Their routine was that Jonah would descend into the Flats by himself, with the rest of the slayers following at a safe distance. He’d stride along, trying to look like he was headed somewhere, which is amazingly hard to do when you’re not. Sometimes he’d walk down one side of the river, cross on one of the old iron bridges, and walk up the other side like he was lost. On a mission, going nowhere.
He probably looked like some kind of idiot tourist, ripe to get his wallet lifted. He almost hoped that would happen. An attempted mugging would at least give him something to do.
He’d walk the Warehouse District, too, though he was too young to get into some places. Sometimes, as he passed the open doorway of a crowded club, he caught a whiff of mischief, that mingling of rotting flesh and magic that meant hosted shades were nearby. He’d either lurk around the entrance, getting harassed by bouncers, or talk his way in, only to get harassed by the other patrons. He’d repeat over and over, “No, I don’t want a drink. I’m looking for a friend. No, I don’t mean I want to make friends; I’m looking for a friend I already have.”
Now and then, he heard a sound, or saw a flicker of movement that told him his shadows were nearby.
After hanging around by the river for a while, Jonah climbed the hill. He was just passing a jazz club when a voice spoke inside his head. Jonah. He caught a strong scent of magic, untainted by the scent of decay.
He turned, and a thirtyish stranger beckoned to Jonah and disappeared into the club. Jonah followed, pushing his way through the crowd, growling at those who tried to speak with him.
The stranger sat down at a table in the back and motioned for Jonah to join him. Warily, Jonah took a seat with his back to the wall and took a good, long look at his companion, a slickly handsome man with back-combed hair and a huge diamond ring on his pinkie. Hopefully, it wasn’t just another person hitting on him.
Then, on closer inspection, Jonah noticed that the stranger’s nose had been broken several times, and his skin was just a bit too sallow to be healthy.
You’ll have to order for us, Jonah, the stranger said, mind-to-mind. Speech is still complicated when you’re in a borrowed body. I sound like film dialogue being run at the wrong speed.
The silent voice, the rush of mingled resentment, disappointment, yearning, and hope—it was familiar.
“Brendan?” Jonah whispered, incredulous.
That’s me, Brendan said.
It was Brendan Wu, Kenzie’s friend who’d died at Safe Harbor four years ago. Now he seemed to be Lilith’s right-hand shade.
Brendan struck a pose. What do you think?
“I think you don’t look like yourself.”
Thank God, Brendan said, shuddering. Nobody wanted to be in my body, there at the end. Not even me.
“Whose body is that?”
I don’t know the specifics, Brendan said, but he was kind of a thug. I was high on drugs for the first week, and it seems to have an addiction to nicotine. But, otherwise, it’s in great shape, and it seems to have retained some street-fighting moves.
But Jonah was hung up on something Brendan had said. “For the first week? How long have you been...occupying this body?”
Brendan furrowed his brow, thinking. Going on a month.
“A month!” Jonah breathed in deeply. “And still fresh? How is that possible?”
That’s the advantage of blood magic, Brendan said. We believe that it might be an effective therapy for the living survivors of Thorn Hill as well as the dead. He leaned across the table. Imagine what it would be like if Kenzie was healthy, Jonah. For good.
Just for a moment that image pinwheeled through Jonah’s mind, a searing explosion of hope. With some effort, he forced it away.
Imagine what it would be like for you to be able to kiss a girl, Brendan whispered. To caress her skin. To—
Jonah raised his gloved hands. “I get the picture. I’m curious, though. How good is your sense of smell, of touch, of hearing? How well does a shade connect with a stolen body?”
Brendan shrugged. Not perfectly. He looked down at his hands. My skin feels numb. I have to be careful not to injure myself without realizing. Hearing and vision are probably the best.
“Can you eat?” Jonah said.
Brendan rocked his hand back and forth. If it’s the right consistency. Eating, like talking, is complex. It still sometimes goes down the wrong way, and tastes like sawdust.
As if on cue, the server drifted up. Jonah ordered for both of them.
We’re constantly learning more about how this all works, Brendan said, developing new methods to occupy a body with all systems intact. Now that we’re no longer bumbling around, we’re making faster progress. Lilith is a genius.
