Then Conn asked, “Why are you painting the portrait in oils?”
My fingers paused. There were several ways to answer that question. I switched my brush for a thinner one, making a fuss over the selection, stalling for time.
“You could have chosen something else,” he said. “Acrylics, watercolors, Conté crayons.”
I teased, “You’ve been studying again, haven’t you?”
“Or fingerpaints. Why not fingerpaints?”
“You’re not a fingerpaints kind of person.”
“Hmm,” he mused. “But I’m the oils kind.”
“Oh, yes.”
“What does that mean? To you.”
I set down my brush and turned away from the canvas to look at him. I was arrested by his gaze, entranced by it as fully as painting entranced me. The words flowed out of me before I could stop them. “I used to be afraid of painting with oils. It’s risky. Easy to make a mistake, hard to correct it. They’re expensive—no, it’s more than that. They feel expensive, like I’m squeezing my blood out of those tubes. But when I see oil paintings by great artists I know that they felt that way, too, and that it was worth it.”
“Why?”
“Because it shines with light even when the paint is dry. It gleams like a jewel. It’s treasure.”
Conn eased himself off the bed. His lips parted.
Then we heard the distinct sound of sauce spattering onto the stove.
“Yikes.” I dashed into the kitchen, muffled my hand in a towel, and pulled the pan off the hot plate and onto the cutting board. I was grateful for the interruption. I felt a sharp certainty that that stupid oils speech was enough heart-on-sleeve wearing for the rest of the evening—for the rest of my life, even. “It’s too hot.”
Which wasn’t such a bad thing, since the steam from the sauce could be a plausible reason for the blush burning in my cheeks.
“Let me.” Conn fiddled around with some wacky-looking knobs on the stove and transferred the pan back to the hot plate. The sauce began bubbling again, but gently. “What now? I await your orders.” He smirked, and I was glad—glad that he was striking a lighthearted tone, glad that if I’d made a fool of myself he was overlooking it.
“Well.” I was still flustered. “Spices always go in last, but I didn’t see any dried spices in the cabinet, so—”
“Ah. I forgot.” He opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a bunch of basil tied with string.
“Shred it, all of it, and put it in the sauce. We’ll put the pasta on to boil, and eat in ten minutes.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“It’s a good time for a break, anyway. The paint needs to dry before I add the next layer.” Something made me add, “I’ve painted my friends with oils, too, you know. Lily and the boys.”
“Oh,” he said, and fell silent.
And stayed silent, even when he spooned the pasta and sauce onto two mismatched plates.
We both sat on the floor this time. The pasta was simple but perfect, and piping hot. I was so eager to eat that I burned my tongue. After two months of drinking water and stealing the occasional cinnamon roll, it was amazing to eat a real meal. To bite. To taste different flavors in my mouth. To swallow and feel heat radiating through me. “Mmm,” I said.
“It’s delicious. How did you do that?”
“You did it.”
His eyelids lowered in a skeptical, be-serious way. It was a little too scary, though, to be serious with Conn. Like talking about painting. Art is so much a part of who I am, so close to the very essence of me, that it always makes me show things I’m not sure I’m really ready to show.
But since I couldn’t think of any not-serious topic, I ate in silence, and so did he. When we finished, Conn took my empty plate, stacked it on his own, and tilted his head toward the canvas. “Back to work?”
I nodded. We settled again into our triangle: Conn, the canvas, and me.
I used a thinner brush this time, dabbing on paint with short strokes that made a push-pat, push-pat sound. Dark ochers filled out the planes beneath Conn’s cheekbones. A mix of blues and browns blurred into the hollows under his sleepless eyes. A touch of crimson brought out the warmth of his skin.
I had to use my finest brush for his lips, which were thin yet exquisitely defined. I held my breath for this part, trying to keep my hand steady, steady. Then I made the mistake of glancing at him. I had only meant to look once and look away, but I couldn’t. I was hypnotized by the memory of his mouth on mine.
My fingers shook, and the brush wavered across the canvas.
