Was it all my imagination?
How did imagination explain my chalk-stained palms?
My eyes moved to the pavement, where I saw red letters written in my own hand:
You must not wake the Shadowless
When she sleeps within her bed.
But kiss the lips of the Shadowless
And the morning finds you dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BY the time Harken reached the corner of Silver and F Streets, his head had cleared, and the wild panic from finding the Shadowless gone was fading. So she had escaped: Her body was a rotted corpse. How much damage could a walking corpse do? But in the dark part of his mind, he knew the answer. A weak Shadowless was stronger than any human.
He stopped to catch his breath and to pull the crimson hoodie tight against his face. He zipped up the leather jacket, stuffed both hands in the pockets, and bowed his head. The Connings’ house was just around the corner, and it would take only a few seconds to confirm that the family was safe. Then he could get far, far away from Boston and the ghosts that haunted it.
But when he rounded the corner, he was surprised to find people milling about a damaged vehicle, which for some reason was parked on the sidewalk near a pack of schoolchildren. He paid attention long enough to decide the commotion didn’t concern him before noticing a petite ginger girl who was rubbing chalk off her hands. She then ran down the sidewalk, and he thought she looked vaguely familiar. That didn’t concern him, either, and he would have walked on, except for an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, a sensation so strong it made the hair on his neck stand up.
Something strange, he thought. “Excuse me!” he called to one of the men near the car. “Might I beg a moment of your time?”
“Can’t you see I’m busy?” the man replied. He was wearing a khaki uniform, and his name tag read “Reed Barker.”
“Reed Barker, I have your name.” Harken touched the bronze torc on his neck and commanded, “Tell me what happened here.”
“Girl hit the curb,” he said. “Coulda sworn she was gonna hit the kids, then bam! She veers right and nails a parking meter instead.”
“Very curious,” Harken said, caught Reed’s eye, and put a finger to his lips. He stepped back into the crowd and dissolved like smoke.
Reed blinked three times, then shrugged and returned to the accident, where he began giving advice on how best to move the wrecked Civic.
Harken moved through the crowd, listening. The other gawkers were as confused as Reed. For some reason they couldn’t explain, they all had expected the car to hit the children. One woman called the police by pulling a device from her pocket and punching merrily on it.
I must have one of those, Harken thought, and promptly picked one from the pocket of a man in a business suit, along with a penknife and a wallet. He dropped them into his own pockets as the man walked away oblivious.
“Some things never change,” Harken said.
He would need transportation as well. His gaze fell on a fire department standpipe, where someone had chained a weathered Harley. He pulled out the penknife and picked the bike’s chain lock while everyone went about their daily business.
“Ma!” a ginger-haired girl called up to a third-floor window. “Come look! You’re not going to believe this!”
Harken walked to the corner and read the poem written in chalk again. “‘You must not wake the Shadowless,’” he whispered. “Too damned late for that.”
But the poem had to go.
He borrowed a cup of coffee from a bystander and poured it on the sidewalk. The liquid hit the chalk and washed it in bright red rivulets down the gutter. When the evidence was gone, he returned the empty cup to its owner.
“Thanks,” he said.
The bystander gave him a blank look as the ginger girl rushed by. Harken’s eyes met hers for a glimmer of a second, and her eyes widened with a glimpse of recognition. Then she looked past him, as if he weren’t there. Stunned, Harken turned to watch her go. There had been none of the usual shenanigans—no blush, no fawning over his looks. It was as if he were a telephone pole or fire hydrant. He felt a flash of annoyance and embarrassment. No one ever walked by him when he wanted them to stop, especially a young woman.
“Excuse me!” the girl said, pointing at the sidewalk.
“What the hell?” he said under his breath, and felt a strange tug when she bent over the puddle and tucked a curly strand of hair behind her ear and turned her chin just so, a gesture that made her fair skin look almost translucent.
