While he spoke, he laid down a swirling design that cramped my fingers thinking about copying it. I steadied myself on my knees, leaving a bloodied handprint behind, and let my mind drift just enough the pain stopped knifing me.
Linus came full circle before I hit the halfway point. He stood watch against Ambrose while I struggled to close the wards before tipping into the darkness awaiting me on the fringes of my consciousness.
Who are you? Let him pick that thought from my head. Who had invited this creature to share their mind, their body? Who was so desperate for power they would welcome this disease? Had the summoner not understood the dybbuk would use them as a means to its own ends? Or had the person simply not cared as long as they were taken along for the ride?
The last flick of my wrist sealed the wards, and Ambrose bellowed in agony.
“Get back.” Linus hooked his arms under mine and dragged me. “The ward isn’t supposed to—”
Light exploded across the room, searing the memory of its layout across the backs of my eyelids, and the boat began rocking beneath us like the Cora Ann was riding out a hurricane instead of anchored in a quiet berth. I scrabbled toward Oscar, using his ward as flimsy protection and dragging Linus with me.
I’m not sure how long we huddled together, but eventually my teeth started chattering from having Linus curled around me, and my eyes, so sensitive to light, began to register my surroundings.
“No,” Linus warned, his arms a gentle cage around me.
I had broken free and crossed the room before his warning registered. Even then, I ignored him. This was wrong. This was a mistake. This made no sense. Something had gone wrong. Horribly wrong. There was no way. None. She would never…
Amelie huddled in the center of the wards. Linus’s shirt hung off her shoulder, and his pants pinched her waist and stretched past her toes. His shoes were boats on her feet, and they tipped off as she tucked her legs beneath her.
Hands pressed to the wound at my side, I collapsed inches from the warding ring. “Amelie?”
Linus joined me, setting restraining hands on my shoulders. “You can’t set her free.”
“How do we know it’s her?” I sat down hard. “He looked like you before and—”
“He was a caricature of me,” Linus said gently. “Look at her. She’s flesh and bone. She’s Amelie.”
“You must have suspected,” she croaked in his direction. “You were too good at hunting us.”
Unable to contribute more than my unhinged jaw to the conversation, I sat there and listened, hoping that sanity and understanding might collide to explain how this had come to pass.
“The night you came to the carriage house to retrieve Grier you had traces of zinc sulfide on your hands.” Linus tucked me closer when I listed forward. “Most people require a black light to see the effect, but the wraith I’m bonded to perceives it in its own unique way.”
“The clothes.” A brittle laugh strangled her. “You dusted the laundry Ambrose had been stealing from your hamper.”
That explained why I kept bumping into Ambrose in the gardens. He had been pilfering new outfits from Linus before he went out for the night. Having his suspicions confirmed also explained the frosty reception he gave Amelie. “Why did he choose Linus to mimic?”
Amelie flinched at the sound of my voice and huddled deeper into her stolen outfit. “Ambrose wasn’t powerful enough to manifest his own form for some time. Mostly he used me to...” She blanched. “He must have bumped into Linus and liked the look of him. Or maybe it was easy access to his clothing and supplies that appealed. I don’t know. I never asked, and he wouldn’t have told me if I had.”
Meaning I could have spoken to Amelie, visited her, and been talking to Ambrose. No wonder he knew me so well. He had access to the mind of the person who knew me best. Thanks to the dybbuk, she was privy to all my secrets now. “Tell me this was an accident. Tell me someone forced you. Tell me anything that will let me erase these lines between us.”
“I can’t do that.” Tears spiked her lashes. “This is all on me, Grier. I welcomed him in.”
A million questions jostled for position at the head of the line, and my thought process was lost amid all the shoving. “No.” That was all there was to it. “He manipulated you. He forced you to bond, and then he—”
“We lost you once.” Amelie stared into her lap. “I couldn’t lose you again.” Her throat worked over a hard lump. “Boaz—” She shook her head. “He was so furious with the system, he was coming unhinged.”
A vicious twist set my heart pounding. “What are you saying?”
“After you were sentenced to Atramentous, we saved all we could from Woolly. We held on to it in case you ever…” Her eyes closed, releasing fresh tears. “I found a grimoire. I read a few of the spells, but I didn’t understand them.” Her fists curled in her lap. “Why would I? I’m Low Society. We’re taught nothing except the history of the High Society.”
The acerbity in her voice carved my bones, but it had always been this way. She had always felt like she was on the outside looking in, even when I had been standing on the outside looking in right beside her. Envy was a seesaw we both rode from time to time, but none of her lows had been this, not rock bottom. She had always touched off the ground and gone soaring again. There must be more to it, there had to be a reason why she had chosen this path.
“You found a summoning spell in the grimoire.” Linus saved me from asking. “That’s how you knew what to do.”
“I spent the last five years figuring out the language of sigils.” Her glare dared him to belittle her accomplishment. “I tried warding and other small magics, but I couldn’t work them.”
“That’s when you started researching ways of increasing your power by using that newfound understanding.”
Again, he stole the words from my mouth, and I could only be grateful not to have to speak them.
“There was nothing I could do that wasn’t permanent,” she answered, “so I did nothing.”
“Ambrose is not nothing,” I rasped. “Why would you bind him to you?”
“Volkov took you.” Her gaze swung to me, full of pleading. “I had to do something. I had to save you.”
“No.” Linus slashed his hand through the air. “You don’t get to lay the blame for this at Grier’s feet. You made the choice. You had years to grasp the implications. This wasn’t a lark. This was a calculated decision, and the consequences are yours to bear.”
“Do you think I don’t know what I’ve done?” Rage blistered her cheeks. “I begged him to give me strength. I threw myself on his mercy so he would keep her safe from the vampires, but he twisted my words. He lied to me.” Her voice broke. “Bonding drained him until he was useless. Grier was home again before I noticed I was missing time, before I caught him stealing my body.”
“What did you expect?” He stared her down. “There is always a cost for power.”
“Perhaps the High Society ought to educate the rest of us on the price of the dream they sell us.” Her shoulders drooped, the fire draining from her. “We’re fed stories of power and magic from the time we’re born until we’re grown and left to hunger after scraps from our betters’ tables. How can we value our contributions when we’re kept ignorant of them? How can we make heroes of ourselves when we’re told no stories of our champions?”
“No one can save us from our birthrights.” His chill sigh whispered past my ear. “We’re all trapped in the net cast around us by fate the moment our eyes blink open. Whether the net is woven from silk or twine doesn’t matter. When you struggle against its pull, it cuts all the same.”
“What are we going to do?” I looked to Linus, the lifeline I didn’t deserve. “What will the Elite do to her?”
“Ambrose murdered nine vampires.” Linus resettled me against his side, supporting me so I didn’t tip forward to kiss the rusted floor. “She’s an accomplice. She will be held responsible for those deaths.”
“Godsdamn it, Amelie.” A worthless sob choked me. “What were you thinking?”
Amelie rested her chin on her knees to prevent further conversation.