by Dawn Metcalf
Joy touched her cheek. A trick of light caught her eye. Flash! Flash! Was that what she’d seen in the mirror?
“You’ve been touched by a Scribe,” Inq continued, “and since no one ordered that you be marked, you’ve been imprinted as his. As belonging to Ink.” She turned and regarded her brother sitting at the kitchen table. “He’s had to claim it was on purpose, that he chose you as his own, so that no one learned of the mistake.” Her voice grew quiet. “We are not permitted mistakes.” Inq switched her infinite eyes to Joy. “So we must find a way to work together. It would go poorly for everyone otherwise.”
Joy didn’t understand half of what Inq was saying, and she didn’t like the sound of the other half. “Look, I’m sorry,” she said, not feeling very sorry, “but I think everybody has me confused with someone else.” She looked desperately from Inq to Ink. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen anything weird until last Friday night and—no offense—but I didn’t mean to see you and, frankly, don’t want to see either of you ever again. So, if you don’t mind, can we just forget this ever happened and will you please leave?”
She’d meant it as an order, but it came out more like a plea. She knew she should call the police or hit the red emergency button or simply scream for help, but Joy clung to the insane hope that these two might go away quietly if she said or did the right things. Besides, there was an unspoken threat that she couldn’t stop them if Ink and Inq decided to get ugly.
Ink spread his hands on the table. They were smooth and unearthly against the polished wood.
“Let me explain,” he said. “We are Scribes. Our job is to draw signaturae.”
“Signaturae?” Joy echoed.
“Special marks. Symbols worn upon the skin,” Inq explained.
Joy frowned. “Why?”
“To keep track of who is who,” Inq said archly, “and, more importantly, whose is whose.” She reached her arms over her head in a lazy stretch. “Once upon a time, our people and yours shared this world. We were tied to certain territories and a few chosen bloodlines, bound together to safeguard the world’s magic from corruption and decay. Nowadays, with so little unspoiled land left, we require far more people to anchor the magic and maintain the balance.” She drew something on the counter with her finger. “We use signaturae to mark those who are ours the way the land was once ours, those who share a little bit of magic, identifying who is connected, who can be claimed and who is strictly off-limits.”
Ink held up a hand. “We take orders and place a signatura upon a person,” he said, choosing his next words carefully. “A human, according to ancient laws.” Joy shivered. They weren’t human—that much was obvious, but Ink saying it aloud put it out there for real. “But a signatura must be given willingly and only to those who qualify. Our work safeguards our people from corruption and signifies that the chosen human is protected, formally claimed by one of the Folk. It is a message to others—touch this human, and you risk offending their patron and upsetting the balance. A signatura gives fair warning of whom you might cross.”
Joy turned his words over like a snow globe in her head, her thoughts scattered and shaken. “But no one asked you to mark me?”
Ink looked away. “No.”
“Anyone can order a mark.” Inq played with a bead of water. “At least, anyone who takes an interest and makes a legitimate claim and pays the fee,” she said. “But that’s not important. What is important is that there are very few who can place others’ signaturae onto living flesh. As Scribes, our job is to take orders from the Folk and make a mark in their stead. We are their instruments by proxy. Per procurationem. In absentia. In loco deus.” She flicked the bead of moisture, sending a spray over the laminate. “You understand now why we can never make mistakes.”
Joy pointed to her eye. “But this was a mistake.”
“Not if Ink claims that he has chosen you for himself,” Inq said. “It doesn’t happen often, but any of the Folk can claim a special little someone for themselves.”
“By stabbing them in the eye?” Joy said. “How romantic.”
Inq cast a catty glance at her brother. “His heart clearly wasn’t in it.”
Ink frowned and kept his eyes on the table.
Joy crossed her arms. “But why mark me at all?”
“Humans are dangerous,” Ink said darkly. “And one with the Sight is the most dangerous of all.”
“The Folk are few,” Inq added. “Detection makes them skittish. We exist as a buffer between our worlds.” Her eyes flicked over Joy. “We protect our people from taking unnecessary risks.”
“By stabbing people with knives?”
Inq laughed. “Not always,” she said. “In fact, I don’t need anything but these.” She spread her hands before her; images swirled and the air bowed like warped glass.
Joy glared at Ink. “And you?”
For an answer, Ink drew out a long leather wallet attached to his belt by a silver chain. Unfolding it, he revealed a number of strange implements: a scalpel, a straight razor, a silver quill, a glassy black arrowhead, a sleek metal wand and a wooden handle ending in a single fat spike.
“She is Invisible Inq,” he said. “Her marks are not meant to be seen—they exist below the skin. I am Indelible Ink and my marks are meant to be obvious, permanent, there for everyone to see.” He glared at her. Joy felt it in her scratched cornea. She tried very hard to ignore the sharp objects spread out on her kitchen table and the intense way he stared deep into her eyes.
“You marked me,” she whispered.
“Not intentionally.”
“No,” she said, finding her voice. “You intentionally tried to blind me!”
