Me: The apothecary will give us what we want…something to disorient and lightning poison, but she’s demanding a trade.
It only takes a second before responses pop up on my screen.
Aarya: LIGHTNING POISON!!! Do whatever it takes to get it. I don’t care if you have to sell your right eyeball.
Ash: What kind of a trade?
Me: Maura’s necklace. Who’s Maura?
For a brief second the responses stop, like maybe they’re talking among themselves.
Ash: Matteo’s mother.
I almost drop my phone on the sidewalk. My mom’s name was Matilde and Aunt Jo’s real name was Magdalene. It wouldn’t be surprising if their sister also has an M name. For a few moments I stand there frozen, and when I look back down at my screen there are more messages.
Aarya: Damn it. There’s no time to track her down. Will the apothecary accept anything else?
Aarya: ???
Me: No. Maura’s here in London. The apothecary told me where she’s eating.
Aarya: Then why are you texting us instead of finding her???
Ash: Restaurants are common fronts for Strategia properties. If the apothecary knows she’s at one, then there are likely other Bears there. It’s not safe. Come back to the apartment. We’ll figure out another way.
Aarya: Oh no we won’t. We need that poison.
Ash: She’s not going to a Bear property to steal from a head Bear, Aarya. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Look at how Matteo reacted to her.
Aarya: If you wanted to be safe Ash then you should have stayed home. I’ll do it if you’re too scared. Give me the address.
I press my chapped lips together and look around me. Two doors down is a bodega, and before I even settle on a decision, I head toward it. I don’t want to give Aarya my aunt’s location so she can steal from her. I know it doesn’t make sense to withhold it, since Aarya would likely be better at getting the necklace. Also, I’ve never met Maura, and Ash is probably right that it’s not safe. But Matteo told me his mom loved her sisters and that matters to me; so if anyone stands a shot at getting the necklace, it’s me, and it won’t be by stealing. I push the door to the bodega open and walk up to the counter.
“Can I help you?” the old man says.
“Do you have a phone book by any chance?” I ask.
He looks at my phone and then back at me. “No.”
“No Wi-Fi,” I say, holding up my phone as explanation.
“What are you looking for?” he asks. “Maybe I know.”
I hesitate. I’ve gotten so used to everything being a secret that it takes me a moment to realize that asking where a restaurant is located is completely normal, especially for an American tourist. I scrutinize his face for the telltale sharp look of a Strategia but find none.
“La Cucina Della Nonna,” I say, and realize my Italian accent isn’t half bad even though I haven’t spoken Italian in a long time.
“Ah,” he says, and points. “Down the street about five blocks on the right-hand side.” And then he adds, “Amazing pasta. Some of the best.”
I give him a big thanks, energized by how seamlessly that went, and walk out of the store. I look from side to side. Within ten blocks there are a Bear apothecary and a restaurant where one of the head Bears is eating. Am I in a Bear neighborhood of sorts?
My phone buzzes and interrupts my thoughts.
Aarya: NOVEMBER? Despite popular belief, patience isn’t my strong suit.
Me: It’s nearby. I’m just going to walk past.
Aarya: Address?
Ash: Address?
Ines: Good luck, November.
Me: I’ll text you what I find.
I walk down the street at a brisk pace, counting off the blocks as I go. I know going alone isn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, especially after what just happened to me with the apothecary. But if my mom’s sister is at that restaurant, I want to at least get a look at her.
When I’m four blocks down, I spot the sign for La Cucina Della Nonna and slow my pace. I’ll just walk past slowly, I tell myself. I’ll just peek in the window. But as I approach, my heart pounds furiously. Will she look like my mom and Aunt Jo? Will I be able to recognize her? What if she sees me? Will she recognize me?
I stop five feet from the restaurant window and take out my phone. I pull up Ash’s number in case I need to make a run for it and hover my thumb over the Call button. But before I can take a step forward, someone grabs my wrist, knocking my phone right out of my hand. I spin, yanking my wrist against the assailant’s thumb to release his grip, and swing with my other arm.
“November,” a familiar voice says just as my fist makes contact with his face.
Matteo takes a quick step backward, holding his hands up.
“Matteo?” I say, completely shocked.
He rubs his jaw. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demands, clearly annoyed.
I stare at him, like I’m not sure if the apothecary’s oil is making me hallucinate. “What am I doing here? What are you doing here?” I pick my phone up off the sidewalk, slipping it back in my pocket. I look at his jaw where I landed a punch. “Sorry I hit—”
He dismisses my apology and cuts me off. “I followed you from the apothecary,” he says, like that’s a reasonable explanation.
“You what?” I say, trying to make sense of his words.
“Can we just get out of the street for a second?” he says.
I look at the restaurant window. “But—”
“Now, November,” Matteo says. “You wait any longer and someone from my Family will see you.”
My heart sinks. I want to tell him that it’s my Family, too, but I know that answer won’t land. Reluctantly I follow him across the street and down a block onto a residential street.
Matteo stops on the sidewalk in front of a row of apartment buildings and turns to face me. “Now tell me: What were you doing at that restaurant?” he says like it’s an accusation.
