How is Annette Doran alive? To the best of Jane’s knowledge, Annette had drowned at the age of six while her family was vacationing in the Hamptons. While Lynne and the other grown-ups had gotten an early cocktail hour under way on the veranda, Malcolm had been left in charge of his little sister. But preteen Malcolm’s attention had wandered, and then Annette was just . . . gone. I never asked if they found her body, Jane realized. It would have seemed insensitive. Malcolm had said his sister had been swept away by the waves, but never mentioned a word about what had become of her then.
Jane shivered a little, although the spring day was mild. The sky was mostly blue, pregnant-looking clouds drifting slowly across it. Even in full sunlight, her mind kept returning to the dark coldness of being sucked underwater. Jane herself had nearly drowned once, although that had been in a murky pond rather than in a chaotic green ocean. Gran had saved her then, although it was only recently that Jane had realized that magic had probably played a part in her rescue. Having a witch for a guardian had been the difference between life and death . . . for her, at least. Might it not have been for Annette?
If she had survived, how could Lynne not know it? Could Annette’s fake death have been some elaborate plot of Lynne’s? But there was no way. Malcolm’s entire life from the age of twelve on had been overshadowed by the loss of his sister, and it was Lynne who had made sure that that shadow stayed firmly in place. When he had balked at her nastier demands and more vicious plots, she had reminded him of how he owed her; how he must do whatever it took to make up for letting her precious little girl die.
And the girl was precious: since men could only carry magic passively in their genes, losing her only daughter had meant the end of Lynne Doran’s remarkable family legacy. That legacy stretched back in an unbroken line to Ambika, the very first witch, who had bequeathed her magic on her deathbed to be shared among her seven daughters. Hasina, one of the seven, had gone on to begin a centuries’-long chain of mothers passing their magic to daughters, sisters concentrating their power under the same roof, working together to create one of the most notoriously powerful families—magically or otherwise—in the world. And now it would all end with Lynne, who was so fiercely proud of her position and name; Lynne, who had to face the family tree carved on the marble wall of her parlor every day.
Jane spun the straw in her smoothie, wondering whether her name had been added to that tree yet. She had, after all, married Malcolm. And Lynne had intended to make sure that everything about their union was legal and binding, because it was their eventual daughter who would infuse Malcolm’s bloodline with Jane’s magic, revitalizing the House of Hasina all over again. It was a desperate plan, and Jane knew Lynne never would have resorted to something so complicated and Gothic if she had thought there was any chance that her own daughter might be alive and well somewhere.
A super-thin woman in the fluid, knee-length pants that Jane identified as “over two years ago” surreptitiously tossed about half a pretzel to a pigeon before striding away out of the park. Within moments, the pigeon had been joined by about a hundred of its friends, flapping and jostling their fat gray bodies against one another for the best shot at food.
How could Lynne not know? Jane had found Annette by accident, after all. But the glass unicorn that Malcolm had saved as a memento couldn’t be the only sentimental object of Annette’s that had been lying around after her “death.” In the absence of a body, surely Lynne would have exhausted every option, both mundane and magical, to find out for sure what had happened to her daughter. Even if she didn’t know Dee’s exact spell—which seemed unlikely, given how long Lynne had been practicing magic and how many generations of witches she had learned her craft from—she must have had ways of verifying that Annette was really gone before giving up on her.
Jane slurped at the remains of her drink, thinking hard. Whatever Lynne had done to find Annette obviously hadn’t worked, because Annette was still alive and Lynne still didn’t know it. Whatever had stopped Lynne from finding her daughter had not stopped Jane. I could actually find her, Jane realized in a flash.
She didn’t know where the depressing little studio apartment had been, which was a problem. But she was pretty sure that the sitcom she had seen secondhand was on the BBC. That didn’t narrow down Annette’s location much, it was true, but still: if Jane could redo the spell, she might see something that did lead her more specifically to the location of the flesh-and-blood heiress to the Doran magic. And if I found her, Lynne would give me anything. She would give me more than anything: she would lose any reason for chasing me and Malcolm in the first place. It was perfect: Lynne would be willing to let Jane go about her life, and she would be grateful enough to want to.
