It is a slightly cruel observation, but—perhaps because men of Jasper’s cast so rarely allow themselves to cry—when the dam does finally burst, their listeners are often treated to the most bizarre sounds known to humanity outside of walrus mating season.
Emma listened to thehnnurgghsandguuuaahhswith a patience born from extreme guilt at finding them so embarrassing. By some strange balancing alchemy, her own tears seemed to have cleared up. She felt almost cheerful.
“Jasper…” she tried.
“Bleeeghhhsnuff.”
“Jasper, what’s wrong?”
“Hargleweggh… uffgh…I thought you were dead,” he managed, and hacked up some phlegm.
Her heart softened. How had it never occurred to her that her sacrifice might have been an accident? A spell gone wrong. Jasper, wracked with guilt and despair. That perhaps he truly had cared for her, after all.
She pushed the thought from her. He was her enemy, and he had drawn her in deliberately. She’d thought he was a simple, impulsive boy who had made her feel special because he liked her. That had been her mistake. If his tears now were a ruse, she wouldn’t be fooled.
“I’m not dead.”
An expression of purest joy lit Jasper’s face, as though he were looking at Christmas and a divine manifestation and a gleaming IMOCA 60 racing yacht all in one. He was so beautiful when he smiled. Her heart sped horribly, and she reminded herself she hated him, hated him, hated him—
“You’re not dead.” He beamed. “So I didn’t kill you. I didn’t kill you, and you’re here, so I can’t go to jail for it.”
“You—er—thought you had killed me?” prompted Emma, feeling that the conversation was not running quite as expected.
Jasper strode around, pounding one hand into the other. “Well, I wasn’t sure. I drank so much that night, and I had this total blackout after I saw you—at the Senate House, right? And then you were gone. The others said they’d cover, tell the police I wasn’t with you, and they had this look. Like they really thought I’ddonesomething. I was so scared. I couldn’t remember, and I thought, what if Ihad…My dad wouldn’t let me say anything. Not to the police. Not even to him. Like I really was a—a murderer, and he didn’t want me to confess.”
His face darkened. “Why didn’t you come forward? You have to go to the police. Tell them I didn’t do it…”
“Jasper—”
“… Now I can have my life back. Leave this charade, get on my yacht. Forget the University and my father. I won’t need his money and his lawyers anymore.”
“Jasper,” she tried again, less patiently.
“There’ll be no more press to pay off, just me and the waves—”
“Jasper. Let me get something straight. Did you or did you not think I was dead because you sacrificed me in an ancient ritual,performed by the Turnbulls since the founding of the University, to bring them—I don’t know, riches or happiness or three wishes—from the elemental power that rules this place?”
He could not have looked more bewildered if she had started juggling owls in front of him while singing the “Marseillaise.” The world twisted. “Jasper. Secret society. Ritual sacrifice. Ancient magical power. Are you following me? Your dad might have mentioned something?”
She had been so sure, for so long. That he had brought about her fall into the Night City, step by engineered step. It had made sense. He was the president of the Turnbulls. The Turnbulls had made the deal with the Night City. She had been sacrificed to the Night City.
And yet. The more she looked at him, the harder it was to see him as the mastermind. If the degree of confusion on his face was fake, he was a better actor than she could have imagined. And when had Jasper ever been calculated? He had never made a plan more than a day in advance in his life. She had once found that charming and spontaneous.
The suspicion in her mind was now fully formed. “You don’t know anything, do you?”
And he didn’t. She could see it now in his blank, handsome face. He was just a nice, lucky, selfish boy. He had never questioned what it meant being part of a club because of how important his parents were. He had never had to consider how to fit himself to the world, because the world fit around him.
But he was not a murderer. Perhaps he’d even cared about her, in his own way. The relief was meaningless. Beneath the screaming urge for revenge, she realized, she’d just wanted to know who had sacrificed her. Why they’d chosen her. Now she had no answers.Nowhere to go, except back to a life of draining and debt. She snapped one last rose from its stem.
“Look, Jasper. I’m saying this as a favor. Don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me. They won’t believe it, and it won’t go well for you.” She turned for the steps. “I’m not back. I never will be.”
He really was beautiful, even when he was staring with the expressive confusion of a goldfish trained in mime. Perhaps his eyes were a little fishlike. She’d never noticed that before. If his gaze was vague, she’d thought it was soulful. When he’d left yet another decision to someone else to bother with, she’d called him a free spirit. She’d pinned her dreams to a boy who coasted through life with more charm than brain. She’d painted in depths where there were none. Perhaps she was more like her mother than she’d thought.
She trudged up the steps from the sunken garden back into the ball.
Nine steps later, an arm swung out from the dragon-carved hedge and clamped around her throat.
CHAPTER 36
