She closed her eyes again, memories of that day flowing through her as vivid as if they happened yesterday. “It’s stupid, but when I put that necklace on and laid by his grave, I thought I could bring him back, if only for a few seconds, and talk to my baby brother again. I wanted to let him know I love him and that I was so, so, sorry.”
Dino pulled her close as hot tears streamed down her cheeks. She smelled his sweat and the leather of his jacket. The rise and fall of his chest was like a lullaby she could listen to forever. Only minutes ago, they’d argued. Now, she could fall asleep just listening to his heartbeat.
“If you could find a way to trade places, you would,” he said. “No matter what it would take. No matter the price and no matter what anyone said.”
She lifted her head from his chest. “Who was she?”
His jaw tightened. Nearly a minute passed before he spoke. “The Assembly had gotten old and bloated on power. They didn’t expand the city fast enough, and soul piled upon soul until only the wealthiest could afford room to breathe. And here comes this new archduke, promising a room for every soul and an Afterlife to believe in. What miserable soul wouldn’t flock right to his arms?”
“Did you?”
“No,” he snorted. “I was miserable, but I had her. She never wanted to fight in any war, so we stayed out of the Revolution until a winner walked out of the dust. The archduke took his seat, and practically the next day, things started changing. Using the sinners, he confiscated the old money and gave it to the people. He sent his blackjackets to the outer districts to keep order while others began construction of new homes for new souls. And for it all, he simply wanted one thing in return.”
“Loyalty?” Amber asked.
Dino smirked and looked out the window at the twinkling city. “That was expected. No, the archduke wanted relics. Nothing else mattered to him. Bring him a relic, any relic, no matter how powerful, and he could make you one of the landed gentry overnight. We needed money. Zoe didn’t mind being poor, but I saw how she looked at the nicer townhomes and big apartments in the inner districts. I knew where she really wanted to live. So, I started hunting relics and selling what I found in the Deep Market.”
“The Deep Market? Sounds mysterious.”
“There’re no factions in the Deep Market, just souls looking to make it rich or play with power. For me, it worked well for awhile. I started small enough, trading trinkets me and my men found scouring the Deep’s fringes. When the cash started flowing, we went deeper, got braver, took bigger risks.
“It’s hard to remember exactly what the Deep’s like once you leave it, but on my last trip, we went far. Really far. For days. Some of my men didn’t make it back. But I did, and I brought something with me I knew would make me rich. And it did. Faye wanted it. Wilhelmina wanted it. And the archduke wanted it.”
He laughed and shook his head. “The archduke offered so much money for it, Amber. So much. How could I refuse? It’d get me a nice place in Angel Park and then some!”
Amber swallowed. She sat up and looked to him. “What was this relic he wanted so badly?”
“You know it. You’ve seen it.” Dino squeezed his fists and shut his eyes. “I sold the archduke the most powerful relic this city’s ever seen. It was a mask, white, and shaped like a simple skull. It gave the soul who wears it power like nothing anyone had ever seen before, but it also made him a monster. It made him Bone Man.”
So much about Dino started making sense then. Suddenly the man had depth, layers she never saw—or refused to see—before. He blamed himself for Bone Man’s murders, like she blamed herself for Toby’s death.
“The archduke ordered everyone involved dead,” he continued. “Guess he didn’t want anyone to know how Bone Man truly came about. One by one my men disappeared. Gone, and all because of me. I had no clue what was going on. How could I? I was drunk and celebrating day and night. I could barely remember my own name half the time. Bone Man came for me last. At least, he tried to.” He cleared his throat and looked down.
“Zoe stopped him,” he murmured. “She found out. She was coming to warn me when he killed her. I remember everything. The casino. The rain on my cheeks. Laughing. Seeing her face. Seeing his come behind it. Her scream. Her dust.”
“I’m so sorry, Dino. You had no way of knowing what would happen.”
