She'd been hiding the book. Had to, since her parents kept barging into her room whenever they pleased. For ten minutes, she'd dawdled, trying to decide where to hide the book. Eventually she decided upon the back of her underwear drawer. She was pretty sure it was the only place her parents didn't dare snoop.
Gods, she'd about had a heart attack when she saw her mother react to the book in the same way she had. Her father hadn't noticed anything was amiss. Why could her mother feel it, when her father couldn't? Was the book getting stronger—or was it something else?
She reached out to ruffle her younger brother's hair and froze, hand still outstretched. Because there were little particles of black magic clinging to her fingers, and they were trying to burrow into her flesh. She could see them wriggling, like black maggots, and knew that there was no way she wanted these—these things—getting under her skin.
Mrs. Pierce came out of the walk-in pantry as Catherine was waving her hand in an attempt to dislodge the particles, and gave her daughter a very strange look. “What are you doing now?”
“Nothing!” said Lucas. “Just sitting here.”
“Not you. Your sister.”
Now they were both staring at her. “I had something on my hand.”
“Ew! She put something in my hair! I felt it!” Lucas began combing through the blonde strands frantically. “Get it out! Get it out!”
“I didn't put anything in your hair, dingus. As if I'd want to touch that disgusting mop.”
“Enough!” Their mother's eyes went from warm hazel to the gold of old Spanish doubloons, suggesting she was a hairsbreadth away from Changing. “Both of you. Stop. Now.”
The threat was more convincing when they were young, but it still did the trick in a pinch.
Catherine leaned back in her chair and poured herself a glass of ice water from the carafe, affecting indifference. Over the rim of the glass, she regarded her brother as she drank. His eyes were fixed somewhere between his hands, both of which lay flat against the table. Large hands, still too big for his body, as if he were a puppy. Mrs. Pierce was always saying that he took after their great-uncle Albert, who'd been 6'7”, and with his strong Nordic features—permanently arranged in a mischievous Loki grin—quite resembled her brother, who, with his blue eyes and tawny hair, didn't resemble anyone else in their short, dark family.
Great-Uncle Albert been killed in the War, by a witch.
Right now, Lucas looked more like Vitharr than Loki. The god of silence and of being pissed off. Patron god of the disaffected Nordic youth. “You're grouchy today,” she observed in the silence that followed as their mother left the room once more. “Did you have a bad day or something?”
Lucas grunted.
She took a deliberately long sip of water. “Well, that makes two of us.”
Grunt.
“Don't be such a drama queen. Whatever it was, I'm sure it wasn't that bad.”
Silence.
Didn't he have a not-quite-girlfriend? Kathryn? No. Christine? No. What was it? Caitlin. Yes, that was it. “Did Caitlin ignore you today or something?”
“That's none of your business,” he growled, looking at her with blazing eyes.
She'd hit a raw nerve, there.
“Fine.” She poured herself another glass of water. “Guess I won't be talking to you either, then.”
Little shit.
“Leave that out,” he said, when she got up from the chair to put the carafe back in the fridge. She looked at him, unmoving, until he grudgingly added, “Please.”
Catherine set the carafe down in front of him. Keeping his eyes trained on the pouring water, he said, “You can be a real bitch sometimes.”
“It gets me through the week. We can't all be hulking giants like you. Gotta survive somehow.”
“Yeah, well, it's still a pain.” He took a big gulp of water, draining half the glass in one go. “There was a club day at school today. Principal Lee gave us double lunches to look at all the tables.”
Catherine remembered Principal Lee. He used to crack jokes about her having to pay rent, since she spent so much time in his office. “Did you join a club?”
“Caitlin wanted me to join this club called Sterling Rep. It's run by some college-age guy named Mike, but it sounds like a club for real pu—” his eyes flicked towards the door Mrs. Pierce had left through “—anyway, it sounded lame. I was going to join anyway, but—”
“But?”
Mrs. Pierce walked back into the kitchen with a jar of pickles.
Catherine looked at Lucas, frowning. He shook his head. Her frown deepened.
Whatever he had been about to say, he didn't want to say it in front of their mother.
“You two are being awfully quiet,” she observed. “You weren't fighting again, were you?”
“Nope.” Lucas gulped down another large mouthful of water so he would be unavailable for further questioning. Mrs. Pierce turned her eyes on Catherine instead, who shot Lucas a dirty look.
Sneaky jerk. He beat me to it.
Lucas stuck out his tongue at her.
“Catherine?”
“Food smells good,” she said quickly. “Burgers, right?”
Still suspicious, Mrs. Pierce nodded and wrenched open the jar. A vinegar aroma filled the room. Catherine watched as she sliced up pickles, tomatoes, and lettuce. “Fries are in the oven. They should be ready in about ten minutes. I'm serving them with thousand island dressing instead of ketchup. It should be good.”
