Authors: Gabriella Pierce
“N
ow it’s a
little
bigger than we’d discussed, but I simply can’t not show it to you.” Jane’s new real-estate agent giggled, shoving her ample hip against the apartment door.
“Ooh.” Jane breathed, taking in the wall of windows that made the living room glow like a piece of amber. The floor was lined with close-fitting hardwood planks, which had been polished to a uniformly pale-gold glow, and the room was pleasantly asymmetrical. The walls were a creamy white that made the high ceilings look even higher, and the scattering of furniture was made exclusively of glass, nubby white fabric, and pale, bonelike sticks of driftwood. Spare, minimalistic prints on the walls added unexpected touches of vivid purple ink to the room’s palette, echoed by a cozy-looking blanket folded neatly on the couch.
Jane spied a kitchen, off to her left, full of gleaming appliances. It was a bit narrow to her eye, especially after the Dorans’ huge green-marbled one, but there was room for a thin-legged table and more than enough room for a person to cook—especially one who cooked as infrequently as she did. A long, narrow hallway ran out from the angled right-hand wall, which, she assumed, led to the bedroom. Although she was sure that she should probably play it cool, she couldn’t help returning the agent’s broad, eager smile.
The perfectly frosted-and-set woman had been openly skeptical when Jane had arrived in her office in her thrift store–heavy ensemble asking about Manhattan properties. But when Jane, who had come straight from the bank with her helpful case of money, named what she felt would be a reasonable monthly sum for a living space that would drive every last vestige of the Rivington from her mind, the agent had gotten a
lot
friendlier. Apparently concluding that Jane was a trust-fund baby in the midst of a totally fake “rebellion,” or possibly a minor celebrity who was committed to seeming “quirky,” she had immediately come up with a long list of apartments that were “just a little” pricier than Jane’s budget.
Jane, who loved open, airy spaces and whose budget had been well below her new, nearly unlimited, means, didn’t mind a bit.
“Now, I know it looks like a lot of glass,” the agent warned, “but the bedrooms have more privacy, of course. And you’re on the top floor, so do come and see the view.”
“Bedrooms,” plural?
Jane wondered wryly; she had definitely inquired about one-bedroom apartments only. But then she saw the view, and she stopped caring. The wide wall of windows looked out over block upon block of quaint brick and low roofs, eventually ending in a strange glimmer that Jane was pretty sure was the Hudson River. It looked almost European; nothing at all like the brittle, vertical city that had already cost her so much.
“And this room would be perfect for an office,” the realtor prattled on, waving her arm into the second bedroom while Jane peered into the first.
Walk-in closet, skylight, king-size bed, en suite bathroom. Check, check, check . . .
“Or for guests—everyone I know with an extra room has guests nearly year-round if they want them! Or sometimes young women prefer to live with a friend, which, if the rent is more than you had planned on, could be a lovely alternative.” She nodded sagely, curls bobbing in steely unison, and then vanished back down the hall, presumably to show Jane the “incredibly efficiently conceived kitchen.”
Jane, whose main requirements for a kitchen were a phone and a place to stack takeout menus, didn’t follow her. Instead she kicked off her scuffed kitten-heeled slides and sat gingerly on the nubby white couch. It was comfortable, and she curled her feet up underneath her, watching the roofs glow suddenly and sporadically in the rays of light that peeked tentatively out from the low-hanging clouds.
The agent clicked back into the living room, an alert and searching look on her face. She was clearly nonplussed by the sight of Jane barefoot on the couch, and hesitated long enough for Jane to speak first.
“I need to make a call,” Jane told her calmly, relishing the way the careful angles of the room swallowed her voice. She had always intended to build spaces just like this, before she’d gone and let “true love” completely derail her budding architecture career. Just being inside of it made her feel more grounded, more like herself again. She remembered the version of herself that had made an Eiffel Tower out of matches; the bright-eyed student who had walked into her internship at Atelier Antoine for the first time. She felt as though it could actually be possible to get her world back, and after her three hopeless weeks of trying to disappear, she didn’t intend to lose sight of the real goal ever again.
It’s not just about safety. It’s about freedom.
She turned her body toward the realtor, who stiffened slightly. “I’ve forgotten my phone.”
“Please, use mine,” the realtor murmured, pulling a sleek Prada phone out of her quilted-leather purse—Chanel, Jane noticed clinically. She was feeling stronger by the second. The other woman had clearly noticed the change as she backed hurriedly out of the room, never taking her eyes off Jane.
