A Feather of Stone #3

by Cate Tiernan

  Axelle shook her head briskly, swinging her silky black pageboy like a bell. “No, I didn’t kill him. Absolutely not.”

  “So Daedalus did, then?” I asked with surface calm.

  “He told me he didn’t.”

  “Do you think he did?”

  Axelle seemed to choose her next words carefully. “I’m not sure. I didn’t think so at the time—I believed it was all coincidence. But now I’m not sure. It’s possible.”

  Having my dad die in a freak accident had been the worst thing imaginable. Now, believing that he’d been killed—and I did think that Daedalus had killed him—the pain came rushing back at me with a fresh, razor-edged presence. My dad had been killed so that Daedalus could get to me for his own purposes. My dad had died because of me. In that moment, a small, sharp burning ignited inside me, deep in my chest.

  “Okay, then.” I took in a long, steady breath, trying to stay calm, to not jump up shrieking and wailing. “Next. What’s a dark twin?”

  Across the room, Axelle’s eyes were as black as her hair, as black as the leather chair. Bottomless. “I haven’t heard that phrase in a long time,” she said slowly. “I think it’s an old wives’ tale. Where did you hear it?”

  “What is it?”

  Shrugging, Axelle said, “Well, it’s a myth, really. It’s when you have identical twins, one egg that splits apart. Instead of each half getting a mix of light and dark, one twin gets mostly light and one gets mostly dark.”

  “So one twin is evil?”

  “Not necessarily.” Axelle thought, tapping one finger against her chin. “It’s more like, that twin is more likely to go dark. But, I mean, no one really thinks it happens. Not really.”

  Petra does, I thought. But which one of us is she worried about?

  “What’s Daedalus up to, really? With this rite and the full Treize? Is he planning for one of us to die?”

  “No.” Axelle frowned. “I don’t think so. It’s never sounded like he expects anyone to die. Certainly not you or Clio. He was so thrilled about you two. He needs you both to complete the rite. There’s no way he would harm one of you, the way Petra worries.”

  I was about to ask my last question when someone pounded on the apartment door. My breath stilled in my chest as I recognized those vibrations. Luc. Oh no.

  Axelle rose with languid grace and sauntered to the door. She opened it, and I caught a glimpse of Luc’s dark shadow, followed by a smaller one. I forced myself back to the cool calm I’d been channeling with Axelle and raised my eyes to meet his.

  He wasn’t expecting to see me, and something lit for just a moment in his dark blue eyes. I clamped down on any response and knew I’d gotten all the answers out of Axelle that I would get. At least today.

  Axelle and someone else came into the room, and the other person gasped. I looked at her—her magenta hair, multi-pierced ears, the wild clothes. This must be Claire, I realized. She stared back at me, her hand over her mouth.

  “Yes, they do look alike,” Axelle said with dry humor. “I assume you two want a drink?”

  “God, yes,” Claire said with feeling. “It’s pretty freaky.”

  I grabbed my backpack and stood up.

  “I’ve seen maybe eight of that line,” Claire went on, still looking at me. Axelle handed her a martini glass and she took a big sip. What was it with the Treize all being lushes? I wondered. Because they didn’t need to worry about killing themselves with alcohol? “They’ve all had the mark, the fleur-de-lis. But none of them has ever looked so . . . exact. Axelle? Did you ever see one like this?” She gestured at me with her drink.

  “I’m standing right here. But go ahead and talk about me. It’s okay.” I couldn’t remember ever being so snippy. I moved past Claire toward the front door, not looking at Luc. I hadn’t gone four feet when there was a huge crack of lightning that polarized the room for a moment and then an enormous boom of thunder that actually made my chest flutter.

  Then the lights went out.

  “Damn it,” Axelle muttered. “Let me find a candle.”

  “I can’t believe this still happens all the time,” Claire said. “Talk about a third-world country.”

  I made out the dim outline of the door and headed for it again just as Luc’s hand brushed my arm—I was inches from him. That barest touch set off a chain reaction, melting my icy shell. I stiffened, pulled my arm away, and moved past him.

