by Alys Arden
But when I turned back to the front, Mr. Noah was stroking his beard, as if considering her reasoning. “I guess we could make an exception this one time. Good suggestion, Miss Drake. I’ll look into revising the syllabus. Okay, class, since we only have five textbooks for the room to share, we’ll take turns reading the first chapter out loud. The War of 1812!”
I turned back to Annabelle and mouthed, Thank you.
Who’s Nicco? she mouthed back.
I shrugged, trying to look innocent.
When the bell rang, I couldn’t exactly run away from her like I wanted to, considering what she’d done for me, so we walked out together. It was too normal and too weird. I went through the motions, answering her questions, but I could hardly focus. All I could think about was the dream. Why are you dreaming about the Medici?
Everyone headed to the cafeteria, including Annabelle, and I was left in the hallway, scrutinizing the depths of my imagination. Why are you dreaming of Nicco?
I paused at the door—at the red velvet rope in front of the staircase—and for a change, I wasn’t thinking about my mom being up there. I was thinking about him.
Neurotic behavior pumped into my veins as I walked off campus. The impulse to obsess about Nicco was the last thing I needed right now. I needed to obsess over finding the last coven members and saving my mother. I needed to obsess over the near-naked situation with Isaac last night. I did not need to obsess over the fact that Nicco was possessing my dreams.
I made a deal with myself: I could think about whatever I wanted on the walk, but once I crossed the threshold at home, it was done. He was done. I did not need to be operating metalsmithing tools while thinking about Nicco.
But by the time I got home, my memories of him had exploded from a locked box into my consciousness, and I was fuming. Emilio had been right about one thing: never trust a Medici.
I paused at the kitchen door.
Breathe.
“Dad?” I yelled, setting my bag on the counter. I headed straight for his studio. “Da—”
He met me in the doorway with a finger over his mouth. “Shhhhh.”
“What?” I whispered.
He stepped aside and nodded to the couch near the back wall. Isaac was there, sleeping.
“What happened?” I asked, suddenly worried. I pulled out my phone to see if I’d missed any messages.
“Nothing’s wrong. He was so tired, I thought he was going to fall asleep on the bench. I was almost afraid for him to be handling any tools. I told him to go lie down, and he’s been out cold for the last couple hours. He wanted me to wake him up when you got here, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. The kid is exhausted.”
“Okay,” I said. “Should I just skip metalwork today and go to work-work early?” Eagerness hardly described how ready I was to get the descendant hunt started.
He looked to my mountain of wire rings on the workbench and then back to me. The crease in his brow told me the answer was no.
“Okay,” I said, unsnapping the tie from around my neck. “Be right back.”
I ran up to my room to change. I wouldn’t be doing anything messy in the metal shop today, so the question was: What does one wear on the first day of work at a psychic tearoom?
I stripped off the cardigan and button-down, tossed them on my bed, and flipped through the homemade dresses hanging in my closet. They were organized by fabric type, lightest to heaviest. After I flipped past the last two dresses, both velvet, I reached for another group of hangers hidden in the back, upon which hung some of my mother’s garments.
I’d found a box of her things last year when this room was still the attic, and, despite having been in full-on angst mode, I hijacked the box, ironed and hung her clothes, but then pushed them all the way to the end of the rack, where they’d remain out of sight. Now my hiding and ignoring the clothes seemed like a metaphor for her life.
Freeing one, I pulled out an airy black dress with full-bloom red roses printed onto the fabric. I slipped it on. It had a high scoop neckline and bell sleeves that cinched at the wrists. The silky fabric puffed out as I twirled in front of the mirror, and I decided it was perfect for both the metal shop and the metaphysical. Not something I’d usually wear in the studio, but all I was going to be doing—from now until eternity—was bending and cutting metal rings. Frigging chainmaille.
Boots. Necklace. Wing-tipped eyeliner. And a spritz of my mom’s perfume.