“Yes. And I failed. Now you wear my signatura, and everyone can see it.” Each sentence was clipped, hard, almost an accent in its precision. His anger might have been with himself or her. Ink waved a hand as if to dissipate something between them. “I had not realized that some might see this as an opportunity to circumvent the Bailiwick. That is why they have been coming to you with messages, requests—there are those who believe they will find special favor through you because they believe that you are mine.”
Joy flung her arms out and shouted, “That’s because you told them I was yours!”
Ink’s eyes grew impossibly darker. “I never thought...” he started, then sighed. “I would have come sooner if I had known.”
“It had to be done,” Inq said. “If anyone knew that there had been a mistake, that a signatura had been given in error, all our work would be put into question.” She gestured offhandedly to Joy. “You would be killed as a matter of course, to save face—a human with the Sight is especially dangerous, after all—and my brother and I might be judged obsolete and destroyed. You wouldn’t want that, would you?” She pouted dramatically. “Come now. This way you have status, a place in our world and considerable protection, and Ink keeps his reputation. Everybody wins.” Her voice pitched lower. “Know that this thing has never happened, not in all these years—instead of an error, it would merely be seen as about time Ink chose a lehman for himself.” Inq didn’t hide her smirk. Her brother did not share it.
“Lehman?” Joy said. The word sounded familiar. “What does that mean?”
Inq shrugged as she considered the overhead lights. “A human who has been chosen by one of our kind. Confidante, contact, significant...”
“Slave,” Ink said dully.
“What?” Joy snapped.
“Or lover,” Inq added. “It loses something in translation.”
“No,” Joy said. “No way!” Pretending to be his...whatever...was so not happening! Joy glanced desperately at Ink. “Just take it back, all right? Fix it.” She pointed at her left eye, which flashed as she talked. “Can’t you undo this?”
“Not even to take out your eye,” In
k said as he folded his wallet back into thirds. “That option is now closed. Since you are mine, I would have to explain why I would maim you so soon after claiming you, unless for my own amusement.” He smoothed the leather flat. “It is not unknown to happen, but I am without precedent and not known for malice.” His attention turned to Inq. “Evidently, I have a reputation to think of.”
Inq circled around the counter, approaching Joy with tentative steps.
“It’s merely a ruse, a title to spare your life. You see now that this is the best way?” Inq asked. “We did not mean to do you harm.”
“He tried to cut out my eye!” Joy yelled, pointing at Ink.
“Sometimes, we must choose immediately unpleasant things in order to prevent greater unpleasantness,” he said flatly. Joy bristled. Ink barely noticed. “It is nothing personal,” he added. It sounded as if he regretted the situation far more than Joy.
“See?” Inq said, smiling. “One big happy. We can work together, right?”
Joy dropped her eyes, massaging her palm with her thumb. Pretend to be a pseudo–sex slave for a supernatural freak or end up either blind or dead. Was this a choice? Her maimed eye split the light—Flash! Flash! She sighed.
“So what do I have to do?”
Inq patted her arm. Joy tried not to shrink from her touch. “We’re not certain yet,” Inq said. “While we figure it out, Ink will bring you along with him sometimes so that you can be seen in his company. Try to appear...together.” Joy couldn’t help glancing at Ink. He stared pointedly at the fridge. “It’s just for a little while,” Inq soothed. “Keep quiet, act natural and, after a time, the novelty will fade and no one will question why you are no longer with us.”
An unsettling chill crept up Joy’s spine. She didn’t like the way Inq said that last part. Was that a threat? And, if it was, what could she do about it?
A parental voice whispered in the back of her mind, If you can’t be a yes-man, be indispensable!
“I’m sure I could do something useful,” Joy said quickly. “I could help. I could learn.”
“You cannot even take a message,” Ink muttered.
“That’s unfair,” Inq said, stepping closer to Joy. “She had no idea what the messages were, nor for whom. She was frightened, poor girl.” Inq petted Joy’s hair. Joy stood very, very still. Inq played with a curl. “Something unfortunate might have happened,” she cooed.
“Is that what happened to the policeman?” Joy asked, sliding from under Inq’s hand.
Ink sighed. “Who?”
“Officer Castrodad,” Joy said. “Gabriel Castrodad? He went to Grandview Park after the glowing girls left.”
Ink glanced at Inq. “‘Glowing girls’?”
His sister coughed, attempting to smother giggles, but soon erupted in rich belly laughter. “The guilderdamen!” she crowed. “Glowing girls—hahaha!” Inq clapped her hands together, delighted. “Oh, this will be fun! I’m tempted to steal you away from my brother just for that!” Inq laughed harder. Joy cringed. Ink grinned without humor.
“Ah, the witness,” Ink said. “There was a man who was meant to see the Rising. I was supposed to mark him as theirs, a witness to their majesty.” He cocked his head, a gesture similar to Inq’s. “But since I was not present to mark him at the manifestation of the guilderdamen, I suspect he went mad.” Ink spoke with a hint of accusation. “They are an awesome and fearsome thing to behold, naked in their glory.”
Joy shook her head, guilt and fear constricting her throat. “But...he wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t told him where it was happening!” she insisted. “They couldn’t have chosen him before he even knew about it. That doesn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps so, perhaps not,” Inq said. “Fate’s a fickle thing.”
