Strangely, a lower shelf seemed to be protected by the same golden glow that blazed from the door upstairs. When she reached for the books, her hand was repelled by an invisible force. So of course, those were the ones she most wanted to read. Gold lettering looped up their faded blue and maroon spines: Fasciculus Chemicus, Iconologia, and Picatrix. She had no clue what any of that meant, just a strong desire to do whatever she wasn’t supposed to do.
After giving up on the enchanted books, she rose to take one last peek in the armory. When she stepped into the room, she caught a glimpse of the clock mounted above the mirror. It was past midnight. That was, what, five or six a.m. in the UK? She really needed to get some rest.
She trudged up the stairs to her new bedroom and crawled under the coverlet. As she lay in the darkness, she closed her eyes, trying to calm the thoughts blazing through her mind.
Muppet’s singed shirt, Kester’s fiery eyes and clawed fingers, the moor fiend’s leering grin.
She’d never fall asleep with these thoughts whirling in her skull. She imagined one of her favorite places: a ruined church near the tower of London, its crumbling stone walls covered in ivy. But even with that serene image in her mind, Kester’s words rang in her head: You’re a demon.
The concept was horrifying. She’d always known she was different, but… a demon? A mortal one, no less. You’d think that one of the benefits of demonhood would be immortality, but no. Not only was she an abomination and a bringer of death, but she had to die, just like everyone else. She rubbed her white stone between her fingers, but it wasn’t giving her comfort tonight.
She pulled her bedsheets tighter. She hadn’t asked for any of this. At least, she didn’t think she had. As long as she could remember, the strange scar had marred her shoulder. Who knew how she got it? She was a Mystery Girl all right—a Mystery Girl who’d made a terrible decision she couldn’t even remember. And now she was stuck in a foreign country, permanently cut off from her best friend.
That was the thing that really bothered her. More than anything, she wanted to find a way to phone Katie, just to hear a friendly voice again. But she really didn’t want to find out what Kester’s threat meant. And what could she even say to Katie without sounding like a complete and utter lunatic? Heat rose in her chest, and sweat beaded on her face.
She rolled onto her back, staring up at the blue ceiling flecked with gold stars. There was something oddly comforting about the night sky. At times like this, when the world seemed to suffocate her, she felt like she wanted to throw herself into the freezing night air, to drift along in the wind, riding a night storm…
Basically, she was a lunatic, trapped with her own thoughts.
And as if they weren’t enough to keep her awake, a glowing, spiked door lurked just outside her room.
She threw off her covers and rose from the bed. Shivering, she returned downstairs and snatched a dagger to slip beneath her pillow.
Chapter 12
As her nails dug into her palms, Ursula stood by the empty reception desk of Ostema, a hair salon near the Plaza Hotel. Around the room, tall mirrors gleamed over bamboo countertops. The air had a faint citrus sent. The place was designed to lull customers into a sense of peace, but Ursula’s head was a war zone. Her mind burned with everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours: her newfound wealth, Kester’s hound form, a soul that was no longer quite her own.
And her new, icy companion wasn’t doing anything to calm her nerves.
That morning, Kester had brought with him a slender young woman named Zemfira. With platinum-blond hair cut in a chic bob, and a patterned mini dress, she looked like some sort of retro supermodel. Ursula, on the other hand, wore the same black clothes from the day before, her red hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She’d been too overwhelmed to care how she looked this morning.
Before Kester had left, he’d explained that Zemfira—or Zee, as she called herself—would be getting Ursula settled. And, at Zemfira’s insistence, their first crucial stop was a hair salon.
“Try to look cool,” said the girl, her accent faintly Russian.
“I don’t even know what that means.” Be nice, Ursula. This girl was frosty, but if Ursula could get on her good side, maybe Zee would be a little more forthcoming than Kester. Like, about what had happened to the last guy who had Ursula’s job.
Working at Rufus’s bar, Ursula had met glamorous girls like Zee before. They loved to gossip.
Zee leveled cobalt blue eyes at her. “I don’t enjoy being seen around the city with someone who looks like she drank twenty wine coolers at a skanky art student party last night.”
Or maybe not. For some reason, Zee had decided she hated Ursula. Something had obviously struck a nerve, and Ursula needed to figure out what it was. “That’s how you’d describe me? A drunk art skank?”
“I suppose.” Zemfira’s eyes flicked to her steel-grey nails, as though they were the most fascinating things in the room. “But Luis is a master with hair. He’ll be able to help you with… the thing you’ve got going on with your head. Is it a British thing?”