I swore.
“What’s wrong?” Conn asked.
“I made a mistake,” I growled. The painted line of the mouth had gone wrong, had sloped and wiggled. Frustrated, I rummaged through my box for a palette knife and used it to scrape paint off the canvas, clearing away as much as I could of my error.
Conn started to get up.
“No!” I said. “Don’t. I don’t want you to see.”
“Okay, but can I do something?”
“Of course not. What could you possibly—” I broke off. This wasn’t Conn’s fault. It was mine, for looking. Mine, for not looking away. Mine for trembling to my very core. I focused on the blotch on the canvas, trying to squeeze my feelings into something small, something I could easily hide. “Do you have a rag, or a shirt I can use?” I asked in a calmer tone. “Whatever you don’t mind me ruining.”
Conn went to the closet, swept aside a few hanging shirts, and tossed an IBI jacket onto the floor.
That startled me out of my anger. I raised one brow.
“I have others,” he said.
“It was the way you did it.”
He returned to the edge of the bed as I dipped the jacket sleeve into the can of turpentine, wrapped it around the end of my brush, and dabbed at my mistake.
He said, “I’m going to quit after New Year’s Eve.”
What was left of the wiggled line slowly faded. The mistake hadn’t been as bad as I’d feared, and I could blend what was left of it into the natural shadow at the corner of Conn’s mouth. Carefully, I said, “Are you really sure that you want to quit? It seems like this job has been important to you for a long time.”
He shrugged. “People change.”
“One thing’s for sure: you’re seriously slacking. You haven’t even asked me for my report.”
“Right.” He rubbed his eyes. “There was Kellford … and then, I guess I was just having a good time. I didn’t want to … pump you for information, and—”
“See? You’re slipping. Well, there are only two things you need to know: one, Meridian and her pals are training themselves to handle fire, and two, Zephyr, the leader of the Society, and most of the Shades have managed to quash terrorist plots against humans since Ravenswood, and they are going to demand full citizenship. Equal rights with humans.”
“I find both very hard to believe. Fire makes Shades insane. It’s an instinctive, primal fear. You—” he glanced at me.
“Yeah, I know. It unhinges me. But I’ve gotten used to it, a little.”
He continued, “As for Shades wanting equality with humans, that’s a fairy tale. The Society has never valued human life or human anything. There haven’t been any attacks since Ravenswood, true, but that’s because of the IBI’s vigilance.”
“Savannah said that’s what the IBI would think.” I set aside the turpentine-soaked IBI jacket. “Why is it so hard to believe that the Society—well, most of the Society—wants a truce? It’s not like it’s in our DNA to hate humans. I don’t.”
Conn loosely folded his hands and rubbed a thumb against the opposite palm. “You’re the reason I want to quit.”
“Me?”
He looked up. “The Society is the IBI’s enemy. You’re a Shade. I can’t … I can’t handle being part of something that makes you my enemy.”
I almost reached across the short distance between us. “Then don’t. Don’t be a part of it. But you d
on’t have to quit the IBI. You could change it.”
“Change it?” Conn said incredulously. “Change the way the IBI feels about Shades? What the IBI feels is pure, cold, unadulterated hatred. I know. I’ve felt it. And you think I could wish that away from the hearts of hundreds of people? I don’t have that kind of power, Darcy.”
Part of me couldn’t believe I was trying to convince Conn to stay in the IBI, yet I still said, “You could try.”
“Impossible.”
“Consider it,” I insisted. “You said you would do anything I asked, tonight.”
Conn grew quiet. “I’ll consider it.”
I’d said those same words earlier, when I promised to think about taking Conn as backup to meet John Kellford, but I hadn’t meant them. Conn, though, wasn’t me. There was an earnest set to his jaw that made me believe him, and so I raised my brush and tried to paint that expression into his face—something daunted … and yearning.
