by E. E. Holmes
“Sorry, I’m sorry!” he hissed, lowering his voice. “But this is crazy, Jess! Necromancers breaking into our apartment and ransacking the place?”
“Well, to be fair, the Trackers haven’t investigated yet. Maybe it wasn’t the Necromancers at all,” I suggested weakly.
“Oh, please, Jess, who the hell do you think you’re talking to here?!” Milo scoffed. “Of course, it was the Necromancers! The real question, though, is what they were looking for.”
“Or who,” I pointed out.
Milo shook his head. “I don’t think so. If you break into an apartment looking for someone, and they’re not there, you don’t hang around to trash the place for no reason. You said all the drawers were turned out and all the furniture torn apart, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, that means they were looking for something, not someone,” Milo said, crossing his arms and giving a smug look of satisfaction that would have looked at home on Sherlock Holmes’ face when he’d cracked his case. “What do you think it was?”
I sank down onto the garden bench, waiting for a spirit to drift by and out of earshot before I replied. “I’m not sure. The problem is, we don’t know how much they know.”
Milo dropped his smirk and frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” I said slowly, trying to lay it all out as much for myself as for Milo, “we know that the Necromancers got some information from the Tansy Hag. She told them something—enough that they know our gift is ‘stolen,’ because that’s what the Necromancer said when he attacked Lucida and carved the mark of the Tansy Hag into her back. But how much did she explain to them, that’s the question.”
“They knew that Lucida had to be stopped from telling the Council about the mark,” Milo said, pulling on a lock of his hair thoughtfully. “That must be why Ambrose followed her to Fairhaven and staged that attack. They didn’t want anyone at Fairhaven to find out what they knew.”
“And now, somehow, they must realize I’m caught up in it. But how? How could they possibly know that? No one knows I spoke to the Tansy Hag. And no one knows what happened in the Rift except for the people in the room when I woke up—well, and Annabelle, but they’d already broken into the flat by the time I met with her.”
“Are you sure no one at the príosún knew that you saw the Tansy Hag? That príosún is full of people. Isn’t there a chance someone saw you?” Milo asked.
“Well,” I said slowly. “I had to ask for directions to that spirit cellblock from a Caomhnóir. But I never told him why.”
“What about down in the cellblock itself?” Milo pressed.
I shook my head. “There were no guards down there. Only a few other spirits, and not a single one of them was in their right mind.”
“What about any other prisoners? Weren’t there other Necromancers who had been put back in custody there?” Milo asked.
“Well, yeah, but I didn’t actually come into contact with any of them,” I said, starting to feel uneasy.
“But there were Necromancers there in the príosún when you met the Tansy Hag?”
“Yes.”
Milo and I looked at each other, a deep sense of dread blossoming between us. Was it possible, somehow, that word of my meeting with the Tansy Hag had reached Necromancer ears? Did they know that I knew the truth about the Gateways? And exactly how much of the truth did the Necromancers know? This web was getting more tangled, and I was starting to feel like a fly who was stuck in it, just waiting for the spider to show up.
And speaking of vermin…
“Well, now, who have we got here?”
I looked up to see Marion strolling up the garden path with, of all people, Siobhán, who, I noticed, immediately dropped her eyes to the ground in apparent embarrassment at being seen in such company. Marion came to a stop, arms crossed, looking positively delighted at the chance meeting. Beside me, Milo was already vibrating with rage, the anger rolling off him in chilly waves.
“Jessica. It’s been ages,” Marion said with a conniving smirk.
“Not long enough,” I replied, standing up and slinging my bag back over my shoulder.
“I’d ask you if you’ve been keeping out of trouble, but of course, we all know that’s not the case. I’ve heard tales of your exploits while I’ve been away. You keep quite busy, don’t you?”
“Too busy to waste my time listening to anything you might possibly have to say,” I said, returning her smile before turning to glare at Siobhán. “Funny, I’d have thought the same of you, Siobhán, but I guess I was wrong about that.”
Siobhán looked as though she would have liked to contradict me, but what could she say, with Marion standing right there?
“There’s no need to be so hostile,” Marion replied, feigning surprise at my less-than-friendly tone. “Siobhán and I served for many years on the Council together, after all. Is it so odd that we would want to catch up?”
I snorted. “Do you think you’re crafty? Sly? Do you honestly think there’s a single person on these grounds who doesn’t know that you’re up to something?”
“The proverbial cat strutting around with canary feathers all over her poorly contoured face,” Milo added bitingly.
Marion’s smooth expression cracked. “Listen to me, you—”
“No, you listen to me,” I said taking a sudden step toward her so that she actually jumped back in alarm, “because you are obviously mistaking me for someone who gives a fuck what you’ve got to say, and I’d hate for you to keep harboring that delusion. I don’t know what you’re doing here and I don’t care. I don’t have the energy or the time to waste on you and whatever petty bullshit you’re cooking up. We all know you’re drawn to confusion and chaos like an opportunistic moth to the flame, but when the smoke clears, you will still be what you always were: a liar, a traitor, and a grasping, conniving thief. I just hope everyone else around here remembers it.”
