out before I’ve thought them through. “I’m sorry it happened like this. We’ll… We’ll figure everything out.”
The professor gives me a dark look, clearly unimpressed by my weak reassurance, and stalks off with Asher in tow. It feels as if he’s tearing off a shred of my heart as he goes.
Byron hesitates. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, like usual.”
“Yeah.”
I don’t know what else to say. But as I watch Byron set off after the brothers, the tug in my chest solidifies into a yank.
I can make one thing between us a little better. I hope.
I slip out from under Salvatore’s arm with a quick peck to his hand to soften my sort-of rejection. “I need to talk to Byron about something. I’ll be right back.”
Salvatore laughs. “Go ahead and pet his ego a little. He is your match too.”
He couldn’t know what I actually need to say.
I hurry off the bridge and catch up with Byron several paces across the damp grass. He stops at my approach and glances over his shoulder with a puzzled crease in his brow.
I halt a few feet away. “Hey. I just wanted to be clear… I—I know I handled that thing at the club badly. I promise I was just as into what happened between us as you were. I got overwhelmed by how much I did like it, and that I’d let myself go that far, and…
I shouldn’t have taken my confusion out on you. ”
Byron blinks. Then a gleam of warmth lights in his eyes, both relieved and an echo of the hunger I saw in him the afternoon of our furtive hookup.
It’s enough to make my legs pang with the urge to throw myself into his arms right now. But this is definitely not the setting to be waking up his glim.
With typical Byronian restraint, a slight smile tugs at one corner of his mouth. “It’s good to hear that. I’m not sure I can completely blame you, when I’ve been pretty confused too.” He pauses. “I’ve never heard of there being signs of a bond before the match actually sparks before…”
My heart outright lurches. That’s not a line of thinking I want him heading down. “Maybe it only happens when it’s such a large union? Five is pretty unusual. Or it could have just been a coincidence. I guess we’ve had various kinds of tensions building between us for a while.”
Entirely of the rivalry sort until I showed up in Other Elodie’s place, as far as I can tell, but Byron appears to accept my explanation. “It’s strange how these things work. But you’re right. We’ll sort it out. Fate must know what it’s doing.”
He sets off again, his stride looser than before, but my gut stays knotted.
I have about as much faith in fate’s competence as I do in the mystical properties of holy water. We’re facing this problem on our own.
Have I learned enough across the two worlds I’ve lived in to steer us well this time?