My brush slowed, stroked the contours of his face as I wondered if I was painting what I saw, or what I wanted to see. It was hard to know, as hard as it would be to say, I’m not your enemy, but I need to be more than that, more than your friend, and more even than that, and more, and more. It was easier to paint and not talk, and not look at him again. I began to rely completely on my memory of his face. A silence grew, one so solid and looming that it seemed larger than us.
I left Conn’s eyes for last. They weren’t gray or green or blue but somehow all three, and yet none of them. I doubted I could do it. I couldn’t capture the light and fragility of his eyes.
Still, I painted.
Then it happened: recognition. It flared inside me, and when I stared at the canvas I saw that I had painted the right color. I had no name for it. But I had found it.
I tore my gaze away from the canvas and dared to look at Conn. Yes, it was true.
My heart was a cage that swung wide open, and I saw, I knew.
“Darcy?” he asked softly. “What is it?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.” I wiped my brushes on the IBI jacket and packed them in their box.
“You’re finished?”
I avoided his gaze. “For now.”
“You’re not leaving, are you?”
Then I did look at him. “You’re tired,” I said, and he was. Beneath the unreadable emotions rippling across Conn’s face was weariness, the kind of bone tiredness that comes from many nights without sleep. “You should go to bed.”
“I am in bed.”
“Conn.” I closed the paintbox. “You should go to sleep.”
He stood, took two steps, and drew aside the canvas and stool. I stood, too, so that he couldn’t tower over me and make me feel smaller than I already felt. Yet that didn’t change the way Conn gazed down at me. That didn’t change how inescapable he suddenly seemed. “All right,” he said. “I will. But I want my one thing from you.”
I paused, and wondered how something I longed for could be so terrifying. My heart thrummed in my throat.
“I’ll go to sleep,” he said, “if you stay.”
“What—what do you mean?”
“Stay with me.”
His hand slipped to my waist. Nestled there, large and warm, his fingertips touching the skin of my spine below the edge of my shirt.
Somehow I said yes, and somehow our feet slow-danced to the bed, somehow the lamp switched off and I lay tight against the heat of Conn’s body in the dark, feeling the scratch of his sweater against my face, smelling the wool of the blanket pulled over us, and the sweet piney scent of crushed basil rising from Conn’s hands as he stroked my hair away from my cheek. His hand slid down my back, and I bit my lip against the feeling. He gathered my hair into a rope and gently held it. “You’ll stay?” he asked. His breath fluttered against my throat.
“I will,” I whispered.
Conn’s cheek grazed across mine, and his lips hovered close for a second, only a second before my heart kicked with fear and I pulled away.
I remembered. Conn holding a knife. Broken glass handcuffs, and my hands full of fire. Him shoving me onto the bed.
I turned away from him, onto my other side. I would have slipped from the mattress, but Conn’s arms held me, drew me to him so that my back pressed against his chest and his knees were tucked up underneath mine. “Darcy, please listen.” I felt his words against the nape of my neck. “When I came over to your house to finish our project, I didn’t know what to do. My orders were clear: I was supposed to arrest you the moment I saw an opportunity. But I couldn’t imagine doing it. I had begun … dreaming about you, when I was able to sleep. Dreaming about you, even when I was awake. When you kissed me, it was like you had ripped the world away and all that was left was the only thing I wanted. And that was the moment I decided. That was the moment I betrayed you. Because the intensity of what I felt scared me.” There was a long pause. “Please forgive me.”
I sighed. I said, “I forgive you.” But forgiveness doesn’t heal everything.
“Don’t leave.” His arms tightened.
“I won’t,” I promised. My eyes traced the shape of his small apartment, saw through the window that the snow outside was coming down hard now, reflecting the city light so that it glowed into the dark room.
Conn’s body relaxed. I felt him burrow his face into my hair and breathe deeply, breathe me in. Then his breaths grew longer, and slower, and deeper. His arm became heavy around me. A lovely weight.
He was asleep.
My eyes found the unfinished painting resting against the stool in the snowy light cast by the window. Anybody who saw that painting would see. They would see what I saw. They would know what I knew.