Jane slid the keyboard out from behind the screen. She hadn’t “forgotten” her phone, exactly, but she had put it in “airplane mode” the night of the accident for fear that the Dorans could use its signal to find her somehow. She fished it out of her straw tote and scrolled through the contacts to the
D
s, where she found the number she was looking for. She entered it into the agent’s phone, and waited with mounting anxiety through the strange, fluttery American ringing noises.
“Diana Rivera,” a familiar, throaty voice answered, and Jane’s throat closed briefly with joy.
“Dee,” she sighed, “you’re safe.” After Dee had helped Jane to kill the Dorans’ driver, Yuri (in an alley in Brooklyn,
not
on Park Avenue the way Lynne had apparently made it look), the Wiccan with a gift for pastry had had to leave her job and her apartment. They had considered it too risky that the police might link Yuri’s corpse to the address of one of the women who had made Jane’s wedding cake, and much too risky that Lynne might do so. And although the magically transported body had probably removed any threat of legal suspicion, it did nothing to make Dee any safer from the witches’ retaliation.
“Ja— Are you kidding me? Is that you?” There was a scuffling noise, and Jane guessed that Dee might be taking her phone to a more private place.
She’s probably at that Misty woman’s bookstore,
Jane reminded herself.
There might be customers.
Dee’s oldest friend in New York owned an occult bookstore, and Jane had been fairly sure that Dee would go there to lie low. “Wait.” Dee’s voice came a little more clearly through the speaker now. “Actually, I think I need you to prove that it is you. I don’t really know what’s possible for . . . you know . . . people like you.”
Jane felt a grin tug at the corners of her mouth. “ ‘People like me’? Seriously? Fine: ask me something only I would know. Ask me about how I nearly set your living room on fire during that Wicca meeting, or about the cookies you gave to Mal—um, my husband—to give to me on my wedding day, like a total reckless idiot. Which were delicious, by the way.”
“Damn right they were.” Dee chuckled, and Jane could hear that she was smiling, too. “I’m at Book and Bell,” she went on. “Misty’s been putting me up on her couch, but I’m hoping I can sublet from one of the girls who was at that Wicca meeting when she goes to Peru next month. Everything’s fine over here, but Jane, I’ve been reading the tabloids. Are
you
okay? The phone number you’re calling from is . . .”
. . .
a 917 number,
Jane realized.
A Manhattan cell code
.
“Jane,” Dee whispered, and Jane heard real fear in her voice. “You’re still here. But they’re looking for you, which means that they haven’t found you, so . . . Jane, I don’t get it. What the hell are you doing?”
“Renting an apartment,” Jane quipped brightly. “Wanna be roommates?”
There was a long pause, during which she wasn’t even sure that she could hear Dee breathing. “Yes,” Dee answered finally, although Jane could hear a “but” coming, which she hurried to cut off.
“Cool. I don’t remember the exact address, actually, but I’m about three blocks west of Washington Square Park. Meet you under the arch at six? I’ll need a little time to get the paperwork taken care of, and you’ll probably need to pack everything up from your . . . couch.”
“Washington Square at six,” Dee repeated dutifully, and then lowered her voice to a husky whisper. “Jane, are you sure this is safe for you?”
“I’m done with the cringing-in-a-dark-corner thing,” Jane announced firmly. “I’ve got some unexpected resources—courtesy of the people who cost us our old jobs and apartments, in an indirect sort of way—and I’m ready to get back into the game here. Oh! And before I forget: my name is Caroline Chase now.”
Dee giggled throatily. “Do I get a code name, too? Can I be Anna Chapman? I think I have time to pick up a red wig.”
Jane rolled her eyes at the phone. “Absolutely not. Although, now that you mention it, I’m a brunette these days, too.”
A heavy sigh came from the receiver. “You couldn’t have picked a disguise that flattered your complexion?”
“You sound like my mother-in-law,” Jane growled playfully, and Dee laughed.
Jane ended the call and looked around. She was pretty sure that she hadn’t said anything that would tie her to her old life or the tabloid stories about her, but the real-estate agent might understandably be a little curious about why her newest renter had recently changed her name and appearance.
Must find out if there’s a way to erase memories,
Jane noted to herself. It wouldn’t be the nicest, most ethical use of her magic, but it would certainly come in handy now and then.
And now.
She had had some success in tampering with someone’s mind, she realized: just before her escape from the Dorans’ mansion, she had been locked in the attic with Malcolm’s crazy brother, Charles, whom their mother had hidden from the world due to the severe damage her magic had done to him during her last dangerous pregnancy. It had been a desperate attempt to have a daughter who could inherit Lynne’s power, but poor Charles had turned out less than satisfactory in absolutely every regard. When she had been imprisoned in the attic, Jane had persuaded him to help her by reorganizing the thoughts in his head, moving them around like squares on a Rubik’s Cube to convince him that they were friends. But she hadn’t tried to change anything in his memory; she had just used what was already there.