Harken pushed the hoodie back and ran a hand through his hair. He fixed his eyes on her delicate face and said in a low voice. “Miss, might I beg a moment of your time?”
“No,” she said flatly and hardly gave him a second glance. “Ma! Ma!” she called out. “Where’d the chalk go? The poem, it’s gone.”
“How should I know? All I see’s a puddle,” a woman—the mother—called from the porch. She held the door ajar, using it like a shield. “Willow Jane Conning, I’ve got no time for shenanigans. Dress rehearsal’s tonight, and Mr. Parris’s gained ten pounds since the last fitting.”
“Willow Jane,” he whispered. Now he understood why she looked familiar—she had Michael Conning’s eyes. “I have your name.”
“But Ma! The poem was right there,” the girl said. “Devie said I wrote it.”
“You’ve taken too many checks to the head,” the mother said as she shut the door. “Off to school.”
The girl stared at the puddle of coffee in disbelief until the arrival of the 8:05 bus caught her attention. “Too many checks to the head, my butt,” she mumbled, threw her book bag over a shoulder, and crossed the street to board.
Harken waited until the bus pulled away, then returned to the Harley he’d unlocked. “A Conning girl,” he whispered. A female born to the Conning line, the first in more than four hundred years, and he had discovered her on the same day the Shadowless had risen from the grave. “A beauty, too.”
As he started the motorcycle, the fear that he’d squelched came back with a double fury, burning brighter and hotter than the metal that had formed his body. This was no chance, no coincidence, no happenstance. This was the Fates acting against him, those cruel bitches. Then in a heartbeat, his thoughts crystallized, and he knew what he must do.
If he wanted to live, Willow Jane Conning had to die, and to kill her, he needed magic.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LOUIE’S Pawnshop was an average hole-in-the-wall Boston pawnshop. Lots of spare tools stuffed on shelves. Jewelry under the glass counters. Guns locked behind barred racks, the kind of place where dreams went to die. It was the last place a nice, underage girl like me should’ve been, but it was the only chance I had left.
Louie, the owner, was just an inch taller than me but weighed twice as much—at least. His hair was long, and he tucked it behind his ears. He wore a pair of glasses on a silver chain like an old-maid librarian, a white dress shirt with sweat stains in the pits, and baggy khakis with frayed cuffs. The place had a stink all its own, like the thick, greasy air of a short-order diner.
It’s just business, I reminded myself at the counter. Don’t take it personally. That was Dad’s philosophy when he haggled with pawnbrokers. He changed from Dad, with his soft, crooning voice and twinkling green eyes, to Mike Conning, with the attitude and fast talking to match.
“Got something that might interest you,” I said.
“Yeah?” Louie sucked powdered doughnut sugar from his fingers. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Judge this.” I carefully placed the wooden box containing the thimbles on the counter. “They’re Meissen. How much?”
“What? No good morning? No hey, Louie, how’s it hanging?”
“Never, ever will I ask you how’s it hanging because that’s just TMI. How much for these?”
“What’s the rush?”
“Late for school.” I also wanted out of there. Louie was wicked sketchy and gave me
the creeps. “I’m here to square the debt on my egg.”
“What egg?”
“Don’t futz with me, Louie.” My dad liked the poetry of futz. It got the meaning across without being so offensive.
“The loan on the object in question was thirty days, right?” He checked the fake Rolex on his plump wrist. “Your thirty days are up, let’s see, in eight hours and fifty-seven minutes, so forget about the egg.”
“I said, don’t futz with me.” I reached for the thimbles, but he batted my hand away.
“Don’t touch me,” I said.
“Don’t get cranky.” He scooped up the thimbles and flipped a jeweler’s lens over his glasses. “The thing’s a work of art. A friggin’ work of art.”
“Told you so.”
He looked up, his eye magnified. “Too bad I ain’t no art dealer.”
“They’re the crown jewel of thimbles. Worth a lot of cash. A lot of cash. Get it?”
“You ain’t exactly sub-tile, so yeah, I get it.”
