by Erin Bowman
“Do what?”
“Appear out of thin air.”
“Oh,” Piper said, fiddling with her necklace. “I’ve been practicing.”
Julius stared, confused.
“Invisibility,” Piper said. “I’m pretty sure it’s my affinity.”
Julius gaped. “You figured it out on your own?”
“I ran into the Persian late last night, and he didn’t see me.”
Pure terror crossed Julius’s features. “What were you doing out of bed?”
“Sleepwalking,” she said quickly. “I came out of it in the hall and the Persian was rounding the corner, and I just panicked. I knew I’d be in trouble for being out past curfew, and I stood there like a statue, wishing I could disappear—and it worked! The Persian looked down the hall—right through me—and walked away. I think my necklace is my amplifier. I had a death grip on it when it happened.”
It was a fraction of the truth. She glanced at Julius, hoping he would buy it.
“How did he not smell you?”
“No idea,” Piper admitted. “Maybe my invisibility shields me from all senses?”
“This. Is. Amazing!” Julius bolted out of his chair. “I’ve never met someone with an affinity for turning invisible. Can you show me?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah.”
Piper touched her necklace and clenched her eyes. When she cracked an eye open, Julius was staring right at her. “Did it work?”
“No,” he said flatly.
She tried again, concentrating so hard she began to sweat. She had no clue how she’d managed to disappear the other night or in the fear portal, and Julius was eyeing her like a teacher does before giving a student detention.
“You’re still here,” he said.
“Maybe I don’t have the right amplifier,” she added, desperate for the conversation to be over before Julius could see through her lies.
“No, that’s not it,” he insisted. “An amplifier is just a tool, and it can be anything. Your affinity is inside you. It’s always been there. You just have to tap into it. In a moment of need, it can be more easily summoned. …”
“Which explains last night with the Persian,” Piper said. Adrenaline rush, just like Teddy had claimed.
“Exactly. But you need to learn how to summon your affinity in any instance, otherwise you’ll never have full control over it.” Julius rubbed his chin. “Mrs. Mallory always told us to picture our affinities as liquid energy. You are the well holding that energy. When you want to use it, you have to pull it from yourself and pour it into your amplifier. Once that power is in the real world, outside of you, it’s easily accessible.”
“That sounds really vague. And also kinda complicated.”
“Just try it. Find the energy inside you and channel it into your amplifier.”
Piper closed her eyes and immediately felt foolish. But she held her locket to her chest, rubbing the metal beneath her thumb. She focused on nothing but the feel of the necklace against her skin and the beating of her heart, and the world seemed to fall away. The twittering of birds faded.
She thought about the act of disappearing, of melting into nothing, and something twinged deep in her core. Concentrating on this feeling, Piper envisioned a curling mist, water so lightweight that she could draw it from her, out of her, and into the locket. But she didn’t stop there. She let the mist spread beyond the locket, enveloping her like a thick blanket.
“Piper! You’re invisible!” Julius cheered.
“I am.” It wasn’t a question. Piper knew she was. She could feel the veil of her affinity around her, featherlight and warm, like a kiss of sunlight that shielded her from the world.
She opened her eyes. Julius was looking in her direction, but not at her.
“Go ahead and try dropping it,” he said. “Let your amplifier empty.”
Piper blew out a breath, and like a candle being extinguished, her affinity whooshed through the amplifier and back into her. Julius’s eyes met Piper’s.
“I can’t believe you did it on your first try! Although maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, knowing your bloodline.”
“I wanna try again,” Piper said, excited, but when she turned her attention inward, searching out her affinity, she felt … empty. No, empty wasn’t exactly the right word. She could still sense her affinity pulsing inside her. It was more that the thought of summoning it felt impossible. It was distant, miles away, and she’d already run a marathon. There was no way she could summon even a drop of it.
“I know that look,” Julius said. “You’re drained. It’s like a well, remember? You have to let yourself refill.”
