Her smile says I’m an idiot and an innocent, that I better be glad I have her to school me in the ways of world. “Ah-ah-ah,” she says. “Eye for an eye. Quid pro quo. You got your answer.”
“So ask me another question,” I insist, but, like Brennan said, she’s keeping this card close to her chest.
“I’m all out of questions at the moment, I’m afraid,” she says, finishing off her wine and setting the empty glass down so hard it cracks the stem.
“You’re drunk,” I tell her, seeing a chance to get her out of the way so I can look for the journal, for any sign of where Aaron or Brennan might be. “We should get you to bed. You need to lie down, sleep this off.”
I make a move toward her bedroom door to open it, but shedashes ahead of me, throwing herself against it, spine rigid, arms braced across the frame. “No.”
Overhead, the lights begin to flicker and the water suddenly comes on in the sink so forcefully it blows the aerator across the kitchen, chipping the marble countertop. The fireplace ignites in blue flames that beat against the glass, threatening to explode.
I raise my hands in surrender. “What are you hiding, Arla? Is it Rudzitin’s journal?”
“The journal?” She scoffs. “You and Brennan. What is your obsession with that journal? You want to see it so bad? Fine.” She lifts off the door, marches across the room, and removes a framed Maxfield Parrish print of a woman in a twilight garden from the wall. Behind it, a safe is tucked. Arla leans toward the lock, and I step lithely to the right, hoping to see what numbers she keys in. I make out a three, a seven, and a nine simply because of their position on the grid. But she shifts her weight as she punches in the last one, and I miss it.
The door springs open and I step left again as she pulls out a book wrapped in old linen. Unwrapping it many times, she holds out a narrow, leather-bound book, smaller than I expected, that tucks into a flap on the front almost like an envelope. She opens it and flips the pages beneath my nose. They smell of mold and tannins, the writing so tightly coiled across each page that I fear it might take months if not years to decipher. Whatever answers it holds, I hope we can reach them fast enough to stop what Arla is planning. I wouldn’t stand a chance without Levi’s help.
“There. Happy?” she snaps before tossing it with the wrappings back into the safe and slamming the door.
“Will you let me see her before I go?” I ask.
She knows I’m talking about the Fathom and seems amused. “Once wasn’t enough for you?”
“I have questions,” I tell her. It’s not entirely untrue. I want to know why the magic feels so different now, why my flames can be as easily retracted as they are projected. Could I have done that all along? If I hadn’t run, could I have saved my family?
“Don’t we all,” she muses, crossing her arms. “Go home, Jude,” she says, appearing tired again. “I have work to do.”
She couldn’t have slept, looking like that. What kept her up all night, had her drinking first thing in the morning?
“Come back tonight if you want to see her so badly,” she says, tossing me a bone. “I’ll make sure you get your turn.”
Frustrated that I haven’t gotten the journal or come any closer to knowing where Brennan and Aaron are, I’m reluctant to go. But it’s clear I won’t get any further with her right now, and I at least know where the journal is. If I come back tonight and bring Levi, one of us can sneak up to retrieve it while the other keeps Arla busy.
I sigh and start for the door but pause and look back at her. “Whatever happened to him—Rudzitin? After he trapped the Fathom?”
I wonder if she knows about the missing people, if he talked about them in his journal, if they had the kind of blood she’s looking for. I wonder if Rudzitin realized his mistake too late and was trying to shore up his work all along. I wonder if, in the end, the Fathom got to him or if it was someone else.
Arla’s eyes glint with knowledge, but her expression is a vault. “I really couldn’t say.”
24BUY A TICKET
I stand across the street from Medusa, peering beneath its black awning, watching Sal deftly work the doors. A full, unfeeling moon stares down, where a line is forming along the block, odd because Arla lets very few nonmembers in. Something is different tonight, and I’m not sure what.
Beside me, Levi looks irresistible in a green button-down shirt and black pants, his hair hanging loose for a change, a honey-streaked tousle of soft curls nearly as long as mine. He takes in the whole building, from rooftop to street level. “This would have cost a fortune,” he whispers. “Especially in this part of the city.”
“Arla comes from oil money, remember?” For a second, I think about being in her shoes. What if I’d taken that attorney’s offer in the hospital—the money, the painting, the house? Would my life look like Arla’s? Would I be making the choices she’s making? Is that the real reason I said no, because like the magic, I didn’t trust myself with it? Money is just another kind of power. Did I think it would turn me into them—my grandfather and grandmother, even my mother in the end?
“Do you remember the numbers I gave you?” I ask Levi for the fortieth time.
“Three, seven, nine,” he says. “Shouldn’t take long to figure out the final one.”
“And the painting?” I prompt. I must have shown him the image on Google a dozen times. Maxfield Parrish’sEnchantment. Fortunately, there are only so many Maxfield Parrish prints.
He points to his temple. “I’ve got it all right here.”
I blow out a breath. “Okay, good. It’s the fourth floor. You can’t miss her place because it’s—”
“The only thing up there,” he concludes. “Jude, I know. I’ve got this. You just keep her busy and away from the elevator.”
