“My dear Lexi,” Rand said. “Are you ready?”

  Charlie dragged her gaze back to him and took a breath. “I don’t like doing this.” It was the truth, but it was also part of her role.

  “I know, my dear,” Rand said, patting the top of her head. Then he stopped and frowned, as though he’d lost his place in the speech.

  Her palms were starting to sweat. Nerves, she thought.

  “I—” he started. His face was flushed. “You—”

  No, not nerves. Something was wrong. Her stomach hurt.

  One of the men turned to Salt with a smirk. “It worked faster than I thought. I was so hoping to see their performance.”

  “Very naughty to try to trick me,” said Salt, smiling as he shook his finger in her direction. Then he turned back to his friends.

  The drinks. There’d been something in her water. Something in Rand’s whiskey.

  Charlie covered her mouth, dipping her head the way she had planned during her possession, and thrust her finger into the back of her mouth, pressing against her hard palate. Gagging once, she pushed herself out of the chair and made her body quake just as she would have done if she were pretending to be possessed. Then she vomited beet juice all over their expensive rug.

  She heard shouts as the men jumped back, but she slumped forward, keeping her eyes closed and her body still. Didn’t allow herself to move, despite her cheek being pressed into her own sick.

  “Is she dying?” one of them asked.

  “You gave her too much.” Another man’s voice. Faint distaste.

  She heard the creak of hinges from the direction of the bookshelves. The scent of moldering paper. The spinning of a safe’s dial. A confusion of men’s voices.

  Don’t worry about her. Get the man.

  There’s an experiment I want to try. Let’s see how his shadow reacts to exsanguination.

  If the girl dies, we can still harvest hers.

  And then her thoughts spiraled away to nothing.

  * * *

  Charlie came to lying on the rug. The fabric beneath her was still damp with bile and beet juice. Not much time could have passed.

  “Someone’s coming. Don’t move.” A voice from behind her, a boy’s voice. She wondered if he was actually there, or if he was the echo of a dream she’d been having before she woke.

  She fought down the temptation to turn around. After a moment, she heard footsteps in the hall, the tapping of hard soles on the stone floor. Trying to slow her breathing, Charlie remained still until they passed.

  After they faded away, she scrambled to push herself up. Her head swam. Whatever she’d been dosed with, it wasn’t out of her system yet.

  “Don’t look behind you,” the voice said.

  She stopped.

  “If you don’t look at me, I’ll guide you out of this house.”

  “And if I do?” she whispered.

  “Then you’re on your own. They believe that you’re lying in a pool of your own blood, so they’re not concerned about you at the moment,” he said. “You might make it.”

  “What about the guy I came in with? Can I get to him?”

  There was a long pause. “He’s beyond helping.”

  The meaning of that settled over her, but she wasn’t thinking straight enough to accept it. Getting up slowly, she balanced herself by holding on to the bookshelf. One of the volumes, a slim book with a red spine embossed in golden flames, was shelved puzzlingly sideways. Inferno, the title read.

  She stared until she realized it wasn’t a book at all, but a lever.

  On her feet, she could see that one wall of shelves had swung inward, a door to a hidden room left open. Even in her current state, she couldn’t help peering inside. It was another library, but this one held distinctly older and more valuable looking books. A sinister oil painting was hung against the far wall—a trompe l’oeil featuring a black goat on a wooden table, stomach sliced, shining entrails hanging out, a goblet and an arrangement of pomegranates beside it. With so much red, the artist had been at pains to separate the gleaming seeds from the blood.

  Charlie took it in, especially the odd way it was hung. Farther from the wall on one side than the other, as though it were a door. That’s where the safe would be, behind the painting.

  She took a step forward, over the threshold. She scanned the shelves. There it was, another volume with a red spine. The Book of Amor Pettit.

  Her hand went to it, then she hesitated. “Do you mind?” Charlie felt as though she were in a fairy tale, with fairy-tale rules. Don’t look. But did that also mean she shouldn’t steal?