“So, what? You can only use your affinity once a day?”
“No, but you have to keep practicing. Build up some endurance so that you’re not drained every time you use it. It will get easier—if you keep training. You should come to Practical Application of Affinities tomorrow!”
Piper hesitated. Just yesterday, all she’d wanted was to be included in some official schooling, but now, time away from the garden seemed risky. Letting her mom know that she could become invisible didn’t seem like the best idea either.
“Mrs. Mallory taught Friday class,” Julius continued, “but we’re carrying on without her while she’s gone. I’m the teacher at the moment.”
So Piper’s mother wouldn’t be there. Maybe she should train with the kids after all … so long as the Persian wasn’t around. She didn’t trust that white fur ball for a second.
“Okay,” she agreed. “But don’t tell my mother yet. I want to get really amazing at disappearing before I show her. Maybe she’ll stop treating me like garbage if my skills are super impressive.” Also, I don’t want her to know I can sneak around the estate invisible, she added mentally.
“Your secret is safe with us,” Julius said, and picked up his notebook. “Now let’s check in on Camilla and Kenji. I left them in the library.”
Chapter Fifteen A Heart-to-Heart with Mom
The library was unreal. Glimpsing it through the French doors her first night at Mallory Estate hadn’t done it justice. But now that Piper was inside, standing on the burgundy carpet, turning in circles to stare up at the towering stacks, she nearly lost her breath. There were enough books to keep a reader busy for a lifetime.
Gold curtains were drawn over the windows that faced the front drive, and a fireplace with a worn wooden mantel and stone facade marked one end of the room. Two upholstered chairs were angled toward the hearth. Flames in a library seemed like flirting with danger to Piper, but it was summer, and luckily, no fire was lit.
“Find anything?” Julius called out to Kenji. The boy was sitting at one of the workstations, reading a thick leather-bound book beneath the glow of the desk lamp.
“Not about the key. But this …” Kenji glanced between the book and Julius. “Just get over here.” He waved frantically for Julius, and the older boy rushed to meet him. Piper, however, approached Camilla, who was sitting at the base of the bookshelves, nose deep in a book. Several other tomes surrounded her.
It was dangerous to interrupt any reader—Piper herself had once snapped at Atticus for interrupting her during the final pages of a novel—and Camilla probably had the tenacity of twenty readers combined. Piper proceeded with caution.
“Hey,” Camilla said as Piper’s shadow fell over the pages, and Piper breathed a sigh of relief. If Camilla had initiated the conversation, Piper couldn’t be heckled for interrupting her. “Where have you been all morning?”
“Practicing my affinity. I can become invisible.”
Camilla barked out a laugh. “Yeah. Good one.”
“I’m not kidding.”
Camilla cocked an eyebrow. “So disappear now,” she challenged.
“I was just practicing with Julius. I’m kind of drained.”
“Right. Well, I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Piper pointed at the books surrounding Camilla. “Find a key in any
of these?”
“Ugh, no.” Camilla blew out a long breath. “Kenji and I searched shelf by shelf all morning—dusting as we went, because: chores—and once I found the cookbooks, I gave up.”
Piper noticed that the book in Camilla’s lap was open to a recipe for chicken marsala. “Did my mom really help you learn to cook the way you do?”
“Yes. She was amazing … before you showed up. She said I have a natural talent in the kitchen.”
“Natural talent would be not burning some basic dishes. But you’re like … a chef.”
“Oh my gosh, do you think so?” Camilla practically glowed. “I want to be a chef so bad. Did you know there are entire schools devoted to cooking and baking?”
“Culinary schools,” Piper said with a nod. She’d seen an ad once on TV. “You should go to one. I think you’d be incredible.”
Camilla frowned at Piper. “Stop being so nice. It makes me want to be your friend.”
“And you don’t do friends,” Piper muttered.
“No. I don’t.”
“Why? What are you so afraid of?”
