by Gigi Pandian
I took a step from the dining room bookshelf into the living room. This was the room I’d seen from the window. The room where Blue’s unconscious body had been. As my foot touched the carpet, the sensation hit me like a gust of cold air. Only there were no doors or windows open.
“What is it?” Dorian asked.
“There’s poison here,” I murmured. I crouched down. “The glass has been removed, but some of the contents spilled onto the rug here.”
“What are you doing?” Dorian exclaimed. “We are not looking for poison. We are looking for my book!”
Ignoring Dorian, I touched the moist rug and smelled my fingertips. I felt a shiver spread from my fingers to the rest of my body. Something was wrong. This wasn’t a concoction infused with Blue’s personal touch. More than that, it was something reminiscent of alchemy.
I stood up hastily, knocking over a small wooden table.
“Are you well?” Dorian asked.
“We need to get out of here.”
“What is wrong?”
“This isn’t something Blue created,” I said. “I’m sensitive to the energies put into extracting plant essences, and Blue’s energy isn’t here.”
“What does that mean?”
“This was no accident. And no suicide attempt.”
“Who made it?”
“All I can tell from this small amount is that it was deliberate poisoning. Someone tried to kill her.” I didn’t say the question hanging on my lips. The question that sent a lightning-bolt shiver through me. Was this the work of an alchemist?
Dorian’s head darted around. His eyes locked on a box of tissue across the room. He moved quickly. A few seconds later, he took my hand in his, wiping away the drops of poison with half of the tissues in the box.
I smiled at the gesture. “I can feel it through my skin because I’m attuned to it, but it’s not going to poison me this way.” I hesitated. “At least I don’t think so.” I could handle toxins, as all alchemists must if they wish to perform laboratory experiments beyond theoretical exercises. But this was different. There was something both strange and familiar about it. I tried to think what it could be, but there wasn’t enough of the substance remaining.
“Mon dieu.”
“We need to leave so I can tell Max that Blue is innocent.”
Dorian crossed his arms and glared at me. “You cannot think you are getting involved in a police investigation. Les flics cannot help us.”
“It’s all connected, Dorian. If we find out what happened to Blue, we find your book. Max seems like a good guy.”
“You propose,” Dorian said stiffly, “waking him up at two o’clock in the morning, telling him you broke into a crime scene, and explaining how you detected that Blue herself did not create the poison she ingested. You are not that careless.”
My body began to shake. What was going on?
“You are ill!” Dorian said. “Do you know what poison it was you touched? Is there an antidote?”
I shook my head as I sat down on the couch and pulled a small purple blanket over me. “I’m only shivering because it’s cold and it’s hours past when I should be sound asleep.” I silently cursed myself. Of course a poison would have a greater effect on me in the middle of the night! Like plants unfurling, I get my strength from the light. I had never before touched a poisonous substance after dark.
“But the poison?”
I shook my head again. “I can’t tell what it is. There isn’t enough here in the rug for me to determine what it is or who made it.” There was another possibility that I hoped wasn’t true. I had pushed my memories of alchemy so far to the back of my mind. Was it possible I could no longer access the knowledge?
“Your skin is pale.”
“I’m fine.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yes. Just give me a minute.”
“Merde. You sit here while I search the yard for anywhere my book could be hidden.”
“I told you—”
“Yes, yes. You are fine. Mais non. Take a nap here on the couch while I search outside. I will return shortly.”
Shortly after Dorian slipped out the door, I felt myself falling asleep. I hopped up. If I went to sleep now, I wouldn’t want to wake up. Instead, I pulled the blanket around me and continued searching Blue’s house for anything the police might have missed. I didn’t have high hopes. Now that I was certain Blue hadn’t poisoned herself on purpose, it was clear she was being framed. The person framing her would have left the stolen items where they would be easily discovered. Meaning Charles Macraith’s murderer must still have Dorian’s book. What did they want with it? And was that all they wanted?
Dorian returned while I was finishing leafing through the books on Blue’s bookshelf, which was full of books on tea, wildcrafting, meditation, plus several dozen romance novels. Dorian’s expression was somber.
“I didn’t find anything either,” I said.
We walked back to the car in silence. The cold chilled me to the point where I began to shake again.
“What you need is a bisque to warm you up,” Dorian said. “I have a container of broth in your fridge, so it will take no time to cook.”
I was too cold and tired to argue. I blasted the heat on our drive back to the house. There was no rain, but the wind was whipping up leaves and bending tree branches.
At first, that’s what I thought I was seeing as I approached the house. As we grew closer, I realized I was mistaken. It wasn’t swaying tree branches in my yard.
Two shadowy figures were creeping up to the house.
sixteen
I killed the engine before we reached the driveway.
“You saw the shadows too,” Dorian said.
“We never should have left Brixton there alone,” I said, hastily throwing off my seatbelt and reaching for the door handle. “At the very least I should have insisted you give him back his cell phone you confiscated!”