  “Where are you going?” His low voice still thrilled me, and I so hated it.

  “Home.” I opened the door and was blasted with sheets of rain and a bolt of lightning so close that I quickly stepped backward. Shoot. This was going to be so awful, slogging up to Canal Street to catch the streetcar. Well, I could duck into a shop or café and wait till it blew over. Getting me home even later. Petra was going to have a fit.

  “Thais, wait till it lessens,” Axelle said.

  “How can she even stand lightning?” I heard Claire mutter.

  “You can’t go out in this.” I felt Luc’s heat behind me. What if I closed my eyes and leaned back, felt his arms come around me? God, I was such a jerk. Very nice, very nice to be thinking this when I had Kevin. I was awful—not only stupid, but disloyal.

  Ignoring all of them, I stepped right out into it, and rain instantly washed over me, pelting my face and hair, gluing my shirt to me.

  “I’ll give you a ride.” Luc turned to Axelle and Claire. “I’m taking Thais to Petra’s. I’ll be right back.”

  “No, you’re not,” I said, and headed out into the storm, crossing the courtyard as fast as I could and getting to a momentary shelter under the covered driveway to the street. Luc caught up to me and touched my arm, and that motion and the rain and my jumbled thoughts added up to a powerful déjà vu of when he had first kissed me, in our private garden. It sent pain jolting through me like lightning, and I whirled, ready to snap his head off.

  “Please,” he said gently. He dropped his hands to his sides and looked at me. “I won’t touch you again. I won’t even talk to you if you want. But let me give you a ride home. My car is right there.” He pointed through the wrought-iron gate at the street. “It’s pouring—I can get you home in ten minutes.”

  I was suddenly so tired of keeping up my guard and my hurt against him. It took so much effort. I pushed my wet bangs out of my eyes, unwilling to think this through. “Fine,” I said. “Whatever.”

  Luc walked quickly to the gate, as if he wanted to get me in his car before I came to my senses. He went ahead of me to unlock the passenger door for me—what a gentleman—and I followed him.

  Jump!

  Some sixth sense shouted that at me and I obeyed instantly, leaping sideways, pushing Luc ahead of me. A split second later a heavy metal planter plummeted down from the balcony above us, scraping my arm, and crashed onto the curb, spewing plants and dirt everywhere.

  I stared at the planter. It must have weighed sixty pounds at least and would have cracked my head open if it had hit me. Luc and I were semi-sprawled across the hood of the car in back of us. His arms were around me, his face shocked, and he looked up at the balcony where the broken, twisted metal supports dangled from the balcony railing.

  “Holy mother!” Luc exclaimed. “Are you all right?”

  “Uh . . .” A dim stinging feeling made me look at my arm.

  “My arm is scratched.”

  Luc pulled me farther into the street, standing next to me in the pouring rain, and looked up at the balcony. “That whole section is rusted through,” he said. “It’s amazing it hasn’t fallen before. Let me see your arm.”

  “It’s just a scratch,” I said, not wanting him to touch me. Adrenaline made me even shakier. I felt unsure of myself and just wanted to get home. “Well, I guess it wasn’t Richard, this time, anyway.”

  Luc’s eyes narrowed. His face went still and cold. “What do you mean, not Richard?”

  Clio

  Racey gave me a ride downtown after I promised that Nan wouldn’t turn h
er into a toad for aiding and abetting me.

  “If she gives me a hard time, I’m going to take it out on you,” Racey promised.

  “Fair enough.”

  I had her drop me a couple of blocks from Richard’s so I’d have a few minutes to get a grip. Ever since Thais and I had recovered from almost drowning, I’d been dying to get my hands on Richard—in an entirely different way from before. I was still reeling from our discovery. Inside I felt charred, hollowed out by betrayal and disappointment. Out of the fifty guys I’d ever dated, I’d cared about only Luc. Since Luc, the only guy who’d gotten to me at all was Richard. Both were disasters. It made me feel like I wasn’t even myself. Things like this didn’t happen to fabulous Clio, the envy of most of the girls at my school.

