Page 122

“How kind,” I said, trying my best to sound slightly bored.

As my fingers wanted to dig into the velvet upholstery, I remembered something I’d read about narcissists and sociopaths, that acting as dull as a gray wall disarmed them. I aimed for that. I’d give them bones without meat. A heart without a beat.

Nora arrived with a teapot as ornate as a Fabergé egg and matching teacups. A sharp, medicinal tea was poured and passed.

“No, thank you,” I said.

“No, Mother,” Damian said.

“No?” She looked at him. “I see you’re quite sullen today. ‘No’ is the only word you’ve said.” She turned to me. “Damian always was a taciturn, mercurial boy. He gets that from his father, I imagine. I don’t suppose he behaves like that with you, Marlowe?”

“Never,” I said.

She smiled. “Yes, no doubt. I see he’s become quite infatuated. But then, he always was sentimental. Easily enraptured.”

“How are you, Mother?” he said. I’d never heard him redirect like that, and I’d never heard his voice take on that tone, either, as if every word had been carefully measured.

“I am as I always am, Damian. You look tired. Does something have you up at night?”

“It must be the change in weather,” he said, like he’d picked it from a box of neutral replies.

He was right. I felt like I barely recognized him. Even his body language had changed. An irrational part of me wanted to reach for him. Find him under the armor.

None of the women had touched the tea. The teapot sat there, misting woodsy vapor.

“Ah, the changing seasons. Transformation always hurts,” she said. “Damian always believed that if something hurt him, it must have been bad. And yet here he is, volunteering himself for discomfort.”

“Are we negotiating, or are you just showing Marlowe your collection of knives?”

She smiled, genuinely. It made me want to protect my neck with my hand. “Those are not mutually exclusive.”

“Then let’s begin,” he said.

She shifted in her chair, switching which leg was crossed over the other.

“You’ve created a problem,” she said to me.

The other women hadn’t moved. They sat perched like the dead little songbirds.

“My blood is mine,” I said. “And so is my breath.”

Four of the women chuckled at that. Aurora wasn’t one of them.

“I see why you like her,” Octavia said, smiling at her son. Then she turned her attention to me again. “You shouldn’t have thrown yourself to the fire.”

“I didn’t choose to,” I said. “The retreat was a gift from my boss. It was an obligation.”

Damian’s mother paused, like that information was a trinket that deserved inspection. It felt like the faintest glimmer of hope.

“You have created a problem, nonetheless. A disruption to a sequence.” She tapped her toe once at something invisible. “What remedy do you propose?”

“A trade,” I said.

There was another short pause before she spoke.

“How novel. What sort of a trade?”

“I bring you Vivienne Blaire and at least three of her friends. You leave me, Callie, Priya, and Jess alone.”