Malhar: Oh?

  Red: I don’t like her knowing things about me.

  Malhar: You may have forgotten her, but she was a part of your life. You made her part of your life.

  Red: Vince’s life.

  Malhar: That’s you, though. You called yourself Vince.

  Red: Why, though? It’s a joke.

  Malhar: A joke?

  Red: There’s a motorcycle called the Vincent Black Shadow. Remy’s middle name was Vincent. Ha. Ha.

  Malhar: You don’t think it’s funny?

  Red: Of course I do. It’s my joke.

  Malhar: I’m not sure what this has to do with Charlie.

  Red: Nothing. She’s reckless.

  Malhar: And that makes you angry?

  Red: There has to be something wrong with her, if she loved something like me. Now she knows and she still wants—

  Malhar: [silence]

  Red: I don’t like it. I don’t like her.

  Malhar: I see.

  21

  Nothing Good

  Charlie woke, her head pounding and her mouth tasting like sandpaper. Her memories felt kaleidoscopic: shattered and strange. The sour taste of vomit seared her mouth. The bed she was lying in was a dark wooden four-poster in a room with plaster walls. Late-morning sunlight filtered through dupioni silk curtains. Through the windows, she could see the lawn she’d run through.

  This was Salt’s house. Her heart pounded. Her worst nightmare, for many years, had been waking up here again, vomit on her tongue, back in his clutches. Panic made her dizzy. She scrambled out of the bed, only to discover that she was in a man’s satin pajamas.

  Salt’s dead, she told herself, but the knowledge didn’t slow her heartbeat.

  Jerking open a door, she found a closet with empty hangers and the strong scent of mothballs. No clothes, but in the back of a drawer, she found a stoppered white bottle marked Lorazepam Intensol 2mg/mL oral concentrate. Only half-full and dusty, she wondered if this had been what Salt used to drug her. She tucked the pills into a pajama pocket.

  The second door she tried opened onto an en-suite bathroom. At the sink, she splashed cold water on her face. Her hair was already damp and her skin carried the scent of expensive violet-and-rosemary soap. Someone had washed her, and thoroughly—hair too.

  Glancing at the shower, she had a sudden flash of memory. Red standing behind her, one arm around her waist and the other at her shoulder, pressing her against his chest. She was stripped bare, burning water stinging her skin. Him, still in his clothes, wet and plastered to his body.

  From outside, a woman’s voice. She’s got to get warm. She could have frostbite.

  Charlie swished water in her mouth and scrubbed her teeth with a finger. Then she looked around for that stupid silver dress, but it was gone.

  More of the night was coming back to her, each detail more embarrassing than the last. All of it, accompanied by the claustrophobic panic of being in Salt’s mansion. A drumbeat began in her mind, urging her to runrunrun. She couldn’t be in the house a moment longer. Looking outside, she saw that the snow had melted in patches. All her instincts were screaming at her to move, but she’d need boots and a coat to traverse the muddy lawn.

  She crept into the hall. Faint voices came from below. One of them was Red. How could he have brought her here, of all places?

  For a moment, she let herself think of the map she’d gotten off Balthazar, the one that showed her where the mask Cabal kept the piece of Red’s shadow that might contain his missing memories. The part that would fix him, would turn him back into the person who wouldn’t be conspiring against her with the shadow of Rose, wouldn’t have subjected her to Remy and Adeline’s prat friends, and definitely wouldn’t have done this.

  Anger steadied her as she padded barefoot toward the voices.

  “I can make you feel better,” Adeline was promising.

  Charlie stopped, alarm bells going off in her head. Adeline’s voice was a purr, the offer unambiguous. Charlie had thought that Remy and Adeline had a tangled, incestuous relationship, with Red on the outside of it.

  But maybe Adeline thought of Red as an extension of Remy. A substitute.

  “I don’t need—” Red told her, voice stiff.

  “Oh come on.” There was a rustle of fabric, as though she’d moved closer to him.

  “Adeline,” he said. “Enough.”

  More rustling fabric and a soft sound from her, like a moan. “Oh yes,” she said. “Like that.”

  Charlie’s face flushed with shame. Right, she needed to leave. She needed to get out of that house right then and she needed to do it without him.