It was quiet for a moment, and then Camilla closed the cookbook with a snap. “This is the longest time I’ve been anywhere. Twenty-two months. But before Mallory Estate, I was moved at least once a year. Sometimes I was in a home for only a few months before they assigned me a new one. Do you know what happened the first time—how I ended up in the foster system?”
Piper shook her head.
“My parents gave me up. They were hollows and terrified of me. They didn’t understand how their six-year-old kept making objects melt and morph.”
“Camilla, that’s terrible.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said dismissively.
“No, I do. My mom gave me up too. I was lucky to still have my dad, but I get what it’s like not to be wanted. To feel like you aren’t enough.”
Camilla regarded Piper for a moment. “Well, I didn’t have my dad. I didn’t have anybody. And moving again and again … That change is easiest if you’re not losing a family each time. If it’s just you, if you don’t count on anybody, it hurts a lot less when you get ripped from one home and thrown into another. That’s why I don’t do friends. Happy?” She glared up at Piper, eyes brimming with tears. One blink and they’d break free.
Piper glanced at the floor, not wanting to see it. Camilla was too tough to cry. She was all fire and grit, with a heart of steel. Nothing seemed like it could hurt her unless she let it.
But families were complicated, as Piper knew all too well. She’d tried so hard not to let her mother’s abandonment hurt, to pretend she didn’t care, but she did. Worse still was the feeling of helplessness that had drowned her when Atticus’s condition deteriorated a few months ago. He had limited time left. Maybe half a year.
When the doctors had given them the news, Piper had wished she’d never known her father at all—that he’d died when she was a baby, or left the way her mother had. If she’d never known him, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much to lose him. She was furious that the world would give her this amazing person—a person she loved and looked up to and trusted with all her secrets—only to pull him away. Aunt Eva had called this Piper’s anger phase, a natural step in the grieving process. Many days, Piper felt like she was still in it.
“Doing some light reading?” a voice called out.
Piper twisted. Sophia Peavey stood in the entrance of the library, glass doors propped open behind her. She was wearing a long black dress with a high neck, and with her red hair falling over her shoulders, she looked like a black candle lit aflame.
Camilla shot to her feet. Over at the workstation, Julius straightened and Kenji closed the book he was reading and yanked it behind his back. “No. Not r-really,” he stuttered. Camilla held up the cookbook and added, “Just some new dinner recipes to try.”
Sophia’s eyes narrowed. “Shouldn’t you all be seeing to that now?”
Kenji nodded enthusiastically and flipped up the collar of his jacket, vanishing from the room. Piper, Camilla, and Julius made their way briskly to the door, but Sophia didn’t move aside.
“I would like a word with Piper,” the woman said. “Alone.”
The two children shot Piper a nervous glance. “I’ll be fine,” she reassured them. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
As they edged past Sophia, the woman’s hand shot out, falling on Julius’s shoulder. “Tomorrow, no more searching the house and grounds for … whatever it is you’re searching for. After your morning studies, focus on the garden or I will have to make it your focus.”
Color drained from Julius’s face. “Yes, ma’am,” he squeaked out.
Sophia dropped her arm, and Camilla grabbed Julius, towing him into the hall. As they slipped out of view, Piper glanced up at her mother, feeling incredibly small. Incredibly transparent, too. Sophia was looking at her as if she could see straight through her skin. It made the hair on Piper’s arms rise. It also made her realize that she had no idea what her mother’s affinity was. Maybe Sophia was reading Piper’s mind right now. Maybe she knew everything Piper had been trying to keep a secret.
“Come sit by the fireplace,” Sophia said, and strode past Piper.
Piper followed as if in a trance. They sank into the chairs before the hearth. Now, with the cushion at her back and the massive armrests surrounding her, Piper felt small and trapped.
“I want to help you, Piper,” Sophia said. “It would simply be a waste of energy—teaching you if you’re a hollow. You understand, right?”
Piper nodded, even though she didn’t believe her for a second.