Could I make things up? Take things out? Can Lynne? Shit.
Fortunately, the question was moot for the moment: a few seconds of searching turned up the realtor on the bedroom’s balcony, puffing away at a Virginia Slim as though her life depended on it. Jane slid the door open, causing the woman to jump a little.
“I’ll take it,” Jane announced firmly, and the realtor beamed so broadly that even her hair looked as though it got a shade brighter. “I’ll want to move in today,” Jane went on, tipping the black leather case from the bank open to show the stacks of cash inside. “I’ve already got the security deposit and your commission, so let’s get right to signing the lease.”
The agent blinked twice rapidly, and then crushed her cigarette out under the heel of her fringed white boot. “I’ll just get my briefcase from the kitchen,” she agreed levelly, and followed Jane back into her new apartment.
“H
ave you seen this oven?” Dee cheered from the kitchen. Her voice sounded strangely muffled, and Jane wondered idly whether her new roommate had, in fact, stuck her head all the way into that appliance, too, as she already had done with the refrigerator.
“I heard there was one,” she called back. “But this is like me asking you if you’ve seen the closet space.”
“Gotcha,” Dee acknowledged, wandering back into the living room. Her long black hair was tied up in a messy knot, and she had taken advantage of her new bedroom by changing into fuzzy purple pajamas within moments of crossing the threshold. “And I didn’t have time to pick up groceries, anyway, but this is the last night I’m going to let you get away with ordering takeout.” The takeout in question (spinach pie, tabouleh, lamb gyros, stuffed grape leaves, cucumber yogurt, and four kinds of rice) was spread over the polished-driftwood coffee table, and Dee waved a pair of forks in the air triumphantly. “The equipment in that kitchen is better than Hattie’s.”
Jane froze with a forkful of spinach and feta halfway to her lips. Because of all of the Doran drama, Dee had been forced to quit her job at Hattie’s SoHo bakery with no notice. She had also had to leave her cozy little apartment in Brooklyn, and had wound up living on a couch for three weeks. Jane felt a twist of guilt: she had been so busy feeling sorry for herself that she hadn’t even thought about how Dee had been coping in the meantime.
I had a plan,
she reminded herself.
I was going to send her money and a new ID once Malcolm and I were away.
But she hadn’t gone with Malcolm, and Dee had been left to fend for herself. It almost made it worse that Dee acted fine with the wreckage of Jane’s plan: a few professional-quality pots and pans and she seemed to be completely back on her feet.
“I’m so sorry about that,” Jane told her honestly. “You helped me so much, and I thought that me and Malcolm getting out of town would be the best thing for everyone. And then everything went to hell, and now . . .” She waved her fork, too upset to go on.
“Oh, eat your damned pie,” Dee snapped, wrinkling her nose comically. “You can’t make speeches flinging feta all over the room. But what did go wrong at the wedding, anyway? I certainly didn’t get the real story from Page Six
.
”
Jane swallowed thickly. “We got through the ceremony, and then I read Malcolm’s mind.”
It hadn’t been easy, since he had so much magical blood in his veins, but she had been so worried about Lynne retaliating against Jane’s friends after they fled the city that she had forced her way through the magic’s natural barrier anyway . . . and had seen Malcolm’s memory of killing Gran. In her shock and revulsion at this incredible betrayal, she had tried to run away from him, but that had tipped off Lynne and her creepy twin cousins that something was wrong. They had used their combined magic to knock Jane unconscious and then, she had eventually guessed, read Malcolm’s mind themselves. He had learned over the years to keep some secrets from his mother, but three powerful witches who knew what they were looking for were far too strong for his defenses. So Malcolm had been locked in the basement, and Jane had been taken to the attic to be impregnated by Charles.
“Ew!” Dee squealed. “And here I thought Lynne’s fondant doves were the height of her creepiness.”
Jane took a hearty swig of the champagne the realtor had messengered over. “The doves were just a warm-up. But I got out, of course, before . . . My magic came back in time, and I knocked him out and got away.” Although she knew that Dee was a trustworthy friend who was deeply interested in all things magical, Jane found herself reluctant to talk about the thought-moving power she had discovered during her desperate minutes of captivity in the attic. Even more than her ability to read thoughts, the ability to shift them around in someone else’s head made Jane feel freakish, and she didn’t think she could deal with Dee getting nervous around her.
