The Dark Glamour

by Gabriella Pierce

  She stepped away from the door, and for a moment she considered blowing it off its hinges to confront André. Her anger sent fiery shoots of magic through her throat and hands, and she let the fury build, seeing an electric red tide rise behind her eyes.

  “You really can’t stay?” Anne asked. Her words were a bit clearer now. “I’ve got a friend coming in a few minutes; I’d love for you to meet her.”

  “That’s nice,” André muttered, and he sounded louder, as well. “But I’ve risked being late for my flight as it is.”

  “Of course,” Anne answered quickly, and from her muffled tone Jane guessed that she had ducked her head. “It was really nice of you to come by at all.”

  Jane heard footsteps approaching the door, and her body reacted instinctively. She ran as quickly and quietly as she could back to the main hall, all thoughts of a confrontation forgotten. Anne would never trust Jane if she attacked the girl’s “family” right at her threshold. And to keep him from warning Katrin that she was on to them, Jane felt sure she would have to kill André. She felt her body shaking with adrenaline by the time she reached the stairs, and hysterical tears replaced the sea of red in her vision. She could fight, but she couldn’t really win.

  Her feet flew down the stairs, but she could hear the door opening one flight up. She could hear their familiar voices more loudly now, and André would be able to hear her racing footfalls in another second, too. Her heart ready to explode, she risked a glance downward: the staircase was laid out in a fat, lazy spiral. The central opening was wide enough that she could clearly see the steps on the levels below. If he looked down once he reached the stairs, he would see her. She shook harder, nearly missing her footing on a slickly worn step. He can’t see me.

  She darted off the staircase at the next opportunity, but there was no door to close behind her. The one just to her left, however, had no number on it, and, sure that she could hear his shoes on the staircase, she shoved her now-wild magic into its lock and then wrenched back hard. The door swung open with a creak that sounded almost surprised, and Jane leaped into the tiny electrical closet it had been concealing, dragging it magically shut behind her.

  It was dark inside, and she nearly screamed out loud when the bare bulb screwed into the ceiling glowed to life. But she could feel what was happening easily enough: she had too much magic and too much fear and too much anger in her system all at once, and that usually ended only one way.

  André’s footsteps were just passing her floor. She held her breath, but she heard a fuse pop into uselessness behind her back, and then another. Loud cursing came from somewhere farther down the hall, and André stopped on the stairs.

  Please, just go, she wanted to scream. But as she thought it, her magic knocked out both the light above her head and the ones in the hallway outside. It was completely dark; no more light filtered in from under the door. And André wasn’t moving.

  She squeezed her eyes shut so hard that tears welled up, but she couldn’t stop the chaos in her heart. She could feel the smooth wall of nothingness that was André just steps away from her, and she tried so hard to break through it that she thought she might accidentally push him down the stairs instead. She shuddered, killing another fuse with a sickening pop.

  Just when she thought she might completely lose it and burn the place down, André began to move again, and Jane slumped first against the wall behind her, and then down to the ground. She stayed there for a long, long time after she was sure he must be gone.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  So they’re just playing every game that exists, Jane thought somberly once she was finally back in her hotel room. She had to almost admire the Dalcascus. In spite of being less overtly powerful than Lynne and her clan, they had a kind of enterprising spirit that would have been impressive if it werent so terrifying. After all, they had brought down Lynne’s dynasty with one stroke, and now were looking to cash in on that, twenty-two years later, by allying with her. That was the kind of strategy best handled by experts.

  Jane wriggled out of the Karen Millen cape she had picked up to keep away the drizzle and flung it unceremoniously onto a tapestry-covered love seat. A damp puddle spread slowly from its black-and-tan folds, but Jane ignored it and stomped down the hall.

  I can’t believe I nearly told her.

  Anne might have believed her about the Dorans—she might have even been willing to come to New York with her. But there was no way she would have taken such a major step in her life without alerting the people she obviously felt closest to in the world . . . André and Katrin. And considering that the Dalcascus had been keeping Anne away from Lynne for quite some time, there was no way they would let mother and daughter be reunited . . . especially not now, when they were so close to the “merger” they had been working on for months. They needed Lynne to stay just weak enough to need them. Their hunt for Jane herself was further proof of that.

  She stopped at her little kitchenette and turned on the flame below a sleek silver kettle. The water seemed to take forever to boil, but Jane watched the kettle without moving a single muscle until clear steam began to curl out of its spout. She reached into the cupboard for a leaf-green mug, but nearly knocked it to the ground with her still-trembling hands. She finally got it upright on the granite counter, set a teabag inside, and filled it halfway with hot water. After a moment’s careful staring at her hands, she dug a flight-size bottle of bourbon out of the minibar and emptied it into the mug. She continued down the hall to her bedroom, holding her drink in both hands and feeling the warmth of it seep into her flesh.

  What would happen, she wondered, if the Dalcascus did find Jane Boyle? If they thought they could use her somehow—or that they might be able to sometime in the future—they might just erase her memory the way she knew now they had done with Annette’s, and then stash her somewhere “just in case.” Or they might just kill me outright.