“Tell me what you’ve been looking for—you and the others. I’ve watched you search the grounds all yesterday afternoon, dig through the house. Maybe I know the whereabouts of this missing … thing.”
Oh, you most certainly do, Piper thought, then froze. If her mother could read minds, she’d just admitted they were on the hunt for something.
“You can trust me,” Sophia insisted. “I only want what’s best for you. For all of you.”
Not a mind reader, then. But definitely a liar.
“What happened to Grandma?” Piper asked.
“I told you already. She …” Sophia paused for a moment, brows dipping. “She had to leave for a little while.”
In her mind, Piper heard Teddy’s words from the day they met. Your mom had just told me that Mrs. Mallory would kill me and absorb my affinity so she could get the elixir herself. What if it was only part of the truth? What if Sophia had killed Melena so that she could get the elixir? The thought sent a chill down Piper’s spine. Could her mother really do something like that? She was cruel and neglectful, but a murderer … ?
Piper wanted to ask if her grandmother was dead, or if Sophia had trapped her somewhere, maybe the way she’d trapped Teddy. But her throat felt tight and all she could manage was “Did you send her away?”
“No, of course not,” Sophia said softly. “She had some errands to run. She’ll be back soon.”
Piper shifted in her seat, unsettled by the sincerity of her mother’s voice. She sounded so … honest. Maybe her affinity had something to do with lying, like being able to bend the truth.
“I can tell you don’t believe me,” Sophia said, and a sadness touched her eyes. “What can I say to change that?”
“You can tell me what happened to Teddy.”
A stillness passed over Sophia’s features. Her lips pursed.
“The other kids told me he disappeared,” Piper continued. “When was the last time you saw him?”
For a moment, Sophia was elsewhere, her eyes far away. Likely trying to figure out how to most convincingly lie, Piper reasoned. Piper, of course, already knew that Sophia was behind everything—that she’d told Teddy to hide in the garden, that she’d kept his progress secret from the other kids, that she had hidden the key to the first trial and had no intention of sending anyone in there to help Teddy complete it. Probably
not until Piper’s grandmother was completely out of the picture.
Sophia didn’t know what Piper knew, though. This was Piper’s chance to catch her in a lie, to prove everything she believed about her.
Sophia continued to stare ahead, palms resting in her lap, eyes almost lifeless. She looked frozen, like a statue.
“Mom?” Piper waved a hand in front of her mother’s face. She didn’t even blink. “Mom?” Piper touched her arm.
Sophia flinched, and when her eyes locked on Piper, Piper flinched too. She pulled her hand away, scooted back into her seat. Her mother’s eyes were hauntingly large now, almost too green. “You’ve grown so big,” Sophia said sadly.
“And you missed it.” Piper couldn’t keep the edge of anger from her voice.
“Some days, I think I never should have left. I had so much to prove, and …” Sophia forced a smile. “I have not been the mother you deserve. Not then, and not now. I should …” She paused, pressed her lips together. Her eyes narrowed, and their green coloring seemed to dull. The gold flecks at their edges glinted like fire.
Something creaked, and Piper looked up to see the Persian rubbing its head against the library’s door. “Rehashing the past is a waste of time,” Sophia said as the Persian slunk nearer. “Leaving was necessary. My work was most important.”
“More important than family?” Piper demanded.
“Perhaps one day you will understand. Now tell me: What have you been searching for?”
Tears burned in Piper’s eyes. “A way into the garden,” she gritted out. “That’s all I’ve been doing—it’s what all your children have been doing—and even that isn’t enough. Why can’t you pretend to like me? What do I have to do for you to care about me even a little?”
The Persian leaped into Sophia’s lap, and she stroked the cat’s white fur delicately. “Find a way into the garden and bring me the elixir,” she said. “If you can’t do that, you’re worthless to me.”
“Worthless?” Piper was crying now. She hated it, wasting tears on a woman who clearly didn’t love her—who’d never cared about her—and yet here she was, sobbing.