  “Don’t,” he said, panic in his voice. Panic that froze Charlie in place.

  Adeline. Adeline, don’t. The words he’d said while dreaming. When he was Vince.

  Red was much stronger than Adeline. He could push her away.

  Couldn’t he?

  Charlie pushed open the door. If she was about to make a fool of herself, she could weather the embarrassment—surely a drop in the bucket after the night before. Adeline straddled his lap, her skirt pushed up. Red’s hands were circled around her upper arms, keeping the top half of her body away from his. When he turned his face toward Charlie, he looked lost.

  “You’re interrupting,” Adeline snapped, not moving from his lap.

  “We need to go,” Charlie said, although the idea of ordering him to do anything in that moment felt abhorrent.

  Adeline stared at her in outrage. Charlie stared back.

  “I have an appointment with Malhar,” she continued, as though she wasn’t chilled to the bone by what she’d walked in on.

  “You can’t force him to stay with you forever,” Adeline said, pushing off his legs to stand. “You’re nobody, Charlie Hall.”

  Red rose like an automaton, his expression utterly blank. He didn’t even look at Charlie as he staggered past her into the hall. She kept her gaze on his face. Whatever his body’s response had been to what happened, she didn’t need to know.

  In the doorway, Charlie turned. “He’s your fucking cousin—or whatever. He’s your family,” she said.

  “Red?” Adeline laughed.

  “Didn’t you say he was what was left of Remy?”

  “Probably the best part.” Adeline’s mirth had twisted into a small, smug smile. “But it’s not like we’d make two-headed babies or anything. He’s a shadow.”

  Reeling, Charlie headed into the hall—where Red wasn’t—and then down the stairs.

  She found him in the hall, waiting for her, jaw hard. She couldn’t help but take in his height and the muscles defining his arms. He was a big man. He could have thrown Adeline across the room, and it hadn’t helped him.

  Barefoot, in pajamas, she headed for the door. “I don’t want to be in this house for one second more.”

  Red got his coat from the closet, which he held out to her. “Don’t run into the cold again.”

  With a sigh, she slid her arms into it. As she did, she spotted a pair of boots that seemed big, but serviceable. She shoved her feet in them, not caring if she looked like a child playing dress-up.

  Footsteps thudded down the stairs.

  Charlie spun. “Leave him alone!” Only to find herself looking at Fiona, the older woman’s eyebrows raised.

  “Rough night?” she asked.

  A flush of heat spread up Charlie’s neck. She looked an absolute mess. “I thought you … well, it doesn’t matter. Adeline kindly let us spend the night, but—”

  Fiona frowned. “It’s his house.”

  That stopped Charlie. “What?”

  “It’s in Salt’s will. Remy inherits the mansion. You can hardly call it kind to let him sleep in his own house.”

  Charlie glanced at Red, but she couldn’t tell whether he’d known that. His face was so empty of expression that it was starting to scare her.

  “I think we can find you something better than that to wear.” Fiona’s gaze went over Charlie’s pajamas, the coat long enough to drag on the ground, and the comically oversized boots. “Then we can all have brunch.”

  “I should—we have to leave.” Charlie’s skin itched to get out of there. She needed to talk to Red. She needed to go.

  Fiona’s half-smile didn’t flag. “Not looking like that. Come, we can get you some coffee and food, then you can go directly to wherever you’re going.” She turned to Red. “You ought to change as well. That shirt is wrinkled.”

  Charlie opened her mouth to insist on departing, then closed it again. She’d been playing defense ever since she became the Hierophant. Defense against Mr. Punch and the Cabals, defense against Adeline. Trying to stall them or appease them long enough for her to find an angle.

  None of that played to Charlie’s strengths. All she knew how to do was lie, trick, and steal her way into getting what she wanted. And maybe she couldn’t do that here exactly, but Fiona Carver was rich, had information they didn’t, and desperately wanted something. All that made her an excellent mark.

  A slow smile tugged at the corners of Charlie’s mouth. “What a generous offer. I’d love to borrow some clothes and eat with you.”

  Red turned toward her, violence in his eyes. “I need to talk to Charlie.”

