Chapter 22
Junior year continued without further disarray.
Caroline Belmont returned from emergency leave. Her family’s fortunes had stabilized. My mother had been wrong—any conflict between us and the Lindqvists was purely on aesthetic grounds.
My final project for Accounting came into focus: a freeport in Geneva, the largest in the world.
It held more than a million works of art—a thousand by Picasso alone—hundreds of luxury cars, countless bottles of wine.
All of it unseen, undrunk, untaxed, stateless, perhaps never to emerge. A collection curated by capital itself.
Like any other art museum, it was full of loot. A Modigliani stolen by the Nazis, a Roman sarcophagus plundered by the Mafia, a host of artifacts put into storage by ISIS. My project’s theme was modernity and antiquity, curated by the intricate math of money laundering.
Ms. Delicato gave me an A.
When I sent the paper to Garrett, he texted: Oh, good, you know this stuff. Haven’t done taxes yet.
My days in No Drama met with misfortune: Uncle Wolfie called me “Ms. Morton,” and Jayden took my deception personally. Thereafter, he dragged me into arguments, confrontations, and drama onstage. The result was my first C at Helshire.
I’d never been good at pretend.
I continued my research on Hiromi Kennedy, tracking her sales, following her socials. Her robots were strange and clumsy, full of twitching, mismatched parts. The titles she gave them—An Increase of Unfortunate Attention, Helplessness in the Face of Your Vehemence—suited machines with no purpose.
My arrangements of bones were equally pointless. Too fragile to be weapons, dysfunctional as creatures, the only thing they could be was art. Like the device I’d found hidden in Dewitt, full of rocket fuel and phosphorous, too spectacular and imprecise for Morton use.
But at least I knew what to do with that.
I aced my Psych and Econ finals, made the dean’s list, and received a High Distinction in Disruptive Anatomy at the cost of reopening my stitches twice a week. When I bled, Uncle William bowed to me, quoting the class motto:
“Pain is power, to inflict and to endure.”
The last week of finals, I invited Sebastian to join me in the clear-cut beneath the power pylons, to tell him the truth at last.
We sat on the edge of a maintenance shed roof, warding off the downpour with the largest umbrella I could find in the Lavernick lost and found. I’d also brought a flask.
“Bourbon, Braulio, bitters. A Black Manhattan, in honor of my internship.”
Sebastian took a drink, grimaced. “If you’re going to drag me out in the rain, I have to start making my own drinks.”
“Sometimes the rain matches the situation, cousin.”
“Are you not looking forward to working with Garrett? Because the weather sucks and this cocktail tastes like a cry for help.”
“On the contrary.” I took back the flask. “I’m beginning to appreciate the art world, now that I’ve seen the financials.”
“Never change, Jess.” He leaned into my warmth, until his other shoulder was out of the rain.
“Are you excited about Albany?” I asked.
“Has anyone ever been excited about Albany?” Sebastian was interning at the State Assembly—the family’s latest attempt to cure him of political ambition. He looked up at the power lines, which hummed in the wet air. “Are we really here to discuss summer plans?”
“No.” I checked the time. “We’re here to talk about Hefnd.”
“Told you, not my cup of tea.” He took over umbrella-holding duty. “Though there is this sophomore in my Latin class. Her translations are criminal.”
Sebastian learned his languages socially—by sleeping with them, as the French say. But he took Latin and Greek to get his roots in order.
“Latin issues?” I asked. “Isn’t the Hefnd supposed to be about anger and revenge?”
“Trust me, this is pure rage. Our textbook complicates the easy stuff. Like, immortalis is defined as ‘not subject to death.’ ”
“Ugh,” I said.
“Bad enough in print, but the other day, this sophomore uttered the words, ‘Caesar lies dead before us, but his deeds shall be not subject to death.’ ”
“Is she trying to be funny?”
“She’s trying to be correct.”
“Can I help you kill her?” I asked.
“We could stab her twenty-three times. I’ve already got a wrap line: ‘Who’s subject to death now, motherfucker?’ ”
“Insufficiently iambic,” I said. A breeze passed through the treetops, blowing a spindrift of rain beneath the umbrella. A shiver went through me, and I pressed closer to Sebastian, wondering when I would be this close to him again.
