“But that has happened to you before, has it not?” Belle stopped by the couch. “The only way to see former Effigies is to scry. Peeling back the layers of your own mind to access their memories. You would have to be in a trance—or else, you would have to be dreaming. You have seen her memories in your dreams before.”
“But this time was different. Before, I’d just fall asleep and see her memories. This time, I was having a dream of my own and she appeared. In my dream, she ran around Marrakesh, telling me to catch her. That’s when she led me into a new memory.”
“Led you? Is she like your spirit guide now or something?” Chae Rin asked. “Telling you stuff, leading you places?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. I mean, in the past, whenever I’d glimpse her memories, it’d be an involuntary thing. She’d only tried to directly communicate with me twice. Once when I took my oath at Ely Cathedral. And then in France, the first time I scried properly.”
And then she’d tried to take my body.
I went rigid, my blood pumping faster as I thought of it. “I used to just dream my own dreams. And then suddenly one night, I began to dream Natalya’s memories. But since France, I’d been hearing her more often in my head. And then this happened. I thought maybe it was because of the experiment messing around in there. But what if the true problem was that the barrier between my mind and hers was already deteriorating even before then?”
Then Natalya would have more freedom to play around in my head. It’d make taking my body all the easier. My throat tightened as I thought of the possibility. I rubbed the sweat beading off my flushed forehead.
“Well, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe it was something she could do all along and she’s just decided to be more proactive,” Lake said from the stove, her spatula dripping oil onto the counter. “If that’s the case, then isn’t it a good thing? We know the Sect lied about Natalya’s death being a suicide. We know Vasily tried to kill you.” She listed them off with her fingers. “We know he and some agents from Research and Development helped free Saul from Sect custody. I still think she wants us to know the whole story regardless of anything. She led us to the box in Belle’s old foster home, but since then it’s been radio silence. We’ve been waiting for her to beam another message to Maia.”
But all I’d gotten from Natalya were taunts and hazy dreams of her death played on instant loop like a broken nightmare channel.
“Each time you’ve been in contact with Natalya’s consciousness, you’ve learned something about her death,” Belle said. “Her investigations of Saul, moving under the Sect’s radar. It was because of all her efforts to find out the truth that she was . . .” The next words caught in Belle’s throat, but she covered herself quickly, sweeping back her long hair. “If she’s leading you somewhere, it’s for a good reason.”
Or she was messing with me. That was the problem. It’s like Natalya herself couldn’t decide if she wanted me to know the whole story behind her death and the mystery that she’d died for—or if she simply wanted to use her memories to lure me into a trap to take my body.
As if purposefully planning the cruel irony of her timing, Belle added, with utmost certainty, “It’s Natalya. We can trust her.”
I took the fan letter out of my pocket and turned it over. “The last time I trusted Natalya, she tried to take over my body,” I reminded her quietly.
Belle stood frozen to the spot for a moment. “Yes, well,” she said quickly. “I told you once before, scrying has its risks. Normally, you need to be calm. You need complete control of yourself. But at that time, you were in the middle of facing Saul. Such a high-stress situation would obviously compromise the barrier between your consciousness and hers. Given that, it makes sense that her mind would cross over involuntarily.”
The letter crinkled in my hand. “Except it wasn’t involuntarily.” The words fell from my mouth, heavy like the stone sinking in the pit of my stomach. “She very, very purposefully chained me up in my own mind.”
And I remembered every painful second. It was like being buried alive several feet underground. My mind was probably weaker for it now, which made it easier for her to scratch at the surface of my subconscious.
But did Belle understand that? From the awkward purse of her lips to her subtle attempts at avoiding my knife glare, her reluctance to accept the truth was obvious.
“We were both in danger.” Belle raised her head almost in defiance. “I’d been captured by Saul. Chae Rin, Lake, and all the train passengers were the hostages of phantoms. You weren’t enough to save us. She would have seen everything through your eyes.” She met my gaze as if to challenge me. “She would have wanted to fight.”
“Seemed to me like she just wanted to live.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Belle’s words evaporated into the silence that stretched out between us, unbroken but for the sizzling of Lake’s frying pan.
There it was. That insidious, nagging suspicion that had bloomed the moment we’d spoken for the first time at La Charte hotel: that I was nothing more than a replacement borrowing Natalya. I lowered my head. That night in France, as she’d held Saul’s ring in her hands, I really believed for a second that she’d do it: wish me away and Natalya back into my body. It would have been an easy wish to grant. Saul had said so himself. I wanted to believe in Belle. I wanted to believe in the tears she’d shed as she dropped the ring and collapsed to the ground. And though there were times it felt as if she were finally warming to the idea of us as a team and of me as the fire Effigy, other times I couldn’t be sure.
Maybe she wanted Natalya back. Even if it meant I was gone forever.
“Wait.” Chae Rin placed down her soda can and stood from the table. “You’re excusing what Natalya did now?” She looked at her in disbelief. “Are you a body-snatcher apologist?”
But it was clear that Belle had realized her mistake. She was already shaking her head as each of us watched her. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Wow.” Chae Rin let out an incredulous laugh. “That’s kind of a new low.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Her voice rang out over the room. Regret was clear in the pale blue of her eyes as she faced me again. “That’s not what I meant.”
Panic. Even if it was just a shadow, I wasn’t used to seeing it sweep across her features. Suddenly, she looked sheepish, ashamed of herself. “That’s not what I meant, Maia,” she said, shaking her head. “Please don’t take it that way. I would never.” The regret in her eyes as she pleaded with me told me she remembered that moment in France as well as I did. “I wouldn’t.”
I played it off with a shrug. “I guess I’ll just have to believe you, right?” I wanted to. I had to.
“My, what a well-adjusted, functional bunch we are.” Chae Rin rolled her eyes. “Okay, look, we all know Natalya was your mentor and you and her were tight while she was still breathing or whatever, but we need to be realistic about our situation.”