“What were you doing following me?” I reply with just as much frustration.
“I’m not playing this game with you, November,” Matteo says with a huff. “Answer my question and I will answer yours.”
I stare at him, looking for any sign of deception, but he seems to be telling the truth. “The apothecary…,” I say, trying to figure out how to phrase what I need to say.
“What about the apothecary?” Matteo says with frustrated insistence.
“She wants your mom’s bear necklace in exchange for the products I need,” I say, opting to just use a straightforward approach even though I know it sounds bad.
Matteo frowns. “Are you telling me you were going to steal my mom’s necklace?”
“No, no…,” I say quickly. “I was going to ask her for it.”
Matteo glares at me like I’ve lost all my good sense. “You were…No, November. No. How did you even know she was there?”
“The apothecary told me,” I say.
Matteo’s frown deepens. “You’re definitely not asking my mom for her necklace.”
I stare at him, matching his displeasure. “That’s not something you get to decide, Matteo. And if someone’s going to tell me no, it’s going to be your mom, not you. I need to fulfill my bargain with the apothecary. It’s important.”
“Well, you’re not fulfilling it by going to that restaurant,” he says forcefully.
For a second we just stare at each other and I wonder if I could outrun him. There are probably a million reasons why that’s a bad idea, but all I can think is that my mom’s sister—my aunt—is only a couple of blocks away from me, holding something that will help me find my dad.
Before I can respond, Matteo unzips the top of his coat and pulls a necklace out from under his sweater. It has a delicately carved golden b
ear claw hanging from it.
“You have the—”
“We all do,” Matteo says. “Me, my mom, my grandfather, your mom, Aunt Jo.”
And for a second I remain silent. I never saw those necklaces on my mom and my aunt. Did they hide them from me? And why does Matteo know things about the people closest to me that I don’t even know?
“This is what I’ll do—I’ll give you this necklace if you give me your word that you’ll stay away from that restaurant,” he says.
I gain an asset needed to find my dad, but I have to give up meeting my aunt. I momentarily break eye contact with him.
“It’s an exceptionally good deal,” Matteo says, like maybe I didn’t hear his offer.
When I don’t answer right away, his look turns to confusion. “Am I missing something?”
“No. You’re right. It’s a good deal,” I say, having a hard time meeting his eyes. So I change the subject. “Why does the apothecary want it, anyway?”
Matteo shakes his head. “Maybe because they’re impossible to get. Maybe she knows they have a secret compartment for poison. Or maybe she just figured out who you were and decided to meddle. It’s hard to know with apothecaries. They’re all secrets and deception, but they’re so deadly and invaluable that no one interferes with them.”
I grunt. “You got the deadly part right,” I say, and Matteo gives me a questioning look, but he doesn’t ask me what I mean. “Okay, so why were you following me?”
“Layla,” he says, but before he can get out another word I react.
“What?” I say in shock, looking around the street like maybe she’s hiding in an alley somewhere. “Layla? That’s not…What?”
“Not here,” he says. “But in London, yes.”
“But I don’t under—” I start.
“I know,” he says, cutting me off. “And I can’t explain right now; if I don’t get to that dinner with my Family, my mom is going to have my head. I was supposed to be there an hour ago.”
“How is Layla here?” I say more insistently. “And why didn’t I know? Does Ash know?”
“No, and that’s the thing,” Matteo says, and his voice sounds like a warning. “You can’t tell Ash.”
I look at him sideways. “What do you mean, I can’t tell Ash? I can’t not tell Ash.”
Matteo holds up his hands, as if to say it’s not his fight. “This is all Layla. It certainly wasn’t my idea,” he says, as though he’s reaffirming that he wants nothing to do with me.
“So where am I supposed to tell Ash I got the necklace if I can’t tell him about you and Layla?” I say.
He exhales and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Tell me you didn’t tell Ash where the restaurant was located.”
“I didn’t,” I say. “I figured it was a Bear Family secret.”
For a moment he looks surprised that I would actually care about something like that, and his annoyance dissipates. “Right, well, tell him what happened—that you ran into me on your way to the restaurant and that I gave you the necklace. Nothing more.”
I grumble.
He slips his necklace over his head and holds it out to me. “Do I have your word?”
I sigh. “You have my word.”
He drops the necklace in my hand.
“But tell me this, why would Layla not want Ash to know she’s here?” I say, making a last-ditch effort to get some information.
“Sorry. Can’t,” he says, and looks behind him in the direction of the restaurant. “You can ask Layla yourself. Meet us at Twelve Clarence Hill Road in Hampstead at four a.m.” He takes a step backward.
“Wait,” I say, but he just shrugs as he walks backward.
“See you in the morning,” he says, and turns away from me.
For a few seconds I stand there, baffled. What the hell is going on here? First Aarya and Ines, now Matteo and Layla? Why would Layla do this—say goodbye to us at the Academy and then follow us in secret? I can’t imagine that she doesn’t have a good reason, I just don’t know what it could be.
I stare at the little golden necklace in my hand, wishing I didn’t have to give it to the apothecary. Did my mom really have one of these?
