“Where’s Vince?” Posey asked, squinting at the black, star-spattered sky as though she could tell time by it. “How long were you in there?”

  Charlie shook her head. “Drive. I’ll explain. We have one stop before we go home. Do you remember Tina?”

  After their detour, Posey took them back to their rental house, even though it was still taped off as a crime scene. Charlie crawled through the window to her bedroom, showered in her own bathroom, and slept on her own mattress. Her sister slept beside her, Charlie’s shadow curled around them both.

  When she woke, the scent of bleach in her nose, she realized the sheets still smelled like Vince.

  She held her hands up in the air. Long fingers. Black nail polish, already chipped. Clever hands, capable of picking a lock and opening a safe.

  She thought of reaching out for a shadow, grabbing Vince. If she hadn’t guessed what he was going to do, if she hadn’t gotten there in time, the momentum would have taken him into the fire.

  There wouldn’t even have been a body.

  The thought made her feel hollowed out as she went through the motions of taking a shower. Part of her felt trapped in that upside-down world, where he was already gone. Her gaze fell on the wall tiles, staring at the nothing that was where her shadow ought to be.

  The absence hadn’t just shut a door inside her mind; it shut a door on a potential future. She wasn’t going to be a gloamist. She hadn’t been sure she wanted to be, but still.

  Would Vicereine and the rest of them have listened to her more if she’d had a quickened shadow? Would they have let her see Vince?

  She’d been so certain he’d want to come home with her, but after thinking about it, maybe she shouldn’t have been. When he met her, he wasn’t used to being alone in the world and had limited options. Maybe he hadn’t seen a future for himself past the end of Salt, but now he was in that future and, for perhaps the first time, could shape it as he wished.

  If the Cabal let him, of course.

  She wondered what he thought of the swing-for-the-fences-and-damn-the-consequences Charlie Hall that he’d never met before. Maybe they both had been holding themselves back, when the other person had been capable of rising to the challenge. When the other person might have been thrilled by the challenge.

  After she was clean and dressed in her own clothes, she waited for Posey.

  “Mom sent me, like, seventeen messages about bringing back the station wagon,” her sister said, emerging from her bedroom in fresh clothes. Charlie glanced behind Posey, at her shadow.

  Her sister followed her gaze. Her brow furrowed with worry. “Is it weird?”

  “I don’t know. Is it weird for you?” Charlie asked.

  Posey moved her lips silently and the shadow swept around her, curling over her shoulders, looking for all the world as though it preferred to be there. Charlie couldn’t help a shiver that was part recognition.

  “It’s the most perfect thing that’s ever happened. You won’t believe all the things I’ll teach myself to do.” Posey’s eyes were bright in a way they hadn’t been in a long time, and that Charlie didn’t want anything to dim.

  She headed to the window and jammed it open. “Well, come on. If Mom and Bob are desperate to get the station wagon back, we better get out of here, since I want to stop for coffee first,” she said.

  “Thank all the gods,” Posey said fervently.

  They stopped at Small Oven Bakery, where Charlie got three espressos in tiny paper cups and lined them up in front of her like shots. Posey poked at a sticky bun while looking at her phone.

  Charlie took the first of the espressos and downed it.

  “Um,” Posey said, and turned the phone toward her sister.

  Early this morning the Gazette received pages from a journal alleged to be written by Lionel Salt, implicating him in several open investigations, including that of Rose Allaband. Allaband’s body was found in a burnt-out car along with the body of Salt’s grandson, Edmund Carver, over a year ago. Both may have been Salt’s victims. Other cases are likely to be reopened based on information in the pages, including Randall Grigoras, Ankita Eswaran, and Hector Blanco. Not only does the journal include detailed accounts of their deaths, but drawings of medical experiments conducted on their shadows.

  Handwriting examiners were able to confirm with 98 percent confidence that the writing in the journal was consistent with samples of Salt’s handwriting that the Gazette had obtained. We reached out to Salt’s representatives for comment, but we haven’t heard back at this time.

