Foretold Page 23
“You want me to create a dark mirror and—”
Aunt Bree looks mildly surprised I know what the Gloaming Moon eclipse does, but recovers quickly. “Yes. Unless you don’t want to atone for today? Conscience already recovered?”
“No! It’s just—I can’t hurt anyone. They deserve it, yeah. There were times when I want to. But I can’t.”
“Cassandra, you can’t possibly be this dim. We’re not the murderers here, they are. I wouldn’t even need you if those ancient buzzards…” Aunt Bree bares her teeth, her red lips pulled back in a sneer. “The Grims don’t have the stomach for war. The ritual won’t cost anyone their lives. It’s a trap designed to… even the odds, let’s say.”
I reluctantly take the paper and unfold it, scanning it quickly. “Where do I get a—”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. You allowed them to strike at the heart of this organization. You figure it out. Now put those things away. We never had this conversation.” She pulls open the door and turns back. “Do try not to get caught. If you end up back in front of the Council for this, I won't be swooping in to save you again.”
Chapter 21
I look around the Rotunda and chew my breakfast hand pie slowly. Even at the worst during school, I was never a hardcore social pariah. Not like this.
Griffin throws his hands behind his head and tips his chair back on two legs. “So, Cassie, you can’t be a sleeper cell, get caught, and go back to being a sleeper cell, right? You only shoot your terrorist wad once, I’m guessing.”
My face goes hot. “You’re not funny. At all. People died. Please don’t.”
He sighs and looks up at the Rotunda dome and the morning sun. It’s been repaired, but with nowhere near the craftsmanship it boasted before. This was a quick fix, something to signal normalcy as soon as possible. It lacks artistry.
“You have to laugh, Morai. The minute you let something become a third rail, you give it leverage. Can’t let anything be sacred. In five years, this will all be a blip on the radar of your life.”
I drop my pie and press my eyes. “Yeah, okay.” I recognize he’s trying to be helpful. Just in a very Griffin way.
“Silver lining? At least you don’t have to worry about all that Red Blessing crap anymore. I mean, it sucks it happened, don’t get me wrong. But we tried our best to stop it,” Griffin says.
He’s actually right. The agony of waiting for that hammer drop, picturing it, the gnawing fear that the Red Blessing could be someone I know… it was dry kindling for my kind of thinking. And that’s over now. It sends an odd sort of relief flooding through me.
Regan makes her way over and takes a seat quietly, and my relief is replaced with an upspring of nauseousness and guilt. She’s been grieving her mentor. She’s worried about Noah. People we know are gone. I shake my head to clear away the memory of Ford’s dead stare.
“Regan… I’m so sorry. I had no idea what the eye would do.”
That elfin pointed chin of hers trembles before she firms her jaw. “Don’t be stupid. I was with you. I don’t blame you.”
I’ve lost so many friends in the past two years, I didn’t think I could care anymore. But it wasn’t until she said those words that I realized how much I was worrying about losing this particular one. I blink away the sudden moisture in my eyes and look around.
“Okay. Um.” I cough.
“Oh, come here.” Regan pulls me into a bear hug.
“You guys are so Hallmark, it’s cute,” Griffin says. He’s been a little more cautious with his words around Regan since the attack, but I guess he can’t repress his baseline personality for that long.
Regan doesn’t react, but she does let me go. “Tell us about the trial, Cassie. Literally everything.”
I stumble a bit when I get to the part about the red stones and the blame they assigned to me, but I do tell them everything. Regan takes my hand and presses it between hers. I consider leaving out Aunt Bree’s ritual to take down Bedlam, but I barrel ahead and tell them that, too. Weirdly, I hardly hesitate before sharing in front of Griffin. Once the decision to trust him was made, it was made forever, it seems. In for a penny.
“She said I can’t tell anyone about the ritual since the Grims said it wasn’t allowed,” I whisper.
“I mean, if the Grims rejected it, then they did it for a reason…” Regan says.