  Fiona urged her toward the stairs. “You two can discuss things on the way to brunch. I assume you’ll be taking your own car.”

  “Now,” he snapped. “I need to talk with her now.”

  Fiona took a step away at the vehemence in his voice. “Then I’ll just go upstairs and lay out some clothes. Don’t be long.”

  They listened for her retreating footsteps.

  Red turned his gaze, staring at the wall behind Charlie as though he was considering putting a fist through it. “I understand why you’re angry with me. Last night was all my fault, but please don’t take out your feelings on Fiona. Please.”

  “Your fault?” Charlie scowled at him, incredulous. “I don’t see how that’s possible. You weren’t the one who drank two gallons of bourbon, fell off her barstool, and punched some trust fund kid. Though you might have been tempted. He had a very punchable face.”

  The minute lift at the corner of his mouth was practically a confession, but he shook his head and it fell away. “I am in the habit of obedience. I didn’t realize that it was up to me to get us out of last night until, well, until you sent me from that room moments ago. But that doesn’t mean it was any less my fault.”

  She couldn’t agree, but she was immensely relieved that the anger in his face hadn’t been for her. She worried it was for himself, though. “How am I supposed to fight with you, if you’re going to just roll over and show me your soft belly?”

  His shoulders relaxed a little. “If anyone could find a way, it would be you.”

  “Ouch.” Charlie said, playing along. Then she glanced up the stairs. “But I still think we should go to brunch.”

  “What? Why?” There was despair in his face. “I am not who she wants me to be.”

  You’re close enough, part of her wanted to say, but not everything ought to be a con. Love, she supposed, shouldn’t. “Why is Adeline letting Fiona stay here?”

  “I don’t kno—” He stopped himself. “Oh. Because it’s my house.”

  “You had no idea, did you? What else does Fiona know that we don’t?” Charlie asked. “Look, my head is killing me. I need coffee and aspirin and bacon fat before I am going to be even moderately able to face the day. Two birds. One stone.”

  “What are you planning?” he asked.

  “To get out of these pajamas and mainline caffeine.” Charlie shrugged. “But if you don’t want to spend time with Fiona…”

  He sighed, looking up the stairs. “Of course I want to go. But I shouldn’t. She’s not my family. Nothing good will come of it.”

  “Nothing good?” Charlie said with a smile he didn’t seem to be able to resist returning. “Sounds like my kind of plan.”

  * * *

  Fiona opened her door when Charlie came up the stairs and then ushered her inside the bedroom.

  A sweater the color of fresh cream and a pair of cuffed black jeans had been spread out on the bedspread. They looked large enough to fit, which made Charlie wonder if they’d been borrowed from the staff or if Fiona liked things oversized. “I appreciate you finding something for me to wear.”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble,” Fiona said. “I’m glad you’re giving me the chance to spend some time with my grandson.”

  “You’ve really just been here, waiting for him to get over himself and see you?” Charlie asked.

  Fiona frowned at that characterization. “I came as soon as I heard what had really happened to Remy. You can’t imagine how terrible it was the year before last. My daughter died, and within a week, Remy was dead too and I couldn’t even mourn him properly, because everyone was saying he was a monster.”

  Right. Because he’d been found in the burned remains of a car beside the casino, with the burned remains of a woman.

  “Poor girl,” Fiona said.

  Rose Allaband. Charlie thought of the shadow coming through the window. “Yeah, poor girl.”

  “What size are your shoes?” Fiona asked crisply, bringing Charlie back to the present.

  “A nine,” she said.

  “I’m a seven and a half,” Fiona said, holding up a pair of short, lace-up Prada boots. “But I took these from Adeline’s closet. She wears a nine and a half. You can double up on socks.”

  A better person would have refused anything of Adeline’s, but Charlie just took them into the bathroom and laced them on.

  Outside, Charlie climbed into the passenger side of the Porsche while Fiona headed to a zippy-looking white BMW.

  “Follow me,” the old lady called to Red.

  He pulled out of the driveway, mouth set in a grim line. Charlie let herself study him: broad shoulders, hair catching the golden light of the afternoon sun, eyes like burning brands. Now that she’d spent a little more time with Fiona, she thought she could see the resemblance in the slant of his eyebrows and the bow of his mouth.