But the unicorn shattered, Jane remembered sadly. She was completely out of Doran-owned objects, and so had nothing to use to find Annette or Malcolm. Still, though, the mere fact of Annette’s existence meant that there was hope. If Jane could find her somehow—maybe Dee could dig up another spell, or maybe Jane could somehow get another item of Annette’s—then Jane would never even need to fight Lynne. She could just give Lynne her daughter and go on her merry way. The thought alone was intoxicating.
Two pudgy little boys ran full-tilt toward the pigeons, who flocked into the air in a heavy, thrashing mass. Jane watched them carefully, trying to decide if she should abandon her bench and move farther away from the central fountain. The outer branches of the park’s paths were a little more peaceful, but still good for people-watching, and pigeons or no, she didn’t feel ready to leave the park entirely. In the meantime, she settled for glaring at the giggling boys, only realizing after the fact that her habitual sunglasses made that compromise basically invisible. The boys took off, careening around the lip of the fountain pool toward the wide white arch that reminded Jane so achingly of home. The pigeons, emboldened by the remnants of the pretzel and their natural New Yorker cockiness, were already settling back down.
Jane watched them idly, waiting for the disparate threads of thought to come together in her head. Just like the pigeons, she reflected smilingly: they seemed chaotic but could resolve into a coherent pattern at any time.
One pigeon broke away from the flock, hopping and pecking until it was completely clear of its cohorts. Vulnerable, Jane’s brain supplied automatically, and she realized that she was probably reading a little too much into the birds. It’s just me, she told herself sadly. I’m vulnerable and cut off from the people who love me—most of the ones who are still alive, anyway. But how can I put them in danger just to make myself feel safer?
A red leather boot kicked at the lone pigeon, scaring it back to the safety of its flock. Jane’s gaze followed the boot up a camel-hair-sheathed leg, the riding pants clinging so obediently that Jane could see every contour of the kicker’s lean calf and thigh. Her eyes traveled onward, over a red leather jacket that matched the boots, and then on to the sharp point of a chin and violently high cheekbones with tanned skin stretched over them like Saran Wrap.
I know that skin, Jane’s mind shouted at her as her gaze reached the woman’s oversize sunglasses. She didn’t even have to register the short black hair to realize that she was looking right at the mystery woman who had frightened her out of her old coffee shop.
It was true that the two places in which she had spotted Mystery Woman were connected by the A, C, and E trains. It wasn’t exactly impossible that the same person might be in both. But she could feel in her bones that this was no coincidence: this woman had been in the coffee shop to watch Jane, and she was watching Jane from behind those huge reflective lenses right now.
“I want to know who you are,” she whispered, her lips barely moving, as she focused on the mystery woman a few benches away. She pushed the sensitive tendrils of her magic toward the woman’s mind. “A fan? A reporter? A henchwoman? What do you know about me?” But her magic ran up against a smooth, blank wall, and Jane grimaced. She searched for a few more seconds, looking for any kind of
opening, but she knew that it would be futile. Mystery Woman was a witch.
Jane slid off her bench and headed for one of the paths out of the park. She could feel Mystery Woman’s eyes following her, and in a burst of inspiration, Jane turned back and tossed her empty smoothie cup toward the trash can behind the swarm of pigeons. The cup missed, falling instead into the middle of the flock and sending it wildly skyward again. A shower of feathers littered the ground, and the air around the flock grew thick with dust.
Jane hurried away down a paved path, trusting the beating gray wings and angry shoving of beaks to hide her from view. She didn’t turn around again, even once she had reached Washington Square West safely and alone.
Chapter Seven
“It’s sort of greenish,” Jane observed doubtfully, poking at the inside of her falafel with a fork.
“That means it’s fresh,” Dee explained, rolling her eyes. “Try it with the tomato and some of that sauce—not that much, it’s spicy. You’re going to learn about food that isn’t French if it kills me, Jane.”
