“You! You!” Charlie walked over and hugged her hard. “That’s fucking fantastic!”

  Red turned away from the window, probably because they were very loud. After a moment, he gave her and Posey a slanted smile. “I can help,” he said, voice soft, as though not sure his entering the conversation would be welcome. “With moving boxes.”

  Sometimes, it was so easy to see that he and Vince were the same person.

  “And the heavy furniture,” Posey told him. “Especially the heavy furniture. Good thing we have that van.”

  “I hate to ask,” Charlie said, drawing away her sister’s attention. “But does your changing the subject mean you haven’t heard any rumors about the cult murders?”

  “Actually, I did hear something,” Posey said. “Rooster Argent was supposed to be speaking.”

  “You knew that?” Charlie asked, worried. The more people who knew, the faster that rumor would reach the authorities.

  “He’s a big deal.” Posey rolled her eyes. “He makes TikToks about being an alterationist. Gives people tips on waking their shadows.”

  “So he’s a scammer?” Claiming you could quicken shadows was the snake oil of the moment—preying on hopeful, desperate people the same way Rand had when he offered to contact their dearly departed.

  “Stop being such a cynic,” Posey said, sticking her tongue out at Charlie. “You know you’re just trying to hide your gooey center.”

  “Okay, then I’m surprised that the Cabals let this Rooster guy put their secrets out there on social media.” On the stove, the coffee came to a boil. She turned it off; she’d let it get too hot.

  “He’s a good recruitment tool,” Posey said.

  “Who’s the cynic now?” Charlie asked.

  “The important thing is that I got us an apartment,” Posey said, preening.

  “You got us an apartment!” Charlie cheered as she finished making the cowboy coffee, straining it through a paper towel. It came out as dark as her hair and only slightly flecked with grounds.

  She poured three cups. Took a sip.

  It tasted like ass.

  Red drank some without seeming to note how terrible it was. He did, however, add a lot of cream.

  Posey made a face. “Intense. Bitter.”

  “Just like Charlie,” Red said, smiling wryly.

  “Did you make a joke?” Posey asked, feigning astonishment.

  Ha, ha, a funny guy with a plan to kill me, Charlie thought, feeling very bitter indeed. He’d said he didn’t want her dead, he’d laughed at her jokes, he’d seemed to like her—but every minute that he didn’t take her aside and explain what had happened the night before made it harder to believe he didn’t intend her harm.

  With a half-smile at Posey, Red set down his empty cup in the sink and headed for the door. Charlie grabbed her coat, then went back for her bag. She was scatterbrained with a combination of dread and lack of sleep.

  By the time she got outside, Red had the hood of the van lifted and was poking at its innards.

  Oh, that just figured.

  “Battery’s dead,” Red said, wiping off his hands on a towel. “And that battery thing in the back with the jumper cables is dead too.”

  Right, the battery thing in the back. The one that Vince used to plug in regularly and she’d totally forgotten. Truly, Charlie was god-tier when it came to fucking things up. The only thing she was better at was sulking about it.

  “If you call Adeline, she’ll send someone to get us. Or we could skip the thing entirely.”

  “You call her,” Charlie snapped, shoving her phone at him.

  He pressed his finger against the screen of her phone, but it no more registered his contact than the brush of an object. Then he seemed to shift somehow, concentrating on his hand, and it worked.

  It rang, loud in the cold air. He’d put it on speakerphone. Adeline answered on the second ring.

  “Charlie Hall,” she said. “No excuses. I expect you here within the hour.”

  “This isn’t Charlie,” Red told her.

  For a long moment, there was only silence. Then, in a much softer voice, Adeline said, “I didn’t expect you to call.”

  “I imagine not.” Then, after a pause. “Send a car for us, won’t you, Addy?”

  “Y-yes.” She sounded off-balance. Vulnerable.

  He disconnected the call without explaining why he needed the car, or even where to send it.

  Nonetheless, twenty minutes later, a sleek black town car appeared outside the door. Twenty minutes in which Red had, once again, told her absolutely nothing about Rose.