I was wearing my mother’s silk jacket under my raincoat.
“Perhaps the Hefnd is more me than you,” I said.
“Wait.” He pulled away. “Is that why we’re huddled in the rain? There’s someone you want to kill? Bianca’s going to love this!”
“Not murder, cousin. But I do want revenge. For Peter.”
“Say more.”
“Have you met his roommate?” I asked.
“Ashton Hale. Of the impenetrable Hales.”
“Not so impenetrable. Ashton was arrested on Gallows Night, and Peter bailed him out. But he hid it from the family.”
“Why? Grandma would’ve loved snagging the Hales!”
“Peter wanted to collect interest—to buy toys for his Hefnd.”
“Shit,” Sebastian said. “A plus sign in his ledger, for once, and he pissed it away.”
“Because of the Lindqvists.”
Sebastian turned from me, staring into the storm. “Bianca and Xavier loved him.”
“We were his family, Sebastian. Not them.”
“He never felt safe with us. At least he died happy.”
I sighed. Peter wouldn’t have died at all if he hadn’t been distracted by Lindqvist bullshit. I checked my phone.
Eleven fifty-six. Time to confess.
“I found out what his Hefnd was—Mister Fluffernutter, but a hundred times bigger. Something that could’ve brought down Helshire.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
I checked my phone again. “Eleven fifty-eight.”
“Right—Primal Scream. What was Peter planning?”
I touched his shoulder. “Wait for it.”
The first cries reached us from the Terraces—a solid minute early. They pierced the darkness, opening a hole for more screams to pour through. From out here on the campus periphery, muted by the rain, the chorus sounded less bloodthirsty, more like a distant flock of birds.
Then midnight struck, and a new noise came from closer by—a fizzing, sputtering shriek. The ragged hiss of rockets filled with homemade propellant.
I pointed at Halcyon Hall, but Sebastian had already seen.
Sparks of light filtered through the trees—Peter’s infernal engine roaring to life where I’d placed it on the second floor, lurching across the wet leaves, spreading white phosphorous as it tumbled and spun. A sharp crack as the device slammed against an ancient wooden wall.
Flames began to catch.
The choir of screams kept up—the rest of Helshire joining in, unaware in glorious unison. “Fucking Peter,” I said.
Sebastian looked at me. “That’s his?”
“Amazing what the kid could do with twelve hundred bucks.”
The clatter and hiss continued, grew more frantic. Exhalations of smoke lifted above the trees, ghostly rags of mist.
“Perfect,” he said. “Except that was Peter’s favorite place. Why burn it down?”
“He lost his way in Halcyon.”
Sebastian stared at me. The flames were reaching above the trees at last. Only the steady rain kept the whole forest from going up. The device would’ve leveled Dewitt—the part of Helshire where rabbits were tortured.
“What do you mean?”
No more secrets. “Peter had a way to balance his ledger: putting Ashton Hale in his debt.”
“Grandmother would have been delighted,” Sebastian said slowly.
I unbuttoned my raincoat.
He reached out, his fingertips brushing my collarbone inside my mother’s jacket. A gout of flame arced into the sky behind him, but our eyes stayed locked. All the noise and fury of that brilliant night wrapped around us.
He tugged the jacket open, revealing the lining underneath. Morton red. “You wore this at his funeral.”
“Yes,” I said.
“He didn’t fall.”
“No.”
There was a long silence, except for the rain, the distant screaming, the explosions. The angry machine, tearing itself apart, burning down the past.
Anger. Vengeance. Hefnd.
“Bianca will guess,” he said.
“I want her to. Peter’s dead because of their bullshit games.”
Sebastian started to tremble in the cold. “But what if I’m next?”
“You’ll always be safe with us, cousin. You’re a prodigy.”
He turned toward the fire, his expression grim. Flares shot up through the holes in the roof, sputtering in the sky. He handed the umbrella back to me, buttoning his raincoat.
“No, Jess. That was always you.”