  “It’s not for me to mind or not mind,” the voice said.

  That was answer enough for her to slip it out from the shelf and into her bag, which she slung across her shoulders.

  “Turn two steps to your left.” The voice came from directly behind her, close enough for the hairs on the back of her neck to rise, though she didn’t feel the heat of his breath. “You’re going to walk through the doors to the dining room. No one goes in there, so you should be able to walk to the servants’ stair in the pass-through area just outside the kitchen without anyone spotting you.”

  “And then?”

  “Never look back.”

  It felt like still being in a dream, walking through the house with just the voice behind her. Into a hall where the shining glass eyes of mounted animal heads stared down at her. Gazelle. Ibex. Rhinoceros. Then past a parlor, where Charlie spotted a blond girl flipping through a magazine. The girl didn’t look up as Charlie slunk past her in the dark. When she got to the pass-through, she heard one of the household staff on the phone, ordering artichokes and organic spinach. There was a radio on in there, with Nina Simone singing about running to the devil, all on that day.

  “Now what?” she whispered.

  For a long moment there was no reply. Charlie started to turn, thought of Orpheus leading his girlfriend out of the underworld. Fairy-tale rules. She stopped.

  There or not, the boy had sent her this way for a reason. He couldn’t have meant for her to go into the kitchen, since it was occupied. He specifically mentioned the stairs. She went up them, turning the corner into a long hall. She remembered the last time she’d been in a big house like this, how there was a second, more elaborate stair in the main entrance. Maybe he’d intended for her to get to the front door that way, while the rest of the household moved underneath her.

  Or maybe Charlie was so drugged that she’d imagined him entirely.

  She padded across the hall, bag clutched to her chest. In the direction of the parlor below, she heard a girl’s voice. “That’s not fair! I want to borrow him.”

  And a boy’s voice, maybe the one she’d heard before. “He doesn’t like you.”

  The girl laughed. “That’s not true. We have games we play that he would never play with you.”

  And then Charlie was going down the stairs. Her head swam again on the way down, but she made it. She turned the brass latch and pushed. The door opened and then slammed behind her.

  Loud enough that it wasn’t possible for it to go unnoticed.

  Charlie started to run.

  There were only woods surrounding the estate, so she plunged into them, not caring about the branches pulling at her clothing. Not caring that her head pounded and nausea turned her stomach.

  She raced into the night, crashing through buckthorn bushes that tore at her skin, tripping over ferns. Behind her, she heard shouting, but it was far behind. Flashlights cut through the night. Charlie kept going, her head swimming.

  On and on through the dark, the moon and stars spinning above her, until she came to a clearing. A middle-aged Black man in a cap and heavy coat looked startled to see her burst from the brush.

  “You’re going to scare off the owls,” he told her sternly. Then his eyes widened as he took in her appearance.

  She had twigs in her hair, scratches on her skin, and dried beet juice all over her mouth.

  “Run. You have to run,” she told him, breathing hard. “The people from the palace are hunting me.”

  He shook his head as he pulled a phone from his pocket. “Oh no, young lady, you are not the trouble I want today.”

  “The people from the palace. They’re coming,” she said again, before collapsing in the dirt at his feet.

  * * *

  Three days later, Rand’s car was discovered. His corpse was inside, and he appeared to have committed suicide by cutting his wrists, although forensics couldn’t account for how little blood was present. Police discovered the decomposed body of a teenage girl in his trunk. The girl had been missing for the better part of three years.

  A week after that Benny called her up at home. Did she get the book? Because the buyer was still interested.

  “Like a shark,” he told her admiringly when she said that she did. “Teeth first.”

  Knight Singh met her in the parking lot behind a Dunkin’. He had a sleek silver car, wore a stylish wool jacket with a standing band collar, and paid her two grand for the book. “I have more work if you want it,” he said, eyeing her over the top of his sunglasses.