  She had to admit to herself that she’d wanted him to react. Her bad mood had, at least subconsciously, been in the hope he’d give her some kind of reassurance. But that was foolish. He wasn’t going to tell her about the shadow girl and her offer. He wasn’t going to tell Charlie he’d agreed to murder a gloamist.

  Your ex-boyfriend is planning your murder with an accomplice, she admitted to herself. Really, you’re the only person this could happen to twice.

  She had to keep her feelings to herself. Her anger wasn’t for display; this was the rage you ate and savored the flavor. This was fury you stoked to greater heights so that you could use it as fuel to do whatever would be necessary.

  Charlie went out, and got into the vehicle. Red sat beside her in the back, looking thoughtful, as though he was working through a problem in his mind.

  She smiled at him, playing along. She’d act the fool and let him steer her toward this assassination. Mark had caught her by surprise; she wouldn’t let Red do the same.

  And so instead of sitting in hurt silence or digging her fingernails into the skin of her palm the whole ride to Salt’s estate, the way she wanted to, she opened up TikTok on her phone and searched for Rooster Argent.

  His early videos were short, mostly pranking people by making his shadow misbehave in public or jump scare them. Grocery stores were a favorite venue. He often had a friend named Archie with him, who mostly seemed to handle the filming, but who sometimes got involved in the pranks. Then Archie was replaced by a girl who called herself Razor. The pranks got meaner. Then Razor was gone and Rooster started making more “explaining what it’s like to be a gloamist” videos, including instruction in stuff like “how to feed your shadow without getting an infection” and “is it fun to have a shadow you can talk to or creepy to never be alone in your head,” a question that Charlie had a ready answer for in that moment.

  Once the car passed through the open iron gates of Salt’s estate, she couldn’t help glancing up, her eyes searching for the roofline of the mansion through the trees. Her heart hammered. As they wended their way up the drive, she began to feel ill with fear. Memories of her childhood visit loomed, punctuated by all the death and horror of the last time she’d been on the grounds. By the point Salt’s mansion came into view, it seemed as though her skin was too tight and she might have to claw her way free of it.

  It was the same fairy-tale castle that had haunted her childhood. Gray stone, covered in withered vines of Boston ivy. Bronze gargoyles, their bodies green with verdigris, leered down from the roof. Everything about the place felt wrong.

  When she and Rand had come here that terrible night, it had been with the plan of convincing Salt they were occultists. They thought they could get him and his friends to pay for access to the “beyond.” Rand, with his stupid waxed moustache and tweed jackets and swindler’s overconfidence. She recalled Rand in her dream, with the burning cigar poised over his hand.

  The car stopped and the driver turned around in the seat.

  “She’s waiting for you inside, Mr. Carver,” he said, gaze going to Charlie as though bringing her along had to be a mistake. People who looked like Charlie—rumpled, bruised, in boots that smelled vaguely of booze—only came to places like this to rob them, and they didn’t usually do that in broad daylight.

  Although, to be fair, Charlie knew a couple of burglars who swore daylight was the best time for larceny.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she said, sliding out.

  Red walked up the steps fast, the way anyone might in a familiar place. Charlie would have knocked when she came to the massive double doors, but he didn’t, of course. He just walked inside.

  Because this was his home.

  A shudder went through her as she followed him.

  She found Red standing stiffly in the hall, with Adeline’s arms around him. Adeline pulled back only to go up on her toes and kiss both his cheeks in what Charlie supposed was the European manner.

  There was something different about Adeline. Her hair was glossier, her highlights more lusciously caramel. She wore dark beige wool trousers and a cream cashmere sweater. A bloodred Birkin rested on the sideboard. Charlie had never seen one in real life before.

  She supposed it was very different to be a billionaire, rather than just the daughter of a billionaire.

  Looping her arm through Red’s, Adeline circled his wrist with her hand. “It’s so good to see you,” she said, looking up at him. “Darling, you’re going to have to loosen up. We’ll practice that now you’re going to be Remy. Do you think you can bear answering to his name?”