I’ll tell her, of course,
Jane promised herself.
Just not tonight
.
She told Dee the real story of the “accident” on Park Avenue: how Lynne had held their taxi in place while stalking down the middle of the street in a protective bubble of her own magic, and how Jane had pulled a tree out of the median to cause a five-car pileup so that Lynne would have to focus more on her shield and less on the taxi. She glossed over the sad scene in Grand Central Station, where Malcolm had tried to convince her to go with him, obviously hoping they could somehow carry on with their relationship even after everything Jane had learned. But no matter how frightened she was or how dangerous her enemies were, Jane had no intention of hiding behind anyone . . . and especially not anyone who had already betrayed her so completely.
When she got to the part about Mystery Woman in the coffee shop, Dee sat straighter on the couch, her amber eyes fixed intently on Jane’s. Jane understood her worry, but the contrast between her sudden vigilance and cozy flannel made it hard not to laugh. “I totally freaked out,” Jane admitted, “and I was too scared to even read her mind in case she could tell somehow, which pretty much sums up how depressingly pathetic I’ve been these last few weeks.”
“So you don’t even know for sure if she was really there for you?” Dee gasped.
Jane refilled her glass, hoping the action would hide her sudden blush. “No. I just . . . um . . . blew up the espresso machine and left.”
Dee choked on a piece of lettuce. “Subtle,” she declared when she was able to talk again. “This life of stealth is clearly for you.”
Jane stuck her tongue out, then popped a cucumber slice onto it for good measure. It was certainly true that she wasn’t shaping up to be spy material: after three weeks of zero progress on her mission, it had taken a never-ending bank account to pull her out of a total nervous breakdown.
But I happen to have a never-ending bank account, so there’s no use beating myself up about that.
“You’re one to talk,” she retorted. “I knew exactly where to call to find you.”
Dee sighed and slumped cozily against the back of the couch. “Book and Bell seemed like the thing to do at the time, but then Misty was so nice I was ready to sink into the ground. She had me working shifts when the store wasn’t even supposed to be open. No one would come in for six hours, and she’d swear I was earning room and board. It was really sweet, but there came a point where I was, like, desperate for a fairy godmother. Speaking of which . . .” She glanced around the apartment curiously before fixing her questioning amber stare on Jane.
“Malcolm hid money for me,” Jane explained succinctly, and then remembered the mystery that he had hidden along with it. “And this,” she added, hopping off of the couch and padding over to the closet that contained her purse.
She fished out the little blue box and tossed it to Dee, who opened it curiously. After a long moment, she tapped at it with a cautious fingernail, then shrugged at Jane. “I’ve honestly got nothing.”
“Malcolm never struck me as the collector type,” Jane mused, “and even if he were, I don’t think glass figurines would be his thing. Or unicorns.”
“Plus, he’d probably have more than one,” Dee pointed out, and Jane nodded seriously.
“One of anything is a pretty crappy collection. But it obviously was important to him, so now I have it and I have no idea what to do with it. I don’t even know when I’ll see him again.” Jane frowned and twisted a paper napkin around her fingers. “I couldn’t even worry about him, really, when I was so worried about everyone here. At least I know you’re okay, but I’m still worried about Harris, and especially Maeve.” Jane had last seen Maeve Montague, her first friend in New York, looking bruised and broken in a hospital bed. Maeve, who came from a family of witches herself (although the magic was on her father’s side, so she hadn’t inherited any), had been just about to tell Jane the truth about the family she was marrying into when Lynne had magically steered the tiny redhead out in front of a hurtling taxicab. Later that night, Malcolm, suffering from a crisis of conscience, had leveled with Jane about his mother’s power . . . but the near-fatal crash had already made things pretty clear.
“Mae’s doing really well,” Dee told her comfortingly, setting the open blue box carefully on the coffee table. “She had some trouble walking at first, but they got her a physical therapist. And, go figure, he’s this hunky twenty-six-year-old guy with a degree in music composition, or something, who also cooks. He got her ‘walking’ in no time.” Dee winked saucily, and Jane wrinkled her nose. “No, they’re really cute!” Dee insisted. “Harris even likes him, and you know how protective he is.”
Dee rolled her eyes conspiratorially, and Jane forced hers to follow the same track.
Harris.
His dancing green eyes, his long, lean body, the touch of his hand on her shoulder, her arm, the small of her back . . . She and Maeve’s older brother had never crossed any kind of line together, but her body could still remember every place that his skin had touched hers.
It’s just the magic,
Jane reminded herself: magical blood sparked and enhanced attraction. It had made her an easy target for Malcolm, and then had sent her into a near-swoon every time Harris brushed past her.
