He leans against the railing and looks toward the bridge that connects the Scar to Midcity, and for a second I think he might turn around and tell me everything, lay the truth out between us so we can decide what we want to do with it together. But he doesn’t turn around. He stays there unmoving.
“James,” I say, “I put my finger through a mirror tonight. Right after that I levitated. If there’s something I need to know, you have to tell me.”
When he turns to face me, he shoves the sleeves up on his shirt so I can see his new tattoo. Mary Elizabeth, it says, surrounded by flowers like the ones in the Ever Garden. “I got this for you,” he says. “Because I love you so much I can’t think about anything else. Our whole relationship I haven’t thought about anything else. It’s all been about you, always.” I’ve seen James mad before, but not like this. His voice is usually gravelly and low, controlled, but now it’s full of passion, not controlled at all. “I don’t know why you can’t just take my word for it that not knowing everything right now is better than knowing. I don’t know why you can’t let me have this one thing for myself until I’m ready to talk about it.”
“Ursula is barely even human anymore and Mally’s been missing for a week. It’s my job to find them, and I think you know where they are. You wouldn’t be doing this if you could see Mally’s dad. And what about Morgana and Ursula’s mom?”
“This has nothing to do with that. You know, you’ve been so wrapped up in yourself, you haven’t even noticed I’m always waiting for you, Mary Elizabeth. Waiting by my phone, waiting at Wonderland, waiting at school, waiting for you to remember I exist and answer my texts.”
“What? I’m always thinking about you. You are the most important thing in my life.”
“No, I’m not. Your internship is. Your ambition is. Getting your way is.”
I can’t believe what he’s saying, and it suddenly feels like our relationship is in peril.
“I go one day without answering the very second you want me and you act like it’s the end of the world,” he says. “And you expect that of me. You think it’s completely normal for me to be that person, not to need or want anything for myself. Well, I found something.” He opens his palm and the blue light rises like a flame. “And I gave you a little piece of it because I knew you wouldn’t take it from me willingly and it’s something you need. We need. You should be saying thank you.”
“You didn’t answer my question, James.” I enunciate every word so he’ll understand the gravity of this situation. “Do you know where they are?”
He hangs his head. “I guess I really don’t matter as much to you as I thought. Can I ask you something?” He meets my eyes. “Do you care about Ursula at all? Or is it just that finding her will get you closer to where you want to be? Do you have a heart, Mary?”
“Answer the question, James.”
He nods. “Yeah, I know where Ursula is and I know where Mally is, too. The blue light told me.”
Now my dread is turning into panic. My life as I’ve known it is over.
“What did you do, James?” I say, barely above a whisper. My throat is closing, the world broadcasting its party noises from far away.
“What did I do?” He shakes his head. “That’s amazing. You think I would kidnap our best friend or stuff Mally into the trunk of my car or something? Did you finally decide to believe all the things they say about me? About me being a Bartholomew? Captain Crook? Did you decide to turn against the Neverland boys and me? Is that what you’ve been learning in Midcity with the Narrows?” He smiles like a wolf, his face widening as he does, showing more of his perfect teeth than I’ve ever seen, and I take an involuntary step back. “I didn’t do anything,” he says. “It’s what they did, what Ursula and Mally are doing for themselves. So, you and your cops can go running around trying to figure out what’s going on and you never will because you literally can’t see what’s right in front of you.”
I try to remind myself that this is James. This is the person that up until a few hours ago I trusted more than anyone. And then his face crumples and he comes toward me and I take another step back and he stops, stricken like I’ve hit him. It hurts to see him like that, but I hold my ground. “I need you to tell me where they are. Before anyone else finds out, tell me so I can stop them.”
He considers me, then he looks up to the night sky, rippling with dancing constellations. He returns his attention to me, takes my hand, and this time I let him. He gently kisses a knuckle.
“I don’t know how this works yet. But I’m going to find out,” he says. “It’s going to be a great adventure. And maybe we have some things to work out, but I want to go on that adventure with you. I’ll tell you everything if you come with me. You just have to leave your internship behind.”
I think about what this would be. James has always been part of the back alleys and secret passageways of the Scar. Leaving my internship behind would be leaving so much more than some filing job I’ll probably be back to in a few days. It would mean none of the things I’ve hoped for myself would be possible anymore. He’s asking me to choose him instead of myself.
“I can’t do that,” I say. “That’s the one and only thing I won’t do. Ask me anything else. I know how much you’ve always wanted magic, but it’s doing something to you. To me, too. Let’s leave it behind and go back to the way things were. Let’s move forward toward our dream. Being together—just us, how we always pictured it.”
“No,” he says simply, as though with that one syllable he hasn’t decided to wreck our lives. “Not for anything. Not even for you.” He presses his lips against mine and pulls me in close. I would undo the laws of the universe and let all its pieces float just to stay here for one more minute, kissing James. He pulls back, puts a thumb to my forehead, and says, “I’m sorry, Mary.”
“For what?”
“Sleep,” he says, and blue light shoots into my head.
The world abruptly fades to black.
