Chapter 49
Late that night, something pulled me out of sleep.
It wasn’t the gentle creaking of floorboards itself—family went up and down my hall at all hours—but that the sound halted right outside my room.
By the time the door opened, I was already behind it, knife in hand.
“Jessica?” came a whisper. He took a step inside, staring at my empty bed.
I came up behind him, reached around to place the flat of my blade against his stomach.
“Sebastian,” I said.
For a moment we stood there, motionless, my heart racing. Had he come for me? Was that why he’d asked for my forgiveness?
Then I realized—this was how I’d taken Lyon when he’d walked into that small room. The scent of blood and bowels and panic rushed into my head, sweeping the strength from my muscles.
I let the knife drop and took a step back.
Sebastian turned, smiling. “I should know better by now. But seriously, how? There was no one in the hall to give me away.”
“They gave me this room after my curae,” I managed, my heart still pounding. “Me and the floorboards are old friends.”
“I’ll surprise you one day. Put some clothes on. No phone.”
“It’s two a.m.”
“We’re going for a ride.” That beautiful smile. “There’s something you need to see.”
The Brick was waiting for us near the front gate.
I was dazed, on the serrated edge between sleep and adrenaline.
“This better be good,” I said as the car started. “I have archery in the morning.”
“Thought you’d given up on that.”
“Veronica hasn’t. She’s worried about the next competition.” She was worried about me too.
“Can’t have the Lindqvists winning.” Sebastian turned the car south, toward the city, and quoted Elizabeth: “If you can’t do something on zero sleep, you don’t know how to do it.”
I didn’t know how to do anything. My grandmother’s wisdom was from another time, when my mind was smooth and shatterproof.
“Tell that to Veronica. Or does she know we’re doing this?”
He shook his head. “Not family business.”
I wanted to believe him—culling was family business.
Peter had made countless mistakes before the orders had come down. He’d been given many chances, and was never a prodigy in the first place.
Surely they’d give me more than a month to heal.
Unless Bianca had already unleashed her revenge. If the elders thought I’d revealed our family secret to the Lindqvists, that might be enough—on top of me losing my aim, crying in dance class, and vomiting when rabbits were beheaded.
“Can you give me a clue where we’re going?”
“No,” Sebastian said—too quickly. Then he laughed. “Can’t I drive my favorite cousin to a mysterious location in the middle of the night?”
My attempted smile didn’t work, like my face was made of borrowed parts.
“Jess,” he said. “Where’s this coming from?”
“When I met with my mother this morning, Elizabeth was there.”
Sebastian tapped the steering wheel. “Disconcerting.”
“After we discussed Mary’s curae, they brought up my blooding.”
“In New York? Or Peter?”
It was strange, hearing him mention Peter so casually. As if he hadn’t shut me out for three months.
“New York,” I said. “They never debriefed me.”
“After an improvised kill? Why the hell not?”
“My memories aren’t all there. It’s not just archery—something big is missing, since the crash.”
“Yes,” he said. “I could see that when I walked into your hospital room.”
I didn’t know how to answer. If he’d spotted the change so quickly, maybe they all had. Though Sebastian had always known me best.
We sped up to pass a flatbed trailer full of new and shiny cars. The acceleration pushed me back into my seat, an invisible hand. Sebastian kept up our speed until we were alone again on the dark highway, no other cars in sight.
Then he asked, “Are you sure it was the crash?”
“What else?”
“Your target in New York. You were close to her, right? Those pictures of you two together.”
My hand on Hiromi’s shoulder, in the darkness of some restaurant.
Mixed had been its name. It was gone now too.
“I was closer to Peter.”
“In some ways,” Sebastian said.
All those presents Peter had given me, maggot-cleaned skulls and eggs drained of their fluids. I’d taught him how to wrestle, to throw knives.
I had loved him.
“Why did the blind man fall down the well?”
Sebastian laughed. “Because he couldn’t see that well.”
He remembered the riddle I’d forgotten. But Peter was my little shadow. Every week one summer, he’d brought me bitter lemon, a small sphere rattling against the inside of my teeth.
Hiromi had given me candies too.
“The car crash changed me,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I could live with a brain injury breaking me. But not simply being a Morton—we kill our lovers all the time.
Not lovers: assignments. Prey.
“Most early targets are strangers,” Sebastian said. “And your first two—”
“Because I’m a prodigy.”
He nodded slowly, eyes on the road. “And everything is a test.”
“Yes,” I said.
When Peter had fallen into disfavor, the family had sent me, because I loved him. So who would they send for me?
I had to talk about something else. “Can I ask about your twin?”
Sebastian took a moment, but he nodded.
“Do you remember her?”
“Of course. I lived with Desiree till I was eight, when my parents were arrested. She was born three minutes ahead of me—I was always trying to catch up.”
