“What?” she demanded again.
“I didn’t say anything,” he said.
“No, but your eyebrows are doing the talking thing.”
“My eyebrows are not— Never mind. I was just surprised. That’s all.”
Corinne tried to study his face for truth, but he turned away and blew a stream of smoke. A breeze carried it into the night. She hadn’t meant to reveal anything about her background, even though the crew at the Cast Iron had all either been told or guessed for themselves. The precarious nature of the secret had never concerned Corinne overly much. No one dared to cross Johnny, and he’d made it clear that Corinne was one of them. Even Madeline and James knew better than to let on what they knew.
Corinne just didn’t like to talk about it. She didn’t like the looks it garnered. The whispers behind her back.
“You might as well say it and get it over with,” she told Gabriel.
“Say what?”
“Accuse me of slumming. Of being a rich little girl, playing in the mud before she runs home to wash up and put on a pretty dress. Trust me, I’ve heard it all before.”
He ground out his cigarette and didn’t reply. Corinne surged forward.
“Not that anyone cares, but I can’t stay at home for more than a few days before I start to go mad.”
Gabriel was staring out over the pond. A hard wind rushed through the trees and across the ice, brushing his hair back from his forehead and bringing stinging tears to Corinne’s eyes.
“You can think whatever you want,” Corinne said to his silence. She was shivering nonstop now, and it was growing difficult to maintain the steady, righteous tone. “I don’t care. You don’t know the first thing about me. My life is the Cast Iron. None of it has anything to do with my parents or their damned country club.”
She lowered her head, trying to shield her eyes from the wind. Gabriel was fidgeting beside her, and she guessed he was about to leave, but after a few seconds something warm dropped around her shoulders. His coat.
“If you’re done arguing with yourself, we can head back,” he said.
That made Corinne want to argue more, on principle, but she was suddenly very tired. She slipped her arms into his coat and stood up. She knew he must be freezing in just his jacket, but she doubted he would take his coat back, even if she insisted. She was too tired for that argument as well.
“You can pretend to be strong and silent and unaffected, but I know it bothers you that my parents are wealthy,” Corinne said after they had been walking for a few minutes. “I could see it in your face.”
“You’re very smart, but you’re also very tedious,” he told her. “And you know a lot less about me than you think you do.”
His tone, though not malicious, was final. Corinne took the hint and let the subject drop. They walked in silence the rest of the way back to the Cast Iron.
Ada refused to let Charlie walk her back to the club. She didn’t want the Cast Iron looming over them as they said good night. True to his word, Charlie didn’t bring up their conversation from the day before. He just kissed her softly and asked her to be careful. Ada hadn’t wanted to break away from his arms, but it was almost ten, and her troubles were waiting for her in the club.
The bar was still closed, and Ada went through the back door. Gordon was gone from his post in the storage room, which was unlike him. Maybe he’d figured that without any drunk patrons to keep from snooping around, he could take the night off. Or maybe he needed to feed his cat.
She was about to push open the wall panel when the alley door opened and Gordon came in. He was wheezing with exertion, and his coat was misbuttoned, as if he had left in a hurry.
“Ada,” he said, leaning against the doorframe. “I tried to rush back.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “Is something wrong?”
He didn’t move from the doorway, and for a few seconds the only sound was his labored breathing. The silver winter air drifted past him, bringing the sharp scent of frost and nighttime into the storage room. Ada saw that he was shaking. She took a step forward. “What is it?”
“Ada, it’s . . . it’s Johnny.” Gordon pulled off his cap and squeezed it between his hands. He took a few hesitant steps forward. “The police called earlier and asked me to come down. I thought it was some kind of ruse at first, but it was Rick Dalton on the phone. He’s been a paying customer for years.”
“I don’t understand,” Ada said. “Has Johnny been arrested?”
“Ada, they wanted me to come to the morgue. Johnny’s dead.”
