“Just keep going. Don’t look back. Go, go, go.”

  “Okay,” Posey said, sounding fragile. “I’m over the fence. You know I hate walking through someone else’s property. What if Elias comes outside and yells at me for cutting through his yard?”

  “You’re doing great, all you have to do is keep going. Avoid the main roads, and cut through to…” Charlie tried to think. There were a lot of streets crisscrossing around there. It would be easy to choose the wrong one. She didn’t think Adam knew what Posey looked like, but a woman with a cat carrier was hard to miss.

  There was the Williston Library one way, attached to a private high school for rich kids that had perks like riding horses. Posey might be able to talk her way inside, but she’d have to deliver her story with conviction. In the other direction was a Dunkin’, a lunch place that would already be closed, a tattoo studio called Needle Inc., Union Package liquor store, and Glory of India, which mostly did takeout.

  “You should have come out on Clark, so cut through the parking lot on School Street. You’re going into Union Package. Browse the wines until I get there.”

  “What if they don’t allow pets?” Posey asked.

  “Then we’ll figure out something else. There’s a Walgreens that’s not far.”

  Charlie waited, listening to the sound of Posey’s breath, until she heard the jangle of the bell on the shop door.

  “You’re coming right away?” Posey asked in a hushed voice.

  “Right away,” Charlie confirmed, and hung up.

  This was why she’d stayed away from gloamists, away from cons and heists of magic. How had she not yet learned the lesson of juggling knives? Even when you kept them all in the air, you still cut yourself on the blades.

  She glanced at her shadow one more time, trying to shift her perception toward it. It flickered in response.

  “Okay,” she said, and pulled out of the gas station.

  Her car sped down the highway, the rattling of the engine barely noticeable. Whatever Vince had done held even as she pressed down on the gas and wove around delivery trucks and commuters. Her swollen eye made it hard to switch lanes to the left, and a pickaxe of a headache cleaved through her thoughts, which were mostly a litany of what-else-could-go-wrong—What if Adam decides he needs a shot of courage before he busts into my house and goes into the nearby liquor store, what if he is following my car right now, what if he has an accomplice, what if Lucipurrr pees in the cage and gets Posey kicked out at just the moment when—

  Charlie pulled up to the curb and fought down a wild urge to jump out of the car. Keeping the engine running, she called Posey.

  Her sister picked up on the second ring.

  “I’m out front,” Charlie said, feeling out of breath despite having done nothing more than drive. Maybe she’d cracked a rib.

  A few minutes later, Posey emerged with a bottle wrapped in a paper bag, an overstuffed backpack on her shoulder, and the cat crate swinging from her hand. She climbed into the back. Lucipurrr let out a miserable yowl as her cage was unceremoniously dumped into the seat well. “I got both our laptops and some wine for Mom.”

  “Mom?” Charlie echoed.

  But Posey had lost interest in that line of conversation. She was gaping at Charlie in the rearview mirror. “What happened to your face? And who are you afraid is coming to our house? Is it Vince? Did he threaten you?”

  “Vince?” Charlie gave her sister an exasperated look.

  Posey frowned. “I don’t know! Was it the gloamist from Rapture?”

  Charlie shook her head, pulling away from the street. She needed to put some distance between them and anywhere close to her house. “That guy’s dead.”

  “What?” Posey’s eyes widened. “What do you mean dead?”

  “Check behind us. See if anyone’s following,” Charlie told her.

  Posey shrugged off her backpack and turned around, kneeling up on the seat. She looked pale and a little sweaty. “How am I supposed to tell?”

  “You keep watching. Not just the cars behind us, but the cars behind them. I don’t know. I’ve only seen it done in movies.” Charlie took a turn. “No one follows the exact same route, especially the one I am going to take, doubling back on the same roads. So if they stay with us too long, we worry.”

  “Okay,” Posey said, staring.

  “Are you okay?” Charlie asked, her gaze on the road.

  “Of course I am,” Posey said. “You’re the one with the face that’s swelling like a balloon. Now will you explain?”

