In the Shadows

by Kiersten White

  thinking?” Constance’s tone was biting, and it made Cora’s blood

  run cold.

  An enraged shriek shot through the air and echoed along the

  stone walls until it surrounded them.

  “Minnie,” Cora whispered in despair and frustration.

  A percussive bang left her ears ringing.

  “Nobody move!” Thomas shouted.

  “Charles!” Cora whispered, clutching him tighter.

  “They’re here!”

  Constance’s smile shifted from biting to delighted. “By all

  means, come in!” she said, waving coquettishly and moving to the

  side in a swish of her skirts. “Do join us.”

  His face a mixture of fear and determination, Thomas walked

  into the chamber, his eyes immediately alighting on Cora and

  then Charles. With a cry, he ran to them, dropping to his knees

  and feeling for Charles’s pulse.

  “I’m fine,” Charles muttered, eyelids fluttering. “Sleeping.”

  “Sleeping!” Mary echoed in a singsong tone.

  Thom looked at Cora and she nodded, trying to convey that

  she was fine, too. He reached up and smoothed the hair back from

  her forehead, and she leaned into his fingers, closing her eyes and,

  for a brief moment, letting herself feel safe.

  Minnie walked in next, a short knife from the kitchen clutched

  in her fist. She let out a small sob when she saw Cora, but did not run

  to her. Instead, she put herself between Cora and Alden, knife

  held at the ready.

  And finally Arthur, as pale as she’d ever seen him, expression-

  less and holding the gun, came in. He leveled it at Alden’s chest

  and pulled the trigger.

  Marrakesh, Morocco, 1983

  Venice, Italy, 1994

  Okinawa, Japan, 1988

  Jodhpur, India, 1999

  Berkeley, California, 2009

  twenty-two

  T

  he report of the gun echoed around the small

  chamber. Alden looked down at his chest, frowning.

  “Move the cage,” he growled. The other Ladon Vitae,

  except Constance, melted back into the shadows of the cavernous

  passageway.

  Constance laughed, drawing Arthur’s attention. He leveled

  the gun at her, but he didn’t think he could shoot a woman. “How

  very like your father you are, Arthur!” she said.

  “What do you mean?” He moved toward Cora and Minnie,

  keeping the gun pointed at the members of the Ladon Vitae. This

  was not going as he’d expected. He’d thought they’d run, or they’d

  fight, or something.

  There was an odd scraping noise coming from another branch

  of the cave system, along with some grunts, but he couldn’t see

  what the others were doing, and he wouldn’t leave Alden and

  Constance to go find out.

  Constance tapped her chin as though deep in thought. “I

  seem to recall the elder Liska doing the same thing to Alden.

  Amusing.”

  Grimacing, Alden pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed it at

  the blood. “It is less amusing to be on the receiving end of the

  bullet.” Arthur had shot him in the chest. He shouldn’t still be

  breathing, much less standing there cleaning himself up.

  Constance waved dismissively. “Of course. Now, if you’ve got

  that quite out of your system.” She raised an eyebrow and looked

  pointedly at the gun.

  Utterly mystified and at a loss as for what to do next, Arthur

  lowered his hand.

  The bearded man stomped into the cavern, glaring.

  “And where have you been?” Alden asked, putting away his

  ruined handkerchief.

  “Had to change my shirt.” The bearded man leered at Minnie.

  “It had blood on it.”

  “That seems to be a common theme tonight.”

  Minnie raised her knife, trembling. “I — you — I stabbed

  you in the chest. And Arthur shot you! How is this —”

  Constance clapped her hands together. “I do love it when they

  try to wrap their little minds around it all. The moment they realize

  what they are up against, and their hopes come crashing down.

  You can see a bit of their soul shriveling then and there. You were

  right, Alden — this is a fun addition to our gathering.”

  “Can’t die, can’t die,” Mary sang, her tune mournful and eerie

  in the cave.

  “Yes, thank you, Mary.”Constance sighed impatiently. “Do be

  a dear and go wait outside with the carriages.” Mary stood and

  twirled, bare feet spinning slowly along the ground, as she left the

  caverns.

  Arthur staggered back as though he had been shot himself.

  Were these the same people his father had traced through the ages?

  The portraits, then, didn’t just look old — they really were that

  ancient? Had his father figured it out? Had he known the true

  secret of the Ladon Vitae?

  “What happened to my father?” he asked. Here, at last, were

  his answers, and dread and rage warred within him.

  “This,” Alden said, snarling, as he raised a gun and pointed it

  at Arthur’s chest.

  “Stop!” Thomas roared, filling the cave with his voice. “If he

  dies, you all go down!”

  Alden pursed his lips in annoyance, but nodded for Thomas

  to continue.

  “We stole your papers. Lists, names, information. We took

  some of Arthur’s father’s notes, too. I’ve sent them to a contact

  somewhere far from here. If any of us — any of us — are harmed

  or die in an unnatural manner, the information goes straight to a

  newspaper I know will publish them.”