“That’s why I’m here. I want to meet with Lilith.”
This was met by a jab of bitter mirth. Oh, Jonah, Brendan said. That is so not going to happen. Why is it that you slayers always assume that we’re stupid? Is it the shambling? Or the stench? Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s what’s inside that counts?
Jonah opened his mouth to respond, but Jonah Kinlock, master of pretty speech, had nothing to say.
The sandwiches came, but neither one of them ate much. Jonah suspected that Brendan didn’t want to eat in front of him.
I used to envy you, Brendan said. You had such a perfect body, so strong and graceful. Sometimes, when I was younger, I’d go with Kenzie to the gym just to see what you could do. I envied Kenzie, too, because you were his brother, and you were devoted to him. But the one thing savants have never understood about shades is that we are survivors, too. I was ignorant before, but I was never arrogant. You, Jonah Kinlock, are arrogant.
That’s when it struck Jonah—an epiphany. This person across the table looked nothing like the Brendan Wu Jonah had known back at Safe Harbor—the frail Brendan, racked with intolerable pain, the one who yearned for the soothing cold of Antarctica. And yet, this man had Brendan’s moves, his way of tilting his head and peering at you from under his eyebrows. Jonah had been stung by Brendan’s sense of humor often enough to recognize it. This was Brendan Wu in all ways save for the body that had failed him. This was Brendan in every way that mattered.
He’d always sort of known it—it had been the basis of countless ethical debates with Gabriel. He’d argued that the shades they were riffing were real souls, and that riffing was real murder, no matter how hard you tried to pretty it up with a new name.
But he’d known it in a dispassionate, intellectual way. Was this why Gabriel wanted to avoid communication between shades and slayers? Was there too much of a risk that slayers would lose their taste for virtual blood?
Was this why the Safe Passage program, the preemptive riffing of dying savants, had been established? So these kinds of encounters wouldn’t happen? This way Jonah would never run into Mose Butterfield, their late great guitarist, and realize that everything that he loved about Mose was still there.
“You’re right,” Jonah said. “I am arrogant, and I’m probably guilty of whatever charge you want to lay on me. But where do we go from here? How do we resolve this? It’s not fair to kill innocent people so you can go on living.”
Is any mainliner really innocent? Brendan said. Don’t they all share responsibility for what happened at Thorn Hill, before and after the disaster?
“No,” Jonah said, thinking of Grace Moss. “They don’t.”
Fine, Brendan said. Whatever. With what we’re learning, maybe one day that will no longer be necessary. We won’t have to rely on cadavers—we’ll be able to possess a living body. Permanently.
“It seems to me like you’re trying to start a war. Us against you, mainliners against us, wizards against everyone who isn’t a wizard. How does that help you?”
Brendan said nothing for a long moment. Just looked at him, dead on.
And then it dawned on Jonah.
“That’s the point, isn’t it? A major magical battle will release enough blood magic to fuel a shade army for years.”
Brendan shook his head. A major magical battle will release enough blood magic to carry out the research that is needed to end this. That’s what we’re hoping for, anyway. And who better to pay a price than the ones who tried to murder us in the first place? And who now despise and discriminate against the survivors.
“So what do you need us for? Why not go it alone?” The subtext was, If you knew this was a trap, why did you show up?
First and foremost, we need Gabriel’s cooperation to pull this off, Brendan said. Second of all, we want to save you, too.
“Gabriel will never agree,” Jonah said. “Don’t expect us to sign on. There’s been too much bloodshed already.”
Says the deadliest assassin in Nightshade.
“Well, you’re catching up quick. Your kills aren’t exactly kind. A few more attacks like the one on Halloween, and maybe you’ll get the war you want.”
Jonah read genuine confusion in Brendan. What are you talking about? I don’t know anything about Halloween.
He doesn’t know, Jonah thought. Maybe Lilith’s keeping secrets, too.
“No? Well, maybe you’d better have a talk with Lilith, then, and get caught up. She told me flat-out she was going to keep killing mainliners and casting suspicion on us until we give in and join you.”