  Time was running out for her. There were only nine days left of the Forvrangdan orb’s power at the most, and she wasn’t sure that it would even last that long. She had narrowly avoided an open war with the Romanian clan by not confronting André, but that reprieve would expire as soon as her disguise did. There wasn’t a manhunt on for Ella . . . but the one for Jane was already well under way.

  She stopped in front of the full-length mirror that covered the closet door. Standing an arm’s-length away at first, then with her nose just inches from the glass, she inspected her face. Broad cheekbones. Pink bow of a mouth. Long black eyelashes. She stared and stared, until she had to admit that she wasn’t entirely sure anymore what she was looking for. Her new face and her old one felt equally unfamiliar, and at the same time equally normal. It was impossible to tell if her looks were changing, and she turned away from the mirror in disgust.

  Her almond-shaped eyes filled with tears. She took a long drink of her amber-colored tea, but didn’t taste it. Her plan had seemed like a wild-goose chase at first, but as more and more pieces had clicked into place, she had gotten more and more confident. I thought I was making the impossible happen, she sighed miserably, but I was just getting lucky. She sank down onto her bed, wishing that the squishy mattress would swallow her whole, and curled up into a little ball.

  There was no way in with Anne, she knew: nothing foolproof to convince her to trust a stranger over the people she had trusted her entire life. No one would agree to that without at least talking to their surrogate family about the accusations, and certainly no one as emotionally dependent on them as Anne had seemed to be.

  I wish I hadn’t found her, she thought, burying her face in her starched pillowcase. She would have been better off taking the head start that Malcolm had tried to give her, resigning herself to a life on the run. After everything she had done, she was right back where she’d started. And it felt even worse than it had a month ago.

  She propelled herself upward with her palms and rolled off the bed and onto her feet, taking another generous sip of her spiked tea for go
od measure. There was no point in staying in London anymore; there was nothing she could possibly accomplish there. She hauled her navy suitcase out of the closet and began throwing in clothes by the armload. “Even a fake baroness really doesn’t need this many shoes,” she muttered angrily as she tried unsuccessfully to stuff a knee-length black boot in next to its mate. Everything had fit just fine on the way from New York, but she had also been a lot less upset when she had packed the first time around. With a hiccupping sob of a sigh, she dumped everything out onto the carpet and began again, rolling and folding and angling each item as carefully as she could manage through the tears that were finally starting to fall.

  So I go back. And then . . . and then . . . And then nothing that she could think of, she admitted with a regret that bordered on nausea. She had nine days left as Ella, and she would have to keep being Ella for all of them. And after that she would have to go back to being Jane—or, more realistically, Amber Kowalsky or one of the other names on the passports Malcolm had given her, until she could get some fresh ones of her own.

  She felt even sicker when she thought of her daring plan of staying in New York—right under Lynne’s nose, she had gleefully thought at the time. It was certainly true, but now there was nothing gleeful about the idea. It was just plain reckless; it had been from the beginning. She had been reveling in risking her neck because of some far-fetched theory that she might somehow take down the formidable witch who held all the cards. Jane, an orphan just barely scratching the surface of her own power, wasn’t some scrappy underdog who was about to shock the world by turning the tables. She was just an underdog. Sooner or later, Lynne would find her and put her down.

  She surveyed the room; there was nothing left to do at all except book herself on the next flight back to New York. She was sure, though, that that wouldn’t be until morning . . . and in the meantime she would just have to begin her useless waiting right where she was. She sat down heavily on the bed again, then reached over and dialed the front desk. She told the crisp British accent on the other end that she would be checking out in the morning. He assured her briskly that he understood and then clicked off, leaving her with a buzzing dial tone.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Jane stared around Ella’s now-familiar suite at the Lowell Hotel. Everything was just where she had left it, although the sharp corners of the linens and total absence of dust confirmed that housekeeping had been busy while she was gone. A blank-faced bellhop arranged her navy suitcase on a stand in the bedroom, then ducked out again before Jane had the time to remember that Americans usually tipped for things like that.

  She sighed and flipped her gold Vertu open, pressing the ceramic power button lightly. To her surprise, when the screen glowed to life, it informed her that she had three messages waiting, the first one more than two days old. After staring at the date for a moment, Jane realized that she must not have bothered to get any kind of international plan with her fancy new phone. She rolled her eyes and tapped the keys to play back the messages, hoping she hadn’t missed anything urgent. The middle one was from Elodie (who obviously did have international roaming), but the other two were from Dee.

  I should just go back to the apartment, Jane thought fretfully as she listened to the first one. In it, Dee wondered where Jane was, told a funny-but-you-had-to-be-there story involving Kate and a piping bag, wondered where Jane was, again, and hung up. I can’t believe we’ve gotten so far apart . . . I didn’t even think to tell her I was leaving town.

  It was true: she had been so worn out after the second spell she had done to find Anne, then so preoccupied with André the next morning, that it hadn’t occurred to her to check in with her friend. She almost hung up immediately and called Dee back, but then she remembered the third message on her phone, and decided to finish them all first.