Catherine sniffed at the air. The smoky, savory scent of cooking meat made her mouth water.
“Hmm. It's not beef. It smells too—wild, gamey. Is it buffalo?”
Lucas snorted. Catherine grinned. 'Guess What's For Dinner?' was an oldie, but a goodie.
Mrs. Pierce was not amused. “Don't do that anymore, Catherine.”
“Do what?” She glanced at Lucas, who shrugged. Don't look at me, he mouthed.
“Use your abilities for recreation.”
“What, like smelling?”
“Anything.”
“Why?” Catherine demanded, pushing her glass away. She used a little too much force and it wobbled, nearly toppling over. “I'm at home. It's not like anyone is going to see.”
“Because it isn't safe.”
“Why?” Lucas wanted to know.
“Because people are disappearing. People like us. I've been hearing all kinds of rumors on the grapevine, none of them good. Slayer activity is higher than it's been in years. And with a minority group of shape-shifters threatening exposure, the Council is working harder than ever to suppress insurgents. Even minor infractions are being dealt with harshly.”
“I heard about that,” Catherine said. “The King is using his son as a bounty hunter to pick off shape-shifters one by one.”
Mrs. Pierce looked at her daughter, surprised.
What? Like I'm not supposed to have connections of my own?
“That's right,” her mother said at last. “He's playing judge, jury, and executioner.”
“Why don't they want us to expose ourselves?” Lucas asked. “We wouldn't have to hide anymore. Isn't that a good thing?”
Mrs. Pierce looked like she was about to hug him. Lucas scooted nervously away in case she got any ideas. “Oh, sweetie, I know that's how it should be, but the world just doesn't work that way.”
Remembering David's warning, Catherine said, “Is there going to be another War, do you think?”
“It's quite possible.”
Lucas and Catherine exchanged a nervous glance. War. Their population was still recovering from the last one, and that had been almost two centuries ago.
“I'm not trying to scare you kids,” their mother said, in a more relaxed voice that suggested that she was, and had felt she had done the job of it well. “Maybe nothing will come of this. But your father and I want both of you to be safe. There are many people out there who don't take kindly to what we are—even if they are just children—and will use violen
ce as a means of defending what they think is right.”
“Slayers?”
“Not necessarily. Even ordinary people. Even Others. The witches especially. It was a mistake to ally ourselves with them. Now they're in an even greater position to do us harm.”
Lucas looked frustrated. “But we're not dangerous.”
“But you can do things that they—witches and humans, both—can't. I don't think you realize how powerful you really are. You could become a lion and rip them open, become a flea and rob a bank—”
“I don't think a flea would be able to carry all that money, Mom,” Catherine cut in.
Her mother shot her a look, before continuing, “You could be anything, anywhere, and they would never feel safe again, so long as any animals were around, knowing that one of them could be a shifter spy. That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure they could come up with something far more ridiculous. Some of them have even made careers out of it,” she added darkly.
“But there are many shape-shifters out there who are dangerous. Who aren't as civilized as we are—and some of them prey on humans. The Council would like to pretend that no humans know we exist, but they're years behind the times, and ignoring hundreds of established unions between humans and shifters and witches, alike. You can't have two worlds coexist without the occasional overlap. You just can't. But the Council refuses to see that humans themselves aren't the enemy. There are bad shifters, just as there are bad humans and bad witches. And if we continue to live in secret it will be far too easy for them to vilify us as the creatures of their nightmares, and for the evil ones to continue to justify those claims.”
Her hazel eyes closed.
“Coming out and announcing it, though. That's wrong. It should be done slowly, with grace. The shifters in the East—they're trying to force it, which is almost as bad.” She looked at Catherine. “And you, with your differences, my love—I'm terrified that they'll take you in for questioning, or experiment on you. It's one of the reasons we had our falling out with the Trans.”
Catherine felt a chill. “They wanted to turn me in?”
“Yes. Because in China, anything circumspect had to be revealed to their branch of the Council, because the punishment for complicity was just as great—or greater—than perpetrating the crime. They were afraid that if anything bad happened to you, the same thing would happen to David.”
“If there is a war,” Lucas interrupted, “who is it going to be between? Who are we going to have to fight? The witches? The Slayers?”
“There are so many divided factions at this point, it's impossible to tell. It's like a crystal, Lucas. Slayers are just one facet—one facet among many.” She shook her head, as if to clear it. “Look. This is very important and I'm trying to speak to you two like you're adults. Please, do me a favor—act like ones. All I ask is that you refrain from doing anything that isn't normal until things get less dangerous.”
Mrs. Pierce's eyes gravitated towards Catherine, who looked down at her plate.