“Screw that.” Griffin slams his chair legs down with a thump so that he’s seated normally. “An eye for an eye. Bedlam came into our house and blew our shit up. If whatever her aunt gave her will do some damage, I’m all for it. Give it to me, I’ll do it.”
“I can’t. It has to be me. She gave it to me. She can’t know I told you. You can’t say a word to anyone.”
“Second time you guys have suggested I’m a rat,” he says, outraged. “Not only am I not telling anyone about any of this, I’m down to help find whatever’s on the grocery list of ritual crap she has you hunting for. What about you, Regan?”
Regan blinks and frowns at Griffin. It takes me a minute to realize he's used her real name. “Of course I’m in.”
“Bust out that ritual, Cassie. Let’s see what we’re working with,” Griffin says.
“Not here. Too many people watching.” I glance around. There’s only one place I can think to bring them. “I have to go home for a few days. Do you guys maybe want to come to my house tonight? We can talk there. It’s not far.”
“Casa de Morai? Sure. I know the girl they have working the front desk late shift now. I have an astromancy lab, but we can break out after. Like nine o’clock?” Griffin says.
I look at Regan. She gives a short quick nod. “Nine o’clock.”
Dad isn’t home. I don’t know why I expected him to be here, waiting. I wasn’t due back for a couple of days, although I emailed before I left to let him know that I was able to get away early.
I lie in my bed, my real bed—not the Coil-generated illusion—and listen to 4D arguing with his girlfriend through the thin apartment walls.
The slow-burning ember of longing that lives deep inside me—ever present—catches suddenly, wildfiring through every other thought until the only thing left is her.
Mom.
I lean into the hurt and grab for my phone. I didn’t have it with me at Theban Group, but now I scroll through old pictures, my heart squeezing when I reach one of her in the hospital. Withered away. A husk who used to have a sunshine smile and a laugh like fairy bells.
I blast through the few texts from her I have and move to voicemails, rubbing salt in the wound. There are only two: one about chicken for dinner, and another asking where I am. It doesn’t matter what she’s saying though. Her voice… The sting at the back of my eyes grows.
I gather those little shards of multimedia she left behind and try to humpty dumpty her personality into existence, picturing how she would’ve reacted to all of this. I need more, though. I’ll never have more.
I throw the phone down and cry with great big, ugly heaves. I need to get it all out. Purge before Dad gets home. Because that’s what we do. We protect each other. We’re “strong” for each other. We keep the poison to ourselves.
I wash my face and make dinner in the same way Dad makes lasagna—with a phone call and hidden delivery containers.
“Where’s my girl?” Dad says as I set the last of the food on the table. I hear the door close behind him and race out into the hall, throwing myself into his arms. He pulls me close, laughing. “If I’d had more notice, I would’ve picked you up. They dropped you at the school?”
I nod and hide my sniffles against his chest. “I walk home from school all the time. Not a big deal.” My voice sounds tear-thick.
Dad squeezes me tighter. “I missed you too, doll,” he murmurs. “Tell me everything.”
I fill him in on the scripted nonsense Aunt Bree’s assistant fed me as Dad admires his plate of salmon. He wolfs it down, pausing only to ask the occasional question.
“You can sl
ow down. It won’t swim off your plate,” I say.
“What?” he asks, fork in hand.
“The fish.”
Dad laughs. He sets his fork down and leans back. He unbuttons the top button of his shirt and looks around, avoiding eye contact. “Listen, Cass, I’m hoping… that is, I wanted to let you know…”
I grip the table. Oh God. One. Two. Three…
“I… Eleanor…”
Four. “Dad, spit it out.” My knuckles are white.
“I told Eleanor I would take her to a ballgame tonight. She’s been down lately, something at work, I think… so I bought tickets. She’s never been, if you can believe it. I didn’t know you’d be home when I bought them…”
“Oh.” So long as it’s not a wedding, I don’t care if he takes her to the moon. “That’s fine. Yeah.”