  “You did this to Lionel Salt?” Posey said, astonished. “How?”

  When Charlie had opened the safe, she’d only been expecting to find the Liber Noctem, but there had been something else in there too. A notebook, from which a few pages had been torn out.

  It couldn’t be too often that the Hampshire Gazette got a scoop like that.

  Charlie took her second shot of espresso, and then the third. “I didn’t do it to him. He did it to himself.”

  * * *

  That Sunday, Charlie showed up for her shift at Rapture. Her mind wasn’t in it, though, and she kept having to ask people to repeat their drink orders. She dropped two wineglasses and set an entire highball of absinthe on fire, instead of just the sugar cube. That glass broke too, and in a much more dramatic way.

  Partway through her shift, Odette pulled her aside. She thought it was going to be to scold her or ask her about a missing red pantsuit, but instead it was to introduce her to the new bartender, the one taking José’s ex’s shifts. Charlie was surprised to see Don.

  “Hey,” he said. “Top Hat got a new manager and I decided I could use a change of scenery.”

  “Well, this place is that,” Charlie told him, and proceeded to walk him through what things were put where, how to use the register, and how many dry ice pellets to float on a drink.

  “They swallow it, we get a lawsuit,” she told him.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have it on the menu?” Don suggested.

  “It’s going to take you a minute to get the vibe of this place,” Charlie predicted.

  Around closing time, Balthazar came to the bar. “Pour us a last drink. Whatever you’re having,” he told her.

  “Oh, I’m drinking too?” She smiled.

  “If I were you, I would be.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. Took down the brand-new Laphroaig 15, opened it, and poured them both two fingers.

  “So, your guy,” he said.

  Charlie nodded. “I guess you heard. Quite a thing.”

  “Does this mean you’re back in business?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “After the spectacle I made of myself, I should probably lay low for a while.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The Charlatan’s reputation is at an all-time high,” he said, taking a sip of his drink and then wincing. “Ugh, this tastes like someone poured gasoline over a tire, set it on fire, and then put the fire out with dirt.”

  Odette made her way over and sat down next to Balthazar. “Having some cocktails, are we? Well, don’t leave me out.”

  “You can have mine,” Balthazar said, passing his drink over. “Please.”

  Odette accepted it without complaint. Charlie poured Balthazar amaretto instead, which he took gratefully.

  “You see the news?” he asked Odette.

  “About Lionel?” Odette made a disgusted sound. “The funny thing is that I always knew he was a sadist, and a bit of a narcissist. But interesting and, I thought, self-aware. You can know who someone is, and still have no idea of how far they will go. I thought I understood his limits, and now I have to ask myself if it was because I didn’t want the discomfort of realizing he had none.”

  Charlie took a sip of her drink and wondered about her own limits.

  “Now they’re saying he might be responsible for the death of Fiona’s sweet boy.”

  “Edmund Carver,” Balthazar said, enunciating each syllable, his gaze going to Charlie.

  “I thought his mother’s name was Kiara,” Charlie said.

  Odette nodded. “Yes, I am referring to Salt’s first wife. That’s how he and I met, through Fiona. Poor old thing. First losing her daughter, then her grandson, and now this. All within the span of two years.”

  “How is it that you know absolutely everyone?” Balthazar asked.

  “Ah, but do I know any of them well?” Odette looked into the mirror, as though studying her own face.

  Balthazar sat up straighter. “Well, let me distract us from this increasingly morbid conversation with a bit of news. Do either of you know Murray, of Murray’s Fine Jewelry?”

  “Sure,” Charlie said, thinking of the silver inkpot and candlesticks she needed to sell. “Why?”

  “He closed the pawnshop,” Balthazar said, raising his eyebrows. “Struck it rich. Retiring to Boca, apparently.”

  Odette gave a delicate little snort. “You make it sound as though he dug up a pot of gold in his backyard.”

