“But most Blights are formed on the deathbed. Gloamists often push parts of themselves into their shadow in those last moments—often all of their fear and pain. Scary things get made like that. But powerful things. To create a Blight without that would probably require stealing energy, maybe through someone else’s deathbed and someone else’s blood.”
Charlie thought of Salt and what he’d done to her, of her fingers around a knife. “If it was powerful enough, could it control you? Could it puppet you?”
Raven studied her for a long moment. “I’ve never heard of a shadow being able to control the person to whom it’s attached, but there’s only one way to be entirely safe. To have no shadow at all. The shadowless can’t be controlled. There’s a door shut inside of them.”
The shadowless can’t be controlled. Could that be why Vince cut his shadow loose? To avoid being puppeted by his grandfather the way she had been? To avoid being controlled by Red?
Raven turned to Charlie. “I think that’s enough answers for you. And so help me, if you fuck me over, I’ll make sure you wind up the next Hierophant, with something ancient whispering in your ear while you chase down Blights until one of them catches you and devours you whole.”
“I’ll bring you Knight’s papers,” Charlie promised.
“Bring more bear claws when you do,” Raven said, sending Charlie back into a night that felt more full of shadows than before.
* * *
The next afternoon, Charlie sat at the kitchen table with pens in either hand and two sheets of notebook paper with tattered edges beneath them. In synchronized movements, she wrote the same words over and over, on both pages.
HEY DUMMY IS YOUR BRAIN SPLIT YET?
“I didn’t know you were ambidextrous,” Posey said, frowning at her.
“Not sure I am,” said Charlie. “But maybe good enough is good enough.”
Posey got a seltzer out of the fridge and popped the tab. She leaned against the counter and watched Charlie write. “Do you feel like your consciousness is bifurcating?”
Charlie sighed and stopped writing. “I don’t know. If it was, what could I do?”
Posey pointed to her shadow. “Try moving your fingers. Those fingers, I mean.”
Charlie frowned in concentration, focusing on attempting to feel a hand that wasn’t attached to her. But no matter how hard she stared or tried to shift her consciousness or tried to think in two places at once, there was no perceptible change.
Posey shook her head. “Okay, what about lengthening it?”
That seemed even harder to Charlie, but she complied, attempting to imagine her shadow spreading, like it was melting. She tried to make it ooze, even just to blur a bit at the edges. Again, nothing. “I’m trying,” she told her sister, forestalling any criticism.
“Maybe you could try to inhabit your shadow,” Posey said.
Charlie threw up her hands in frustration. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Posey shrugged.
They went on like that, with Posey looking up exercises online, and Charlie becoming increasingly frustrated.
Eventually, Posey had a Zoom call with a client, bringing their session to an end. Charlie was relieved to give up. She pulled out her own laptop and stared at the screen.
With a sigh, she pulled up the article about Edmund Carver’s death, copying over the name of the girl whose body was found in the car with his and putting it into the search engine.
Rose Allaband.
There weren’t many mentions of her, the longest being from a week after she went missing:
Family and friends of Rose Allaband are asking the public to share any information that could lead investigators to her location.
Allaband, 23, went missing a week ago, after what was described by witnesses as a heated argument with a friend. According to investigators, she’d been spending time with some new people. Her cell phone was found by the side of Interstate 91, just past exit 19B, with the SIM card removed.
Allaband’s mother extends this plea: “Rose was a nice girl who trusted people too easily. She thought magic was all fun, and didn’t understand how people would use her for what she could do. I am terrified to think what might have happened to her. If anyone has seen my daughter or has any information about her whereabouts, please, we’re begging you to call 911 and report anything, no matter how small.”
Vince could have had something to do with Rose Allaband’s disappearance. He’d convinced Charlie to trust him, after all. She’d gotten in his van lots of times. A nice girl wouldn’t have stood a chance.
But to be that person, he would have to be what Salt had called him—a shape-shifter. Because the Vince she’d known was the kind of person who’d go to the store and get those stupid bran flakes because they were healthy, and Charlie had been wanting to eat healthier. Who’d patched up Charlie’s cuts just because she’d been bleeding.
But if Red had committed the murders, Vince would feel responsible. Red had been part of him, after all.
Lucipurrr came over and butted her head against the edge of the laptop. Absently, she scratched under the cat’s chin.
Lionel Salt wanted Charlie to believe that Vince was planning to use the Liber Noctem to make his shadow into some kind of immortal monster. According to Knight Singh, it wasn’t worth what Salt paid for it. But the Hierophant sure acted like the book did something.
If Salt were right, and Vince intended to do this ritual with Red, what was he waiting for? He’d had the book for a year, and it wasn’t like he was a procrastinator. He didn’t put off stuff. He was the only person in her household who had ever taken lint out of the dryer.
Impulsively, she typed “Edmund Carver + Adeline Salt” into the browser window. Scrolled through articles with more photos of them—Vince with a scarf around his throat, Adeline hanging off his shoulder as though trying to appear far more sober than she was, a small smear of lipstick at the very corner of her mouth.
Then a gossip blog article, with aerial photos of some people on a yacht.
Charlie squinted. On the prow, two bodies were entangled with one another, half hidden by a shade sail. The woman’s blond hair was tossed to one side, and her bikini top was pushed up. The man was bent over her, but she knew him even without seeing his face. She knew them both. Adeline and Vince.
IS HEIRESS CHEATING ON SHIPPING TYCOON?
Charlie couldn’t help remembering how Adeline had outright said she was glad he and Charlie weren’t together anymore. And all those photos of Adeline and Edmund together at all those fundraisers, balls, and parties in New York. Never anyone else by his side, or hers.
Couldn’t help thinking of the photo in his wallet.
Posey came in, leaning against the doorframe. She was holding a pack of worn tarot cards in her hand. “What are you looking at?”
“Proof the Hall family curse is real,” Charlie said, and closed her laptop.
“How about you shuffle the deck and pick three cards.”
Charlie gave her a look. “Oh, come on.”
“Think of tarot as a psychological tool,” Posey told her. “Accessing the unconscious. Jung was all for it. And you need to get at the part of your mind that’s holding you back from being a gloamist.”
“Fine,” Charlie said, accepting the stack. She shuffled them as though she was about to play poker.
“Concentrate on your question,” Posey told her. “It helps if you close your eyes. Ask the cards what’s blocking your magic.”
But what Charlie wanted to know about was Red.
She flipped over the top three cards without looking and handed them to Posey. Maybe this is why people went to psychics, in the end. Because they needed help and stopped caring how they got it. Any port in this motherfucking storm.
“These are all major arcana,” her sister said, frowning at them. “Interesting.”
“What does that mean?”
Posey didn’t look happy. “That something big is going on.”
“Okay,” Charlie said uncertainly. “What else?”
Posey set down the first card. “The Magician. The conversion of the spiritual into material. It’s a card of new beginnings, so I am guessing this is about you being a gloamist.”
“Nothing we don’t know,” Charlie said, although she was a bit impressed.
Posey set down the second. “The Fool.”
Charlie rolled her eyes.
“See how he’s about to step off that cliff? And is oblivious to the danger.”