“And women,” Pretoria interjected, deadpan. “We are very modern.”
“—robbing there?”
“You really have a low opinion of me.”
“Do not forget you dragged me around the world for two years, I know how you live.” I began to tug off my gloves, keeping our gazes fixed on one another. “Did you steal from Mr. Stoke?”
“Piffle!” she scoffed. “What would he have worth stealing?”
My glove came off and I seized her exposed wrist. Before she could so much as gasp, I pulled memories from her flesh like words from a book.
One, I saw Pretoria following me through the museum. Two, Pretoria hanging off the end of a tram, high-laced boot poised beneath mustard-colored skirts, ready to step off in a busy street. Three, Pretoria practicing a disarming smile in the mirror. Four, breakfasting late at a hotel. And five, rising from a bed with not one, but three dozing paramours.
Pretoria’s nails dug into my wrist so hard my fingers convulsed. The remembrances broke off and I found myself bent forward with my arm wrenched behind my back.
I may have trumped my sisters in blade and firearms at the academy, but Pretoria, I painfully recalled, had more than earned her stars in hand-to-hand combat.
“Tori—” I wheezed into my knees.
“How dare you!” Pretoria pushed me further forward.
“How dare you break into Mr. Stoke’s office!”
“How dare you read my memories!”
“You are not stable, Pretoria!” I shrieked.
She bent forward so that I could see her, puffed out her cheeks and blew a raspberry at me, the expression a drastic contradiction to her lace collar, pearl earrings, and perfect chignon. “Me? Horsefeathers. Madge is the unstable one, you skulking little toad, even Mother agreed on that. Now, I am here to help you, if you will listen. Will you?”
“My arm…”
“I shall release you if you swear never to do that again.”
I let out an exasperated whine.
“Swear it!”
“No!”
“Fine.” Pretoria released me suddenly. “I should be grateful for an honest answer, considering your entire life is a lie. You must have gotten very good at it, deception and secrecy.”
“I have had to earn my living. I could not simply run away like you, MissCastell.” I threw back the name of her most common false identity and shrunk away, clutching my arm and eyeing her like a fox might eye a wolf. My hat was askew, yellow silk flowers dangling in the corner of my vision.
“Oh piffle! I did not mean your name. What is a name anyway? A passing fancy.” Pretoria shook her head in exasperation, then, resettling herself, added casually, “By the way, I am Russel this time around. Castell is too well known… I am considering having her die in a mysterious accident as my true self did. Or something tragic. Saving a child from a fire, I should think. I do love a good redemption.”
“Pretoria, did you steal from Mr. Stoke, that day you left me the note?”
“No,” she said, and this time I almost believed her. “But I am probably acquainted with whoever did. And like I said, I came here to help you.”
“Help me with what?”
Just then, a shadow peered inside the gazebo. I stilled and Pretoria turned the male intruder a slow, unruffled glance.
“Ladies,” a faceless museumgoer said in apology, glanced around the room without much interest, and moved on.
“Did he hear us?” I hissed.
“No,” Pretoria returned, not bothering to explain why. She had likely had us in a continuous skew of time, separating us just slightly from the flow in the rest of the museum. It was, to her, the most banal of magics, and she had probably done it without even noticing.