I WAKE UP WITH DROOL CAKED AGAINST MY CHEEK, early-afternoon light slanting across my bed, and when I get my phone there are multiple texts from Bella. The night comes back to me along with a huge wave of nausea. I try to call Ursula, then James, and they both go straight to voice mail. Aunt Gia is making a racket in the kitchen, and now I’ve wasted half of our very last day to figure this out.
I check my health app. Fourteen hours of sleep. Dr. Tink will probably tell me sleeping is a symptom of depression, too. I click on the Meditation Melinda app, which I haven’t touched yet.
“Tell me everything,” Meditation Melinda says.
“Symptoms of stress,” I say. “Pressure. Love.”
“I see.” The avatar on the screen, a woman in pastel pink with terrible bangs, gives me a serene smile. “Recommended five-minute meditations as follows: De-stress with Melinda; Take the pressure off with Melinda; Navigate heartbreak with Melinda. Which will you do first?”
I hit the mic icon. “Melinda, you’re annoying. Tell your creators to think of better titles.”
I throw the phone across the bed.
Gia appears in my doorway. “You okay, hon?” she says.
“Yeah.”
I’m expecting her to be all over me about what happened last night but instead she just looks concerned, which is worse. Gia’s in a red dress, hair all over the place, freckles brighter than usual. She puts her hands on her hips. “Well, I don’t have all day. I’m in the midst of cleaning out the cabinets. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Well, as a matter of fact, Mary, I’m glad you asked, because I am just fantastic.” She walks around gathering clothes into a pile in her arms. Gia never cleans.
I feel her forehead for fever and she swats me away.
“No, seriously, though,” I say.
“After last night, after what happened…well, it feels just like there was a dark cloud over my life and it got positively lifted away. Any-thing is possible…a
nything. And I’m not going to sit around with cluttered cupboards and I’m not going to sleep my days away, either. I’m going to make way for magic. But enough about me. What’s going on with you? I didn’t even hear you come in last night. You were dead to the world.”
“A lot’s going on. And nothing.”
“Okay…how about you start with the a lot and move on to the nothing.”
I think about what it would do to Gia to know everything that’s going on with me. Let her think I’ve uncovered the magic beneath our feet, and that everything from now on will be filled with joy and possibility. “I don’t think I can right now. Is that okay?”
She squeezes my knee. “If we decide it’s okay, then it is. So what do we do next?”
“Well, I don’t think I can just sit here waiting.”
“Yes, I don’t see how that would serve anyone.”
“I think I have an idea. And it might be crazy, but it also might be right.”
“Well, that never stopped you before.” Aunt Gia waves me off with her dish towel. “Do you need help?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“I’ve had thirteen crazy things happen to me since breakfast. It’s healthy to be a little crazy.”
I grab my leather coat and slip on my boots. “Thank you. How do you always know the right thing to say?”
“You know, I spent so many years worrying about you, about your obsession with death and destruction. I’ve worried that I couldn’t protect you. But now I see you can take care of yourself and I’m not worried about you at all. And it’s a huge weight lifted off, Mary. A huge weight. Now go! Go be magical!” She hands me my subway pass and keys, plus gloves and a hat.
“You’re a good aunt,” I say to Gia. “And I love you.”
“You know,” she says, “your mother would have been so proud of you.”
“She would have been proud of you, too.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” Gia says solemnly. “She would have told me to get myself together, which is exactly what I’m doing starting today. I might even go on one of those dating apps.”
“That’s great, G.” I kiss her on the cheek and duck out.
I BANG THROUGH THE BATHROOM DOORS AT Wonderland. Two girls are sitting on the counter while a third does her makeup.
“Get out,” I say.
They all look at me blankly, and the one doing her makeup goes back to applying her mascara.
“Get out!” I yell this time.
“Legacies are the worst.” The girl brushes her shoulder into mine, and when they’re gone I put a plunger in the door handle and drag the big metal trash can across the room, then shove it against the door so no one else will come in.
“Okay,” I say to my reflection. “Where are you?”
I stare and I stare and nothing happens. And then I look deep into my own eyes and I think about the blue light and about James and about unlocking things and things not being what they seem.
And then there she is, me, but more malignant and dangerous looking. I lean in closer to her as the mirror turns watery again. DRINK ME, it says across the bottom. I’ve heard stories about how mirrors used to act like creepy surveillance tools. Maybe this one’s a throwback or something accidentally left behind.
“Tell me where they are,” I say. “Show me right now.”
The me in the mirror crosses her arms against her red dress.
“Now!” I yell, and in a second she has reached out of the mirror, grabbed me by the shoulder, and hauled me through the looking glass.
A cold wind slaps at my cheeks, slices through my clothes, tears at my open, blinded eyes. The sound is of a howling, of a thousand wolves at once. I can’t even scream. If I did, the sound would only disappear.
And then, as quickly as the noise came, it goes, disappearing as though behind a closing door, into a sudden, thick silence. I feel before I see. The air has changed in texture, gone from the humid sweaty bathroom to the cool of air-conditioning. It smells antiseptic. I rub at my eyes.
Blue flashes and it zaps like an electric shock.
My vision returns slowly, from the inside of a tunnel, moving outward to reveal what looks like a hallway—like a hallway in an office building, somewhere official.
