“We weren’t blooded for it, because we were little. They made Arabella an aunt. But we ended him, Jess—you and me.”
I squeezed Sebastian’s hand again. “Yes. Just me and you.”
But now that I was thinking back to that day, I remembered that Peter had been there too, in on the kill.
18
My archery went to shit.
Every time I drew, Sebastian’s stitches pulled, twisted, burned. My pain resistance has always been high, but the bow doesn’t forgive even a tremor. Worse, Xavier Lindqvist was in the class, a smile on his face as he watched me miss.
I took a late drop due to injury and found myself with a free half credit. There was a required legacy course I’d been avoiding, but which I needed for my internship this summer: Non-Dramatic Improv.
“No Drama” was officially part of the Theater Department, but was taught by an uncle in the Wolvaardt family. We stood onstage, pretending to be at a cocktail party or business lunch, trying to blend in with tech investors, medical professionals, lawyers—ordinaries, in other words.
The real work was researching cover stories, coming up with convincing small talk for our assumed identities. There were always a few theater kids rotated in as controls, who tried to add conflict or comedy, but Uncle Wolfie would slap his walking stick against the edge of the stage until things became mundane again.
Some legacies excelled in No Drama. Divya Seth was great at accents; Regina Lindqvist captured shyness perfectly. Sebastian had gone on to the advanced workshop. But I found it tricky being someone else, someone ordinary.
Shooting arrows, I always knew exactly when I’d hit the target.
With improv, I was never sure.
My other projectwas pulling at the loose threads of Peter’s life. The preparations for his Hefnd had to be lying around somewhere, waiting to be found. Pyrotechnics, even plans, would bring the police back to campus.
If my family’s name wound up in the papers again, my culling of Peter would be marked as a failure; I’d lose the internship in New York. Worse, my elders might follow the clues to the Lindqvists and their murder club, and discover what I hadn’t told them.
It was strange keeping secrets from my family, something I hadn’t done since my childhood confessions to the dead Jessicas. But I’d promised to protect Sebastian.
I searched the other dead drops in the library and broke into Peter’s room when Ashton wasn’t home. Everywhere it was the same—no plans, no cash, no explosives.
On my runs across campus, I tried the larger key from 001.944 (monsters and related phenomena) in random doors. But there were hundreds of locks at Helshire, maybe thousands.
I started taking Peter’s old knife into the woods at night. Eventually I began to learn Ziggy’s balance point—that same hidden center of the knife that Peter must have found.
But that didn’t teach me his secrets.
In the parking lot behind Dewitt, a small shrine to my cousin had appeared: a poster signed by his Intro Bio study group, a “Most Dangerous Sparring Partner” trophy from his karate team, a candid photo with the other interns at the Helshire Wilderness Preserve. Clumps of flowers lay rotting on the ground, their cards erased by the rain.
He’d never mentioned these people to me, any more than he had the Lindqvists. Before he’d left the estate, everyone who was a part of his life was part of mine. So many outsiders had known Peter near the end, while I, his closest cousin, had hardly known him at all.
“What’s with the glove, dear?”Faraday asked. Helshire was the sort of place where wearing one glove was artsy—less noticeable than a handful of stitches.
I tugged it off and showed her my palm.
“Ouch,” she said. “Drinking accident?”
“I drink with my right hand.” I lifted my water glass.
We were in the Dining Commons in midafternoon, enjoying the dregs of the Sunday brunch buffet. Faraday was eating green goddess roast chicken left over from last night’s Earth Day dinner, and I was enjoying the Commons’ infamous eggplant parm, affectionately known as “elephant scabs.”
“Wait. Did someone knife you?” Faraday’s eyes widened. “Is that a defensive wound?”
“Self-inflicted. I was out at the Old Campus.”
“Yeah, those ruins are unsafe. Hopper stepped on a nail last year, which was funny because of her name. Love the red stitches, though. Did you ask for them special?”
“Red thread was all Sebastian could find.”