  At Richard’s, I leaned on the doorbell. I didn’t try to see if Luc was there—I didn’t care if he was. I was going to tear into Richard no matter what. Overhead, a bank of dark purple clouds was rolling in fast. We were in for a storm.

  No one answered. I forced my breathing to slow, forced my chaotic emotions to quiet. I leaned against the wooden door, resting my forehead against it. Richard was inside, but his presence felt subdued. Maybe he was sleeping.

  In our religion, we have several really important rules. The threefold law, for example, where you acknowledge that anything you do, anything you send out into the world, comes back at you three times over. So heads up, basically. And there were other rules about not controlling people, not manipulating events that affect other people, not subverting others’ will—I had broken that rule and was walking a dangerous line with it.

  Another rule is about not using magick to invade other people—themselves, their thoughts, their space, their things. Not without permission. I was about to do that.

  Glancing around first, I traced several signs around the lock on Richard and Luc’s front door. I focused, seeing the lock’s mechanism inside my head, seeing the tumblers gently shift and fall, and then the lock opened with a gentle click. I turned the doorknob and burst in, slamming the door behind me as hard as I could.

  I was halfway down the hall when Richard came out of his room, wary concern on his face. When he saw it was me, his shoulders fell with resignation.

  “I know why you’re he—” he began as I swung my heavy messenger bag with all my might. It caught him squarely on his side, knocking him over into the wall of the hallway.

  “God da—” he began again, holding up his arm, but I was swinging my other fist. He grabbed it, holding my wrist in a manacle grip, and yanked the messenger bag away. He grabbed my other wrist and I was horrified by how strong he was, how quickly I’d been thwarted. I had pictured him taking my wrath, apologizing, groveling, letting me get my rage out—like most guys did.

  I drew back one foot to kick him, but in a second he had hooked his ankle behind mine and pulled, so that I fell heavily to the hard floor. He fell on top of me since he was holding my hands, and my breath whooshed out, leaving me gasping. Quickly he rolled off me so we were side by side, and he got as far away from me as he could before I could knee him where it hurts.

  I sucked in a deep breath and started yelling at him. Every bad name, every swearword in English and French that I knew, every hateful thought I’d had about him in the last thirty hours, every ounce of rage and hurt and venom I’d been bottling up since yesterday, I let it all out. My whole life, if anyone had crossed me, from kindergarten to this year, they’d known about it and I’d made them wish they’d never been born. All of those times rolled together wasn’t a tenth of what I spewed at Richard now.

  Toward the end of my tirade there was a huge flash of light, as if God had just taken a picture of the world, and then an explosion of thunder that vibrated the floorboards beneath me. The apartment went dark. I struggled as hard as I could, but he held my wrists like iron, until I had angry red marks from his fingers.

  Heavy rain pelted the windows in the other room, and more lightning flashed and thunder boomed. I paused to take a breath, and he quickly said, “I was going to come see you and Thais today. I know you’re pissed, and I don’t blame you. But I can explain.”

  “Save it!” I spat, trying to jerk my hands free. “You effing bastard! I hate you!”

  “No, you don’t,” he said.

  “Okay, then, I despise you! I loathe you! I spit on the ground you walk on!”

  In the dim light, Richard’s dark eyebrows raised, and then I saw him bite the inside of his cheek, like he was trying not to laugh.

  I stared at him. “Don’t you dare laugh, you frick ing jerk!”

  He went solemn immediately, shaking his head. “No, no, I’m sorry. I’m not laughing. You’ve got every right to be furious. It’s all my fault. I just—was crazy. I can’t explain it. But then I met you, and . . .” He looked down at me, and I caught my breath, remembering another time he had looked down at me. “And I knew I couldn’t hurt you.” He cleared his throat. “Couldn’t bear to see you hurt.” His voice was husky now, and because I’m completely insane, I became aware of his hard body, pressed against me.

  “Even though you’re stuck-up,” he went on, unbelievably.

  My eyes snapped wide open.