  “Hey, Ella,” Dee’s throaty voice began, as careful as it always was now that Jane was in disguise. “I’m not sure where you are—hopefully somewhere good—but I wanted to let you know I won’t be around this weekend. Harris’s folks invited us out to their place in the Hamptons. Can you believe I’ve lived in New York so long and never been? Anyway, back on Tuesday, and if I don’t hear from you by then I’m breaking into your hotel to look for clues. So call me, okay?”

  Jane ended the call and sat looking at her phone for a few silent minutes. In the hours since her frantic packing in London, her misery had faded into a sort of fragile numbness, and she found that she had no particular desire to call Dee, or not call Dee, or do anything at all, really. She had accepted that her instincts were only as good as her luck, and it felt like there was really no point in even making decisions anymore.

  I’m not going to call, she concluded eventually, closing her phone. It sounded like Dee was having a great time, and Jane didn’t think she could bear to bring her friend down . . . or, if she was being honest with herself, to hear about how wonderfully everything was going for her.

  “So now what?” she asked the empty room. Her voice sounded strange and hollow. Jane had never been one to just calmly accept her fate, and somewhere deep inside her something was screaming at the useless fatigue that had taken her over. She couldn’t do anything to fix her messed-up situation; that much was clear. But in her heart, she also knew she couldn’t sit in her room waiting to gather dust, either. If her original plan hadn’t worked out and she couldn’t think of another one, she would just have to push herself to do something—anything.

  As she reached to push her phone into her purse, something about her hand caught her attention. Didn’t I notice Ella’s nail beds at first? she wondered. She had, she decided: she could vividly picture the white half-moons glowing against the tawny skin that was just two shades lighter than the walnut of the rest of her hand. Now, though, the white semicircles were floating against a background that looked much more like the unremarkable pink Jane had known her entire life.

  I’ll go see Misty, she decided. She’ll be able to tell if it’s wearing off, or if I’m just getting too used to this body to tell it apart.

  She held her breath for a moment, waiting to feel a renewed sense of purpose once her decision was made. It didn’t come, but she made her legs move toward the bathroom anyway. After her long, dull flight, the needling hot water of the shower felt like heaven, and Jane let it run over her hair and body for considerably longer than she really needed to. Finally, though, she reached for the restocked Bulgari shampoo and conditioner and got serious about starting her day.

  She made it out of the hotel and into a cab without bursting into tears at the thought of her recent failure, and decided that pushing herself into action—any action—had been a very good idea. She paid and hopped out of the car when she saw the familiar black awning of Book and Bell, and almost smiled when she spotted Misty’s wild, bleached curls through the window.

  Five minutes later, Jane was installed in the back room with a paper cup of (bourbon-less) jasmine tea and Misty making sympathetic noises as she poured out everything that had happened in the week and a half since Jane had last been in the store. It felt more like a year.

  By the time she finished, Misty’s repertoire of noises had expanded to shocked, angry, and frightened, in addition to the sympathetic ones. She plucked Jane’s empty cup out of her hand and crossed the room to refill it while Jane sat, feeling inexplicably as if she were waiting for a judge’s verdict.

  “Well,” Misty said finally, and Jane straightened a little in her uncomfortable wooden chair. “I have a few things to say.” She folded her permanently tanned hands in her lap and looked expectantly at Jane, who took a gulp of her tea and nodded. “First—and I know you didn’t ask—but I think you’re jumping to conclusions about Dee.”

  Jane raised an eyebrow; whatever she had expected to hear, this wasn’t it. Then she remembered that it was Lynne Doran’s favorite facial expression, and forced the second eyebrow up to match it. Then she felt silly, relaxed her face, and said, “Please go on.”

/>   “Things are going well for her—amazingly well, under the circumstances,” Misty began, and Jane frowned a little; this, she knew. “But it’s the ‘under the circumstances’ part that she’s trying to get you to ignore when she tells you how great everything is. She knows you feel responsible for what happened back in March, and she’s afraid you’ll feel guilty, or get distracted by worrying about her. She’s not trying to throw anything in your face, Jane; she’s trying to show you there’s no reason for you to cut her out of your life . . . again.”

  “I didn’t—” Jane began, but that wasn’t true: she had. For three weeks after her disastrous wedding day, she had avoided Dee completely, and in the back of her mind, she had been gearing up to do it again now that her master plan had fallen through. “I put her in danger. I keep doing it,” she mumbled, and Misty shrugged.

  “She’s a big girl, my dear. She’s not going to run headfirst into a war zone, but she’s also not going to give you a reason to get all protective and drop her. Like you did with Maeve, and then with Harris.”

  Jane shook her head, but those were even more impossible accusations to deny. “Dee hasn’t told him about me, has she?”

  “Of course not.” Misty looked so shocked that Jane immediately felt guilty for even thinking it. “She’s doing the best she can—he’s still completely broken up over your disappearing act, you know. They came together because they didn’t know what to do after you left, and now one of them knows you’re back but has to pretend; can you imagine?”

  Jane couldn’t, and thousands of questions flooded her brain, but she bit them back. This was hardly the time for high-school-style crush drama, and Misty had already given her plenty to think about along those lines as it was. “Okay.”