A twinge of jealousy. “I’m not your first rival?”
“My father made us compete at everything. The prize was watching the other one get punished. I lost a lot. She’s studying medicine at Stanford, an actual prodigy.
” He saw my expression and laughed. “A foster kid flourishing, without an ancient murder family coming to her rescue. Can you believe it?”
“With your genes, sure,” I said. “There was a brother too.”
“Gervais, but he always lived with our grandmother. Dad rejected him because he has epilepsy. I knew about culling before I became a Morton.” Sebastian was grimacing. “I knew adults could be dangerous, before Uncle Max.”
“But…” I shook my head. “It was better with us.”
“I loved the order, everything in its place. The stakes were always clear—those other Sebastians in the Little Graveyard. But sometimes I hated you all.”
“Why?”
“For not showing up earlier. With all that power, you could have saved us. The Mortons could save everyone.”
“You’re a Morton,” I said. “Who are you going to save?”
He only shrugged, so I asked the question a different way.
“If you had me as an assignment, would you warn me?”
Sebastian thought about this—too long. We passed a few more cars, then the road was dark again.
“We’re still being honest?” Sebastian asked.
“Always.”
“Then no,” he said. “I wouldn’t breathe a word.”
We pulled off the highway before we got to the city.
I’d expected some lifeless warehouse district, a ruined factory by a river, the Pine Barrens—prime spots for body disposal. But this was a wealthy neighborhood. Ten-acre lots, landscaped streets, new mansions presenting multicar garages to the world.
No one would bring an assignment here.
Sebastian leaned forward to check a street sign, then pulled to a stop in front of a half-constructed house. No front-door cameras to capture our plates.
We got out of the car into suburban stillness. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.
He led me onto the construction site, dark piles of stone and plastic-wrapped lumber, empty doorframes. Through the half-built house, then across a large backyard with no grass, over a trench for a sewer line.
Over a wooden fence—into a fairy kingdom.
Granite statues of goddesses and angels, sculpted hedges in animal shapes. A circular fountain, the still water dotted with dead bugs and reflected stars. Winding paths through overstuffed flower beds, leading to the back of a two-story mansion.
I saw all the easy ways inside—the profusion of eaves, windows, and turrets that new money loved to flaunt.
“Remember Connecticut?” I whispered.
When we were twelve, Garrett had taken us on a field trip for Dexterity class. A few hours’ drive from home, he’d dropped us off in front of an empty house in some prosperous bedroom community. The assignment was to break in, spend the night, and slip out again the next morning, leaving no traces.
If a burglary was reported, the test was marked a failure.
But Sebastian and I dared each other to disturb things.
We tried on clothes, slid down the banisters, made ourselves peanut butter sandwiches (with twice as much jam as Aunt Beatrice allowed).
We slept together in the master bedroom, curled up for warmth, not wanting to risk the smart thermostat reporting us.
For one night, we had a strange version of a life together, unwatched by the family, invisible to the world. An estate of our own.
“Same situation,” he said now. “Empty house.”
“No alarm?”
“Already dealt with.” Sebastian had been at the estate all day.
“You had help with this?”
“Yes,” was all he said.
My trickle of nerves returned. If this wasn’t family business, who else was involved?
We went through the back door—a five-pin Schlage deadbolt—into an antiseptic stillness, the feel of a weekend residence, cleaned between every visit. No bowl of fruit on the kitchen island, no crumbs beside the toaster.
The nearest neighbor was beyond screaming distance.
Sebastian took me though the kitchen, into a foyer with twenty-foot ceilings. The spiky sculpture hanging from the ceiling was familiar from Garrett’s catalog. A Melany Tolbert?
“Sebastian,” I said. “Are we here to steal something?”
He only shook his head.
Through an arched entryway was a large room filled with paintings, sculptures, plinths holding curio boxes and manuscripts. I began to see more art I recognized. A Cindy Sherman, another Tolbert, and there on the far wall…a small Xenakis from Poker Genome Project.
The full houses.
“One of Garrett’s clients lives here,” I said.
“Yes.”
My heart beat faster. “In Lyon’s cult?”
“His first convert.”
So this was another frame-up, and the cutting of a loose end. Me.
The police were still looking for Jessica Anderson. Some ordinary at Helshire might see the resemblance and make a call. The elders no longer trusted me to stand firm under interrogation.
If Jessica Anderson were found dead here, no one would be surprised.
“Close your eyes,” Sebastian said.
I obeyed him. A knife in the stomach, a razor across the throat.
“Remember when you picked me up at the station?” He put his hands on my shoulders. “I asked you to forgive me in advance.”
“You’re forgiven.” Wire around the neck. “Just do it.”
He turned me around.
“Open your eyes,” he whispered in my ear.