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and it jerks me out of my thoughts. I open the screen and there are seventeen new messages. But instead of reading them, I just text back: Got the necklace. Going to make the trade. Will be home soon.
THE SUN IS setting as I stare out the window of my cab at the quiet London streets, dripping with white lights. And it dawns on me—today is Christmas. I missed all the cheer and peppermint hot chocolate. I missed the decorated tree in Pembrook town square, the carolers and the god-awful holiday play our local theater puts on. And I missed Lucille’s menorah lighting, where Emily and I routinely eat freshly baked donuts until we feel sick. And most of all I miss Dad.
The cab stops at the corner next to Aarya’s apartment. I hand the driver some cash and step out onto the street.
I enter the code on the keypad outside her door and make my way up the stairs, my mind spinning with everything that’s happened. I knock twice on the apartment door, and before I even pull my hand away, it opens. Ash stands on the other side.
“November,” he says, and some tension leaves his shoulders. It’s obvious that he’s been doing the Ash equivalent of pacing since I left.
I take my coat off, hang it up on the hook, and pull out the bottles and pouch. When I make eye contact with him again, it seems like he wants to say something and isn’t sure how to phrase it. But before he gets a word out, Aarya barges into the hall.
Her eyes light up when she sees the bottles. “Well, just look at that! It’s a holly jolly Christmas,” she says with an enthusiasm that seems out of place with my nerve-racking evening.
Ash gives her a look like he doesn’t quite agree as we head into the living room.
Ines sits on the couch, surrounded by masquerade masks and piles of gauze, lace, and various trimmings. “I’m trying to adjust these so that they cover more of our faces,” she says, and I’m reminded of all the time she spent with her sketchpad at the Academy.
“Yes, yes, Ines is impressive. Always has been,” Aarya says. “But what I want to hear is how in the hell you got that necklace. I never thought you would pull that off in a million years. And what exactly is in those bottles in your hand?” She’s practically falling over herself to get to them. It’s amazing how Aarya can be both nice and awful all at once.
“Two darts of lightning poison,” I say, laying the burlap pouch down on the coffee table.
Aarya snatches it up, clearly delighted. “You must really have done something right.”
“ ‘Doing something right’ is not the way I would describe my evening,” I say.
“Well, you’re wrong. This stuff is exceptionally rare and nearly impossible to procure,” Aarya says, and her voice has more pep to it than it’s had all day.
I frown at her.
She turns the small vials around, examining them. “Most poisons take a while to go into effect and most have antidotes. Lightning poison is instantaneous and has no antidote. It’s a well-kept secret of Strategia apothecaries.” When I don’t join in on her excitement, she huffs. “Jag is exactly the type of person who probably keeps antidotes on his person just in case. But this is something he can’t prepare for.”
“Oh,” I say, still deeply uncomfortable with the killing talk. I place a small jar on the table. “Also, Drunken Confessions.”
Ash picks it up and opens the lid, smelling the oily paste inside.
Aarya stares over Ash’s shoulder. “Never heard of it,” she says. “Does it need to be ingested?”
“It gets rubbed on the skin,” I say. “It disorients you, makes your legs go completely weak, and makes you spout just about anything that comes to mind. It’s kind
of terrible.”
Ash looks up at me, his interest shifting from the ointment to me. “How do you know it’s terrible?”
“She used it on me,” I say. “First thing when I walked through the door. I honestly didn’t think I was going to get out of there alive.”
Aarya whistles in surprise.
Ash frowns. “I’ve heard rumors of apothecaries testing their products on unsuspecting customers, but I’ve never actually known anyone it happened to. Are you all right? Why didn’t you call us?”
But before I can answer, Aarya starts talking.
“She’s fine; look at her,” she says, brushing off Ash’s concern. “The bigger issue is, if she was spouting all her thoughts, what did November tell her?”
“She took my phone,” I say, answering Ash’s question. “And I said nothing about our plan other than that we intend to remove Jag from power.”
Aarya lets out a chuckle. “You’re telling me you got an unwilling apothecary to change her mind by telling her you were going to take out Jag?” She shakes her head.
“Turns out I’m convincing,” I say.
“I’ll say,” she replies.
“And, well, it helped that I actually meant it. I think that ointment is part truth serum,” I say.
Aarya stares at the oily paste like it’s chocolate cake. “Fascinating stuff.”
“Also, Angels’ Dream,” I say, putting down the glass bottle. “It’s a sedative of some kind.”
“A powerful one. It’s made with belladonna,” Aarya says, and I can hear Hisakawa’s voice in my head: Atropa belladonna, or deadly nightshade. The Gothic siren of any good apothecary. But instead of bubbling over it like she did with the poison, Aarya looks at Ines, who has visibly stiffened.
Ash picks up the bottle of Angels’ Dream. “We’ll need some darts for this.”
Ines quietly exits the room. Ash notices Ines’s reaction, too. We look at Aarya to explain, but she just shrugs.
“Okay, so tell us,” Aarya says, changing the subject. “How did you get that necklace?”
Hunting November Page 22