  “No,” Red said, through what seemed like gritted teeth. “I’m not Remy.”

  She gave a long sigh. “I know. It’s awful. But we’ve always made do with less than ideal circumstances. Invent another name. Not Red. Too many of our associates know it. Not Vincent, of course. That doesn’t suit you at all—which is, no doubt, why you chose it.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Carver,” Adeline said finally. “Now that might work. Your friends called you than in school.”

  “It’s certainly more appropriate,” he admitted.

  Charlie bit the inside of her cheek and told herself that she was glad Red was going to get Salt’s money. Adeline clearly thought she wouldn’t be, so Charlie wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of being right.

  “So, what? He has to sign some papers and then you give him half the family fortune?” Charlie asked.

  Adeline gave a tinkling little laugh. “Isn’t that what I promised back when we were at the Cabal tower? I brought Remy back from the dead so that Red could live his life and receive his inheritance.” She went to the bloodred Birkin and hunted around inside of it until she came up with a folded manila envelope. With a small, secretive smile she handed it to Red.

  He ripped it open, accidentally ripping it so wide that the contents fell to the floor.

  Charlie instinctively knelt down to help gather them up. Two credit cards—an American Express in a silver metal and a black Mastercard. And paperwork, clipped together with a heavy brass clasp.

  “It’s no Palladium,” Adeline said, indicating the card. “But I want you to have it until everything is settled. Look things over, then we can go to Grassl Law offices, where you’ll sign the papers in front of them and get things notarized. The probate judge has agreed to hear us privately. He’s going to honor Salt’s original will, which gave you an equal share to what I got.”

  “I assume you’ve paid him,” Red said, his voice empty of emotion.

  Adeline laughed. “I’ve paid all of them.”

  Charlie flipped through the paperwork. Bank forms, with dizzyingly large numbers on them. And something else. Charlie held it up. “Financial and medical power of attorney? He’s supposed to sign that over to you?”

  Adeline’s smile was sly. “To protect him. From people who might try to manipulate him. Or feel entitled to his money.”

  “He’s supposed to jump out of the frying pan into the fire?” It felt good to have someone to channel her anger toward, someone who richly deserved it.

  “None of that is necessary,” Red said. “I’ll sign whatever gets me a driver’s license and nothing more.”

  Adeline frowned. “Darling, don’t be ridiculous—”

  “The money is yours,” he interrupted.

  “But we should be sharing it,” she said. “You’re—”

  “I’m not Remy. I’m his echo.”

  Adeline made a sad face. “You’re what’s left of him.”

  “No, he’s not,” Charlie spat. She thought of Salt calling him a parasite and how he hadn’t seemed insulted by that. “You’re a person. A whole person. Not an echo. Not what’s left.”

  A whole person who wanted her dead. She had no idea why she was so furious on his behalf.

  “Of course,” Adeline said after a beat of surprise.

  “If you want me to have some of your inheritance, Addy,” Red said, looking from Charlie to her, “you can just give it to me. But I don’t need it.”

  “I told Peter I wanted the money to be a gift.” She waved a hand in the air. “But there’s some kind of tax thing. He says it’s better for you to get your portion of Salt’s estate through the court. I’m in the process of selling off a few of the companies I inherited and I used some of the money to—well, it doesn’t matter. We’ll have so much that we can live whatever kind of life we want. When you become Remy, you can walk away from everything holding you back.”

  “Not from the Cabals,” Charlie said.

  Adeline’s gaze went to her. “Talk to them. Find out what would make them let Red go. How much would it take?”

  Charlie thought of her conversation with Vicereine. “You know that won’t work. You’ve already spoken with them. Your lawyer has spoken with them. And if you keep pushing, they’re going to get mad and push back.”