  Charlie swore that one day she was going to go back to Salt’s mansion and get revenge on those fuckers. But she only swore it to herself, so there would be no one else to let down when she didn’t.

  13

  IMPOSSIBLE ANGELS

  Charlie blinked in confusion at the late-morning light streaming into the room. Her cuts still stung, her hip was bruised from where she fell, and her hair was a Medusa-like tangle from being half frozen and then slept on wet.

  She got up from the mattress. Against the wall, she saw her own shadow, exactly as it had ever been.

  Pretend tonight never happened, Charlie.

  Dark gold hair dusted Vince’s arms, shone on the lashes of his closed eyes. She watched the rise and fall of his chest, the curl of his blunt fingers, as though she were under a spell.

  He turned in his sleep.

  “Adeline,” he mumbled into the pillow. “Adeline, don’t.”

  Charlie stepped back, stung. Was that the girl whose photograph was in his wallet? And what was he trying to prevent?

  Pretend tonight never happened. Charlie had been pretending since the beginning of their relationship, pretending that her past was in her past and that she didn’t care about the future. And he’d let her, because he’d been pretending too.

  She knelt by his side of the mattress and whispered, “Voulez-vous plus de café?” The same phrase she’d looked up on her phone two mornings ago.

  Vince buried his face deeper in the pillow, as though her breath tickled his skin. Charlie felt foolish. She was almost to the door when he mumbled softly, still half in dreams, “Je voudrais un café noir, merci.”

  She thought that probably meant he did want a coffee, thanks. And also it meant that she was screwed.

  There are lots of different kinds of lies. Fibs to lubricate society. Deceptions, to avoid consequences. Misrepresentations to hide behind, because you’re worried another person won’t understand, or won’t like you, or because what you’ve done is bad and you’re ashamed of it. And then there are the lies you tell because everything about you is a lie.

  Posey’s accusation that he understood French had been funny, because not telling someone a thing wasn’t the same as hiding it. Maybe he’d spent a year abroad, or had a French side to his family, or had downloaded Duolingo and really applied himself.

  But when she’d spoken to him in French, he’d pretended he hadn’t understood a word.

  Hiding a facility with murder was troubling but understandable. Hiding a history with shadow magic could have a reasonable explanation.

  But hiding something that shouldn’t have mattered made Charlie wonder if anything she knew about him was real.

  Charlie went into the bathroom, latched the door, and then sat on the edge of the tub. She put her head into her hands.

  Vince being a liar and a murderer proved that her instincts were unerringly bad, just like her mother and grandmother. Sure, he’d started out as a one-night stand, but Vince had seemed like a solid, responsible guy. A little too good for her, maybe, and unlikely to stick around, but still evidence that she was making responsible choices. That there was hope for her to be part of the straight-and-narrow world.

  But there she was, more bent than ever.

  Charlie Hall, drawn to trouble like an ant to a glue trap. The worst part was that she was more fascinated by him now that she ought to walk away. Now that he was a puzzle of a man, just waiting to be solved.

  But if it was impossible for her to pretend all the time, the same was true for him. He’d left clues. And if she didn’t like what she found, well, she’d known he was going to break her heart. That was the Hall family legacy. It had always been a matter of when.

  Put on some lipstick and shave your legs, she told herself. Screw your head on straight. Vince wasn’t her only problem. If Hermes had told anyone where he was going the night before, he might not be the last person to come looking for her. And Balthazar had told him something, she was almost sure of it. She’d bet money there’d been a conversation between them, about her.

  She got a washcloth and some soap, ran water into the tub. Washed her pits and her bits. Lathered up her legs. A few of her fresh scabs sloughed off on the dull blade, setting the scrapes to bleeding anew.

  She thought about that line: Shadows are like the shades of the dead in Homer, needing blood to quicken them.

  She thought about Hermes. You know what I feed this thing? Blood. Maybe yours.

  What if…?

