“Without us at the wheel, maybe the world fixes itself.”
A small gyre of pain started in my heart. “If evil took a year off, imagine what good could do.”
Sebastian looked at me. “Is that a quote?”
“Not anyone famous.”
He shrugged, turning to the crow skull on the coffee table. The beak was pointed at him. “I thought Garrett incinerated that.”
“One of Hiromi’s friends kept it. She left it on my door today.”
“She came to Helshire?” Sebastian sat down heavily, put a gentle hand on my bare leg. “Too bad. We’ll have to kill her.”
I stared out the window, the one I’d crawled in the night I’d murdered Peter. Outside, the sky was black again, the moon and stars obscured by smoke.
Hiromi had no family, only friends. Sebastian wanted to erase another piece of her.
“They were close,” I said. “Her showing up dead will restart the whole Lyon case. How about we just scare her off?”
He grunted. “She thinks her friend was killed by a cult leader, and she’s still looking for answers. Not the type to scare easy.”
“Ikilled her friend.”
“She’s a loose end, Jess.” He took another drink of wine. It smelled garishly sweet on his breath, like cheap candy. “The family hates loose ends. Like Gertie said, we have to give them what they want. Keeping hidden is the first task.”
There was a yell outside, seven floors below. Ordinaries in the smoky dark, having fun. Everyone was bored with staying inside.
“We can’t kill Crystal.”
“We can’t let her wander around campus, asking why you disappeared after your girlfriend’s murder. Orrin could show up tomorrow to punish Faraday, and run into her. And maybe Crystal’s already called the NYPD to say she’s found you, and they all collide.”
I pulled away from him, angry at last. “If we keep killing people, how are we different from our families?”
“We only have the tools they gave us.”
I stared at him.
“Jessica,” he said. “If this gets out of control, Elizabeth will ask why you let it. You don’t want to answer that question. You want to be a good little Morton. Crystal is triage.”
“And that makes it okay?”
“Doctors use triage,” he said. “Rescue workers too. How do we save the most people? By saving you, and protecting what you know about Arabella, Bianca, me, the rest of them. Slay the rabbit, spare the child.”
So this was our new loyalty. Nothing was more important than Care.
“Let me talk to her first,” I said. “I don’t look the same, or act the same. I can convince her she’s in the wrong place.”
“Make her think you’re someone else? That’s never been your forte.”
“Iamsomeone else.”
He kissed me on my forehead, chin, lips. “You always were, Jess.”
I wanted to believe him, to imagine that part of me had always cared. But on the ledge outside those very windows, I’d talked Peter into losing his grip. When he’d fallen, only pride had rushed through me.
“I have to try.”
“Then try. Whatever you need to stay like you are.” Sebastian picked up his flag pin from the table, put it on his lapel.