  “Doreen has this on-again-off-again boyfriend named Adam,” Charlie started.

  “The guy you were texting,” Posey said.

  Charlie nodded, remembering her sister grabbing her phone on Wednesday, back when it had seemed as though she wasn’t going to blow up her life again.

  “So Doreen beat you up? For messing around with her boyfriend?”

  “No! Are you serious? Adam was pissed because I ratted him out and stole something from him.” Put like that, it did sound bad. “Which he deserved. And that thing I stole, he stole first.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s following us,” Posey told her, slumping down and returning to a normal, legal seated position. “Can we go home?”

  Charlie shook her head. “Let’s give Adam a night to cool off, where he doesn’t know where I am. I’ll talk to Doreen. She’ll calm him down.”

  Posey frowned at the window, clearly unhappy.

  Charlie sighed. “Sorry about your client.”

  “You know that Vince knew about Adam, right?” Posey said.

  “That I was conning him?” Charlie cut her gaze to her sister in the mirror. “How could he—”

  “Okay, knew was the wrong way to put it. He thought he knew about Adam.”

  “Just come on out with it,” Charlie said.

  “He heard me reading off your phone. You know, about meeting Adam in private.”

  Charlie felt sick. “Did he say something?”

  “He asked me if I saw when you were going to have the meeting.” Posey looked deeply uncomfortable. “And said that I was right about him. That I’d been right all along.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “Nothing,” Posey told her. “I was too surprised. I really didn’t think he noticed what I said or what I thought. And I guess maybe I wasn’t fair to him.”

  “Now you think that?” Charlie had to force her foot away from the gas, so strong was her impulse to take out her feelings on the road.

  Posey shrugged. “He was too calm. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to hurt you. I mean, hot, built guys are supposed to be assholes. I figured he was probably bad news. But in the end, even though he was a huge liar, I think he might have been your most successful relationship.”

  Charlie briefly contemplated driving them both off the road and straight into a tree.

  I wasn’t the only one who lied. He’d said that when they were fighting.

  Now, much too late, she understood what he’d meant. I couldn’t give you what you needed. I kept things from you. Even if you didn’t know what was wrong, you could tell there wasn’t enough of me.

  On Friday morning, when he’d gone to Rapture to pick her up, had he known she was supposed to meet Adam? She’d thought he was there because he’d been worried her car wouldn’t start, but what if he’d been there expecting to find her with someone else?

  I wish I could say I was sorry, that I wanted to be honest the whole time, but I didn’t. I never wanted to be honest. I just wanted what I told you to be the truth.

  Charlie had always believed that nothing really touched Vince, because everything he really cared about had been left behind in his old life, the one he was exiled from. The one to which he longed to return.

  But it was entirely possible that he’d hated his old life.

  And that she’d lost more than she ever realized she had.

  26

  THE PAST

  The glass of champagne in Remy’s hand was warming too fast. Too many bodies pressed together. All around him, delicate laughter floated through the stifling air. Adeline was talking to a viscount or a baronet or someone with one of those titles that didn’t come with any money but did come with invitations to parties.

  It bothered Remy a little that he could tell that without trying, that his eye automatically picked out the lack of tailoring in the man’s suit and the worn leather strap of a third-generation Rolex. He tried to convince himself that it was mere cleverness and not snobbery, but knew it wasn’t entirely true. He’d gotten used to having money he didn’t earn, and feeling smug about it.

  The fundraiser was being hosted in the home of one of Remy’s ridiculously wealthy school chums. It was to benefit children of some kind. Maybe they’d been sick. Maybe they were going to be given art therapy. Or ponies. Or their ponies would be given art therapy. It didn’t matter. There was a theme too—old Hollywood, which basically meant wear something fancy or ridiculous or both. That didn’t matter either.

  The important thing was for the young people to get their parents to shell out a donation of fifty grand. Ten would go into their youthful pockets, with forty left for the charity. Later, he and his friends would take their ill-gotten gains and go to a club where they’d get bottle service and drink enough to forget the whole night.