  “Blackmail,” Cora said, her voice soft but her eyes hard.

  Arthur could not take his eyes off Alden, off the man, the

  monster, who had killed his father. His father, who had also tried

  and failed to end this reign of terror.

  “Well now,” Constance murmured. “This complicates things.”

  “Let’s kill them and have done with it,” the bearded man

  grumbled. “What’s an article in a paper?”

  Constance put a hand on his shoulder, preventing him from

  walking forward. “Yes, but think this through. Certainly no last-

  ing harm will come from it, but it will draw eyes to our secrets.

  We’ll have to lie low for a while. Years, maybe decades.”

  Decades. It spun in Arthur’s head, impossible but true.

  “So? We’ve done it before.”

  “We have some rather large plans in the works in Europe right

  now, if you’ll recall.” Her gaze on the bearded man was sharp, and

  he winced under it. “I, for one, would hate to let things slip out of

  our hands when we have been building this for so long.”

  “What about the boy?” Alden asked, nodding toward Charles,

  who had managed to sit up. “We still need a blood sacrifice for our

  friend. And Wolcott owes us his debt.”

  Constance glanced at the brothers. “You do understand now

  what happened?”

  “Our father,” Thomas spat, “made some sort of deal with you,

  and Charles was the sacrifice. But I won’t let you touch him.”

  “I think that settles our account with Mr. Wolcott. The price

  was one son, and he’s now effectively lost
both. We can find the

  blood we need elsewhere, in a less . . . complicated manner.”

  “And they get away free and clear,” Alden said, matching the

  intensity of Arthur’s glare. Arthur trembled with his desire, his

  need to hurt this man. To kill him.

  “Hardly. They’ll spend the rest of their lives looking over their

  shoulders and having nightmares.” Constance paused as though

  pretending to be in thought, then clucked disapprovingly. “Oh, I

  forgot. You wanted the girl for a new plaything. Well, we all must

  choose what is best for the group.”

  The cutting edge of her smile hinted that she and Alden had a

  history longer and more complicated than Arthur could ever

  understand. But he didn’t care about her. He didn’t care about any

  of them. He wanted Alden.

  “Very well.” Alden let out a heavy breath, but did not lower his

  gun. “Constance, see to the loading of the cage.” She nodded and

  left with a swish of her skirts, followed by the bearded man, who

  was still grumbling under his breath.

  Alden half-turned to follow them, then paused. “Still, we

  ought to give these children something to remember us by.”

  Before Arthur could raise his gun, Alden had shoved him out

  of the way and grabbed Minnie. He jerked her head back, whisper-

  ing in her ear and holding his beetle pendant against her forehead.

  Her voice cut off mid-scream as her shoulders slumped and her

  gaze turned toward the ground.

  “Get away from her!” Arthur roared, his heart in his throat.

  Alden held Minnie in front of his body as a shield, the gun

  in Arthur’s hand feeling more worthless than ever.

  “She’s unharmed,” Alden said, a cruel laugh shaping his words.

  “And certainly not dead, so our end of the bargain is upheld.”

  Arthur rushed to Minnie as Alden backed out of the cave. He

  expected her to fall, but she stood, completely still, where she was.

  “Minnie?” he asked, his voice trembling. She didn’t look up.

  Taking her chin, he tilted her face toward his own.

  Her eyes were blank white orbs, with no soul or fire

  behind them.

  Minnie was gone.

  One Month Ago

  twenty-three

  M

  innie! Minnie!” Cora screamed her name over and

  over, shaking her sister by the shoulders as though she

  could wake her up.

  Thom couldn’t look at either of them. He felt this was his

  fault, that he had somehow traded Charles’s fate for Minnie’s. And

  while he couldn’t be sorry about saving his brother, he couldn’t

  help but wonder: How many months of life did Charles have left?

  It wasn’t a fair trade, not in any world. Minnie and Cora should

  never have been part of this. The rest of them had their chains they

  couldn’t escape — two fathers, both damning their sons to colli-

  sions with the Ladon Vitae in different ways.

  But Minnie? Dancing, laughing, storytelling Minnie?

  The air had been sucked out of the cave along with Minnie’s

  soul, and Thom wondered if he’d ever be able to breathe properly

  again.

  “Please,” Charles whispered. “Please, you have to fix this.”

  Thom looked at him, but found Charles with his head bowed. The

  same brother who had never once bemoaned his own fate, never

  once pled on his own behalf for divine intervention, was praying

  for the girl he loved.

  Cora looked up, her expression ragged and hollow. “How

  did you fix Daniel? He stopped chasing you, right? Maybe it

  wears off!”

  Arthur sank to the ground, holding his head in his hands,

  pulling at his hair. “I shot him.”

  “You what?”

  “He wouldn’t stop. I shot him in the leg, and he still wouldn’t

  stop. He was crawling after us when we lost him.”

