“I’m sorry about the loss of your sister,” she says. “Snuff told me all about it, that your sister was in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory when it—well. That’s awful.”
She walks ahead, catching up with Nirav, pulling my heart further out of my chest with each stride.
Pax narrows his eyes at me, and they are the color of storm clouds, gray and ominous. Shadows swarm his aura, conceal half of his face. His stride never falters, and his voice is strained: “YOUR sister?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Pax and I walk to the Bureau headquarters in heated silence. Kiyoko immediately props open doors and begins sweeping. “This place is just asking to take us all down with consumption,” she mutters. She hands Nirav a rag and a bucket, and they get to work.
I pick up a small knife and begin stripping ancient wallpaper.
Pax leans against the wall I’m scraping and crosses his arms. Anguish darkens his features, anger sharpens his lean angles. I sneak a glance sidewise. He is wounded, the very picture of devastation.
“Your sister, too?” Pax asks. His voice is thin, and the pain it contains somehow angers me, rather than summons my guilt.
I scrape the wall more furiously.
I nod. I don’t talk about Daisy to others. Ever. Except, well, to Snuff. And look what happened there. My stubborn cat, spilling all my secrets. I wonder exactly how much Kiyoko knows. I pray notallof it. I hope that my blame wasn’t also relayed. How guilty I am, how my selfish choices led to my sister’s demise.
I believe in emotional currency. I don’t reveal things that can be used against me. Used to manipulate me.
“Can I please talk to you for a moment outside, Stella?” There is a bladelike tone in his voice, sharp and steely. Kiyokoand Nirav both stop what they’re doing and look to me, but I know that his tone isn’t wrath, it’s agony.
I did not sign up for more agony.
“Can’t we discuss in here?” I don’t look away from the stubborn patch of wallpaper I’m attacking. The clocks next door tick. Those damn clocks never cease chipping away at our minutes. “There is quite a lot of work to do—”
“No,” he says, his voice a cleaver. “I’d really like to talk outside.”
You should go, Stella.
You and he are drawn together, and you should go.
We absolutely are NOTis my immediate reaction to that. But I am often surprised by Spirit’s insight, so I set down my scraping knife and follow him through the back door. The alley is wide and relatively free of debris, thanks to the stables next to us. They load horses and carts in and out through this passageway, so they’ve kept it relatively tidy, if not bemired with a few spotty droppings. It smells of hay—fresh and airy, like bales of sunshine.
The pleasant scent does nothing to soften the storm brewing in Pax.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your sister?” His voice is too calm, too level, his eyes tight.
Immediately, my hackles rise. He’s asking too much of me. He’s asking for that final grain of rice, the one that will tip the scale. “Weworktogether,” I reply. “You don’t have to know everything about me.”
“Work together. Okay,” he says, nodding too much, too quickly. “We’ve made plans. Promises. We’re in apaintingtogether, Stella. With Max Blanck. I told you about Julia. You didn’t think you should tell me aboutyour sisteras well?”
I don’t like the way he said that. “Daisy,” I spit at him. “Her name was Daisy. And no. I didn’t.”
Pax paces the alley, his jaw working to and fro. His aura is stabby lightning bolts. Ire rises inside me.
“I see how deeply you want revenge against Blanck,” I say. “If you knew about Daisy, I thought—” I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to articulate my argument through my anger. “I thought you’d manipulate me into murder. I thought I’d lose myself. And I’mnotdoing that. I’m not.”
Pax stops short and looks at me with searching, quizzical eyes. “Manipulate you? Is that what you think of me?”
“It is. Am I wrong? You seem to have awfully strong powers of persuasion.”
We stand there a moment, silent, eyes locked.
This is it, I suppose. This is where I walk away.
Stella…