Jane stuck her tongue out and then pushed it back in with a bite of falafel. Just as advertised, it tasted fresh, spicy, and good with the tomato. She liked to grumble at Dee, but considering that most “foreign” foods readily available in Paris were tone-deaf, preservative-laden shells of the real thing, Jane was more than happy to branch out. And although she had been skeptical of this place—brightly lit and a little grimy with a long, fast-moving line of takeout customers filing by their cramped little wooden table—it had turned out to be just as good as Dee had promised.
Jane couldn’t help but compare it to some of the stuffy, elegant Doran family dinners she had endured during her time on Park Avenue. The food had been good, certainly, in a refined sort of way, but this cheap-eats hole in the wall had a pulse and character that felt much more honest and appealing to Jane than the Dorans’ celebrity-filled haunts ever had. It reminded her of her student days, and then the low-key places she and her BFF (Best French Friend) Elodie had frequented. Although she had believed that Malcolm Doran was the love of her life, in a way she felt lighter, safer, and more at ease than she had since meeting him.
But I’m not quite out of that relationship yet, she reminded herself conscientiously, and mentally settled in to get down to business. She had already told Dee about Mystery Witch in the park that afternoon, but so far she had avoided bringing up her plan to find Annette. She knew that Dee would worry and would probably be right to: it was dangerous. But she also knew that Dee might be able to help, and if the last three weeks proved anything it was that Jane couldn’t afford to cut herself off from help.
“So,” she announced as casually as possible around a mouthful of lentils, “I want to do that . . . thing again.” She avoided saying “spell” at the last possible second with a pointed glance at the customers currently filing by them: a skinny, impossibly pretty boy in eyeliner and two women in short, floaty dresses. “From yesterday,” she clarified when Dee didn’t immediately react. “I still want to find him, of course, but what I want to focus on first is finding her again. The sister.”
Dee started to shake her head, but Jane waved her protest away and leaned closer across the wooden table.
“She’s my way out of this,” she explained in a hiss. “My mother-in-law wouldn’t need me anymore if she was back. Hell, she’d probably throw me a parade. All I have to do is find the sister, and I’m safe. We’re safe; all of us.”
“I know,” Dee whispered, “but there are some pretty major obstacles.” Her throaty voice rose a little as she got more strident. “For one thing, the unicorn is gone. There’s not a single piece big enough to pick up without tweezers, and you don’t have anything else to use in its place. For another, even if you found An— the sister, how do you think the negotiation would go? Your psycho mother-in-law would attack on sight.”
“ . . . Bullshit like that is why I’m glad I’m not married, seriously, no matter what my mother says . . .” The stray thought drifted over to their table from a faux-redhead in black patent ankle boots. Jane suppressed a smile, but pressed her index finger over her lips anyway to remind Dee to keep her voice down.
“I know there are problems,” Jane whispered, and Dee snorted a laugh. “Okay, there are some huge, apparently insurmountable problems. But that doesn’t mean we should just totally ignore this massive opportunity that just landed in our laps, either. Obviously there’s no easy way to bring about this little family reunion, but if there’s any way at all I think we need to try.”
Dee ran long fingers through her tangle of black hair, looking pensive. “That makes sense,” she agreed finally. “So I guess we just have to start at the beginning and worry about the next problem when it comes up. Which means, first things first, we have to replace the unicorn.”
“I was thinking about that,” Jane admitted excitedly, feeling a bit of a flush rise on her cheeks. She had barely been able to think about anything else all afternoon. “Look, losing a child is a big deal for anyone, even if they’re pretty thoroughly evil, right? I mean . . . my mother-in-law is soulless, but I bet she’s still a little sentimental, too. She still lives in the same house as when An— I mean, her daughter, died. Her daughter had her own room there, and all of her clothes and toys and things. And it’s not like they would have ever needed the space for anything else in a mansion that size, so maybe her room is still her room.”
Dee chewed slowly, her amber eyes far away. “It’s possible,” she said carefully. “I still have my access code for the staff entrance from when I was working on your wedding, and I bet they haven’t bothered to change it. No one ever thinks about the help.” She winked saucily, but Jane could see strain in her jaw. Her friend wasn’t nearly as confident as she was letting on.