There was something strange about hearing the words from Gordon, who had spent so many years sitting in this room, resolutely saying nothing of importance. At first Ada couldn’t grasp the full meaning of what he was saying—just that it was odd to see him standing there, hat in hand, trembling like a schoolboy.
Johnny’s dead.
Ada sat down hard in Gordon’s chair.
“They found him somewhere on the wharves,” Gordon said. “Someone shot him four times in the chest.”
There were tears in Ada’s eyes, but she didn’t know what to do with them. She opened her mouth, but words wouldn’t come.
“I have to go,” Gordon said. There was a hitch in his voice, and he was backing toward the door. “I’ve been here for seven years, Ada. I never thought—I never—I have to go.”
He tossed her the keys, and Ada caught them in numb reflex. Gordon shut the door behind him. Ada had never noticed how dark the storage room was at night. She stumbled into the basement and curled up on one of the couches, listening to the electric lights buzzing overhead. Corinne would be home soon. When she was here, Ada would be able to think straight.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but in that moment she was back in Haversham, the walls cold around her, the screams echoing down the corridor as they dragged her fellow prisoner away. Down to the basement. Down to whatever hell had been created for hemopaths by a society convinced of its own rectitude. Ada had been the first hemopath to ever escape Haversham, but sooner or later she would end up back there. Maybe they all would. Without Johnny the Cast Iron would go dark. The other hemopath clubs in the city had no reason to shelter their rival’s crew. The HPA would catch up with her and Corinne easily, and this time they wouldn’t have Johnny or his resources to bail them out.
Despite the creeping, crushing fear, Ada kept her eyes closed and began to hum. The song tasted of salt and sorrow, but it was easier than crying. It was easier than remembering how Johnny Dervish had been the one to offer her hope when her world had collapsed, how Johnny had been something untouchable and unbreakable in a city of broken, soiled dreams. It was easier than knowing that if Johnny was gone, then the rest of them didn’t stand a chance.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Snow fell the next morning from a white sky, just enough to dust the treetops and windowpanes. Ice hardened on the sidewalks, and Boston was quiet.
The bar of the Cast Iron was packed with people, with everyone who needed to know the news. Corinne was the one who told them that Johnny was dead. She was still in her dress from the night before. The pale-blue satin trembled as she spoke, but her voice never broke. She bit off each word with deliberate asperity. She sat on the stage with her legs dangling, answering questions until she had run out of answers. Then she dropped into a chair beside Ada. She laid her head on Ada’s shoulder and closed her eyes. No one had slept the night before.
“That’s it, then,” Corinne said.
For a while no one moved. No one spoke. Corinne didn’t open her eyes. Finally people started to trickle toward the door. They were members of Johnny’s crew, his inner circle. Some had known him for years, some only for months.
“Wait, stop,” Ada said, jarring Corinne as she jumped to her feet.
The group looked at her.
“It’s not safe out there,” Ada said. “First the docks and now Johnny—we don’t know who’s gunning for us.”
A couple of people shook the
ir heads and left. The others looked uncertain, shuffling their feet.
“What else can we do?” someone asked.
“Stay,” Ada said. “We’re better off together.”
“Johnny’s gone,” someone else said. “The Cast Iron isn’t safe anymore either.”
“We can make it safe,” Ada said.
“You’re just kids.”
“Johnny trusted us well enough,” Corinne snapped, standing up beside Ada.
But they were already leaving. Danny lingered by the door for a long time, clutching his hat. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I’ve got to get back to my family.”
When the hinges creaked with his departure, Corinne sank back into her chair.
She was surprised to find that James and Madeline were still there, sitting at the next table over. They had come with Saint when she’d phoned at midnight. Madeline was sitting very straight, her lips pursed, staring into the middle distance. James was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, eyes following Saint as he paced behind Corinne and Ada. Corinne knew that Gabriel was behind her too, against the bar, outside the circle.
