Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
A few hours later, I was clean in more ways than one. Wald’s hands had left my skin, but the imprint of him glowed on me like warmed oil, and the delicious musk of him lingered on my lips as I walked up to the door of the mirror room.
The power that I owned my decision bolstered me, but still, my stomach soured as I stared at the door handle.
I took a moment, adjusting my cleavage that I’d stuffed into a black pantsuit from Britannia’s expensive slutty clubwear.
What I wanted to do was go back and have Wald rip it off me.
Instead, what I was going to do was enter the room.
Because I had to fix this to move us forward.
The room had death in it, and I didn’t want to return to death or the past, but now I had something I wanted that eclipsed all common sense.
I brushed back sweaty strands from my forehead, wishing I had brought an elastic.
All I had in my pocket was the tarot deck.
My fingers tingled. It was weird that by touching it I felt stronger, clearer.
Riding on that, I turned the handle and walked into the room.
The door shut behind me with an ominous click.
What I was about to do had meaning. More meaning than perhaps anything I’d done in my whole life. That propelled me forward.
The room was stuffier and darker than I’d remembered, with the shards of mirror giving me instant disorientation. Victoria was on the floor, her long gray chiffon dress lying around her like gauzy clouds. She was painting symbols on the mirrored floor in red chalk.
“Ready?” Victoria asked, rising and somehow managing not to sweep the long skirt across the chalk. A streak of red across her powdered cheek marred her perfect complexion.
“No, but I guess so. I’m not sure what we’re doing.” My laugh was brittle. I was ready to fix this but also frightened by this unknown, whatever it was.
“I expect the ring will work similarly to when you repaired it. But one never knows about these fragile things. An intense emotion channeled through it should activate the gem. Then you will have to focus on the moment you want to get back to. What’s wrong Harlan?
” Her lavender eyes were the same shape as Wald’s, which made no sense if he was adopted?
Fine lines crinkled between them as she considered me.
I rubbed the stone of the ring. “The ring only alters a few seconds, right? So, if I change things I’ve touched, then I shouldn’t be involved, right?”
“Britannia said that her phone call is what you will need to miss.”
“The phone call, right. It wasn’t the pen. It was before that. But what if…” I took a breath. “What if I wanted to change Wald’s past and instead saved his sister?”
“You can’t. You aren’t of our family, and you weren’t there.”
I’d been thinking about this after the shower while Wald had been combing and then drying my hair. The mundane repetitive things that capture your heart and trap your mind, allowing it to consider crazy ideas as plausible.
“Aren’t I partly of your family now?”
“You mean because of Agatha?”
“Yes.” The one word held way more weight than I expected.
Victoria wiped her hands on a red linen cloth and folded it up. “I don’t know the answer. That might be enough, but I believe it isn’t what you and Wald decided to do?” She tucked the red linen into a hidden pocket.
“I’ve made my decision.”
“Well, that is not what Wald told his father this morning.”
“Then Wald has proven this isn’t his decision to make. It’s mine. I have the ring.”
“Yes, you do.” It was the first time I’d ever seen Victoria smile. It was one-sided, like a certain hunk of giant man I knew. The smile reached her eyes in an instant, the tiny creases enhancing her movie star delicate beauty. “Wald has made his choice. Now it is up to you to make yours.”
“I need to talk to Britannia one last time then.”
“Of course.” Victoria closed her eyes for a second and then walked over and hugged me.
The scent of vanilla cream descended like a cloud on a rainy mountain.
She took my hand and set a pearl-handled pocket knife into my palm, shaking her head to stop my question.
Her petite fragility was anything but that.
She was strong as hell. I flipped the blade out of the handle.
“What is this for?”
But Victoria didn’t respond, and the mirrored door creaked open. I hid the knife in my pocket as Britannia walked in, her lips twisting into a smirk. “Oh, she’s part of the family now she’s slept with my brother? Hugs all around then?” Britannia opened her arms wide and stepped toward Victoria.
Victoria’s eyes narrowed, and her lips pursed as she locked eyes with Britannia, crumbling Britannia’s swagger into a chastised sneer.
“Fine, no hugging. What do you want?” Britannia asked, shoving her hands into the pockets of a catsuit which was far too much like mine.
“I’m frankly thrilled this might be the last time I have to look at you in my clothing.
You really need better shapewear to pull that jumpsuit off.
You’re hanging out everywhere.” She sneered again.
Fat shaming me was lower than she usually sank. “Shut the fuck up. I’m about to do you a solid, and you can thank me after. Tell me what happened the night Donia died.” I fingered the knife in my pocket.
Britannia’s emerald eyes widened. “You’re going to change our past? But how? Oh! Agatha? But even if that did work, it won’t solve your… Well, it might. We can’t say what the new future will look like. You might still need to go to jail. Or you might not ever meet Wald at all…”
“That’s what you’re here for. If you’d gotten the ring uncracked and given it to Elizabeth, what would have happened?”
“Then none of us would be here. But Wald would have likely taken it, and I still would have told Gentry, so he’d have to die, and you’d still be screwed.”
I gritted my teeth. Fine, it didn’t matter now who had the ring in the past. I had it now, and I could fix Wald’s curse. “Exactly what happened to your sister? Walk me through it—and don’t leave details out. Even your fricking future depends on me not screwing this up.”
Britannia wrinkled her nose. “I gave Donia some of Wald’s herbs to keep her quiet.
She had the ring on, and we fought. I knew the spell to get it off her, but I couldn’t use it without help.
So I’d stolen Victoria’s moonstone necklace and cast the spell, but it didn’t work.
Since I had Donia drugged, I tried to wrestle the ring off her, but then Wald walked in and went berserk.
The ring broke, and the explosion threw Donia into the mortal wound that Wald meant for me. ”
“Wald was going to kill you?”
“No, he was planning to immobilize me with the Klyngore. It pierced Donia’s heart though, and there was no coming back from that.”
“What the hell is a Clin-Gore?”
“It’s an ancient sword with a use-curse.”
Great, another fucking artifact. “What’s a use-curse, and what happened to Donia?”
“A use-curse is a price that’s paid to use an artifact. In this case, killing someone with it curses you. Donia’s probably in the album. I didn’t think to check, actually.” She got a faraway look. “It’s weird when the form is lost, and the knife breaks that connection.”
Victoria’s glare at Britannia had wide-eyed horror behind it. The story was likely new to her. Britannia’s lack of feeling for her twin sister was concerning. This was not my current problem.
“How do I fix that mess so it doesn’t happen?”
“First, I’ll need you to lock the door so Wald can’t kill Caledonia.”
“And how do I do that?”
“With this.” Britannia rummaged in her pocket and held out a braided brown leather cord with a couple of yellow white beads tied on it.
The suede was fur-like. I rubbed the pearl-smooth, cracked yellow beads, and the time-worn orbs warmed to my touch.
“If you tie that to the doorknob, then Wald can’t cross the threshold.”
Damn, that might be useful. I wasn’t going to be giving that back. “How does the ring work?”
“No clue, Elizabeth was supposed to be handling that part. It’s now your problem,” she replied, folding her arms as if she were done with her part.
Yeah, it was my problem. I thought about the cards in my pocket. Maybe I could use them to focus. Extreme emotion wasn’t going to come from my mild irritation of dealing with Britannia’s smirks.
“Will you take me to Donia’s room?”
“Good luck,” Victoria said, returning Britannia’s tight-lipped smile.
Britannia strutted off, leading me through a different mirrored door down a long beige hall, the kind you see in hotels on the service side.
I fondled the beads. They had warmed, almost burning my fingers. If there really was magic in me, I needed to figure out how to use it to get what I wanted.