  “I won’t ask if you don’t want me to,” Charlie said.

  “What did I tell you about Adeline … before?” Red returned.

  “Not that,” Charlie blurted out.

  “She thinks I’m a toy version of Remy. One she can play with. One she can manipulate with Salt’s fortune.”

  “Is that how she always saw you? As a toy version of Remy?” Charlie asked.

  “As a toy, certainly,” he said, a growl in his voice.

  She recalled the photo of Remy Carver she’d found online, the one where it seemed as though he’d been caught banging Adeline on the deck of a yacht. Charlie hadn’t known what to think. Photos got manipulated, people got misidentified, rich kids were perverts. She’d figured maybe they had a thing, but not much of a thing.

  But it hadn’t been Remy. It had been Red. And he hadn’t had a choice. A shudder went through her but she kept her focus on the window.

  You’re going to hate her, Charlie had said, when she found out he was going to be bound to Adeline.

  I already do, he’d answered.

  Charlie hadn’t understood even half of what he’d meant. But maybe she should have. Maybe it had all been there and she’d just refused to see it.

  “And Remy?” Charlie asked.

  Red shrugged. “He didn’t like to think about it.”

  “Even at the start?” Charlie asked, incredulous. How could he not? Even if he somehow hadn’t understood that Adeline was doing something awful, surely he thought it was weird.

  “I was a killer. A monster. It didn’t matter.”

  “Once, when we were up late, Vince and I compared first times,” Charlie said, deciding not to argue about whether being forced to be a killer made it okay to be forced into all kinds of other things. “You told me you were fourteen and it was with a girl you’d known for a while. That you both were experimenting. Was any of that true?”

  “None of it was a lie,” he told her. “What happened was an experiment. It just wasn’t my experiment. There was a lot of blood.”

  And on that horrifying note, he pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant called the Federal.

  “The blood made you more physically present,” Charlie said, puzzling through the mechanics of what had likely happened. Red led with his monstrousness when he was afraid of judgment. A familiar impulse, to make things worse when you were afraid you couldn’t make them better. “They should never have done that. Not to anyone and not to you.”

  He flinched. “I didn’t want you to know any of this.”

  “She should be ashamed,” Charlie said, with vehemence. “Never you.”

  He shrugged, obviously not believing her.

  Fiona got out of her car. She looked over at them, waved, and then headed inside the restaurant.

  Red reached for the door handle.

  “Wait.” Charlie put a hand on his arm. “Tell me about your grandmother.”

  “She’s a good person,” he said, forgetting to correct her. “Like I said, don’t hurt her.”

  “Trust me,” Charlie said with a grin.

  He gave her the look that line deserved. “Fiona Carver. Just turned seventy. She’s on the board of several foundations in New York—that’s how she spent Salt’s money after their divorce—the Robin Hood foundation, which focuses on poverty; the Drug Policy Alliance; Children’s Aid; to name just a few, covering everything from leukemia research to endangered tigers. She had one child, Kiara, and one grandchild, Remy. She doesn’t come from money, but Kiara always said she took to it like a duck to water.”

  Lionel had donated plenty to charities. That alone didn’t make Fiona a good person. Red had vouched for her, but his standards were low.

  Past its white columned entrance, the Federal turned out to be the sort of place with starched tablecloths and hushed voices. They passed a small bar area where a few couples that Charlie would have pegged as retirees fresh from a game of golf had gathered. A diamond tennis bracelet gleamed on one of the wives’ wrists, just begging to be pocketed.

  Fiona was already at a table, a dirty martini in front of her, three cheese-stuffed olives, two cornichons, and a pickled onion floating in the gin. In her starched white shirt and black trousers, paired with comfortable-looking, faux-fur-lined mules, she managed to be elegant without seeming at all overdressed. Her hair was pulled back in a tortoiseshell clip, revealing a pair of thick, heavy-looking gold hoops. Charlie couldn’t guess a single brand, except for the understated gray Polène bag sitting beside her on an otherwise empty chair. Fiona wore her wealth lightly.