No, I’m not.
I’m a mine. I stopped being trustworthy the second I opened my eyes.
The great hall of Hell Gate echoed with the shouts, laughter, and inhuman grunts of more than two hundred creatures. Built in 1815 by Jagger, Hell Gate was the epitome of gothic architecture. The dark gray stone exterior swallowed sunlight. The sharp roofline held the frozen bodies of two snarling stone grotesques. The stone mansion was a black hole that loomed like a malevolent shadow on the edge of the East River. It was surrounded by iron gates that clawed toward the sky, but the gates weren’t needed. Most people avoided the block Hell Gate was on, and if someone accidentally found themselves in front of the gates, they’d hurriedly cross the street. The windows were wavy opaque glass that stared gloomily at sunlight, pigeons, even rats, until everything that didn’t belong scampered away.
Who belonged in Hell Gate?
Everyone in the great hall.
We were all Jagger’s creatures, and for better or worse, Hell Gate was our home.
The inside of Hell Gate was as gothic as the outside. Dark stone floors and roughened, wide-planked wood floors. Thick, dark molding and moldering wallpaper. Cracked plaster walls with ornate brass sconces. Knob-and-tube electric wiring from the 1880s. Tiny rectangular bedrooms without closets. Clawfoot iron-enamel tubs and ornate vanities. Main hallways, servants’ hallways, and hidden hallways. Front staircases, back staircases, and hidden staircases. Known rooms and hidden rooms. A grand entry with a grand stairway (that I died my first death on) and a great hall.
The great hall had a low ceiling. A half-century ago, someone decided to wallpaper the ceiling, and now it drooped threateningly like storm-gray clouds. The walls were once covered in an alabaster silk wallpaper, but smoke from fireplaces, coal stoves, and tobacco had stained it a brown-gray that looked a lot like the color of Jagger’s fingernails. The hall was lit by two brass chandeliers that had seen quite a few entrails hanging from them in the past two hundred years.
It was not an attractive room. There were mirrors on the walls in place of windows, and they reflected the yellow-orange glow of the chandeliers and the dozen long wooden tables that held Rou’s feast. The mirrors made the room appear larger. It wasn’t very big. At least, not big enough to comfortably hold two hundred people. But we always managed to cram ourselves in, elbowing, crushing, and shoving until everyone had found a space.
As a nine, I’d never had to fight for room. I was automatically given a good twenty-four inches of space around me wherever I went. Now I was a mine, that diameter had at least doubled.
Then again, it could be because I was stalking into the hall next to Justice.
He’d been waiting outside Jagger’s office, and when Jagger and I walked out, he’d joined us. Justice did a double-take when he saw me and stared for a good five seconds. I almost said, “Hi. Are you finally looking at me?” But I didn’t, because that might’ve led to questions, and I didn’t want to talk about the Furtig. Not ever.
Instead, we’d strode side by side as the noise coming from the great hall grew. I realized, as we walked behind Jagger, I’d slipped into the same lethal, rolling gait that was Justice’s hallmark. It was the fluid assassin’s grace that alarmed Darin so much he’d said, “That is a killer.”
I was so startled by the realization I’d almost stumbled, and Justice had reached out and grabbed my elbow to steady me. It took less than a second. His hand was there, and then it wasn’t.
I think he expected me to hate him.
As a mine, I was sure he knew the draw to hate was there. It would be easy to hate him. It was what Jagger’s blood wanted. Not hating him hurt. It burned like pouring hydrogen peroxide onto an open wound. If I hated him, I’d be happy, and the burning would stop. That was what Jagger’s blood promised. An end to pain.
Justice had told me not to fight it. He’d told me if I had to hate him, he wanted me to hate him with everything I was. He said he could live on my hate.
The only trouble was, I couldn’t do it.
Do you remember how I said I could never love Justice—not like he wanted me to? Well, I couldn’t hate him like he wanted me to either.
He was my friend, the brother of my heart, the one who painted stars in the sky for me. I couldn’t hate him for killing me, just like I couldn’t hate Luvic for killing me, or Darin for killing Jacob.
I couldn’t hate any of them, which was maybe why, two weeks into being a mine, my blood still burned.
We stepped into the great hall, and the loud roar rushed through my ears, a waterfall of sound. The scents of Rou’s feast flew over me. Meat, blood, smoke, and alcohol. The heat of two hundred bodies pressed down on me. Sweat lined my forehead.
Jagger raised a fist, and his creatures fell silent.
For the first time in two weeks, Justice leaned in close, brushed his hand against mine, and whispered, “I’m sorry. If I could bargain with God, I’d ask to take all your pain. I’d take it all if I could. Don’t . . . don’t . . . worry, Mari. You’ll come out all right.”
I turned to him. His face was pale. His golden freckles stood out, and the lines around his mouth were tight. His auburn hair was messy, like he’d spent the time outside Jagger’s office running his hands through it in worry or frustration. The hollows under his gray eyes were deep purple, like he hadn’t been sleeping well.
He was scared. Justice was never scared, but right now, he was scared.
I stiffened and then held his gaze. “You know as well as I do that God never bargains. If you’re foolish enough to make a bargain, you’ve made one with the devil.” I looked at Jagger’s wide back and his fist thrust in the air. “Or a leggerock.”
Just like I’d wanted, Justice’s expression softened, and he gave me an almost smile. “It’s better if you hate me. It won’t hurt as much.”
I don’t hate you, I almost said. I could never hate you.
But then Jagger shouted, his voice an avalanche crashing through the room. “Tonight, I have a gift for Mari. Don’t ever say I don’t give my creatures gifts. Tonight, I gift Mari her murderer.”