  Remy would dance and howl at the moon and stagger back to his grandfather’s pied-à-terre with his arm around Adeline, every choice he’d ever made seeming worth it in those giddy predawn hours.

  His phone pinged, bringing him back to the present. His grandmother again, suggesting they meet for brunch the following day. Terrible idea. Not only was he planning on being extraordinarily hungover, but he didn’t want to talk about the only subject they had in common—his mother, who hadn’t been doing so well at the new rehab.

  Being with his grandmother made him feel a rush of longing mixed with resentment, and that was the other reason he didn’t want to see her—he didn’t like feeling things.

  He’d lived with her when he was small, he and his mom. He’d had a bed all to himself, and they’d eaten dinner together every night. But Mom wound up stomping out, dragging him with her, and that had been that.

  Remy felt exhausted by the thought of brunch. But he felt guilty about making an excuse and not going.

  Maybe he felt something other than guilty, but he didn’t want to dwell on it.

  You’re ashamed, Red whispered to him, always there in the back of his head, like a fucking evil cricket masquerading as a conscience. You don’t have to feel that way. I can be ashamed for both of us.

  Remy glanced at his shadow, thrown on the floor, larger than he was in the light. Maybe Red could have brunch, and he could lie in bed. He might be able to hold Remy’s shape for long enough. Between the murders and the energy Remy was feeding him, he was becoming alarmingly stronger. Each time he became a Blight, he seemed to be able to do much more than before.

  “What’s the matter?” Adeline asked. She was wearing a stiff vintage McQueen dress covered in shining beads that gave the impression of slashes. She carried two old-fashioneds, holding one out as though it was for him.

  “Nothing,” he said, tucking his phone back into his pocket.

  She grinned. “Bored?” she asked. “I hear there’s a pool in the basement. Come on. Let’s go skinny-dipping.”

  Remy snorted. Then he stashed his champagne flute behind a plant and took a slug of whiskey fragrant with orange peel. He loved Adeline’s cheerful sociopathy. It reminded him of her father sometimes, but where his was bent toward conquering the universe, hers was bent toward fun.

  The fundraiser was being held in an Upper West Side town house, the kind that went for fifty million, easy. The kitchen was done up in brass and marble with a fancy Italian stove. The walls were papered in bright, modern designs, hung with amusing art. Even the carpets were clever; one was in the pattern of a maze and another had a wash of turquoise color over a traditional design. The place made Remy’s head swim as they made their way to the stairs. It was so far from his grandfather’s grim, fusty house, with its dark wood and heavy drapes.

  He caught sight of himself in the mirrored bar. Black suit, white scarf around his neck. Covetous eyes.

  “Let’s go,” he said, pasting on his usual amiable smile. He had nothing to be unhappy about. He was having a wonderful night.

  The stairs spiraled down into a lower-level lounge full of scarlet and pink and pillows. The air was faintly perfumed with chlorine and the windows glowed with subaquatic blue light. A chandelier projected shadows that dappled the ceiling with the shapes of goats and wolves.

  “Unzip me,” Adeline said, laughing as she turned around.

  Remy tossed back the rest of his drink. The world had blurred a little at the edges, and he had the beginning of a pleasant buzz.

  A woman in black pants and shirt came down the stairs at a run. “Excuse me,” she said, looking slightly panicked. “You’re not allowed here.”

  “Who are you?” Adeline asked, sounding impressively haughty.

  “I’m part of the staff. We’ve been asked to keep people out of the private parts of the house.” Her tone was apologetic but firm.

  “This is Jefferson’s place,” Remy told her. “My friend. He doesn’t care if we’re down here.”

  “Well, his parents do.” She nodded toward the glass in his hand. “You’ve been drinking. It’s an insurance thing.”

  “Red could make her change her tune,” Adeline said to Remy.

  He rolled his eyes. “Overkill.”

