The Van Alen Legacy

Back into custody. He was here to take her back to face the Inquisitor for sentencing. Innocent or guilty, it did not matter, she knew what the verdict would be—they had turned against her. Jack was one of them now. Part of the Conclave. The enemy.

Schuyler backed into the opposite wall, toward the other door, knowing it was useless. The wards, the protections in place meant there was no way to go but up and out. She would have to try it. Take a running start on the wall and jump high enough so that she would crash through the glass.

Jack noticed her eyes flick toward the ceiling. “You will destroy this room if you attempt it.”

“What do I care?”

“I think you do. I think you love the H?tel Lambert as much as I do. You are not the only one who used to play in its gardens.” Of course Jack had been here before. His father had been the former Regis. The Forces had probably stayed in the same guest wing as she and Cordelia. But so what?

“I’ll do it if it’s the only way. Watch me.”

Jack took a step toward her. “I’m not your enemy, Schuyler. No matter what you think. You’re wrong. That way is lost. There is a protection you don’t feel, one that Lawrence did not teach you about. You will shatter against the glass. And I will not have any harm come to you.”

“No?”

“You don’t have a choice. Come with me, Schuyler, please.” Jack held out his hand. His flashing glass-green eyes were suddenly gentle, pleading. The foreboding look on his face had all but disappeared. He looked vulnerable and lost. It was the same way he had looked at her that night. When he had asked her to stay.

She gave him the same answer she had back then.

“No.”

Before she could take a breath she was already running sideways and up, so fast that she was a pink blur against the gold wall, and then she had thrown herself upward so that she broke through the ceiling, sending a rain of crystal shards crashing down on the marble floor. It was all over in an instant.

He was wrong. She knew the spell that held it in place, and she knew the counterspell that had destroyed it. Contineo and Frango. Lawrence had been thorough in his tutorials. In this at least, she would not fail her grandfather.

I’m sorry, Jack. But I can’t go back there.

Never.

Then she disappeared into the night.





THIRTEEN

Bliss


Listen! I am not going away until I see Bliss! I insist! You will have to call the police if you want me to leave!” The voice was so strong, so aggressive and braying, so full of itself, brimming with the complete and total assumption that it was one hundred percent in the right, filled with the kind of New York arrogance that only a jaded city dweller could muster. It was the kind of voice that yelled at bike messengers and barked orders at scurrying underlings for half-caf no-foam ventis—so loud and insistent that it pierced through the muffled gauze that kept Bliss from seeing and hearing the outside world.

The Visitor stirred. It was like watching a coiled snake get ready to spring. Bliss held her breath.

The voice continued its tirade. “Can you at least tell her who’s here?”

What is the meaning of this nonsense?

Bliss jumped. It was the first time the Visitor had spoken directly to her in a year.

With a start, the lights came on, and she found she could see and was looking out the window. There was a short bald man standing at the front door, looking furious and harassing the maid.

It’s Henri, she said.

Who is he?

My modeling agent.

Explain.

Bliss sent images and memories to the Visitor: waiting outside the office at the Farnsworth Agency, her portfolio balanced on her knees, breakfast meetings with Henri over cappuccinos at Balthazar before school, walking the runway during New York fashion week, the photo shoots in the Starret-Lehigh lofts, her ad campaigns for Stitched for Civilization, jetting off for shoots in the Caribbean, her photographs on billboards, magazine spreads, plastered on the sides of buses and on top of taxis.

Um, I’m a model? she reminded him.

The cobra relaxed, coils unfurling, forked tongue withdrawn. But a tense wariness remained. The Visitor was not amused.

A model. A living mannequin.

Quickly he reached a decision. Get rid of him. I have been remiss to let this happen. We shall keep up appearances. No one must suspect you are not you. Do not fail me.

What do you mean—what do you want me to do?—Bliss asked, but before she could finish, she was SMACK, back in her body, completely in control. This was nothing like last week’s pathetic attempt to brush her bangs away from her forehead. She had realized how much of herself he was keeping from her, a thought she tried to shelter from him.