  “Practically,” Balthazar agreed. “Rumor has it that he won it all with one lucky bet at the racetrack.”

  “Huh,” Charlie said. “Imagine that.”

  * * *

  The three-day wait to see Vince was awful. Charlie’s mind kept darting back and forth between scenarios. What if the Cabal lied and hurt him after all. What if they wanted to experiment on him. What if they decided his existence was too big of a risk. What if they wouldn’t let her see him after all. Her mind would careen along one path and then another, making imaginary moves and countermoves, a chess game played against herself to no purpose except indulging her anxiety. A snake eating its own tail and then choking on it.

  At least by then she and Posey were back in their house. Winnie from Vince’s work had been the tech hired to get rid of the bloodstains. She’d messaged Charlie to say that she’d done an extra thorough job on account of her friendship with Vince. She’d also given Charlie a whole bunch of information she never wanted about the weirdest places she’d found bits of Adam.

  For her part, Posey had spent the last few days with Malhar. She claimed that he was just doing some tests, now that she’d agreed to join his study, but Charlie thought there were too many meals involved for that to be strictly true.

  But it did mean Charlie was left with a lot of nervous energy and no one to snap at as she got ready, pulling on black jeggings, boots, and a sweater without any holes in it. The pants were stretchy enough that if she needed to do some quick moves, they could accommodate. And the boots were heavy enough to hurt if someone needed to get kicked in the head.

  Charlie’s Corolla was in the shop, but she’d managed to locate Vince’s van two blocks from the East Star Motel. She found keys behind the sun visor on the driver’s side. Shoving two parking tickets into the glove compartment, she’d taken it home.

  That’s what she drove over to Bellamy’s stronghold.

  True to his mysterious nature, he’d taken over a watchtower in Holyoke. It was accessible only by trail and appeared abandoned from the outside.

  The front door was rotted along the bottom, its hinges thick with rust. Charlie knocked, hard.

  A few moments later it creaked open, revealing a girl with a shaved head and thick black makeup around her eyes. One magnetic eyelash hung slightly askew. A new piercing on her cheek appeared red and infected. Her shadow swirled around her like a snake ready to strike. Probably some kind of apprentice.

  “I’m here to see Vince,” Charlie said.

  “Who?” the girl asked.

  If Bellamy and the others thought they were going to blow Charlie off, she was going to make every single one of them sorry. “The Blight.”

  “Oh,” the girl said. “Right. Come in. They’re expecting you.”

  The inside had the appearance of a castle, or a tomb. The girl led her through chambers of bare concrete walls, occasionally marked with graffiti, and up a flight of stairs, to a room hung with brocade curtains. Thin red taper candles burned in silver skull Halloween candelabras. The cold cement floor was piled with cushions.

  Lounging on a red velvet beanbag was Bellamy.

  Charlie looked around warily. “Where is he?”

  “We’re holding him in a room at the top of the tower, like a princess waiting for rescue,” Bellamy said. “Unharmed.”

  “He’s leaving today,” Charlie told him. “With me.”

  Bellamy took a sip from a delicate cup, thin enough to be translucent. Bone china. “Go and speak with your Blight. Up the stairs. Up, up, up. We’ll talk again after.”

  Charlie didn’t like the sound of that, but in her eagerness to see Vince, she let it go. She started back toward the stairs and was stopped by a woman’s voice.

  “Ms. Hall,” Adeline Salt said. She sat on a slightly ripped couch in a room full of locked metal cases of books.

  She had on dark-wash jeans and an emerald-colored blouse that tied in a bow underneath her throat. Balanced on her thighs was a computer, its case rose gold. She had that strangely burnished look that wealthy people have, hair extra smooth and skin extra glowing.

  She couldn’t have looked more out of place.

  Charlie leaned against the opening, not quite entering the room.

  “You’ve come to see Red, is that right? Oh good, I’m sure he will like that. He was asking for you.” Adeline’s smile was completely disingenuous.

  “Vince,” Charlie said.