Dorian’s firm hand gripped my arm. “Go. I will hide, but I will be near in case you and the boy need me.”
My earlier feelings of exhaustion and cold disappeared, replaced with adrenaline as I crept up the side of the yard. What was going on? Charles Macraith was dead and Dorian’s book was gone. What could the thief and murderer want with my house?
The two figures were dressed in black. Hooded sweatshirts covered the backs of their heads. One was tall and thin, the other short with an average build. Neither was very large. I had learned different schools of self-defense moves over the years, but hadn’t put any into practice in decades. If I had to use any now, I might be rusty but at least I had a fighting chance.
The figures had almost reached the porch.
I followed at a distance, walking up to the house along the side of the fence rather than the main path. There was nothing shielding me from their line of sight. If they turned, they would see me. It was a risk, but I had no choice.
The porch light clicked on. I cursed under my breath. Brixton was exactly the type of kid who’d take it upon himself to investigate if he heard strange noises. That didn’t surprise me. But his next move did. The front door eased open. What was Brixton doing?
Brixton motioned the figures inside. When the taller figure stepped forward, I caught a glimpse of the face beneath the hooded sweatshirt. It was Brixton’s friend Veronica.
I couldn’t see the face of the other figure, but he was the right stature to be their friend Ethan.
Confusion replaced my apprehension. I briefly considered joining them before the front door closed behind them but thought better of it. Whatever they were doing, they were unlikely to tell me about it if I asked them directly.
“Dorian,” I whispered. “Are you here?”
He wasn’t.
A light clicked on inside the living room. I crept to one of the large window
s. The curtains were drawn, as I’d been careful to do because of Dorian. I couldn’t see or hear anything.
I hurried to the back door that led to the kitchen. I opened it as quickly as I could, but it gave a shrill squeak. I stopped and waited. I heard young voices trying to whisper but failing and speaking animatedly instead. They hadn’t heard me. I closed the door behind me and went to the swinging kitchen door, the exact place from which Brixton had eavesdropped on me and Dorian. Between the swinging door and the door frame, there was a half-inch gap through which I could see a section of the dining and living rooms.
“You begin with mise en place,” a voice said.
I froze. It was Dorian’s voice.
I peeked through the door. Dorian was nowhere in sight. Brixton was holding up a cell phone—a different model from the one Dorian had confiscated. The voice was coming from the phone.
Foiled from getting a video recording of the gargoyle, Brixton had recorded Dorian’s voice.
It all made sense now. It had been far too easy to get Brixton to accept that Dorian’s existence needed to be a secret. He hadn’t accepted it at all. He was pretending to befriend the gargoyle so he could prove to his friends that Dorian existed.
Anger bubbled up inside me. Brixton was old enough that he should have thought about the consequences of his actions. Watching him and his friends through my hiding place, I had to stop myself from bursting through the door. Before confronting Brixton, I needed a plan.
Brixton stopped the recording. “I told you,” he said to his friends.
“So what?” Ethan said. “You’ve got an audio recording of a guy with a French accent.”
“That’s why I invited you here,” Brixton said. “I thought he’d be here, near the fireplace. That’s where he was earlier. But he’s a creature of the night. He must have gone out.”
“A creature of the night?” Veronica said. “Like a vampire?”
“Yeah, except vampires aren’t real. The gargoyle is real.”
“So we wait,” Ethan said. “I brought snacks.” He spread out on the couch and tossed a bag of pretzels in gourmet packaging onto the coffee table.
Veronica tore into the bag. “No chocolate?”
“Keep it down, you guys,” Brixton said. “I don’t know how soundly Zoe sleeps.”
My anger barely contained, I slipped out the back door and circled to the front of the house. Giving up any pretense of being quiet, I shoved my key into the door and opened it.
Veronica screamed and dropped the bag of pretzels.
“Slumber party?” I asked.
“Zoe?” Brixton croaked. “What are you—I mean, I thought you were asleep.”
“I stepped out to visit a friend. Sorry, if I’d known you were going to be up, I would have left you a note.”
“Sorry about your floor, Ms. Faust,” Veronica said, picking up broken pretzel fragments.
“Please, call me Zoe. Don’t you guys have school tomorrow?”
“Group research project, Zoe,” Ethan said. He was the only one still sitting calmly. He’d made himself comfortable on the couch. He leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees, an easy smile on his face.
“Research, huh? Anything I can help with?” I looked pointedly at Brixton.
“Uh, yeah, we’re just about done.”
“Since you’ve been working so hard, let me get you all a proper snack.”
I led them to the kitchen and removed a chocolate cake from the fridge. Dorian had made it the day before while I was working in my makeshift alchemy lab. He was cooking more food than the two of us could eat and had used up most of the food in my pantry. The last of the cashews had gone into making the creamy frosting for the cake.
Veronica’s eyes grew wide.
“You like dark chocolate?” I asked.
She nodded, hungrily eyeing the frosted cake. I took plates from the cabinet and let the kids cut whatever size pieces they wanted. Veronica took the largest piece, which made me smile.