“I know it's tempting to break the rules at your age, and trust me, I've turned a blind eye to it in the past, but I can't do that anymore. So until this blows over, there will be no shifting. No Changing at all. As far as I'm concerned, you two are perfectly ordinary human children and there will be severe consequences if I find out that you have behaved in a way to suggest otherwise. The only exception is the full moon, where you will Change in the privacy of your room, with the shades drawn and the door locked.”
“That blows!” Lucas said emphatically. “You can't do that!”
“I'll do anything I must if it means ensuring your safety,” said their mother.
Catherine didn't say anything, because her mother's speech had just given her the perfect way to get out of doing that biology assignment. It was risky, it was dangerous, it was absolutely brilliant—and David Tran was going to help her.
Chapter Seven
White marbled floors surrounded her, polished to perfection, and when she looked down at her feet she could see the outlines of her own face looking back at her, pale and insubstantial as a ghost. She was wearing a green summer dress, made of lace and light. Her hair was longer than she had worn it in years, woven with orange lilies.
Despite the torches in their bronze sconces and the hot, acrid air, there was a chill. It permeated the walls, sunk deep into every stone. Catherine stepped away from the doorway and into the sunlight, and found it insubstantial. She was in a courtyard now, and not five steps away was a garden filled with roses. All of the roses were on fire, but she couldn't smell any smoke. She could smell the floral sweetness, but not the fire, and that was when she began to be afraid.
“There you are.”
Catherine whirled around, stirring up the floral fragrance so that it billowed around her, and inhaled sharply, choking on that smothering sweetness. It was the witch. The one from the gully.
Except—not.
The speech was all wrong, his voice hadn't been that deep, and he looked completely different. A black long-coat, with a brown vest, and a white shirt with a black cravat, black breeches, and knee-high boots made him look like a relic from a bygone age. It was amazing, how ridiculous Edwardian fashions looked in such anachronistic contexts. Even Mr. Darcy would look a fool.
She braced herself for the inevitable attack, but none was immediately forthcoming. He stood there, arms folded behind his back, regarding her as one would a garden statue. “You always did prefer the garden,” he said, sounding condescending but not necessarily displeased.
Something like dread began to form in the back of her brain, calcifying as her doubts grew.
“It's changed,” she heard herself saying, without understanding what she meant in the slightest.
He seemed to, though, because he nodded—a brisk, impatient jerk of his head.
Catherine stared hard at the burning roses. The flames made no sound as they devoured the petals, browning them and causing them to curl at the edges before flaking off into falling clumps of ash. “Why won't they die?”
“They're phoenix roses,” said the witch dispassionately. “When an old one dies, a bud rises from the ashes to begin the process anew.”
True to his words, a thorny mass was emerging from the nearest gray-brown clump of soil. She could hear the rustling of the leaves as they unfurled, the flesh-colored roses already starting to ignite as they blossomed, opening their faces to the bloody sky above.
The witch extended a hand, gloved. Catherine hesitated a long moment before taking it.
Together, they walked up a staircase that led to the parapets, with notches in the stonework where arches would stand to defend the palace by bow and arrow. It was empty now, but the ghosts of the past remained, drowning the silent stones with the heaviness of memory. She could see a few moldy old barrels, forgotten for years, the bands holding them swathed in orange rust.
“Nobody comes up here anymore,” he said, as if reading her mind. “Not since She died.”
Catherine avoided a cobweb trailing down from the low ceiling. Something wet and putrescent on the floor soaked through her thin slippers and she flinched. “Who's 'She'? And how did She die?”
But either the witch didn't hear her, or he was pretending not to, because he didn't answer her questions.
But either the witch didn't hear her, or he was pretending not to, because he didn't answer her questions.
She was pretty sure he'd heard her.
“Here we are.”
He gestured around with a grand sweep of his arm. Her eyes followed the limb as it extended, trailing from the tips of his fingers to the room around them. It was small. Small and drab and empty. There was a bare mattress pushed up against the far wall, stained and filthy looking, sheeted in dust instead of duvets. Papers were tacked to the walls, filled with runes that swirled and capered across their grainy surfaces. Spells, Catherine thought, running her fingers across the words to trace the strokes of the paintbrush that had drawn them. Wi
tchtongue.
Slowly, she turned around to regard the other half of the room. Piles of books were scattered about haphazardly. Some of the piles reached up to her waist. All of them were old. Ancient, even. A window looked out on the garden below, with a bird's-eye-view of the phoenix roses, which glowed with a steady, ethereal burn that pulsed softly in the gloaming of encroaching night.
There was a telescope, but it was aimed down at the ground, not up towards the sky. Catherine thought that was odd. Up this high, with such an unhindered view, it was most opportune for stargazing. Or…perhaps not. She didn't look through the lens. Something inside her shriveled up at the thought of putting her eye up against that cold, dark glass.
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