I loved Conn.
There were many reasons not to. They didn’t matter. They crumbled like sand under a wave.
Then why wasn’t it enough? Why was I still afraid?
Maybe, some part of me whispered, you’re afraid of yourself. Of what Conn might do when you do something unforgivable, something that won’t let him forget what you are.
I remembered what I’d said to him, You think I had something to do with Ravenswood.
He’d denied it, and he could have meant it, but as I lay in his arms I realized that I thought I had something to do with Ravenswood, that I was almost sure of it, and if I hadn’t found evidence to that effect it was because I’d been asking the wrong questions. Why hadn’t I asked Savannah if she knew something about a dead girl in 1997? I could have come up with a reason to ask that, even if it was a strange question. If Orion hadn’t been willing or able to tell me about the Shades who’d planned Ravenswood, why hadn’t I turned to Savannah for the truth, or even tracked down Zephyr?
I hadn’t wanted answers. I hadn’t wanted anything to tie me to Ravenswood. Yet John Kellford did. John Kellford, whom I recognized. Who had been kicked off the Vox Squad so soon after the attack.
Conn shifted in his sleep.
I had to talk with Kellford. I had to know.
Now.
I slowly turned so that I could see Conn’s face. His closed eyes with their dark lashes. His mouth soft, somehow fuller with sleep. He seemed to stir, and his hand closed over my shoulder.
I vanished.
38
John Kellford lived in a three-bedroom apartment north of Conn’s place. I ghosted up to the top floor of the building and through Kellford’s apartment until I found the master bedroom, and him sleeping next to his wife.
My feet hit the floor, my body manifested by Kellford’s side of the bed, and I took stock of the room. Then I said, “Wake up.”
His wife made a small noise and rolled onto her side. Kellford slept soundlessly, his head tipped back on the pillow, his strong, brutal chin raised as if in defiance.
“Wake up.” I switched on a lamp.
Kellford winced against the sudden light, his wife murmured, and then Kellford’s eyes snapped open and he saw me. He jolted upright, head slamming back against the headboard. He swore and scramb
led for something in his nightstand drawer.
“Don’t bother,” I said, waving the flamethrower I’d taken moments before.
Now his wife was up. Her eyes went wide, and she sucked in her breath. Just before she screamed, Kellford clamped a hand over her mouth. “Laurie, no.” He glanced meaningfully at the door.
“The kids are sound asleep,” I said. “I took a peek at them a minute ago. You don’t want to wake them, right? Let’s keep things quiet.”
Laurie whimpered behind Kellford’s hand. Tears trickled down her cheeks and over his knuckles.
“They’re fine,” I said wearily. “I didn’t do anything to them.”
She made a muffled sob. She didn’t believe me.
I sighed. “Go check on them yourself. But Kellford’s staying with me, and don’t even think about calling the IBI, or…” I paused. I was a monster. What would a monster say? “I’ll kill him.”
Laurie glanced at her husband, who nodded. She burst from the bed and ran from the room, her bare feet pounding down the hall.
I was watching her go, but I still caught a glimpse of Kellford’s leg slipping from the covers, down to the floor, ready to spring. “Stop.” I pointed the flamethrower at him.
“You can’t use that,” he sneered. “You don’t have the guts to turn it on.”
“All I have to do is keep it away from you. I can do that.”
The fight didn’t go out of him, but it retreated. I had to hope things would stay that way. Despite what I’d boasted to Conn about facing Kellford on my own, I wasn’t ready for a Shade-versus-Human throwdown. But Kellford—beefy Kellford, with decades of IBI service under his belt, plus a talent for torture—probably was.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“I want to talk.”
He scoffed. “Right.”
Then we both heard it: the sound of the front door whining shut and several sets of feet clattering down the wooden staircase outside. Kellford relaxed, and his face grew bold.
I was a fool. I should have played the vicious Shade until the end and held his family hostage until I’d gotten what I’d come for. Now it was too late.
He stood up from the bed, broad and threatening.