I bounced back down the stairs, marveling at the difference between six months ago, when I’d been crying and just wanting to leave my mother’s Parisian home, and now, twirling in an ensemble that was more hers than mine.
Downstairs, the wire cutters and pliers were already waiting for me at the bench, along with a metal rod that my father had already coiled steel wire around with a drill.
“Aw, you did the fun part,” I said, making him smile. Even though I was anxious to get to the tearoom, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love working in my dad’s studio with him.
I pushed the coil off the rod and began clipping the little circles loose. When I had six, I pinched each one of them closed, and my fingers were already starting to feel sore from squeezing the tools. I wondered why I ever thought taking on a project as big as making a chainmaille dress was a good idea. I stretched my fingers out, did another six, and then wondered how much magical assistance I could use with my father only three feet away.
At first I used a little magic only when he turned away, but gradually the challenge became to see how much I could mentally pinch the wire cutters and squeeze the pliers even when he was close by.
At the end of the hour, he’d finished polishing a dozen bracelets, and I had another minimountain of steel rings.
“Wow,” he said. “You’re a pro.”
“It’s pretty Zen,” I said, realizing that I might have gone a little too fast.
“Repetition is the road to mastery with this kind of work.”
He came around the bench and showed me how to weave the rings together in sets of five. I was paying attention, but the late night was catching up with me again and I yawned, blinking back glossy eyes.
My father looked over at Isaac, and then back at me.
“Why are you so tired?” he asked.
“I’m not tired,” I blurted out. “I’m not tired at all. I just can’t see straight anymore after making all these rings.” Guilt slid out of my voice, but I stuck to my story and kept my eyes on the metal as I connected the rings together.
He walked back to his seat across from me, and although I didn’t look up, I could still sense his gaze. Another urge to yawn came on, but this time I kept my mouth clamped shut. It felt like my eyeballs were going to pop out of their sockets as it passed.
“You’re wearing your mother’s dress,” he said.
“Oh.” I was surprised he could remember such a detail. On second thought, looking at the intricate bracelets he’d carved, I wasn’t. “I found some of her stuff in the attic. Is that okay?”
“Of course, sweetheart. It looks just as beautiful on you as it did on her.”
“Yeah, right,” I said with a little laugh. I was glad it didn’t bother him, though. I was already growing attached to the dress.
“I stand corrected. It looks more beautiful on you.”
His cell phone rang, which was always kind of shocking to hear since the reception so rarely allowed calls to go through.
He answered and then after a pause asked, “Are you serious?” He stood up. “Wait, can you repeat that?” He held the phone up so he could see the screen—the bars, presumably. “Hold on a second.” And so the usual dance with the cell towers started; he ducked outside to try to get a stronger signal.
I snuck over to the couch and sat carefully on the edge, next to Isaac.
His hair had fallen in front of his face; I tucked it behind his ear, just like he always did, almost daring him to wake up. He didn’t stir. And then I couldn’t help but touch my lips to his, whic
h were so noticeably soft compared to his prickly face and rough hands. Profuse blushing followed as I thought about all the uncharted territory those lips had discovered last night. And then, as if he’d read my mind, his hand slid over my hip. “Isaac!” I whispered. “My dad is—” But his hand stopped at my waist, and I realized he hadn’t even woken up.
My father’s voice became louder. I gently placed Isaac’s hand back on the couch and hurried to the workbench, but I didn’t get far enough before my dad stepped inside.
He looked over at the couch, and Isaac stirred, turning around the other way.
He whispered, “I thought we agreed not to wake him up.”
“I didn’t wake him up!” I whispered back.
He frowned.
“Dad. I promise you he didn’t mind,” I said, reaching for my coat and bag.
He frowned harder.
I kissed his cheek. “I’m going to work. Love you!”
CHAPTER 22
Bottom of the Cup
The shop was on a block of wall-to-wall brick town houses, all three stories high, each decorated with dark-green shutters and the kind of wrought-iron balconies that tourists stopped to take photos of.