“Absolutely not,” Jane told her firmly. She appreciated Dee’s willingness to help, but she had already considered and rejected that option as a million times too dangerous. “The moment my mother-in-law or her cousins got near you, they’d know everything that you know.” Jane tapped her temple meaningfully. Dee would never intentionally give up Jane’s secrets, she knew, but that didn’t mean a whole lot around a family full of mind-readers. “And don’t forget who was with me when we first met,” she reminded Dee. Lynne had spent the entire meeting barking orders at Dee’s boss and completely ignoring the bride-to-be and the baker’s assistant, but when Dee had asked Jane about Gran’s ring, Lynne’s full attention had turned toward them. “She would probably recognize you if she saw you; her mind is like one giant ‘Contacts’ file.” Dee’s face fell. Jane pressed her fingertips together on the table. She knew she had covered all the angles, but the next part was still going to be a tough sell. “I’m going. I know the house, they can’t ‘hear’ me coming, and I’ve got some . . . special skills, just in case.”
“You can’t be serious,” Dee snapped, leaning away from their table. She glanced around and then leaned back in, clearly wishing that they were somewhere private enough to yell. “You think that the solution to your little dilemma is to shove your head into the lion’s mouth?”
“It’s my head I’m trying to save,” Jane pointed out reasonably. “It should absolutely be mine that I risk. And if it works—”
“No,” Dee told her flatly, reaching into her studded denim purse. “I’m calling Harris. If he can’t talk sense into you, at least maybe he can help me lock you in your room or something. Oh!” Her eyes lit up. “He would go. Jane, he would absolutely go into the house and look around for you if we ask. And he’s been there before, he’s part of their social—”
Jane glared at the cell phone that Dee was beginning to dial, and it jumped out of her kitchen-calloused hands. It lay on the table between them like an accusation, a tiny curl of smoke rising from the battery compartment.
“Jane,” Dee whispered, “did you just blow up my phone?”
Jane opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Dee covered her mouth with a long-fingered hand,
and after a moment, Jane saw that her shoulders were shaking slightly. A smile tugged at the corner of Jane’s lips, and within moments, the two women were laughing so hard that nearly the entire line of patrons had turned to stare.
“I didn’t mean to,” Jane admitted when she had her giggling more or less under control. “I was just trying to move it—I guess I need more practice.”
Dee nodded faux-seriously. “Just don’t go trying to ‘move’ any people until we do a little more work, okay?” She tapped at her dead cell phone with one unpolished fingernail, the half-moon at its base glowing against her tawny skin. “So that was a ‘no’ to the calling-Harris idea.”
“It’s not like I’m about to go running headlong into the mansion,” Jane explained lamely. “You don’t need to be that worried yet. And he does know that house a little, I guess, and he’s harder to ‘read’ than you, but not by that much. Not by enough.” Harris’s mind was more protected than most because of his magical blood, but he didn’t even have as much of that protection as Malcolm or Charles, and Jane had managed to read both of their thoughts at one point or another. Surely Lynne and the twins would make short work of Harris if he were caught, and Jane couldn’t stomach the thought of what they would do next. She spun the salt shaker around on the wooden tabletop, trying to put her thoughts into words. “Obviously we need a plan. But Harris isn’t the answer here, so we shouldn’t drag him into it.”
Dee nodded briskly, removing the salt shaker from Jane’s reach. After a brief hesitation, she moved the pepper, as well, and then the sad, still-smoking cell phone. Jane, left with nothing handy to fidget with, rested her hands awkwardly on her thighs. Dee cleared her throat, and Jane looked up expectantly. “So. We need someone who Ly— Who no one in the house will recognize. We need someone who either doesn’t know why they’re really there, or whose mind is protected. It would also be nice if they’d been in the house before, so they don’t waste all their time on places that obviously aren’t the room they’re looking for. Or, if not, then they should be someone that the people in the house expect to see there, so they don’t have to hurry back out again.”
The Dark Glamour Page 5