It had been the six of them since midnight. Mostly they had sat in silence in the common room downstairs, trying to grapple with the idea of Johnny being gone, trying to explain it away.
“It’s some kind of trick,” Corinne had insisted. “It was a thespian Gordon saw.”
“Thespians can’t stay in character if they’re dead,” James said.
“Then Gordon was mistaken.”
“He’s known Johnny for years,” Ada told her. Her voice was calmer than Corinne’s, but the restraint cost her. She had to use the back of the couch for support.
“I’m going to the morgue,” Corinne said.
“Brilliant idea,” Madeline said. “And what exactly do you think is going to happen when the daughter of Perry and Constance Wells shows up at the morgue at one in the morning and demands to see the body of a dead gangster?”
“What do you suggest, Maddy?” Corinne had cried. “Why are you even here? You and James have been hiding away in the Mythic for years. You aren’t one of us, not really.”
The look that crossed Madeline’s face promised a nasty retort, but she stopped herself. “I’m just trying to help” was all she said, dropping her eyes.
“Johnny’s not—”
“Cor,” Ada said, her voice cutting through Corinne’s fury instantly. “Cor, sit down. He’s gone.”
The rest of the hours before dawn dragged on. There were drinks and speculations and plans made just to be discarded a few minutes later. No one mentioned sleep. Around six they had started making phone calls. Even though she was exhausted, Corinne had preferred the movement to sitting still. As long as she was busy, she wasn’t thinking about Johnny on a slab with four bullet holes in his chest.
Now that it was just the six of them again, Corinne had run out of tasks. She sat with her head in her hands, thinking about Johnny behind his desk, smiling at her latest idea for a con. Or Johnny at his regular table in the club, raising his glass to the stage. Or Johnny at Billings Academy when she was twelve years old, offering her the chance of a lifetime.
When her mind strayed again to the morgue and four bullet holes, she stood up. “We’re going to the Red Cat tonight,” she announced.
Everyone roused slowly from their own thoughts.
“The Red Cat?” Gabriel echoed. “Why?”
“Carson knows something about this,” Corinne said. “And if he doesn’t, then we’ll go to the Witcher brothers at Down Street. We’ll tear Boston apart if we have to. Someone’s going to pay.”
“We can’t just walk into the Red Cat and accuse Luke Carson of murder,” Ada said. Her voice was so soft that Corinne could barely hear her.
“I just have to talk to him,” Corinne insisted. “If he’s behind it, I’ll know.”
“I’m sure you will,” Gabriel said, “because he’ll probably try to kill you too.”
“This is a terrible idea,” Saint said, halting his pacing.
“I’ve had worse,” Corinne said. “There’s a show tonight at the Red Cat. Carson won’t try anything while his club is full of guests.”
“So he’ll drag you outside before he shoots you,” Gabriel said. “Saint’s right. It’s a terrible idea.”
“I won’t let the Cast Iron fall apart.” Corinne whirled on Gabriel, her voice nearing a shout. “If someone is trying to destroy the club, then I’m going to find out who it is, and I’m going to find a way to stop them.”
“We might have bigger problems to worry about,” Ada said. Her voice was low and steady, a perfect contrast to Corinne’s. “HPA agents were at my mother’s apartment yesterday morning.”
Everyone’s attention swiveled to her.
“What?” Corinne asked. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Ada frowned down at her hands.
“I haven’t exactly had a chance,” she said. “They told my mother they knew where to find me, but that they wanted the whole set.”
“What does that mean?” Saint asked.
“It means they want to throw us all into Haversham,” Corinne said.
Madeline exchanged a glance with James. “Maybe that’s our cue to go,” she said, rising to her feet.
“No one expects you to stay,” Corinne said. There was no anger in her tone, but there was no kindness either.
Madeline pulled James by his wrist toward the back door.
“Wait—you’re just going to leave?” Saint asked. He was staring at them, a wrinkle in his pale brow.