The screen on my phone is alive and well, and still filled up with messages from Bella, but there’s no connection. The thing is useless. My breathing speeds up and I force it to slow by counting one to ten and ten to one.
Assess. That’s what you do.
So I look around and try not to think about how I got here or how defenseless I am, or even the greater implications of having somehow transported from the hallway in Wonderland to a sort of office cave.
There’s a desk with its own chair in a pleasant light blue leather, and a wall with lots of buttons and lights. Behind the desk are several plants all in varying sizes and shapes, placed in a careful configuration. There’s a small bookshelf and a lamp in the shape of a leaf.
I swallow against the panic that rolls over me again and think about what I learned in my training. Stay alert, find out what’s going on, one step at a time.
And then I see a different kind of chair altogether, if it can even be called that. My heart goes from a dizzying gallop to stopping nearly altogether. The blood leaves my face, my feet, my hands.
I am crouched down behind the desk before I can even totally understand what I’m looking at, or why it’s so frightening, its tangle of metal and wood and straps. It’s across the room from the desk, in a corner, about six feet tall and made of wood, reinforced and attached to the floor with huge pieces of iron, and there are leather straps hanging from its arms, connected to the legs. In front of me is a notepad—old-style, not an app on a screen. There is also a blue pen. On the notepad are random scribbles across the page.
Screaming, it says.
Pain level, 7
Horns.
I have to get out of here.
I look up, hoping to find some sort of exit. I don’t know whether I’m twenty stories in the air or underground. There’s no natural light. There are no windows, and the walls are made of white stone.
The hallway is about fifteen feet wide. On one side it is more of the stone, but on the other are huge slabs of glass, dimly lit from rooms on the other side. The first one I pass is empty, furnished on the inside with a bookshelf, a cot, a lamp.
My breathing has gone uneven again.
I continue hugging the stone wall.
When I come to the next room, the world tilts. There, on the bed in front of me, staring outward, is Mally Saint. I blink to make sure I’m not imagining things, that this whole thing is not a delusion. Mally’s hair is greasy and disheveled and she’s wearing a dirty white tank top. But she is alive. She is alive. Her pants are brown and institutional. They’re also dirty. Food remnants are splattered against the glass in front of me.
I wave to her, put my fingers up to my lips. She is unresponsive. At first I think it’s because I’m in the dark, but I quickly realize I’m on the back side of a two-way mirror.
Mally is staring at herself.
I’m so relieved she’s alive that all my images of her dead, being dragged across the floor, waterlogged, hanged, strangled, stabbed…they were all in my imagination.
I have to get her out.
I take a step toward her as she raises her arm. Again, I think she’s reaching for me, but then her hands continue up toward the top of her head. She parts the dark roots in her hair and curls her fingers around something. I try to see better, step closer, and place a hand on the glass. We’re only a couple of feet away from each other and I lean in. Nubs about an inch tall sit on her skull like chunky barrettes. Her face parts into a grin that quickly changes to despair.
“Horns. You gave me horns.” Tears streak her face and she stands. “YOU GAVE ME HORNS!” she screams. “HORNS? WHY? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?”
She runs at the glass, hurling herself against it, and slams her fists, continu
ing to scream, a piercing, desperate cry. Then the pounding starts all down the line, on every pane of glass in the hallways, and it hits me. This is a prison. And as I try to see who’s in the next room over, a tentacle slaps hard against the glass.
“YOU CAN’T KEEP ME TIED UP FOR LONG!” It’s Ursula’s voice. “I CAME BACK! I CAME BACK AND YOU SAID YOU WOULD STOP! HELP!” she screams. “HELP ME!!!”
A beeping noise erupts from down the hallway and I hear the sounds of a door sliding open.
I have no weapon. No pepper spray. Nothing to protect myself. No good.
“I’ll be back for you both,” I whisper, hoping somewhere she knows.
I run for the wall as the door opens. A high-pitched wail sounds and the banging on the glass stops. It is suddenly silent in the hall.
I feel a pull, like a rope has tied itself around my neck and is yanking me backward. Open, I think. “Take me back. Open. OPEN!” I say, one last time, and as I do the blue light cracks my skull in half.
I’M BACK IN THE BATHROOM AT WONDERLAND. THE office prison is gone. I can hear music thumping through the door.
No. I have to get back. I have to save them.
I face the mirror and wait for my doppelgänger to appear. I poke the glass. Nothing happens. She is nowhere.
I close my eyes and ask for magic to help me through. I say please. I even beg. Nothing happens. The glass remains cold and only reflects the black-and-red bathroom back to me.
“No!” I punch the mirror right in its center and it cracks.
Then I see her. She’s there in the mirror looking back at me. It takes me a minute to realize it is me. It isn’t her. Those crazy furious eyes are my own.
She shakes her head. She—I—won’t help me this time.
The train to Dragon Market is empty, just a few stragglers.
I check my phone for the address in Bella’s interoffice file and follow the directions on the screen. I turn three or four times down old cobbled streets before coming upon a pink building with red shutters on the outside. The sign is faded but not enough that I can’t read it.
City of Villains Page 17