Plus I was lonely and scared,
Jane reminded herself,
and he’s handsome and flirtatious
. It had been a volatile situation to begin with, and Jane had done her best to keep her head, eventually even pushing Harris and Dee together. They would make a much more appropriate couple, not to mention a safer one, but Jane found that there was a sour taste in her mouth at the thought that Dee seemed to know so much about what was going on with the Montagues.
“So you’ve been in touch with Harris?” she asked awkwardly, the fork handle digging into her thigh.
Dee, busy chewing a chunk of eggplant the size of a golf ball, didn’t seem to notice any strain in Jane’s voice. “Well, he was convinced that the tabloid stuff was complete fiction,” she confirmed breezily. “He kept trying to tell me that you were off with Malcolm in Thailand or whatever, and that Lynne was just trying to smoke you out. He’ll be glad you’re safe, but pissed that I was right,” she concluded with a smirk.
“Don’t tell him,” Jane blurted out, surprising them both. Her brain tried to catch up with her mouth, but there were just too many pieces of the puzzle to see the whole picture. “He thinks I’m safe,” she finally said, and it rang true in her ears. “He’d just worry, and I
am
safe, so there’s no point in that. Plus, now that I know they’re both okay,
I
can stop worrying, and that’s all I really need. I mean, Maeve almost died.” Jane’s eyes felt hot, and she realized that she was near tears. She flipped her fork over and stabbed it into a slice of lamb. “I’m sorry I ever involved them in my drama, and I’m sorry to you, too, and I probably shouldn’t have even called you today, but the least I can do to make up for that is not drag them back into this craziness.”
She sighed, feeling almost cleansed, and waited for Dee’s inevitable sensible argument. It didn’t come, though; instead, Dee bit her lower lip and looked thoughtful. Finally she spoke, her voice even throatier than usual. “I won’t tell him for now. The thing with Mae was so hard on him . . . I know he would want to help you, Jane, but I think I have to agree that your way is best. For now,” she repeated, her black eyebrows arching meaningfully. “If you plan to get into trouble again, I don’t make any promises.”
Jane smiled weakly. She knew she was doing the right thing, but she had half-hoped to be talked out of it. “It’s okay,” she declared, to both Dee and herself. “I don’t have a plan yet, but I’m set up to wait it out here until I come up with a really good one. No crises, no panics. Thanks to Malcolm, I’ve got as long as I need to figure out my next step.” A stab of jealousy twisted in her abdomen, and she deliberately misinterpreted it as concern. “I just wish I knew where
he
was,” she added pointedly. She did wish that, even if it wasn’t the main thing on her mind.
“He didn’t leave you any clues?” Dee asked sympathetically.
“Not one.” Jane shook her head. “I told him to set up an e-mail address to get in touch, but if he ever did, it was too realistically junk mail–like for me to even notice.” She certainly had been getting plenty of junk mail since she’d become associated with the Dorans. Vendors were still fighting to work on her wedding, which had gone off in such spectacular fashion three weeks before. She twisted her lips wryly. “I think I got caught up in the
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
–ness of the situation, but I really probably should have been a little more specific. I really wish that I at least knew . . .” Jane waved her hands vaguely; there was so much she didn’t know about Malcolm’s current situation that pretty much any information would be an improvement.
A beach somewhere. Maybe some palm trees,
she reminded herself firmly, returning to the vision of Malcolm she had imagined earlier that day in the bank. His full lips curled up in the warm, tropical sunlight. Jane felt some of the tension in her body relax.
Dee frowned, turning her champagne glass so the glow of the street twelve floors below them made gentle gold sparks in the liquid. “You read minds, though,” she pointed out, although it sounded as though her mind was on something else.
“I do,” Jane admitted, “but I think I need to see the person. Or . . . not, because I did hear Malcolm’s mind when he was locked in the basement. So maybe I need to be nearby, or be able to see them, and I get a little more distance if I know the person . . .” She trailed off and spread her hands helplessly. “I have no idea how this stuff works.”
“I do,” Dee said, still thoughtfully. “I’ve been putting all of those pity shifts at Book and Bell to good use, research-wise. I just have to sift out the nonsense from the rumors from the true stuff, which is much harder to do without a real, live witch to experiment with.” She grinned, and Jane smiled back, but the amber eyes were still somewhere far away. “I think it’s time for bed,” Dee announced, standing and stretching to her full, purple-pajama’ed height. “I’ve got a little reading to do, now that . . .” she waved her long-fingered hands to encompass Jane, the apartment, and possibly the leftover pitas.