Grace blew out a breath. “Thank you. I’d been feeling like some kind of freak. Not that I wanted to be back in there or anything, but I felt like I should be running down the street singing my jubilation, and instead I’m tucked away in here reading every book in your library.”
Sydney’d read a lot, too, when she’d first gotten out. It had helped her believe in the world outside. She wasn’t that far from McNally Jackson now. She’d stop by and pick up something for Grace to read.
Her phone rang. Grace. “Hey, I was just—”
“He’s here.” Grace’s voice a rough whisper.
“Grey?” Knowing the answer as soon as she asked the question.
“Yes. Trying to get in.”
“Okay. Are you in a room with a mirror?” Sydney cast a summoning spell for a cab.
“Yes.”
“Ask the House if it can hold him there.”
Sydney overheard the question as a cab stopped in front of her. “It says it will.”
“Stay where you are. I’m on my way.”
Grey was still there, hands anchored to the door, when she pulled up in front. She paid the driver quickly, but then took her time walking to the door. “So, were you planning to steal from the House, or were you going to leave something nasty inside for me?”
“Let me go, you bitch. You have no right to hold me here.”
“And you have no right to be here, or to do whatever it is you had planned. So let’s start over.” She smiled, raised a hand as if she might begin a spell, and Grey pressed himself closer to the door. “What were you planning to do here?”
“I don’t have to tell you,” he said.
“Fine.” She shrugged. “I don’t have to let you go.” She turned and started back toward the street.
“Wait!”
She paused.
“I was going to leave a spell.”
“I assume it wasn’t going to burst into ‘Welcome Home!’ balloons the next time I opened the door.”
He glared at her.
She leaned against the stair rail, pressed a few places on her phone’s screen. “The House took video. That fun little whooshing noise you just heard was me emailing the file to the entire Unseen World, and to my lawyer. So they all know you did this. They also know that it was this House—my magic—that kept you out.”
“And you think any of them will care? You’re an abomination,” he said.
“That’s not a very nice thing to say to your sister,” she said. “Especially when she’s the only one who can let you go. They’re calling for snow tonight, had you heard?
“Anyway, maybe they’ll care; maybe they’ll even agree with you. But they’ll know what you did. And how funny you look, hunched over here, stuck to the door.”
She walked up next to him. “And speaking of knowing things, I know what you did to Miranda. Well, what you tried to do. The magic didn’t quite work, did it? You were hoping she’d be dead, not just magicless.”
He glared. “No one will believe you.”
“Do I have some sort of reputation as a liar? You seem very sure no one will believe me about anything. Though, even if you’re right, I bet they’d believe Lara Merlin. She figured out what happened that night and told Ian. She’s not really happy with her dad right now, either. I bet we could convince her to say something.” She cut the spell, and the sudden release dropped him to his knees. “Now get away from my House.”
He stumbled away from the door and raised a hand.
“Don’t even think about it,” Sydney said.
“Bitch,” he called over his shoulder, and left.
“Thank you,” Sydney said to the House, and rested her hand against the door.
The door opened. Grace stood on the other side, fireplace poker in her shaking hand.
“You do remember you’re a magician, right?” Sydney asked.
“I hate him so much I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to cast. But I was sure I could clock him if I had to.”
“Badass,” Sydney said. “Well done.”
They gathered in the packages Sydney had dropped on the lawn. “This ice cream isn’t even going to make it to the freezer. I really missed chocolate-chip cookie dough,” Grace said.
“Look,” Sydney said. “I don’t want to push on healing wounds. But do you have any idea of why Miles took you to Shadows?”
“To pay a debt, he said. I don’t know anything more than that.”
“That helps,” Sydney said. “Thanks.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Lara was making eggs Benedict. At least, that’s what she was doing in the kitchen. In her head she was working through the steps of a new spell—a nastier version of the booby traps she’d loved as a child. Something she could use in a challenge if she needed to.
And so it was an annoyance, but not a surprise, to check the water she was going to poach the eggs in and realize she’d neglected to turn the burner on.
She muttered the spell to cook the eggs under her breath and snapped her fingers.
Nothing happened.
She tried again, enunciating clearly and making the gesture as sharp and precise as if she were in school.
Still nothing.
She didn’t let herself think, just pulled open drawers, searched through cabinets. There had to be candles here somewhere, left over from a dinner party, or a birthday, or something. “Shit,” she said, and reached for the toaster where her English muffins were turning into charcoal discs.
She burned her forearm on the toaster while yanking the cord from the wall. “Damn it!”
“Lara, what is going on in here?” Miles paused in the doorway, taking in the mess.
“Nothing!” She slammed a drawer shut, a purple taper in her hand. She spoke the word that should light the candle.
It hesitated, sparked, caught. Lara was so surprised, she fumbled it. Another fast spell, and its fall stopped—paused in midair. She picked it up with her hand rather than risking another spell, and then blew it out.
“I thought my magic was gone,” she said.
“What happened?” Miles asked.
She explained. “I guess it was just another failure, like in the challenges.” She watched his face carefully, looking for any hints of what Ian suspected.
“I—” He paused. “I’m sure you’re right. I’m sorry—I’ve just remembered that I have a meeting.” He hurried from the room.
Lara looked around at the mess and wondered what it meant that he was lying. And considered the fact that it was probably time to try out the other spell she’d been working through, the one that would bypass the biometrics on her father’s locked cabinet.
? ? ?
Shara walked the ruined halls of Shadows. They didn’t move; they didn’t change. She was used to the House holding its shape for her, but this was different. This felt like walking through a dead place, not a living House. There was no life in these halls. The breath of the House was ragged, irregular, its heartbeat slow.
Shadows was fading, dying. Sydney—Shara’s hands clenched into fists, her nails cutting into her palms—had broken too much of it. She had unraveled its threads, left poison in its foundations. The corruption, the weakness was spreading. Shara could barely hold things together as they were, much less even dream of healing them.
And as for the magic, the magic that was the very purpose of Shadows, that was flowing out like water. A trickle at first, but now she could feel the cracks in the dam. Things were close to breaking. Her footsteps echoed off floors that had held their same shape for days.