I paused across the street, still trying to process the idea that I was about to start work at a psychic tearoom. Even with the magic and the witches and the vampires, it was still hard for me to believe in the whole psychic thing. If people could really tell the future, why the hell did so many people just die in this Storm?
My rational side was back to wanting proof—but then Isaac’s words about me needing to believe more rang in my head, and then so did Papa Olsin’s, warning me not to open the attic. How could he know something like that? Was it that I didn’t believe? Or that I just didn’t want to believe?
I took a deep breath and crossed the street. Either way, I’m here to find our fourth witch.
So I can strengthen our coven and figure out a way to save Mom.
A bell jingled overhead as I walked inside—kind of ironic for a psychic tearoom; then again, not everyone who worked here was a psychic. I wasn’t. Nor were the Daure kids, at least as far as I knew.
The jingle didn’t prompt anyone to come out. Part of me thought it would be polite to yell hello and announce myself, but I didn’t want to interrupt a tarot-card reading.
I set my bag on one of the three black-and-white zodiac wheel tables near the front window and stripped off my jacket and scarf. I don’t know if it was the childhood familiarity or . . . something else, but the shop had a soothing effect.
Water trickled from a fountain near the bay window. I cupped my hand underneath the gentle stream, just like I’d done when I was a child. My hand felt so much bigger now, but the water felt the same, cool and tickling. Water. Water witch. Mind on the mission, Adele. You’re here to find Morning Star’s descendant, whose brother was killed by Giovanna Medici, if you’ve forgotten.
The thought brought me back to the dream.
Giovanna had appeared almost exactly as I’d pictured her when I read Adeline’s diary, only . . . human. I didn’t want to think about the Medici being human. I didn’t want to have dreams about Nicco that seemed so real they made me feel closer to him. I wanted to forget him. If it weren’t for my mom being imprisoned with him, maybe I would have by now. Yeah, right. The water splashed up into my face, and a girl giggled.
I whirled around to the empty shop. There was a fireplace to my left and wall-to-wall shelves to my right, but no sign of anyone else.
Jesus, Adele, you’re losing it.
You could tell that the large storefront was once a parlor room of some kind. Now two long glass-case counters ran along the back, displaying jewelry and blocking off the corridor that ran the length of the bottom floor, where the psychic booths were hidden behind curtains.
The shop wasn’t stuffed to the brim like Vodou Pourvoyeur, or at least it didn’t feel that way. Each display, from the crystal balls to the bamboo lutes, looked purposely placed and freshly dusted.
I moved through the shop, sucked in by the mystical oddities on the shelves, all illuminated by track lighting. I could have spent an entire day looking through the different crystals and teacups. Everything in Vodou Pourvoyeur felt historical, but here things felt futuristic, like they might have a portal to another dimension behind one of the curtains in the back. The Voodoo shop felt warm, while this place felt cool—less apothecary and more celestial. I’d never be able to choose which one I liked better. Despite all of their differences, they both shared one energy in common: both were welcoming and warning at the same time.
All along the right wall, black granite cases sparkled as if diamond flecks had mixed in with the stone; they displayed a potpourri of precious and semiprecious new-agey treasures: huge chunks of natural geodes and crystalline formations that looked like they’d been pulled straight from caves, and wands made of quartz and fluorite and lapis. No two were the same. Little signs—in handwriting that looked like it belonged to a wizard—listed off the healing properties of each and noted that they’d all been charged by moonlight.
At the baseboards all around the shop sat baskets of rocks and stones. Some were polished, some were raw, and others were metallic or opalescent. One basket contained bright-orange coral.
I walked toward the fireplace on the opposite wall. So many details were exactly the same as I remembered them from my childhood: the bearskin rug, the taxidermied canary in the brass cage, which was now on the mantel next to the Russian nesting dolls, and the glass box with the crown.