  Adeline made a face. “They don’t want to seem as though they can be pushed around. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something…”

  People said that there were things money couldn’t buy, but Charlie wasn’t so sure. Sure, you couldn’t buy love, but it was easier to love someone who wasn’t stressed about cash, who could cover the bill at restaurants, who didn’t have to work two jobs to make ends meet. You couldn’t buy health, but there were so many ways that money made it easier to not get sick, and to get better if you were. Maybe the Cabals wouldn’t exchange Red’s freedom for money directly, but Adeline could be right. Money could supply a carrot—and if that didn’t work, it could apply a stick. But the Cabals had a lot of sticks themselves.

  “They asked me to give you a warning,” Charlie told her, wishing they hadn’t come. Her nerves were fried from creeping out after Red last night. She was exhausted, sad, and still sore. More than that, she hated Salt’s mansion. Every time she entered it, she felt the helplessness and terror of her younger self. All she wanted was to leave.

  Red held up the papers. “Thanks for these, Addy. We should go.”

  “Well?” she said. “Shall we all head to Peter’s office? Get this done?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll take it from here.”

  Adeline’s eyes widened in surprise, as though she wasn’t used to him pushing back, even that small amount. “We need to go together. I have to sign the power of attorney form and the bank—”

  “I don’t want any of that,” Red said.

  Charlie saw what was about to happen, even if he didn’t. Adeline wasn’t going to let him have anything unless he signed over his life to her. But if that wasn’t enough to motivate him, she had other means. Carrot and stick, just like her father.

  “I can’t let you be on your own,” Adeline said, putting her hand on his arm. “Red, you don’t understand the world yet. You need to let me help you.”

  Adeline knew his secret. One word from her and he got nothing, but far worse, he was nothing. And while Adeline might put that nicely or dance around it a little longer, the threat was coming: you’re not a person, you’re a Blight.

  Footsteps interrupted them.

  Red glanced up at the woman descending the stairs and froze in the act of pulling away from Adeline.

  Her smile became all satisfaction, a cat slumbering in a sunbeam. “You can’t go yet, Remy darling. There’s someone else who wants to see you. I promised we’d eat brunch together.”

  The woman on the stairs had silver hair and a particularly patrician look. While elderly, she was notably younger than Salt. Red stared at her as though stricken.

  As she descended, the woman’s eyes shone with tears.

  Fiona’s sweet boy, Odette had said about Remy. Odette, who had once upon a time known both Salt and his first wife. And that was who this must be. Salt’s first wife, Fiona.

  “Remy,” Adeline said. “It’s your grandmother.”

  “I know who she is,” Red snarled, voice sharp with horror.

  The woman crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him. He didn’t push her away, nor did he relax into her embrace, but stood frozen as a statue. His height and the broadness of his shoulders emphasized her birdlike smallness.

  “I am so sorry,” she said, drawing back. “I thought you blamed me for your mother—oh, it doesn’t matter what I thought. I should have never let you go to him. Just please understand that if I’d known, if I’d had the least hint, I would have done everything I could to get you away.”

  “I remember living with you,” he said slowly, as though puzzling through a dream. “A long time ago. You read me fairy tales.”

  She nodded. “Your mother insisted that you leave with her—and when Lionel wound up with custody of you, I thought you were safer. Oh, I was a fool.”

  “You wrote R—me letters,” he said. “On my birthday.”

  Red was forcing himself to say “wrote me letters” and “my birthday” for Fiona’s sake, but there was an anguish in his expression that made Charlie wonder if he’d wanted those letters to be for him, if sometimes he’d pretended that they were.

  His grandmother smiled. “I’m glad you got them. I wish I had done much more.”

  Red stood there for a long moment. “Charlie and I have to go,” he blurted out.

  For a moment, an uncomfortable silence filled the room.

  “But we’re going to have brunch,” Adeline reminded him.

  “I can’t,” Red said with the intensity of someone running out of oxygen in a shrinking room.

  Fiona took a step back, looking down at her hands. Perfectly manicured, a cocktail ring on her middle finger so big it looked like it couldn’t possibly be studded with real diamonds and emeralds. She turned it idly, nervously. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have surprised you like this.”