  The woman took a step in the direction of the stairs. Probably the word “kill” in any context made her nervous.

  “Let Red play,” Adeline insisted, a cruel little smile on her mouth. Maybe it was because she’d been embarrassed, her zipper half down her back. Maybe it was the flip side of cheerful sociopathy, but when she was like this, she wouldn’t back down. “Come on. It’ll be funny.”

  “Use your own shadow then,” Remy told her. “Or better yet, let’s just go upstairs.”

  This was the second quickened shadow to which she’d been tethered. The first one withered away, the graft failing. The second one took, but she seldom practiced with it. He thought it made her uncomfortable, but she didn’t like admitting it.

  Adeline gave him a look. “We’re not going anywhere.”

  What is it I am supposed to do? He heard the question in his mind, felt his shadow’s annoyance and wasn’t sure if it was his as well.

  Puppet her, Remy thought back. Make her go upstairs or say something stupid. Scare her. Don’t hurt her.

  You don’t want me to make her drown herself? He was almost sure Red was joking.

  There was a time that he would have had to maintain a bifurcated consciousness, but not anymore. Red just did things. Ideally, what you told him, but occasionally something else entirely. Remy could probably stop him if he tried. Probably.

  The woman gave a shudder and a gasp as Remy’s shadow shifted to overlap hers.

  Adeline clapped her hands in delight.

  The woman’s mouth moved, grating out words. “I’m not getting paid enough for this shit. Go ahead. Use the pool, assholes.”

  Remy laughed. He found it a little disturbing how much Red would have to know about people to come up with something so entirely realistic, but it was still funny.

  Adeline gave a sigh of annoyance. “No, make her say something embarrassing.”

  The woman’s body moved jerkily, her eyes wild with panic. “Stop ordering me around, Adeline,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

  Adeline turned to Remy, astonished and offended. “Did you—”

  “Oh, come on,” Remy said. “He’s just having a laugh.”

  Then the woman gasped, hand going to her mouth as Red let her go. She looked at them both, tears starting in her eyes, then ran up the stairs.

  Adeline turned to Remy, eyes blazing. She was furious. Remy didn’t think she’d have been so angry if he’d said that, but she thought of Red as a toy, and toys weren’t supposed to answer back. Especially not in public.

  Before she could lecture Remy on controlling his shadow, Madison, Topher, and Brooks thundered down the stairs. Topher had gone to the same prep school as Remy, and he and Adeline knew the others from running in the same circles.

  “My man,” Brooks said, going in for the one-armed guy hug. “Heard there was a pool. Should have known you would get here first.”

  Maddy had swiped a bottle of Don Julio 1942 from the mirrored bar. “Oh, I should have gotten glasses,” she said.

  “I can pour a shot straight into your mouth,” offered Remy, relaxing in their company.

  The five of them skinny-dipped in the pool together, drinking tequila and laughing. Adeline seemed to forget about what had happened, and everything was normal again. Then they put back on their clothes, got hold of Jefferson, his girlfriend, and someone else’s cousin and went out to The Box, where acrobats were flying through the air, along with a single shadow. At various points, it held them suspended above the crowd, making them appear to be hanging on to absolutely nothing.

  Topher wanted to roll bliss, and Adeline showed off her gloaming ability by sending him off. When she was done with him, he was in such a state that he could only loll in a corner of their private booth, murmuring to himself and twitching. Remy hoped that she’d given him the promised good time. She’d sent people off into weeklong bouts of terror before, and by then it was clear her foul mood had returned.

  Brooks and Jefferson, impressed, asked her a lot of questions in a way that made it clear they were interested in more than the answers.

  Maddy and the cousin had begun making out, both their skirts pushed up so high that it was clear only one of them was wearing underwear.

  Remy tried to avoid Adeline’s wrath by talking to the girls at the next booth, who recruited him to play a drinking game. You were supposed to all stare at one other person, and if you locked eyes, shout “Medusa!” before the other did.

  He’d had at least three more shots of tequila when Adeline put her hand on his shoulder.