Like in the Borges’ shop, candles and incense burned on the mantel, although the scent here was as different as the vibe: instead of earthen and woody, the tearoom smelled soapy, a mix of lilacs and rose and honey. Potted plants of ivy sat on top of the shelves and on the fireplace mantel, spilling all the way to the ground. When I was a kid, Chatham Daure showed us how to clip the ivy and grow it in a glass of water. I thought it was magic. Back then I loved this place, even though some of it—like the frozen-in-time canary—had terrified me. It was the kind of place where it seemed like anything was possible.
I knelt down on the bearskin rug, where I used to sit so often as a child, and waited.
As I stared into the hearth, my fingers threaded the hem of my dress. Codi Daure had once told me fairies lived in this fireplace. It was just after my mom left; I thought I’d never stop crying, and likely everyone around me feared the same. Codi, who couldn’t have been much older than six, had seen my tears one gloomy afternoon and told me about the fairies to try to cheer me up. I’d believed him, without question. Jeanne made fun of me for weeks for believing in fairies, but I came to this fireplace every day that summer, hoping with all of my being for it to be true. Mrs. Philomena even let me leave elephant ears with water on the counter for them. The leaves always turned up empty the next day, and I was sure the fairies had drunk the water, because there were always trails of sparkles left behind on the leaves.
Later I realized Mrs. Philly had probably showed Codi how to take the dust from the bottom of the raw gemstone displays and sprinkle the leaves.
Even now it felt like the kind of place where fairies would hide, the kind of place where magic could happen.
“Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles,” came a guy’s voice.
I jumped up. The booklover was leaning over the glass counter, a damp black curl hanging over his forehead.
How long has he been watching me?
“I’m sorry if I startled you,” he said. “You looked so peaceful staring into the fireplace.”
The comment didn’t exactly lower my creeper radar. It sounded like something Nicco would say—and I wouldn’t make that same mistake twice. I hadn’t exactly forgotten the weird vibe the guy had given me that day in the café.
I let out a small laugh and approached the counter. “‘Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles’? In that case, I think you might have taken the wrong job. Maybe two wrong jobs if your firs
t day with Isaac really went as I heard it did.”
“You won’t find me using the words ‘wrong’ and ‘job’ in the same sentence,” he said. “We could have found ten bodies and I’d still be grateful for the job. Isaac is ace. The odds of finding two jobs in such a short time after arriving in the city is a miracle.”
Why the hell would anyone move to New Orleans right now? The memory of Palermo’s when I first met Gabe and Nicco flashed through my head. “Let me guess . . . You’re looking for someone?”
His eyes slanted. “And how did you know that? Wait, are you a psychic? I thought I was supposed to train you on the counter today. Are you going to work in a booth, rather?”
I crossed my arms. This guy was hiding something, and I didn’t like it. Why was he turning up everywhere all of a sudden? “What did you say your name was again?”
“Callis.”
“Callis what?” I don’t know why I’d asked him like that; I just had this tick in the bottom of my stomach.
“Salazar. Callisto Salazar.”
Onyx jumped up to the counter and slowly walked over, tail in the air.
“Are you okay?” Callis asked as my arms crossed tighter.
“I’ve been down this road before. Cute guy with a strange name shows up to this dystopian town with a sibling in tow . . .”
“I’m guessing we’re no longer talking about Isaac?”
He held my gaze in the silence. His eyes were a hue of blue that rivaled the larimar crystal ball on the counter, the kind of blue reserved for Gerber babies or Hollywood starlets. And if I wasn’t mistaken, they’d been accentuated with a light coat of eyeliner to match his black nail polish.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Adele. You can ask me anything you please.”
I wondered if they’d worked outside today. He was still giving Snow White a run for her money, but yesterday I’d almost been able to see his veins through his skin. “I’m not uncomfortable,” I said.
“The way you’re squeezing your fists indicates otherwise.”