  The blood drained from Cora’s face, and she trembled as she

  pulled Minnie against her chest. Minnie didn’t resist. She didn’t

  do anything.

  “We’ll go get them,” Thom said, feeling a fierce, reckless cour-

  age take root in his chest. “Alden. We’ll do whatever we have to do

  to him to make him fix this.”

  “Everyone is so sad,” a sleepy voice said from behind Thom.

  He whipped around to find Mary, plucking at her thin dress and

  biting her lip.

  “You!” He rushed forward and grabbed the woman, pulling

  her by her bony elbow into the room and shoving her against the

  rock wall. “Tell us how we can fix this!”

  She blinked, unperturbed by his use of force. It was that more

  than anything that filled him with shame, made him let her go.

  “You can’t,” she said, black eyes nearly as blank as Minnie’s.

  Cora’s sob tore out of her throat, the sound going straight

  through Thom like a knife.

  “Tell me how I can kill him,” Arthur said, standing, his face

  an unreadable mask.

  Mary’s eyes lit at that, something burning deep within them.

  “That is better. What would you give up to do that?”

  “Anything!” Thom shouted. Maybe if they killed Alden, what-

  ever spell he put on Minnie would be broken.

  Mary’s smile grew, her expression dreamy. “I’ve been waiting.

  So long. I tried to do it myself, a few times, but he always knew.

  And I loved him, once. I forget when. And why.”

  “How can we kill him?” Arthur pressed, leaning toward Mary,

  his shoulder against Thom’s.

  “You must become him. Or me. I’m so very tired. I’d like to

  sleep. Sleep and not dream.” Her gaze drifted away, eyes focusing

  on something they couldn’t see. “It’s never been the right time,

  because then no one would be here to hate them. But I can trust

  you to do that.”

  Arthur grabbed her shoulder, forcing her attention back on

  them. “Tell us.”

  “Alden thinks he’s the only one the boy will talk to. But the

  boy and I, we’re kindred spirits. A cage of iron” — she paused and

  gestured at her body — “or a cage of unbreakable flesh. Both

  trapped. And so he talked to me. He gave it to me.” Her expression

  lost its dreamy quality and became something clever and sharp.

  She reached into a pocket sewn onto the front of her dress and

  pulled out a scrap of paper, indecipherable writing in a dark brown,

  rusty-looking stain on the paper.

  Blood.

  “What is that?” Thom whispered.

  “This is the way to the path. The unending path. I stepped

  onto it once, and I wish more than anything I could find a way off.

  Will you make that step?” She looked at him, her gaze piercing, as

  though she would see into Thom’s very soul.

  “You mean . . . that could make us immortal?”

  “Only one. I’ll only change one of you. And then you have to

  help me.”

  “What about Minnie?” Cora asked.

  “If you’ll help me sleep?”

  Cora nodded solemnly. “We will. I promise.”

  Mary reached around her neck and pulled on a string. Out of

  the front of her dress came a pendant, the dark green beetle.

  “We mad
e them, you know. So none of us could hurt the others.”

  She stroked the pendant. “But there are so many ways to hurt

  someone, aren’t there?”

  Humming off-tune, she walked past Thom and Arthur, and

  slipped the necklace over Minnie’s head.

  Thom held his breath, watching, and at first he thought he

  was only seeing what he wanted to, but no — there! Minnie’s dark

  eyes came through as the white slowly faded away.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath as though coming up from

  beneath water. “Arthur?” she asked, eyes finding him first.

  “Oh, Minnie!” Cora pulled her into a hug, crying into her

  sister’s hair. “Minnie, you’re back!”

  “Thank you,” Charles gasped. Thom’s heart broke to see how

  pale he was, how his lips were tinged in blue, but how happy he

  managed to look at the same time. His prayers had actually been

  answered.

  And that’s when Thom realized — his brother didn’t have

  to die.

  “Do it to Charles,” he said.

  “Hmm?” Mary asked, pulling the necklace back over Minnie’s

  head and tucking it into her own pocket.

  “Charles. Do the spell on him. It’ll fix him, right? He

  won’t die.”

  Charles’s frown matched Mary’s. She looked at him, consider-

  ing. “I don’t think he’s right for it.”

  Standing shakily, Charles walked over to take Minnie’s hand,

  drawing her close. Arthur hung back from all of them, eyes half-

  hooded, lost in thought.

  “I don’t think I want it,” Charles said.

  “Charles,” Thom hissed, pulling him away from Minnie.

  “Don’t be daft. You won’t die!”

  Charles shrugged. “Look at Mary. Does she seem happy to be

  immortal?”

  “That’s not the point!”

  “You saw what being involved with this group made our father

  do. Why would I want to have anything to do with them?”

  “But —”

  “He’s not the right one,” Mary said, standing with her back to

  them and tracing her finger along the carvings etched into the

  wall. “He’s not angry.”