“It wasn’t fate,” Joy said hotly. “It was you!”
Inq pouted. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
Joy shuddered very slightly, containing her temper. “None of this makes any sense,” she whispered. She shook her head and tried to think. “Look, there was a note in my locker, an envelope from some guy and two texts,” she said to Ink. “They were for you.”
“Do you still have them?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted. “But...there may be more on my computer. I can go check. In my room.” The idea of getting to her bedroom held the promise of shutting and locking the door and never coming out.
“Do you remember what the notes said?” Ink asked, sounding exasperated.
“Some of it,” Joy said while inching her way past the counter. “Hang on.”
Snippets of an escape plan flashed through her head. Joy eased her way between Ink and Inq, glancing at the foyer and considering sprinting for the door. If she could turn the knob fast enough, open the door and scream...
The alarm beeped. The locks unlocked. And the doorknob twisted with a familiar rattle of keys.
Joy whipped around. The microwave clock glowed 9:51. The kitchen was empty. Ink and Inq had disappeared.
Her father wandered in looking ragged and worn.
“Hey,” he said, sighing.
Joy slammed into his arms.
“Dad,” she breathed gratefully into his coat.
He chuckled, caught off guard. “Well, hello to you, too.” Her dad gave her a quick squeeze and patted her arm. “Mind telling me why our broom is in the hall?”
CHAPTER FIVE
JOY COULDN’T TELL Dad or Stefan or Monica. She didn’t want any of them thinking that she was crazy, and she really didn’t want any of them ending up like Officer Gabriel Castrodad. She had to keep quiet. Act natural. Keep everyone safe. She was almost grateful that everyone else was too preoccupied with their own lives to notice anything wrong with hers.
Almost.
She felt eyes on her during the bus ride to school—kids turning to look at her just as she was looking at them. She glanced away quickly. Joy wondered if people always did that? She’d never noticed it before. Then again, it hadn’t creeped her out before.
Could they see that her world had changed? Could they read it in her eyes?
Flash! Flash!
Joy hunched down in her seat and willed herself smaller.
Ink’s people, whoever they were, knew where she went to school, where she lived, her locker, her phone number... What else? She was grateful that she’d listened to Monica and been extra careful with her online profile, but who knew where or when the next note would appear? She’d buried her phone in the bottom of her book bag and stuffed it beneath her seat. Pushing her hands in her pockets, she kept her back to the window and concentrated on the floor.
Joy tried thinking about ways that she could make herself indispensable and yet stay as far away from the Scribes as possible. She figured any information she got she would hand over to Ink and then walk away, job done. Stay silent. Not one word. If they could keep things just business for a little while, then, Inq had said, the scrutiny would eventually go away. It grated on her that she had become some sort of secretary for the weird, but she could do that if it kept her family and friends safe. Be indispensable from a distance. She could do that.
But she walked into school with a head full of worry about Stef and Dad and news blurbs and glowing girls and inky, all-black eyes.
“Hey.”
Joy jumped. Her shoulder bounced off her locker door. Monica frowned.
“Try decaf,” Monica suggested as Joy dug inside her locker. “What happened to your neck?”
Joy touched the redness at her throat and gave the same answer she’d given Dad: “Fashion accident.” She shut the metal door.
“Touchy,” her friend said.
“Sorry,” Joy apologized. “Really bad night.”
“It’s more than that,” Monica said.
Joy nod
ded, having a preplanned explanation handy. “Dad started dating somebody,” she said as they began walking. At least it wasn’t a lie.
“Really?” Monica said, but—like a good friend—bit back the chirpy That’s great! which Joy appreciated. Instead she asked, “Know her name?”
“Yes. Shelley.”
“As in Shelley or Michelle?”
“I don’t know,” Joy grumbled. “He doesn’t even know!”
“Pfft. That’s criminal.”
“I know!”
Monica glanced at the hall crawlers as Joy regained some composure. Her hands felt hot. Her fingers twisted in her shirt. She suddenly missed the feel of powdered chalk, soothing and smooth on her skin. She wanted to take a running jump down the hall, kick over and fly, but instead hugged a textbook hard against her chest. Monica patted Joy’s shoulder in sympathy.
“We’ll talk later, ’kay?” she promised. They shared a quick shoulder squeeze before splitting at Hall B. Joy watched her go. Monica was the best, and Joy resolved that she would do whatever she had to do to keep her friend safe. She checked her lucky tartan and black-and-white checkerboard socks as she headed off to precalc.
She had almost forgotten about the weirdness until her calculator started speaking in tongues.
Cubic runes danced across the tiny gray screen. They weren’t numbers or English letters or any language that she knew, but it was clearly a message. Grabbing her pencil, Joy copied the shapes as best she could. It looked like some old language written in liquid crystal lines. Joy gripped the pencil, turning her fingernails white.
“Joy Malone,” a voice barked. She flipped her notebook over.
“Sorry, Mr. Grossman.”
“Something more interesting than proofs, Miss Malone?”
She turned to the next blank page. “Um, no.”
Her teacher smiled. “Somehow, I find that hard to believe.” The rest of the class gave halfhearted chuckles. “All right, people, back to question ten...”