He snorted and shook his head. “Zoe did. She was a fireball, and there were hardly any spirits better than her in all of Afterlife. She saw what was coming, and she must’ve known warning me doomed her. She still did it. Damned woman loved me for some reason. Now she’s dust. She’s dust because of me, and everyone else who’s died by Bone Man’s hand is dead because of me.”
“Dino—”
“It was my fault, Amber. I don’t need to be a spirit to know what you were about to say. I went to the Deep. I found the mask. I sold it to the archduke. If anyone in the Fool’s Errand or the Scarlet Sinners, or hell, anyone in Afterlife at all ever found out I made Bone Man, I’d be dust too. Faye’s the only one who knows the truth, and she keeps it a secret as long as I’m useful to her ends. She keeps my secret. I do what she says, get a safe place to stay. Honestly, I’d happily be dusted, but the Fool’s Errand is my only chance to get close enough to Bone Man to kill him. I’ll be her lapdog if it means I get a chance to see him crumble.”
He sighed, and it was like a great weight lifted from his shoulders. She rested her hand on his back and sat quietly beside him. There was so much anger in Dino. It oozed from his pores, despite how he stuffed it deep inside him. And yet, for the first time since they’d known one another, she actually believed this was the real, unvarnished Dino Cardona.
“I may not be one of Faye’s true fools, but I do want to right my wrongs, and I need you to do it.” He slipped a hand into his shirt and pulled out a chain. On it a simple gold ring hung, glittering in the room’s light. “This is all I have left of her. I haven’t taken it off since he took her from me. I’m afraid if I do, I might become that old Dino again. I’d never….” He swallowed and stuffed the ring behind his shirt. “I can’t let that happen.”
“You’re not that same person, Dino.”
“I’m not.” He laughed and stood. “But it’s high time things started changing around here. I want you to trust me. Not the Fool’s Errand. Not Faye. Me.”
He headed for the door and swung it open, motioning into the hall. “Care to keep up, Ms. Blackwood? I know you can.”
“It’s late. Do we really need to go?”
“I don’t, but you do. You need to see this. Now.”
Amber frowned and rocked from her seat, padding across the carpet and slipping through the door as it swung closed. She followed Dino to a side stairwell, and they took it down one flight after another after another until they reached the bottom floor. There he turned to her and grinned, walking to a bare concrete wall. “You’ll have to use your phantom curse for this. Guess it’s good you already know how.”
Before she could answer, his body erupted into mist and slipped through a hairline fracture in the wall. Amber glanced behind her one last time, and becoming mist, followed him through.
On the other side, she reformed in a dark space. A light blinked on along the wall, Dino jerking the chain beneath it. A room appeared, narrow and bare, but several stories tall and capped by a ceiling with exposed, dripping pipes.
He motioned down the hallway, walking quickly to another light that buzzed on as he pulled the chain. Amber followed, and this processes repeated many times until a line of lights lay behind her.
She faced a wall on which a simple and unassuming drape hung. Dino grabbed its folds and ripped it from its perch, and as it fell in billowy folds, it revealed the mirror behind it.
Amber sucked in her breath. “Is that…?”
“It is. Amber, you haven’t trusted me from the get-go. Maybe I haven’t been trustworthy. But here’re all my cards on the table. I’ve told you the truth about me and why I’m in the E
rrand. There’re very, very few mirrors left in Afterlife, thanks to the archduke, but this is one he hasn’t found. Faye doesn’t even know about this place. Wilhelmina doesn’t. Tonight I’ll bind it to the mirror we used to get to Afterlife. If you want to leave, you can go at any time.”
Amber stared at her reflection. Slowly, she approached it. The glass had that same eerie quality about it. She saw herself, but it wasn’t herself, and if she stepped any closer, she knew it would lash out and pull her through the worlds.
“If Faye even suspects I’m turning against her,” Dino said, “she’d put a contract out on me. I’d be hunted by every fool, sinner, and blackjacket in Afterlife.”
Amber pressed a fist against her chest and blinked at her likeness. “You’ll help me find him, won’t you?”