I shot one last accusatory look at Siobhán, and stalked back toward the castle, Milo hooting and snapping his fingers in my wake.
“Oh, sweetness, I am slain. SLAIN!” he cried, cackling madly. “The look on her face! It was a thing of beauty. I wish I had a picture of it so I could carry it around in front of my eyes and look at nothing else for the rest of my afterlife.”
“It was stupid,” I muttered. “I let my temper get the better of me, and now she’s one more thing I’m going to have to worry about.”
“It wasn’t stupid, it was brilliant,” Milo insisted. “And not just because it was satisfying to watch. Like, I kept reaching for my popcorn. But seriously, Jess, I think someone needed to call her on her bullshit, to make sure she knows that she’s not fooling anyone.”
“I hope that’s true,” I said. “And what the hell is Siobhán doing walking around with her? She’s supposed to be Celeste’s second-in-command.”
“Second-in-command doesn’t mean they always agree with each other,” Milo said.
“Yeah, but it should mean that she would never betray her, and listening to anything Marion has to say feels like a betrayal to me.”
“Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”
“Maybe it’s exactly as bad as I think.”
“Well, like you said, you don’t really have time to worry about it, do you?” Milo said. “Let Celeste and the others manage Marion. Let’s focus on Savvy and what Agnes told you to do, okay? Now, tell me what happened when you met with Annabelle. What’s the plan? Do you think she can help you get back into the Traveler camp?”
I gave him a wry smile. “You might want to find that popcorn again.”
§
The plan was universally acknowledged to be batshit crazy, and yet, no one could come up with an alternative, though Finn quite liked Kiernan’s suggestion of gathering a rogue band of Caomhnóir and simply invading the Traveler camp by force.
“What?” he demanded when I gave him a withering look.
“You think starting a war is less dangerous than Annabel
le’s plan?”
“Less dangerous for you,” he grumbled. I promptly ignored all the rest of his opinions on the matter.
Flavia, whom I expected to poke a million holes in the plan with her intimate knowledge of the camp, actually seemed rather impressed. “I agree it’s completely mad,” she said, throwing an anxious glance at Finn, “but I also think it may just work. I can’t think of a single Casting or defense that would prevent you.”
“Castings aren’t the only things that could keep Jess from talking to Ileana,” Hannah said. “So many other things could go wrong once she gets inside.”
“Yes, but none of those other factors can be predicted,” Flavia pointed out. “Happenstance is happenstance, whether Jess sneaks in alone or whether a battalion storms the borders.”
“We can’t control everything,” I said over everyone’s continued protests. “We just have to plan the best we can and hope luck is on our side.”
Finn settled into disgruntled submission, but Hannah couldn’t let it go. She spent the next few days of preparation trying almost constantly to convince me, in one way or another, to abandon the plan. I found myself actually avoiding her, hiding away up in Fiona’s tower, helping her restore Agnes’ tapestry while I waited for word from Annabelle that she had obtained permission from the Traveler Council to visit the camp. When that word finally arrived three days later, and I was packing to leave, Hannah had still not let up.
“This is nuts,” Hannah announced.
“I think that fact has been pretty well established by literally everyone,” I said, rummaging in my top drawer for two matching socks.
“But somehow it didn’t dissuade you at all?” Hannah asked, her voice rather tart.
“Oh, come on, Hannah, you know Jess only does things the hard way,” Milo joked. “It’s kind of her M.O.” Hannah gave him a furious look and he fell silent.
“What choice do we have, Hannah?” I asked with a weary sigh, settling on two socks that nearly matched and sitting down to pull them onto my bare feet. “It’s the only way in. It’s kind of… well, crazy, but it will work. It’s got to.”
“And what if you actually manage it—what if you get yourself across the border in Annabelle’s body and into Ileana’s tent? What if you tell her exactly what Agnes told you to say and she has no idea what you’re talking about? Or worse, what if she does, but she doesn’t believe it?”
I did not reply right away, choosing instead to make rather a performance of ensuring the seam across the toe of my sock was straight before answering. She was voicing the very concerns that had curled up into lumps in my throat, choking me every time I thought about them.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What?!”
“You heard me.”
“Jess, how can you say that?”
“Because it’s true! It doesn’t matter. I still have to go. I still have to tell her. I don’t know what she’ll say, or what she’ll do, but that doesn’t change anything, Hannah!”
“Or it could change everything!” Hannah burst out, tears springing into her eyes.
The sudden onslaught of tears caught me off guard, and I faltered. “Hannah, what… why are you crying?”
“Never mind,” Hannah sniffed, turning from me so that she could wipe the tears angrily from her face. She flicked them away off the tips of her fingers, as though they had betrayed her. “If you don’t already know, I’m not sure that I could even explain it to you.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked, defensiveness rearing up in me. “Why wouldn’t I understand?”
“You just won’t.”
“Try me.”
