“You said almost impossible,” she remarked, self-consciously running her fingers through her tousled locks. She probably looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed.
Constantine sat forward, crossing his arms on the green wrought-iron table. “The only way I know of to destroy a mimic is to simultaneously kill the human or animal that the mimic has taken the appearance of. Luc says the mimic took on the form of your friend from London? If she had been at your side and you had plunged a dagger through her heart while the mimic still wore her appearance, the deed would have been done. It requires a sacrifice, my dear.”
Ingrid’s uncontrollable tremors made another attack. “That’s impossible,” she whispered.
Constantine fanned out his hands. “As I said.”
“There has to be another way.” Vander loosened his jacquard tie and the first few buttons of his shirt, nearly exposing the strawberry-colored marks he, Ingrid, Grayson, and every other Duster shared.
“Capturing a mimic requires advanced technologies that are unavailable to me,” Constantine replied. “However, if you were to go to the Daicrypta with such a request—”
“No!” Ingrid, Vander, and Luc all shouted in unison.
Ingrid sighed. Asking the Daicrypta for anything was out of the question. There had to be another method for stopping a mimic.
“There’s a library room at H?tel Bastian full of books. They haven’t been touched in years,” Ingrid said, looking at Vander. He’d invited her to be their academic. And then he’d kissed her. Ingrid turned back to Constantine, avoiding both Vander’s and Luc’s eyes.
“I could try to find something there,” she said distractedly. But then she saw the stacks of books on the table. Constantine had a library three times the size of the one at H?tel Bastian, and he’d been studying demons for decades. Ingrid fiddled with her hair again, tucking a lock behind her ear.
“We can search together,” Vander said with a step in her direction.
“How pleasant.” Luc moved between Ingrid and Vander. “What are you doing here, Seer?”
She saw again the books at Constantine’s elbows. Ingrid had forgotten. Vander had come to hear what Constantine had learned about the webbing that had spewed from his fingertips.
“I thought I’d come early. Get it over with,” he said to her with a timid glance toward Constantine’s books. He was nervous.
Constantine got right to it.
“Léon’s ability to produce silk protein is a main characteristic of the arachnae demon, just as electric pulses are of the lectrux, and perhaps just as the ability to shift is of the hellhound. When you were pinning Léon’s arms, he lost that ability, and you, Mr. Burke, adopted it. Only to a slight degree, but you still adopted it.”
Luc slowly rotated toward Vander, a strange light dawning in his eyes. Ingrid held her breath. He didn’t know about Vander’s dust. No one within the Dispossessed did.
“Why would that have happened?” Luc asked.
Constantine opened a book, oblivious to the tension brewing between Vander and Luc.
“After much research, I believe I’ve discovered the source of Mr. Burke’s demon blood and his demon gift.”
Luc and Vander stared at one another. If either of them was breathing, Ingrid couldn’t see evidence of it. They were both so still, they looked like wax replicas.
“You’re one of them,” Luc whispered.
“There are many of us,” Vander replied.
Constantine sighed. “My apologies, Mr. Burke. I wasn’t aware Luc was in the dark about your demon blood.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Vander broke off from Luc’s daggered glare. “My blood doesn’t come from an arachnae, I know that much. My dust is multicolored, not pale yellow like Léon’s. I also already know what my gift is: I see dust.”
Constantine opened to a marked page within the thick text. “That is a gift, most certainly. But I do not believe it is your demon gift. Just as it is not mine, for I do not possess demon blood, and yet I, too, see demon dust. You understand?”
Vander rounded the table, headed toward Constantine. “No. I don’t.”
Ingrid quickly looked at Luc. He was already watching her, and he was livid. She hadn’t told him the truth about Vander, but it hadn’t been her secret to share.
“The ability to see dust has nothing to do with your having demon blood. May I inquire as to when you received your calling from Our Lord?” Constantine asked.
Vander drew back. “Why?”
“Was it about the same time you started being able to view the dust around certain animals or people? Perhaps in random clouds or airstreams?”
Vander considered this in silence while Ingrid wondered what exactly a calling from the Lord was. Had Vander woken up one day with the unexplainable desire to serve God? Or had his family expected it of him for some reason? He spoke sparingly of his plans for the church. He spoke sparingly of his family, too, who she assumed still lived in America. All she had to go on was what he’d given her—and with a start, she realized that it wasn’t much at all.