Bianca came closer. “All that power, Jessica, coiled in your muscles. But we only unleash it when the family picks a target. There’s a cost in not snapping those necks. Sometimes I want to explode.”
I thought of Uncle Max, coming home and reaching for an axe. “I like being in control.”
“I like beingalive.” Her eyes were as bright as when I’d been bleeding.
“Bianca,” I said. “Did you kill someone for cutting in line?”
“Laney Maxwell.”
“Stabbed by a townie.”
“Ronald Talman Jr., who tried to grab me on the field house path. He did that to a lot of women. It was a quick trial. Don’t murder people with your own kitchen knife.”
“Okay, him, sure. But you killed someone forcutting in line?”
Finally her right hand came out of its pocket—a razor unfolded, flashing in the dark. “Cut in line. Get cut.”
I looked at Xavier.
“We don’t judge motives here in Halcyon,” he said.
The wind picked up again, and the leaves shifted on the floor. The pain in my hand drummed along with my heartbeat.
Even when our families were in conflict, I’d always thought of the other legacies as colleagues. We took the same classes, exchanged notes on how to seduce and incorporate ordinaries. But these Lindqvists had slipped free of the world I knew.
And they’d taken Peter with them. If he’d focused on being a good Morton, on incorporating his roommate, my orders from Grandmother never would have come.
He’d been so close to saving himself.
Bianca pulled up her left sleeve. There, on her wrist, was a tiny tattoo of a black heart. “The Hefnd mark. It’s easier to wear a mask, when you remember who you are underneath.”
“I know who I am.”
“For now, aunties’ pet.” She started to turn away, but I held her arm.
“Who was Peter going to kill?”
“He didn’t say. Except that it was going to be spectacular.” Bianca slipped the razor back into her pocket. Our conversation was done.
Peter had needed Ashton’s money to fund a spectacle.
Sebastian put an arm around me. He handed me the flask and ushered me toward the stairs.
“Poor Xavier,” he said softly. “I’ve heard that speech three times, and no one’s dead yet.”
I took a drink. With Sebastian at my side, the booby-trapped stairs were easy—his body knew the way.
“Did Peter tell you what he was planning?”
“No.” He took the flask again, and I wondered if he was telling the truth. “I’ll sew up that cut. Grandma Elizabeth says my stitches are perfection.”
“We’ll have to run the gauntlet of your housemates. I’m not up to climbing through windows.”
“They only tease the ones they love.”
We reached the bottom of the stairs, and saw the wreckage of the midnight feast, a scattered trail that led from the dark center of the room, to the door, and out.
“Someone’s lost their mittens,” Sebastian said. “Are your hands cold?”