“Omigod,” she said, closing her eyes and savoring the mouthful. “I think this is like the best cake I’ve ever eaten, Ms. Faust.”
Brixton took a bite of cake while sulking silently in the corner.
“So, Zoe,” Ethan said, eyeing me and leaving his cake untouched, “you were out visiting a ‘friend’ in the middle of the night.”
Veronica kicked him.
“He’s a Frenchman,” I said, following through on my idea to disabuse them of the notion that I had a French gargoyle in my house. “The French enjoy late dinners. I drank wine, so I had to wait a while before it was safe for me to drive home.”
“You have a French boyfriend?” Veronica said. “That’s so romantic! I’ve always wanted to go to Paris. Is he from Paris?”
“He’s from Paris,” I said, thinking about the other stone gargoyles carved by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. “But he’s just a friend.”
“A gargoyle, huh?” Ethan said to Brixton.
“What’s that, Ethan?” I said in my most innocent voice.
Brixton glared at me.
“Brixton,” Ethan said, “was telling us all about your French friend. Weren’t you, Brix?”
“Shut up and try the cake, Ethan,” Brixton said.
With a smirk on his face, Ethan took a bite of cake. His expression changed. “Wow, that is good. Is this from Petunia’s?”
“It’s homemade,” I said.
“Nice,” Ethan said.
A creaking noise sounded.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “I don’t remember if I locked the front door.”
I looked around and didn’t see Dorian. It was probably the wind trying to get through one of the broken windows or drafty doors. I double-checked that I’d locked up. Everything seemed in place.
I paused before returning to the kitchen. I could hear Veronica speaking to the boys.
“You’re such a jerk!” she said. “Calling Zoe’s boyfriend a gargoyle. Is he disfigured, or just ugly? No, he couldn’t be ugly. He’s French.”
I smiled to myself and pushed open the kitchen door.
“I love your dyed white hair,” Veronica said. “The short, slanted bob is very Parisian.”
“Like you’d know,” Brixton said.
“This has been fun, Zoe,” Ethan said. “But like you said, it’s a school night. We should go.”
“Thanks, Ms. Faust,” Veronica said. She smiled awkwardly at me before shooting Brixton a dirty look, presumably still upset that she thought he’d come up with a nasty nickname for my romantic French boyfriend.
“Maybe we could meet your friend some other time,” Ethan said.
Think, Zoe. “He’s shy. He’s self-conscious about a nasty scar. People in America are less accepting than they are in France.” Ugh. It was an awkward lie, but something had to be done.
“You are such a jerk,” Veronica whispered to Brixton. He glared at me.
I held open the kitchen door. “Let me drive you home.”
“They’ve got their bikes,” Brixton said.
“They’ll fit in the back of the truck.”
“Um,” Veronica said, “I’m not really supposed to be out this late.”
“I won’t wake up your parents,” I promised. “We won’t all fit in the cab of the truck, so Brixton, you can clean the dishes while I’m gone. We’re not done. I’ll be right back.”
I shivered as I walked back out into the night. Now that my adrenaline had worn off, I could feel an unwelcome substance coursing through my veins.
———
After dropping off Veronica and Ethan, I found a sulking teenager and a gargoyle waiting for me in the living room. My body shook more from anger than the residual effects of the poison.
“He wouldn’t let me go to bed,” Brixton said. “That’s child ab
use.”
“I thought you said you weren’t a child,” I said.
He glared at me.
“You betrayed us, Brixton,” I said, glaring back at him. “To say I’m disappointed in you doesn’t convey the gravity of what you’ve done. Don’t you realize what could happen to Dorian if anyone found out he existed?”
Brixton didn’t answer. He turned his glare from me to his feet.
“People might lock him up, caging him like an animal to study him,” I continued. “Is that what you want?”
“They can’t do that, can they?” Brixton asked, looking from me to Dorian. “He’s, like, a real person. That’s not what I—You know I don’t want that.”
“Do I?”
“I didn’t mean anything by it! V and Ethan didn’t believe me. I just wanted them to believe me.”
“Do not be too hard on the boy,” Dorian said. “His wish to be understood is only natural. No harm was done. I thank you for your quick-thinking explanation about a French friend.”
“Can I go upstairs now?” Brixton mumbled.
“This is serious!” I ran my hands through my hair and tried to calm down. A small clump came out in my hands. It must have been the poison. Fear gripped me. Had I been affected more than I thought? I couldn’t seem to shake the chill that was now covering every inch of my body. This was no place for Brixton. Why had I agreed to let him stay with me?
“I get it!” he said. “You won. Now V thinks I’m a loser who makes fun of disabled people. You can stop yelling.”
“This isn’t about winning! And this isn’t just about Dorian. We’re on your side, trying to help you.”
He stopped glaring for a fraction of a second, but the expression returned a moment later. “By having my friends think I’m a jerk?”
“By finding out what happened to Blue.”