Louie spent a minute inspecting the goods with his googly eye. I crossed my fingers behind my back and said a little prayer to St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children, thieves, and pawnbrokers. Daddy said the art of negotiation was knowing how badly the other person wanted something. A minute later Louie proved he had the same philosophy.
“For this thimble,” he said, sucking his teeth, “I can give you maybe a hundred.”
“A hundred? As in dollars?” I said. “Are you nuts?”
“One-fifty, max.” He set the thimbles down. “One seventy-five for both. That’s being generous.”
“I’ll trade you straight up,” I said. “The thimbles for the egg.”
“How stupid do I look?”
I almost made the mistake of telling him. “Come on, Louie.” It sounded like begging, and I hated to beg. “I owe four hundred bucks on the egg, right?”
“Four hundred seventy-two dollars and sixty-three cents. Don’t forget the interest.”
“Forget you.” I cupped a hand over the thimbles. “I’ll take my business elsewhere.”
“Where else they gonna let some underage kid pawn junk like this?” Louie clapped his hand on mine. “One call about stolen goods, and the cops’ll slam you in juvie.”
“I didn’t steal them.” I knew Louie was bluffing. Everybody knew he fenced stolen goods, and he wasn’t about to invite cops into his shop. “My ma gave them to me.”
“What’s your mommy gonna say about you hocking family heirlooms?” He reached for his phone. “She at home or working at the Shubert?”
“I want four hundred.”
“Two hundred.”
“Three.”
“Two-fifty.” He grinned, loving every minute of torturing me. “For both the thimbles. That’s what I call a gift, and it’s also what I call my final offer.”
I ran the numbers. No matter how I added it up, Louie came out on the winning side. I still owed him $220 and change. How was I ever going to come up with two hundred bucks by the end of the day?
“Forget it,” I said.
“Walk out that door,” he said, “and I cut my price in half.”
“But I’ll still owe two hundred bucks. How am I going to come up with that?”
“Two hundred’s better than three and a quarter,” he said. “But hey, I’ll make you a deal. If you don’t get the two hundred, I’ll cancel the loan on the thimbles. Even stephens.”
What choice did I have? “You should be ashamed,” I said.
“I am. Very.”
“You’re a lying sack of crap.”
“What? Liars can’t feel shame?”
“Crap can’t.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.” Cackling to celebrate his victory, Louie put the thimbles back in their wooden box. “That leaves you two hundred twenty-two sixty-three dollars short. The remainder is due at seven P.M. tonight, or else the egg goes on eBay.”
“Don’t you dare sell it on eBay,” I said. “It’s been in my family for centuries.”
“Centuries, huh? That’s a good run.” He locked the thimbles in the display case. “Too bad it’s over.”
“Not yet,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m getting my egg, come hell or high water.”
“Tough luck, sweetheart. The forecast is for sunshine.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
HARKEN parked the Harley on Dot Ave and walked a half block to the magic shop on the corner. With Malleus free, he had to act quickly, or he would be lost in the Shadowlands like that boy. What was that adage, there are fates worse than death? Having Malleus feed off his spirit for eternity was the worst fate of all. But ridding himself of his duty to the Connings was proving more complicated than he had hoped. The plan had seemed easier when the Conning in question wasn’t a slip of a girl with eyes like spring water.
He pushed the heavy oak door open. An iron bell clacked, and he felt a rush of heat and smelled a fragrance like licorice. The store was filled with toys and games, books and other strange merchandise for sale in gaudy packaging—not the kind of goods he’d expected. He scanned the windows to make sure he’d not been followed, then closed the shades and turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED.
“Isn’t this a magic shop?” he asked the clerk, an older teen with pale skin and black lipstick. It felt like a magic shop. Smelled like one, too, that unmistakable scent that he had followed here.
“A magic trick shop,” she said with her back to him, her voice dripping with ennui. “We sell tricks and costumes. There’s no such thing as real . . . magic. Oh my.”
