17
You look a mess, the Rake said.
After dinner, I’d slipped into the ballroom to summon him. I thought you old-fashioned guys weren’t supposed to comment on a lady’s poor looks.
You are hardly a lady, my little warrior.
I half laughed. Even the Rake didn’t see me as a princess. Well, your little warrior is ready to be a big warrior.
He lunged at me with his rapier.
For once, I was ready. I deflected his thrust, and stepped in close. He backed and swiveled, trying to bring his sword to bear, but I slid under his guard and held my blade to his neck.
Passable, he said. Again.
My hand hurts. I switched the dagger to my left hand, shaking out my right, and he attacked me again.
Hey! I yelped.
Ignore the pain, Emma. Or better—use it.
I kept my distance from him, deflecting his thrusts and slashes and playing defense, while I thought about pain. The pain of my family disappearing and Bennett leaving me. The pain of Martha’s and Coby’s deaths. The pain of the ducking chair and of the ghostbite on my hands. Yet, here I was, still ticking like someone had filled me with Energizer batteries. Because the truth was, I was angry. That’s what kept me going. And I focused that anger on the Rake until I pinned him three times in a row—and he finally declared me “adequate.”
When we finished, we sat in the white linen easy chairs at one end of the room. The wall of windows was filled with black light, and I longed to shut the velvet curtains against the darkness, but was too tired to get up.
Yes? the Rake said, his blue eyes reminding me so much of Bennett’s. The way he teased me reminded me of Bennett, too.
What? I asked.
There’s something you want to ask me. I can see it in your face.
I’d been distracted by thoughts of Bennett, but, yeah, I did want to ask him something. Was your Emma always brave?
Not always. None of us are.
I—I’m scared. What if I can’t protect them all? What if I can’t win?
The Rake’s smile warmed me. Neos is right about one thing, Emma. You are the only real threat to him. He burns with raw power and hunger and hatred. But you … you burn brighter. You burn with life. He is stronger than you, but he doesn’t understand—he can’t understand—how fiercely you’ll fight for those you love. You were well chosen, Emma Vaile.
His sudden earnestness embarrassed me, so I said, Even though I’m just a girl?
Because you are just a girl, the Rake said, and faded into the ether.
The next morning, the light outside my window was dark gray: another beautiful day in Massachusetts. I rolled over for a few more moments of happily bedded bliss, and jumped when I saw Nicholas hovering over me.
Gah! What are you doing?
I sensed something, he said, his eyes big and frightened.
I reached for my dagger. What? In the house?
No. Yes. Outside—outside the gate. But not Neos—I don’t think—not now, I mean, except maybe—
Nicholas! Take a deep … whatever. Calm down. Tell me what you sensed.
He rippled for a moment, then said, Yes, mum. I was outside, and I felt someone powerful on the street. A strange man. I thought a man, at least. He stank of power, so I hid between the oak tree and the fence, and I watched. And he stared at the house—at your window, I think. For a long time.
At my window, I said, my heart hammering.
Nicholas nodded. And I watched and watched. Then he finally left and I—I stayed there, hidden. I didn’t move. Not for hours. I was that afraid, mum.
I tried to smile at him. You do look a little … off. He was always pale—I mean, he was a ghost—but there was a greenish tinge to his pallor this morning. Then what?
I crept closer to where he’d been standing, and I found this. He held out his hand to me, and in his palm was a small gray metal disk, like a flattened coin with slight indentations.
My spine tingled as I stared at the disk. I was getting some serious ghostly ping off it. What is that?
I dunno, mum. I thought a button at first, but it’s not a button. I think he might’ve rubbed it, like a rosary.
The skin on my arms began to prickle and my ghostbitten hands itched. I was afraid to touch the disk, terrified that I’d flash onto some awful place.
Nicholas thrust his hand closer. Here, mum.
Not yet, I said. Go stand in the hall.
Please, take it. I’m afraid of Neos. You have to find him. His eyes were wide and trusting, expecting me to handle everything.
I will, Nicholas. I just need to be ready.
I followed him from the bedroom and marched down the hall knocking on doors, and yelling for everyone to wake up.
Simon was the first to appear. He was wearing a white T-shirt and red flannel pajama bottoms. “Bloody hell, Emma, what’s happened?”
“Does that really count as swearing in England?” Natalie’s voice came from behind me. She wore a black satin mini nightie, very sex kittenish. “I always wondered if it’s like saying fu—”
“Natalie!” I interrupted. “Get dressed—how do you sleep in that? Where’s Lukas?”
On cue, Lukas stumbled from his room wearing nothing but black boxer briefs. “Yo.”
He caught sight of Natalie, and gaped—she might’ve teased him, except she was staring at him just as openly. Hoo boy.
“Hold up,” Simon said. “What’s going on?”
“Why’s Nicholas showing us that coin?” Natalie asked, looking away from Lukas with some effort.
“Looks like he’s begging,” Lukas said. “Sometimes he takes this waif thing too far.”
“He’s not begging,” I said, and told them what he’d told me. “There are waves of energy coming off it—can’t you feel them?”
“We’re not readers.”
“Well, I was afraid to touch it without you. You ready?”