“Are you sure? It’s your first night back! No… you know what, I’m going to call her and cancel. We’ll go some other time.”
“Dad. Go to the game. It’s fine.”
“How about this? Tomorrow night, Trivinometry. And this Saturday, all day, you and me. Dealer’s choice. Whatever you want to do. Then we do up your birthday night in style.”
“It’s fine, Dad, really. Two of my friends wanted to stop by tonight, actually. I was going to ask if you were cool with it.”
“Friends? Absolutely!” Dad sounds relieved. I rush him to get ready for his game and sit watching TV pensively while the shower is going. He emerges from the bathroom a short while later, dressed for his game and toweling off his hair. “How do I look?”
“Like a professor trying to fit in at a baseball game.”
“Yukking it up at your father’s expense?” Dad grins. “Alright. I’m ready. I’ll never be Jeffrey Morai, International Man of Mystery, but hopefully Ellie approves.”
That little pet name lands like a slap.
“You look great, Dad,” I say quietly. “Really. Have fun.”
He leans forward and takes my head in his hands, planting a kiss on my forehead. “Have I told you I have the best daughter in the world?”
“You’ll have to introduce me to her when you get home. Go!”
Dad chuckles as he grabs his glasses and phone. “Your sarcasm is getting out of hand. Alright, I’m going. No wild parties with your friends while I’m gone, doll,” he says, emphasizing the word “friends” with no small bit of wonder.
I look at the clock. Just a few more hours until the Gloaming Moon.
The moon hangs pregnant and low in the night sky. It disappears for a moment behind thick, dark cloud cover. Do clouds impact Magnitude Five Dark Mirror creation? Too bad there’s no shadow-arts help desk I can call into. I set my mirror on the ledge of my rooftop as the moon breaks free of its cloud cage.
“You’re back? Are you avoiding me or something? You didn’t answer my last email.”
I jump at the sound of Colin’s voice. He’s crossing over the knee-wall, his eyes nearly as black as his endearingly ruffled hair in the dark. A fist seizes my lungs, squeezing.
“I just got back today. Why would I avoid you?”
“Then what is it?”
“Nothing,” I say, turning to block him from seeing the mirror. “I figured with Greta and all the new people you’ve met, you wouldn’t even notice I wasn’t around.” What is wrong with you?
“Greta? How did you… Of course I’d notice.” He sounds bewildered.
I close my eyes. Oscar’s dead stare morphs into Ford’s, then Theodore’s, then Colin’s, with howitzer devastation. “I—it’s not you. Something bad happened. It was my fault.”
“What happened? Use the wrong pasta for your macaroni art? Push a counselor into a lake? Hey! Please don’t cry.” I feel an arm go around me. He pulls me over to the knee-wall and sits. “It’s okay. Everyone makes mistakes. You want to talk about it?”
I shake my head.
“Then it’s mud in the fire. Done with. Everything can be fixed except death, okay?”
My heart spasms as I sob, emptying my heart and soul out into his shoulder. I let him hug me even though his hand is pressed against my Bedlam attack stitches. I need to finish this ritual for Aunt Bree, get back to Theban Group, and get what I need to save Colin.
If that wasn’t a Madame Grey lie, too.
I lift my head off of his shoulder. “Thank you. Helped to get it out,” I lie.
“Helps to talk sometimes,” he suggests, giving me a half-smile.
“Oh yeah, Mr. Diplomat’s rich son. What would you know about it?” I try and tease.
“No one’s life is perfect, Cass.” He blows out a breath slowly, his cheeks puffed out. “My mom spends most days stalking my Dad. He spends most days on top of his secretary. When they’re together, they’re either arguing or ignoring each other like a sad cliché.”
“I'm sorry. Your mom seemed really happy.”
