BLYTHE: [Shrugs.] Or someone as fucked-up as me.
REN: Sounds like a really healthy relationship goal. So should I save mine for Future Wife?
VADA: I always say lovers’ tats are a bad idea. You don’t need to prove your love with ink.
REN: Then what would you get?
VADA: A memory. My most important ones are memories. Things I want to hold on to, no matter what else I lose.
[Vada and Ellis trade glances. Blythe lights a cigarette. Ren thinks for a while.]
REN: That painting you did for me, of the boy holding back the sea?
VADA: Yeah?
REN: That’s what I want here.
———
In the morning, I was calm.
“Black Iris betrayed me,” I said. “They’re the enemy.”
Frail light fell over the three of us, laid a delicate silver foil atop our skin. Tamsin’s hair shone darkly, and when she tipped her head against the window, snow spangled her reflection like stars.
“Speculation,” she said with a sigh.
“Laney made her loyalties clear. She’s working with Adam.”
“Conjecture.”
“He was sitting right there. Unharmed. In my world.”
“We’ve had this conversation a dozen times.” Tamsin stood. “All we know is he was there last night. Not why. Maybe she was working out some way to protect you.”
“She didn’t want me in that room. She was protecting him.”
“Going in bloody circles again.” Tam stalked toward the bathroom.
Ingrid watched her leave, only her eyes moving. Smoke spun a blue wreath around her temples. “Do you trust her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because she’s gentle with me, I thought. Because she sees the boy I am, not the girl I was. “Gut feeling.”
“You sure it’s not a few inches lower?”
I gave her a look.
“She’s one of them,” Inge said. “She’s with Laney. She knows more than she’s telling us. But you refuse to see it. You’re thinking with your dick.”
“I think about you with it, too, so . . .”
Ingrid stared at me, expressionless. Ever so slightly, the corner of her mouth curled.
When Tam returned, I said, “You’re right. We’re going in circles. It’s time to take action.” I stretched, cracked my neck. Felt the power of my body, this self-built pretty little hate machine. A man made to unmake other men. “I need to know what Black Iris knows. About Adam, Crito, Norah, all of it. Everything ties together, somehow, with me in the middle.” I moved toward Tamsin. “You need to pick a side.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“I need to hear you say it. You’re either with me or against me.”
Her brow furrowed, eyes momentarily skittering toward Ingrid. But she said, in clear, chiming tones, “I’m with you, Renard. I’m with you.”
Each time she weighted the words differently. First they meant “I’m on your side,” and then “We’re together.” Slight but meaningful difference.
Our hands clasped. Conscious of Inge’s stare, I let go sooner than I wanted.
“So what’s the plan?” Ingrid said coolly.
“Crito.” I drummed my fingers against my leg. “Everything went wrong that night. Laney wanted you to handle him discreetly, Tam. Don’t think she ever wanted me to see him, period.”
“What’s her motive? Why would she hurt you?”
“For being a man. That’s all the reason she’s ever needed to hurt someone. And all I needed.”
“That’s absurd,” Tam said.
“It’s not. All those men she sent me after—I never once questioned their guilt. Why? Because they’re men.” My knuckles cracked. I didn’t remember making fists. “I saw them as inherently guilty, and so did she. Simply because of their gender. Laney’s known about Adam for years. She preyed on my history, my distrust of men. She knew I’d attack any male target she gave me like a trained dog. And she was fucking right.”
“But why not let you take vengeance on a man, then?”
“Because it’s not just about hurting men—it’s also refusing to help them. When I asked her, she balked. It didn’t fit her view of the world. Her radical feminist fairy tale where masculinity is the root of all evil.”
Ingrid’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
“You’re attributing to malice what can be explained by other means,” Tamsin said.
“So explain it, Tam. Tell me why Laney would deny me my right. Why she’d shelter someone who hurt me.”
Her turn to fall silent.
“You don’t see it,” I went on. “You can’t. Because you’re a woman, Laney would never look at you the way she does at me. Only women are worthy to her, and only women are safe from her. It’s some twisted chivalry. I had the balls to test it, so now I pay the price.”
Neither of them argued. Smoke painted watercolor shadows on the floor.
I said, “We need info. Blythe’s out—too close to Laney. Armin’s a sycophant. That leaves one option: Ellis.”
Inge’s eyebrow twitched at the name. That’s right, I thought. The girl who was there for me during one of the scariest, most exhilarating moments of my life.