“Corinne is right,” James said, ostensibly to the group, but he was looking at Saint. “We’re not one of you. It’s not our fight.”
“You mean it’s not your problem,” Saint said.
James looked like he wanted to reply, but Madeline tugged him through to the storage room. When the door shut behind them, a heaviness settled over the room. Corinne turned to Gabriel, who was still leaning against the bar, his arms crossed.
“What about you?” she asked. “It’s not your problem either. You won’t be getting a paycheck anytime soon.”
His eyes on her were cool and inscrutable.
“Do I look like I’m going anywhere?” he asked.
When the afternoon settled into evening, Corinne was curled up on her bed, under every blanket she could find, staring hard at a crack in the wall. Ada had slept for a few hours that morning and left. She came back in occasionally, pretending to busy herself, but Corinne knew she was just checking on her. Corinne ignored her each time. She was too exhausted to move, too miserable to sleep. Her grandfather’s watch was loose between her fingers, but it gave her no comfort. Instead of the sweet memories of her grandfather in his study, telling her of Alice the adventurer or Alice the enchantress, her head was fogged with a rainy spring day four years ago, with her grandfather sitting behind his desk, running his fingers over and over the engraving while tears streamed down his pocked cheeks. She was someone I couldn’t save, he had told Corinne in a moment of such pure vulnerability that she hadn’t known how to respond. And when he had pressed the beloved watch into her hands and told her that Alice would have wanted her to have it, Corinne hadn’t felt anything but a sadness that she couldn’t understand.
Less than a month later, her grandfather was dead.
Corinne pulled her knees tighter to her chest, unable in that moment to separate the loss of Johnny from the loss of her grandfather, and she couldn’t separate either from the aching certainty in her chest that nothing could ever be the same. That everything beautiful they had built here was gone.
This time when the door opened, Ada stood in the doorway for a long time. Then she rustled around on her side of the room for a few minutes before sitting cross-legged at the foot of Corinne’s bed.
“Let’s play a round,” she said.
Corinne turned her head just enough to see that Ada was holding her violin. She pulled the covers over her head.
“No,” she mumbled into the blankets.
“It’ll make you feel better.”
“I don’t want to feel better.”
Ada tugged at the blankets until Corinne was exposed again to the chilly air.
“One round, then I’ll leave you alone,” she said.
“Fine,” Corinne snapped, jerking upright.
“Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.”
Instantly they were back on the towering cliffs by the raging, boiling sea. The sky was a maelstrom of blood-red clouds, scarred with lightning. Normally when Corinne tried to create an all-encompassing illusion, it took immense concentration to maintain every detail, to hold each piece together. But this one seemed to erupt from deep inside her, feeding on her grief and fury. Corinne couldn’t see her own illusions the way others could. They existed only as images in her mind to be sculpted and offered into the world.
This landscape, shaped as it was by her own turmoil, felt more real than anything she’d ever created before.
Ada lifted her violin and began to play. At first the song matched the intensity of the illusion, buffeting against the rocks and spiraling upward with the howling wind. Ada’s bow flew so fast against the strings that Corinne thought for sure she would lose control of the song, but each note landed with fierce precision. Corinne could feel the pain and anger finding new life as the music filled her. Her illusion responded to her rising torment. The storm hurled dagger-sharp rain against them, and the wind shrieked and spiraled, threatening to tear the world apart.
Then the music began to shift, guiding Corinne down from the terrible height. She shook her head and closed herself off to the emotions that Ada offered. She didn’t want to leave behind the fury of her grief. Johnny Dervish had found her when she was broken and scared. He had given her a place to call home. Now he was dead, and it didn’t seem fair that they had to go on. It didn’t seem fair that without him, they might not be able to.
“What if we never find out who killed him?” Corinne asked. Her voice seemed too soft to carry over the punishing storm, but she knew Ada could hear her. “What if we can’t save the Cast Iron?”
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