“Trust me, lots of pharmaceuticals go into that look,” Colin says. “Anyway, with us living like nomads, and them so wrapped up in each other, you learn to enjoy your own company, so it’s not that bad. Actually, you want to talk about mess-ups? Maybe this will cheer you up. The Prime Minister of Romania’s wife once hugged me and—I have no idea why I did this—I grabbed two honking fistfuls of her back meat when I hugged her back. Like a reflex. Just… squish. Stop laughing. It was awful. It was like there was a ledge, and I grabbed for it, and we both froze, and… yeah. Oh, and another time I confused a Russian diplomat’s mistress with his wife and his wife with his mother and it was a whole thing. So my Dad doesn’t exactly trot me out to meet his high-powered friends all that much.”
“Thank you for trying to make me feel better by sharing that you’re an awkward weirdo,” I laugh. “And I’m sorry you thought I was avoiding you.” And I’m sorry that I was.
“Is it selfish to admit I’m happy it was other stuff, and not because of me?”
“Very.”
He grins. “I missed you. Everyone else I’ve met is so nice, it was going to my head. I needed a dose of mean. Someone to keep me in my place.” I give him a faux outraged look, and he laughs. “Look at us, spilling our guts out. Free therapy by moonlight.”
“About to be a lot less moonlight in a second. Gloaming Moon tonight.”
“Gloaming Moon?” he asks.
“Sorry, that’s what someone I know called it. It’s a crazy rare lunar eclipse.”
“You’re seriously like a walking Wikipedia,” he says. When I flush in embarrassment, he grabs at my hand. “No, Cass, it’s awesome. I’ve never known anyone like that before.”
I look down at his hand holding mine. “My mom was like that. My dad is a professor, but he used to say Mom could school him any day of the week.”
“Did they get divorced? I’ve never seen her around, and you never talk—”
“She died two years ago,” I say. “The big C.”
“I’m so sorry, Cass. I had no idea.”
I shrug, a weak dismissal of the most significant thing that’s ever happened to me. “It’s okay.” I take the night air in deep. “You know, I used to hate when people said ‘I’m sorry,’ but now I realize it’s because I was hoping for better words out of them. Magic words maybe. Something that’d change things.”
“Here I am complaining because my dad cheats and you’re sitting here…” He shakes his head.
I think back to what Regan said in Mr. du Lac’s class. “Everyone has a monster they’re grappling with. Mine doesn’t take away from yours.”
“Meh. Maybe,” Colin says.
The earth’s shadow starts passing over the moon’s surface, casting it in an eerie rust color. I glance back at my mirror on the ledge.
“Holy hell, this is awesome,” Colin says. “Come on.” He hops off the knee-wall and grabs me by the waist, lifting me off. I fight off the frisson of pleasure that races through me at his lingering touch and follow him to his lounge chairs. We settle in next to each other exactly like that first night on this rooftop.
We lie there, hand-in-hand, on those chairs for the one hundred and three minutes of the eclipse. But as much as his presence stirs up a fierce wanting in me, it also soothes. So much so that when I reluctantly get up to leave, I almost forget to grab my newly created Magnitude Five Dark Mirror.
Almost. After all, there's still magic to do.
Chapter 22
My bedroom is small to begin with, but it feels even smaller with three people in it.
“Griffin, please don’t touch that,” I say. Right about now, I’m regretting inviting them over, to be honest. I just want to sit and replay my Colin-on-the-roof moment over and over in my mind.
Griffin puts down my Wuthering Heights snow globe and drops onto my desk chair. “Let’s see the ritual, C-dawg.”
Regan is sitting on my floor with her knees drawn up into the circle of her arms. She looks pale and small.
“You don’t have to do this whole thing with me, you know,” I say to her.
“Do what?” she asks.
“Pretend you’re not crushed.”
She looks away. “I’m not pretending anything. It’s… When they said Noah would live, but he’d be a little banged up, I was so relieved. But then I found out about Sid and…” I hear the tears in her voice, crowding the exits to her tear ducts and begging to be released. “Roller coaster. I don’t have family besides my mom. So, like, Sid and you guys are what I’ve got. Or had. Those people are animals! Why would someone…” She shudders.