“I will.”
“But you need my help to kill Bone Man.”
“I do.”
Amber took a deep breath and nodded. She floated the drape over the mirror and faced Dino. “I think it’s time we stop playing around and start showing these fools and sinners and blackjackets we’re not their puppets anymore. What’s our next step?”
“I think it’s time we have a talk with the Scarlet Spider, don't you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Lessons
Mist whirled and swirled around Amber as her body faded into an ethereal fog. That mist flowed from the balcony in invisible trains, slipping through wrought iron railings capped by vibrant blossoms.
Invisible to all, she whisked through the crowd, carefully eyeing the blackjacket patrols marching through the streets. Down the road, one of the blackjackets dragged a woman onto the lane. His partners drew their swords as she screamed and begged for mercy.
The sword swung. Amber flinched and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, the blackjacket shook the dust from his blade and continued on patrol.
Once a city of intoxicating sight and sound, a pall had fallen over Afterlife. Souls kept their heads down. They darted quickly down the streets, keeping their voices low and conversations hushed.
Blackjackets marched everywhere. Down the lane. On the street corner. In the shops, hotels, and homes of Angel Park. A shadow had fallen over the city, and it wore Archduke black.
And here I am, the cause of it, not able to do a damned thing about it, she thought bitterly.
She exhaled as the park came into view and solidified beneath the shade of an elm. Her heartbeat thrashed in her ears as she pulled the veil of her hat as far as she could over her face. The pile of ribbons weighing the brim shadowed her features from prying eyes.
In all her years, she’d done many stupid things. But this might take the cake. She should just abandon Liam, vanish into the night and never reappear. She would be safer that way. He would be safer that way. But Amber knew it would leave him heartbroken, and she couldn’t stand the thought of leaving someone so kind scarred when she’d been the cause of so much hurt and pain already.
Liam lingered at the pool’s edge as he always did before their evening stroll. When she spotted him, she smiled, though her heart twisted at the thought of what came next. He noticed her approach and twirled toward her, flashing the toothy smile that warped the freckles splashed across his cheeks.
The breeze toyed with his golden hair. The park framed his broad, straight shoulders. He bowed deep, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come, what with the blackjackets swarming around town like a bunch of angry hornets. It’s dangerous for you to be out here alone. I might have convinced Frank once, but I’m not close to any others in the area.”
“It was worth the risk. Besides, I can take care of myself better than you think.”
He chuckled, pulling her closer. “I like a woman who’s not afraid. Come give me a kiss. Those lips are all I’ve been thinking about since we last saw each other.”
Liam pinched her veil and began to lift it from her face. She grabbed his wrist and gently pulled the lace down, smiling sadly. “Liam, I didn’t come here to kiss. I came here because you deserved to see me face-to-face when I told you. I … We can’t do this.”
His smile flattened, his hand falling from the veil. “What do you mean we can’t do this?”
“Like you said, it’s dangerous to be out here. Too dangerous. And for me, it won’t get any better. I can’t do this right now. Not only because I’ll put you in danger, but because we’re not right for each other, Liam. There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“But I’m willing to learn.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the fountain’s rim, where they took a seat beside one another. “Amber, I feel something with you I haven’t felt for anyone else since I came to the city. We have a connection. We have something real. Don’t deny it.”
He placed his hand over hers and squeezed. She smiled as best she could and slid her hand from beneath his. “Of course I feel something for you. You’re smart. You’re kind. You’re hot. God, you’re so, so hot. But I can’t do this right now. Once I find my brother, I might have to go, and where I go, you can’t follow. It’s not that I don’t want to, Liam. I just can’t.”
Liam swallowed and pulled his hand into his lap, his fingers curling into a tight fist. “So this is it then, after everything? After all I’ve taught you, all the risks I took to keep you safe, you’re just going to cut things off like it never mattered? Did it ever matter? Or were you just using me?”