Harken smiled—his ability to vex was as strong as ever apparently. Then he inhaled deeply. There was real magic in the air. “Might I speak to the proprietor?”
“You mean, the manager?” She touched her throat lightly and dropped the crystal ball she’d been pricing. It shattered at her feet, but she didn’t seem to notice. She inhaled deeply. “You smell amazing.”
“Thank you, but it’s dangerous to get close to me. I didn’t catch your name?”
“Veronica. Veronica Hannigan.”
Harken smiled and noted the blush rising from her neck and the quick dilation of her pupils. Her nostrils flared, and a bead of perspiration formed on her lip, but he had no time for this, not with Malleus free. “Is this manager a norn?”
“A norn?” she said and bit her bottom lip.
“The manager. She is a norn, correct?”
“Oh, no,” the girl said. “She’s a Remember. Remember Marie Haverhill.” He read her name tag. “Veronica Hannigan, I have your name.” He touched the torc on his neck, then fixed her with a gaze, and the girl’s jaw went slack. “Be a good sport and lock the door?”
“I need to lock the door,” she said dreamily, then turned the lock.
“Thank you,” he said. “Where might I find this Remember?”
The girl pointed to a door marked NO ENTRY.
“Have a rest, Veronica,” he said, “and thank the stars there’s nothing special about you.”
The room in the back of the magic shop looked ordinary. Harken saw that the shop sold only gimmicks—sleight-of-hand card tricks and cheap toys meant to amuse children. True magic was sterner stuff, practiced only by norns and other cunning folk, and it left a trail of indelible marks that anyone could see, if one knew where to look. Magic also left a smell in the air. Seven sticks of anise were burning in a vase on a cluttered desk.
He took a step, and the floor emitted a high-pitched squeal—a protection ward.
“Show yourself,” he said into the void.
He didn’t really expect a response, so when silence greeted his request, he walked around the room, kicking aside boxes and crates. There were no other runes, not even a warding spell.
Foolish, he thought. “Show yourself, norn. I won’t ask again.”
Seconds ticked by, and he glanced at the large clock on the wall, a Black Forest cuckoo clock carved in the shape of a buck’s head, with two dead birds hanging upside
down on either side of the cuckoo.
“I see you like my clock,” a woman said behind him. “It’s a Jagdstück, meaning “hunt piece,” from the Black Forest. You should hear the sound the cuckoo makes. Very unique.”
“I despise birds,” he said, turning. “Especially false ones.”
The woman was younger than he’d expected. She had alabaster skin and high cheekbones hidden behind an iridescent veil. Her neck was long and graceful, as were her hands, which emerged from the ends of her gossamer sleeves and extended when she bowed. She was tall, almost as tall as Harken, and she smelled of oranges and allspice and a glimmer of tobacco.
“Veronica was right. You are very pretty.” She reached for him but drew back as if she’d been stung. “But dangerous, too. You move like a great cat on the hunt. A cat with interesting spots.”
“My spots are none of your business. How is your magic, norn?”
“Strong enough to see the warding symbols inked into your skin. Enough to sense your temptations.”
“But are you strong enough to resist them?” he said, fixing her with his gaze.
“A girl really could get lost in those eyes. If she let herself.” She threw her head back and laughed. “What is your name, familiar?”
No, she could not have his name. Names had power. “What’s yours?”
“They named me Remember so I would forget nothing.”
“They call me Harken. I had another name, but it was lost.”
She smiled slyly. “Whom do you serve?”
“Those far greater than you.”
“Smelly and bitter and proud,” she said. “Not the best mix.”
“Remember Haverhill.” He caught her eye and tried to hold her. “I have your name.”
She laughed, a soft, tittering sound. “I’m not so easily vexed as a shopgirl. Tell me what you seek or leave.”
“Freedom,” he admitted. “To be unbound from my service. I have faced the abyss for my masters, but I will not do so again.”
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