They looked solemn, standing there in their pj’s, drawing their power closer to the surface. Natalie with her summoning energy crackling around her kittenish nightie, Lukas with his ripped bare chest—I mean his waves of compulsive force—and Simon with a look of grim determination behind his flashing eyeglasses, his dispelling power flickering around him.
I took a breath and swiped the disk from Nicholas’s palm. The ridges in the metal pressed into my still-tender skin, burning cold and hot at the same time. I felt a coil of dark power and then the whooshing, and the room began to spin, my vision whirling as though I were on a merry-go-round.
“Here we go,” I muttered, and closed my eyes against the wave of nausea.
When I opened them, I was standing alone on a dark city street in a neighborhood of old brownstones. A row of bare-limbed trees lined the sidewalk, and a scattering of lights glowed yellow in windows, too dim to illuminate the street. It was quiet, like early morning. Maybe the same time as it was in Echo Point?
Was that possible? That this wasn’t a flashback, that the disk was showing me someplace else in real time?
As I watched, the street filled with a thick silvery fog, and I shivered against the cold, even though I knew this was all in my head, and I was still standing in the museum hallway.
I looked toward a doorway with a cheerful wreath, then noticed a flash of movement up ahead. A dark figure darted through the mist. It looked like a man. He rounded the corner as I followed him across the road and onto another narrow street. The air smelled of dense moisture, and I tailed him onto a block of brick buildings with little shops and cafés.
I lost track of the man for a moment, then spotted him crossing a square and entering what looked like an old stone church with a tall spire. I stared at the sign in front of the building until it resolved into words: Cambridge Memorial Church.
I dropped the disk, and with a whoosh I was standing back in the museum, the disk rolling across the floor and clinking against the wall.
“Cambridge,” I said. “He’s in Cambridge, outside of Boston.”
“Who?” Simon asked.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see him fully in the vision. But this coin? It stinks of Neos.”
“Cambridge,” Simon said. “You think he’s there now?”
I nodded. “Hard to tell, but—yeah.”
“Then let’s roll.”
Behind his back, Lukas mouthed “let’s roll?” and Natalie chuckled as she slipped into her room to get dressed. I told Nicholas to ask Anatole and Celeste to make coffee and toast; then I changed into black leggings, a long gray sweater, and my black boots. I beat Natalie to the bathroom, washed my face, and checked myself in the mirror. The girl staring back looked pale and tired and not at all ready to battle ghosts.
I cleaned my hands in warm sudsy water, then carefully rinsed and dried them before applying a thin layer of Neosporin. The right one still stung from sparring with the Rake last night. Like he’d said, it was only pain, but I found a couple Advil in the medicine cabinet and popped them anyway.
A knock sounded, and Natalie waited on the other side of the door, dressed in jeans and a leopard-print sweater, her dark glossy hair slung back in a ponytail.
“Really?” I said. “Leopard this early in the morning?”
“It makes me feel fierce,” she said. “How are your hands?”
“Okay.” I waved them at her.
She didn’t flinch, so I guess they didn’t look that bad.
“I’ll see you downstairs. I asked Anatole to make coffee.” I was strictly a tea girl myself, but Natalie loved her morning buzz.
I found Lukas in the kitchen, scarfing buttered toast, and I sighed. He no doubt had jumped into clothes he found on the floor, slapped on some deodorant, and called himself good. Meanwhile, I was trying to ignore my stringy hair, and Natalie was probably upstairs flossing.
Lukas swallowed when he saw me. “Dude, I got you something.”
I grabbed toast and a cup of tea and eyed him skeptically. Why would he want to give me a gift?
“Here.” He shoved a white plastic bag across the table. Another reason to be a guy: they didn’t feel the urge to wrap gifts in polka-dot paper and pink bows.
“What is it?” I asked, half convinced it was a gag gift that would explode with green slime when I touched it. Considering the trouble he’d caused with the ghosts at his last school, I wasn’t sure Lukas had grown out of that stage.
“It’s for your dagger. I made it in art class.”
I used one finger to pry open the bag, and nothing burst out at me. Inside was a dark brown leather belt with a tight loop sewn into one side.
Lukas shrugged. “I just thought … way cooler than whipping it out of your down jacket.”
In the hallway, Simon bellowed. “Natalie! We’re in a bit of a rush here!”
I slipped my dagger into the loop. Perfect.
Natalie stumbled in and grabbed the thermos of coffee that Anatole offered. She nodded her thanks and looked at my belt. “What’s that?”
“Lukas made it,” I said. “It’s a dagger holster.”
“Sheath,” he said.
Natalie’s eyes twinkled. “Are those little hearts stamped into the leather?”
“Gimme a break,” Lukas said. “My teacher is pretty seventies. It was that or peace signs, which didn’t seem apropos.”
“Oooh, apropos,” I said.
“Fancy vocabulary coming from a leather worker,” Natalie teased. “Have you been studying for the SATs?”
Simon strode into the kitchen and glared at us, and we fell into an abashed silence. “I’m not going to have to put up with juvenile joshing this morning, am I?”
“Of course not,” I said.
“You do realize we’re after Neos?” he said.
Lukas cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”
Simon glanced toward Natalie. “No gossip about school?”
“Of course not. That wouldn’t be apropos.”
We all cracked up and Simon cursed under his breath. “Bloody teenagers.”