  Charlie daubed her first finger in the blood on her leg. There was enough welling up that she could flick it toward her shadow. As she watched, it seemed to ripple, as though shuddering. Nothing hit the floor tiles.

  She blinked a few times, trying to focus her gaze on the ground. Maybe she just couldn’t see the blood because it was such a fine spatter. Or maybe she’d actually fed her shadow.

  But surely if it was quickened, something else would happen. There would be some unmistakable sign.

  Putting off the question, she pulled on a shirt and sweats she found in the laundry. Tied her hair into a loose bun on top of her head. Went to make coffee.

  There were three texts on her non-burner phone. One was from Doreen, demanding Charlie give her an update on what had been taking so long and threatening to change Posey’s record for the worse instead of the better if she didn’t bring Adam home. Another was from Odette, sent to all Rapture employees, informing them that the lounge was closed until an insurance adjustor could come in and survey the damage following an attempted robbery. Odette estimated that would take three to four days.

  Then there was a private message from Odette:

  Have you told anyone what we saw?

  Charlie wasn’t sure what that was about. She texted back:

  no, you?

  No reply came.

  Charlie didn’t like to be paranoid, but she wondered why Odette had asked her that. As Charlie added coffee grounds, cinnamon, and water to the pot, she wondered if Odette might know Salt.

  If Balthazar had had a conversation with Hermes, it was time he had a conversation with Charlie too.

  She’d been to his place once before, an old brick firehouse that overlooked the canal in Holyoke. At the time he’d been having a party and hadn’t invited her inside.

  Good luck with that this time.

  Charlie put on her coat, got her keys, and went for a drive.

  The day was overcast, heavy with the threat of rain. She could already smell it as she got out of her car and went around the side of the brick building, to the entrance. The place was nondescript to the point of looking abandoned, but she noted that at least one light was on inside.

  This part of Holyoke still had some old abandoned factories, ones that hadn’t been turned into cheapish industrial work spaces for artists and other folks with businesses that either needed a large, messy space or at least didn’t mind one. There were apartment buildings a few blocks over, and a few houses with scrubby lawns.

  She pounded on the painted black door, ignoring the stenciled words: “GO AWAY.”

  When no sound came from inside, she pounded some more.

  “Can’t you read the sign?” came a shout from within.

  Charlie kicked the door with her foot. “You know what a snap gun is? I’ve got one in the trunk of my car and it will pick that lock in seconds. Might damage the mechanism, might not, but I will still be inside.”

  Balthazar jerked open the door. He was wearing a red dressing gown, his hair mussed, and he looked ready to go to war with the person responsible for waking him up. He blinked a few times, obviously stunned that it was her.

  “You almost got me killed last night,” Charlie said.

  “Well, fuck a duck. Hello, darling.”

  She pushed past him into the fire station. “Surprised I’m still among the living?”

  “Delighted. Come in, I was just going to make some coffee.” His tone let her know he was annoyed at her barging in, but not enough for it to matter. He signaled her toward some stairs and then went up a floor and into a surprisingly sunny kitchen with a few plants wilting in pots. On one of the burners sat the largest Cuban-style stove-top espresso maker Charlie had ever seen. “I said to ole Aspirins, there’s more to that girl than meets the eye. And then Joey, he said I was just being sentimental, that you were an empty-headed—”

  “Save it,” interrupted Charlie, before he really got going. “I want information.”

  “Have a seat,” he said, indicating a café table that looked like one corner of it had been set on fire at some point in the past. Raynham Park racing forms from the week before served as a tablecloth.

  “I want to know about the book that Paul Ecco tried to sell you.”

  “Eavesdropping, were you?” He took out a jar of Café Bustelo and rough measured the grounds into the metal cage, then filled the bottom with water. He set it down on the stove and turned on the gas so that blue flames licked the bottom. “You were good. Most people who think they can do this kind of work, can’t. But you’ve made it very clear you’re out of the game.”