  It was interesting to see Adeline trying to decide whether to argue over his name. It obviously bothered her, not that Charlie called him something else, but Charlie acting as though the name he went by with her was his real one. Well, it was what he called himself.

  “I’ve spoken to the Cabal. He’s going to come home with me. I’m going to be his guardian, and he’ll be able to pick up where Edmund’s life ended.” Oddly, there seemed to be a flicker of fear in her eyes.

  “How exactly is he going to do that?” Charlie asked.

  “I’ve already begun the process of voiding the death certificate.” Adeline smiled again, stiffly. “You understand that’s for the best, don’t you? Red will be very wealthy. And he’ll only be bound to me for a few years.”

  The idea that Adeline might be considered a guardian for Vince, when by all rights she should be the one punished, was enraging. The possessive tone in her voice made it worse, and a whole lot creepier. “Maybe that’s not what he wants.”

  Adeline tossed back her hair. “You think he’d rather be skulking around with a thief?”

  “I think he’d rather do almost anything than live in your father’s house,” Charlie said.

  “You didn’t hear?” One perfectly manicured eyebrow arched. “My father died that night, after being left alone with you. Stabbed thirty-three times with a letter opener.”

  “Tragic,” Charlie said archly. She had heard.

  “What did you do to him in there?” Adeline asked silkily.

  “I took his gun away and cut off his shadow,” Charlie told her. “Whatever happened after that, I wasn’t there for it.”

  “Convenient.” Adeline sneered.

  “I’d agree.” Charlie looked at Adeline’s laptop, at the green leather Chanel shopper she’d carried it in, at the diamond studs in her ears. “You’re his only heir, aren’t you?”

  Adeline’s hand went to her hair, nervously catching a strand of it between her fingers. “Don’t try to implicate me in your crime,” she said stiffly. “Your guilt is your own to wrestle with.”

  “In the great room,” Charlie said. “I was pretty distracted when you came in. But the funny thing is that I still noticed you had blood on your hands.”

  Charlie started toward the hall, then looked back over her shoulder. “By the way, you’re welcome.”

  * * *

  Charlie tried to walk calmly up the concrete steps, but when she hit the second landing, she found herself walking faster and faster until she was practically running. At the very top, she found a door, banded in onyx and locked with a bar. Charlie lifted it, surprised by the weight.

  Vince stood in the small, windowless room with his back to her. He appeared much the same as he had always been, same broad shoulders, same height, same everything. But when he turned, his eyes were empty sockets, filled only with smoke. It made her think of his body as a shell with some swirling creature living inside.

  Charlie thought of the tarot cards she’d pulled from Posey’s deck. The conversion of the spiritual into material. The Magician.

  When his eyes closed, she noticed that for his hair had darkened to bronze, as though the gold had blown off when he changed. He was dressed in a black button-up, and his pants were some kind of performance material that looked expensive. Remy’s clothes.

  Charlie felt turned inside out by the closeness of him, like the man in that story he told at Barb’s party, like a sock. All of her vulnerable parts seemed to be showing. The slightest touch might hurt.

  “I didn’t quite go back together the way I was, did I?” Vince asked her.

  Charlie realized that she’d stopped, going no farther into the room than that first step. No wonder he didn’t look happy. He had to think she was afraid.

  And she was afraid, but only a little. She made herself walk toward him. The Fool, walking off a cliff. “I like it. It’s weird.”

  That small surprised lift of the corner of his lip, as though he’d forgotten he could smile, was familiar enough for her to actually relax.

  The longer she looked, the less she minded the strangeness of his eyes. “Why did you do it?”

  “Lie to you?” he asked. “Hide what I was?”

  “No.” Charlie sighed, sitting on the arm of one of the patterned brocade sofas. “Why fight the Hierophant? You almost died. For nothing. None of these fuckers care about you.”

  His smile widened. “That is not a question anyone asked me since I got here, and they’ve asked a lot.”

  “Well, I don’t think they’re focused on your well-being.”