Hannah took a deep breath, and when she looked at me, her expression was wary. “You and I have never felt the same about being a Durupinen. For you, becoming a Durupinen was something that happened to you. It dropped down like a bomb on you out of nowhere. It took the world you knew and turned it into something unrecognizable and scary. You had to find a way to make room for it—to accommodate it, and you’ve always resented that. You probably still do.”
I shrugged defensively, feeling suddenly attacked. “I… well, yeah, but you don’t have to make it sound so…”
“I’m not judging you, Jess. Anyone would feel that way, if that’s how their gift came to them. But for me, it was the complete opposite. My connection to spirits was there from my earliest memories. It was an inherent part of me—of my world. I clung to it because it was the only constant, even if it was a constant that isolated me from others. It was the biggest unanswered question in my life, and when the Durupinen came along to explain it at last, it was the single greatest moment of my life because finally—finally—I understood who I was. And not only that, but who I was wasn’t something to be ashamed of or hidden or managed with medication. It was important. It was wonderful. The Durupinen walking into your life meant you lost yourself. But when they walked into mine, I was found.”
I sat stunned into silence. I’d never, not once since I’d met her, stopped to consider how completely opposite Hannah’s view of the Durupinen must be, at its heart. I mean, I’d always known her life had been terribly different from mine, that spirits had essentially made her life as a ward of the state a veritable hell, but I’d never translated that any further—never realized that it was this, perhaps, that made it so much easier for her to put her trust in Lucida when Lucida was trying to manipulate her. From my perspective, the Durupinen had hijacked my life. From Hannah’s, they had rescued her from hers.
“So, you see, Jess? You have to understand that you’re charging off hellbent on destroying the one thing that’s ever made my life make sense—the one thing that helped me to come to terms and understand who I am.”
“I’m not hellbent on destroying anything!” I cried, stung. “I’m trying to save something!”
“But I’m the collateral damage!” Hannah cried, sounding quite hysterical now. “Being a Durupinen is who I am! It’s who all of us are! And if you do this—if our gift gets taken away, then who am I? WHO AM I, JESS?!”
Her voice rose to a shriek and she burst into wildly hysterical sobs. Milo and I stared at each other, stunned. Then, before I knew what was happening, because I could not bear to hear those sounds coming out of my sister, I was across the room with my arms wrapped around her, stroking her hair and murmuring her name over and over again. Milo followed, enfolding both of us in the cool comfort of his embrace.
“I’m so sorry. Hannah, I’m so sorry. Ssshh, please stop crying. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I repeated into the thick, dark waves of her hair. “Forgive me, Hannah, I had no idea.”
We sat there, the three of us, rocking together like a boat in the storm of her grief. She was mourning, I realized. Mourning for this part of her identity that was so central to accepting her own worth. I realized that, at some level, all of us would have to reckon with the missing piece, even those of us who had never wanted it to begin with. Gradually, the tempest blew itself out.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered like an echo after the last of the hitched breaths and sniffs died away.
“Hannah, don’t apologize, please…”
“No, I wasn’t honest with you. I should have told you about these feelings when I first started having them, but I was ashamed of them, ashamed of myself.”
“What do you have to be ashamed of?” I asked.
“Because this is selfish. I’m selfish.”
“Excuse me, but I got all the selfish genes in this family,” I told her with a shake of my head. “You’re like, the least selfish person I know!”
“What could be more selfish than wanting to keep a gift that isn’t even mine, even if keeping it could mean the complete destruction of the links between our world and the spirit world? Why aren’t I thinking of Savvy and what’s happening to her? Why aren’t I thinking of all the spirits that could get trapped here forever? Why can I only seem to think about myself and what I’m going to lose?” Hann
ah asked, and though she didn’t seem to expect a reply, I gave her one anyway.
“You aren’t selfish. You’ve helped so many spirits. You’ve used your powers for good.”
“Sometimes,” she said softly. “I sometimes used them for good.”
“You ultimately used them for good,” I corrected her. “One misstep doesn’t erase all the good you’ve done. Our mistakes help shape us, but they don’t define us, Hannah. If they did, I’d just be a walking mistake with a big mouth and over-processed hair.”
Hannah made a soft sound that might have been a chuckle, but it was hard to tell.
“Anyway, it’s not selfish to want to keep helping others, or to keep being the person you’ve become, especially after you fought so hard to find her,” I said. “It took me a long time to accept what I am, and even longer to be any good at it, but even I don’t like the idea of giving it up.”
Hannah looked me in the eye for the first time since breaking down. “You don’t have to say that just to make me sound less awful.”
“I’m not just saying that!” I insisted. “It’s true. I’m not happy about any of this. I don’t want to destroy this entire system—well, okay, I want to destroy large swaths of it, obviously, because I get fed up with the bullshit of regulations or social etiquette or who’s allowed to do what job. But at its heart—at its core—I’ve always believed in what we do. I’ve never wanted to stop doing Crossings or helping spirits who are lost and confused. That part’s always been easy—and sometimes even wonderful.”