  “And have had your own way far too much,” he went on, “and are spoiled and have Petra wrapped around your little finger, and are way too beautiful for your own good, and are used to stupid little boys hanging on your every word, and—”

  His words were drowned out by my outraged screech, and I bucked hard, trying to break his grip. Then he was smiling down at me, as if he thought I were fabulous, and, goddess help me, he was beautiful, in a weird, young way, completely unlike Luc.

  “Don’t you look at me like that,” I hissed. “You tried to kill me and my sister! And then you made out with me! When I think about it, I want to throw up!” Abruptly my throat closed and I felt my nose twitch with impending tears.

  Richard was solemn again. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said quietly in the darkness. “I only kissed you after I had given up the whole plan. And last time, you grabbed me.”

  “Don’t remind me,” I snapped. “I’m so ashamed, I don’t know if I’ll ever live it down!”

  He drew back then, and I was amazed to see that he looked hurt.

  “Well, it’ll be our secret,” he said evenly.

  That deflated me. I slumped against the floor, away from him, trying to figure things out. Richard was very still and quiet, his face the same cool mask as when I’d met him. I hadn’t realized how much emotion he’d been showing me, how much his guard had been down, until I saw him again like this.

  I wriggled my hands tiredly. “Let me go.”

  He did, releasing my wrists. I looked at them, the dark red marks, and knew I’d have bruises tomorrow. I rubbed my wrists with my hands, easing the ache, and just lay on the hard wooden floor, my back to him. Clio the Magnificent, as some guy had called me in tenth grade. Look at me now, I thought dully. I’m a freaking waste of space. Like a crumpled pile of dirty clothes, lying here on the floor.

  “Why did you do it?” I asked finally. “Why did you want to hurt me—us?” I hated how small and vulnerable I sounded.

  “Didn’t Petra tell you?” he asked. His expression changed suddenly as something seemed to occur to him. “What did she tell you, exactly, about our conversation?”

  I frowned. “She said that you went crazy or something, that you just wanted all this stuff to end, and it seemed like the way to make it stop was to get one of us out of the picture. But I still don’t get it; I don’t get how you could have done those things to us.”

  Richard winced. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly.” He paused. “Did Petra say—anything else? About . . . my connection to you and Thais?”

  What was he getting at? “She said . . . once you knew us, you stopped.” I thought for a second. It seemed like there was something else, something he was rooting for in my mind, the way he stared at me so intently. “Nan said we looked like Cerise.
I hadn’t realized that,” I remembered. The next question was obvious—Was that why you wanted me?—but I didn’t want to know the answer.

  “You’re not anything like her,” Richard said.

  “What?” I closed my eyes, feeling like I couldn’t get up. It was dark, and the rain and thunder and lightning were soothing, so much bigger than my pathetic life. I wanted to be in a cocoon of gray light and rain.

  “Cerise. You’re not anything like her. You don’t remind me of her. You don’t even look like her, really. Just a superficial resemblance.”

  “We look exactly like her,” I said in a monotone. “People gasp when they see us.” And that’s the only reason you ever came after me. I remembered Marcel’s reaction and realized why it had been so strong. Had Thais told me we looked like Cerise? I didn’t remember.

  “They’re not seeing you. Cerise was . . . light, like honey. Like sunlight. Easy to hold but impossible to keep. Like a butterfly.”

  “Not like me.” It seemed like one more damning thing against me.

  “No.” Richard gave a short laugh. “You’re not a butterfly. You’re not light or easy.”

  There was silence between us for some time.

  “You’re not honey,” Richard finally went on. “You’re wine. You’re the deepest, darkest shadow under a tree on a blazing day. You’re strong and hard, coursing like a current at the bottom of a river.”

  I started crying silently, my tears running across my face to drip to the floor.

  “I don’t love anybody.” Richard’s voice was bleak. “I don’t love you. But I see the value of you, the incredible worth of you—I see more in you than in anyone I’ve ever known. I am so sorry for what I did, and I would never hurt you now that I know you.”

  We were there like that for a while, with me weeping silently and Richard not touching me. I wished someone could hold me. Eventually I stopped crying. Finally, feeling like I was a thousand years old, much older than him, I sat up. I had the thought that if I felt like this now, immortality was going to be harder than I imagined.