“What? No I wasn’t using you at all! Liam, this has nothing to do with you. It’s got everything to do with me. That’s totally cliché, I know, but in this case it’s really true. I hope we can still be friends once things die down. I really do.”
She waited for his response. His knuckles whitened, then his fist relaxed. His gaze lifted to the park, and he glared in her eyes. “There’s someone else, isn’t there? Who is he?”
“There’s no other man, Liam.”
“Woman?”
Amber rolled her eyes. “No, Liam.”
“I thought we were perfect for each other. I taught you everything I know about the poltergeist curse. We were supposed to be more. But you just wouldn’t do it. I’m just not good enough for you. There was a reason you never told me where you lived. There was a reason you’d never come home with me. You were playing me the whole time, weren’t you?”
“Of course not. Things are complicated. I can’t do a relationship right now, no matter how much I might want to. I just can’t. And you’re an amazing guy, but I just don’t think you’re right for me. You’ve got a whole entire city. I know there’s someone in it for you.”
He slapped his hands down and strummed his fingers on the fountain’s stone lip. “There is someone else, I know it. Or are there a few? I knew you were a whore when I saw you. Thought you’d be easier to take, though. Must not make enough money for you, do I? Your other clients pay you a pretty penny don’t they? How else can someone so new to the city afford those clothes and a place in Angel Park?”
“Excuse me? I am not a hooker. How dare you!”
“Oh shut up. You’re just like all the other call girls in town. Just some cheap slut who picks an easy mark and tries to take him for all it’s worth. What’s wrong? Find out I’m not rich enough? I only paid six coins. How much does it usually take to get into your room? Another six? I could scrounge up eight or so, but you’re probably not worth much more. A girl like you probably has already gotten a lot of use.”
Amber slapped him hard across the face. Her racing heart deafened her to her own thoughts, and the world took on a red tinge. Her hands trembled so hard she balled them into fists and lurched to her feet. “I can’t believe you’d say something like that!”
Hot tears of rage welled in her eyes. She wiped her face and marched away. Amber lifted her chin and blinked away the tears. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Every kind word he said, every gentlemanly gesture he made, it had all been a thin veneer disguising the self-absorbe
d child he truly was. To think they had shared a kiss that she actually cherished. Now the thought of it soured in her stomach.
“You know I was trying to get you to take me to your place,” he said. “After I had my way with you, I was going to turn you in to the blackjackets. I know they want you. Whatever you’ve done, it’s bad. They’ll give me more than six coins for turning you in, that’s for sure!”
Amber closed her eyes and continued walking down the path, trying her best to keep her footsteps measured.
“You’re just going to walk away?” he called. “I could have you killed! I’ll do it! I swear!”
She breathed through her nose and continued.
“Don’t just walk away from me!”
A force lashed her ankle and jerked, sending her crashing to the ground. Amber’s hands slammed against the rocky path, the stones cutting into her palms, her dress tearing at the knees. His will pressed onto her back, weighed her, forced her closer to the ground.
“I’m not done with you yet, Amber!”
A ball of rage erupted in her heart. Her will exploded from her and smashed against the man. His weak hold shattered, and she spun around in time to see him crash into the fountain in a spray of water.
Amber wobbled to her feet. She pulled the six coins from her pocket and hurled them at the fountain. “How dare you!”
Souls strolling through the park slowed at the commotion. Curious stares shifted toward the sound disturbing the tense night. The ball of Amber’s rage cooled under the weight of those eyes. Instead of doing all the things she knew she could do to make him suffer for the stunt he just pulled, her body twisted into a smoky trail, and she raced as fast as she could from the fountain.
“Amber?” He called, flopping from the water like a fat fish. “Where did you go?” Liam looked frantically around the park. “Amber! Come back, please!”
She shuddered, tears once again threatening to spill. Instead of letting them fall, she shook them away and sped through the park, flying as fast as she could from the fountain she never wanted to see again.
Afterlife (Second Eden #1) Page 24