Brendan shifted in his seat. If somebody gets killed, it’s not necessarily our fault. We can’t take responsibility for all shades everywhere. Word is spreading about the benefits of blood magic. We’re seeing a lot of freelancers joining in.
“Well, we’ll get the blame, whether we like it or not, as the only visible representatives of our unlucky little tribe. On Halloween, the killers left the same clues behind as you do: nightshade flowers.”
It must be mainliners, killing one another and trying to blame us for it.
“Really?” Jonah said dryly. “That’s a shame, but it doesn’t seem like you have much room to complain.” Their eyes met, and held. “I’ll tell you one thing—killing Madison Moss’s little sister was a major tactical mistake, even if you have no problem with it otherwise.”
More confusion from Brendan. Who’s Madison Moss?
Jonah blinked at him. Of course, Brendan wouldn’t know—how could he? He’d died at least a year before Madison Moss came on the scene. Besides, Gabriel shared very little about the mainline guilds with students at the Anchorage.
Knowledge is power. In the wrong hands, knowledge means trouble.
Even those who died at Thorn Hill—like Lilith—would have limited knowledge of what had happened to the mainline guilds in the past ten years, since Jonah was the only one whose gift of empathy allied him to communicate with shades.
And Jonah never did much talking during a riff.
He guessed that, as they became more and more at home in their borrowed bodies, they would have more options.
Brendan was still looking at him expectantly.
“Madison Moss is the power source for mainliners,” Jonah said.
Power source? Brendan blinked. What do you mean?
Jonah cast about for a simple explanation. “Originally, she was an elicitor—someone who draws magic. Two years ago, she absorbed the Dragonheart stone, which powers Weirstones everywhere. So now they call her the Dragon. She’s leading the mainliners, or trying to. It’s like herding cats.”
Mmm. Brendan seemed lost in thought. Let me—let me talk to Lilith about it. He got to his feet. He did it gracefully, capably. Clearly, he was mastering the use of his borrowed body.
“Could we set up a meeting?” Jonah asked. “The three of us? After you’ve talked to her, I mean?”
Brendan grinned. Why is it I feel like we’d be walking into a trap? I’ll be back in touch. It’s easier now that I can move about in polite society. He took a step toward the door, then turned back toward Jonah, digging into the inside pocket of his coat.
Wary of weapons, Jonah faded back, raising both hands in defense.
Brendan held out a bottle to Jonah—an elaborate glass bottle, stoppered with silver, the kind that might hold expensive perfume. It glowed, illuminating Brendan’s face. Jonah took it, weighing it in his hand. It was relatively light, but it appeared to be full of a red pearlescent substance that swirled and swam as Jonah tilted the bottle.
“What is this?” Jonah asked, though he already knew.
Blood magic, Brendan said softly.
Jonah tried to hand it back to him, but Brendan put his hands behind his back.
“I don’t want this,” Jonah said.
It’s for Kenzie, not for you, Brendan said. Can I trust you to give it to him?
“You can trust me to throw it in the lake,” Jonah said contemptuously. “Or smash it on the street. We want nothing to do with that.”
We? Brendan cocked his head. Have you talked it over with Kenzie?
Jonah just stared at Brendan.
I thought not. You’re used to making decisions for him, aren’t you? You ought to ask him about it at least.
That one hit home.
Well, keep it or smash it or whatever you want to do with it, Brendan said. I hope it will do somebody some good. I mean, the donors are already dead, after all. Oh, and by the way—unlike you, we’re not focused on killing fellow savants. But let the slayers tagging after you know that we will defend ourselves. And our bodies can be replaced. Threading his way between the tables without a hint of a shamble, Brendan walked out the door.
Jonah was tempted to follow him, but he recalled what Brendan had said about arrogance. Lilith might have spies stationed all around. He’d have to be patient, something he wasn’t very good at.
He rolled the bottle between his hands, watching the layers shift, combine, and separate with an awful fascination. Was it possible? Could this really help his brother? What if it did? What then?
Jonah deferred any decision, sliding the bottle into his jacket pocket. He texted the others. We’re done for the night.
He exited the club, and headed back toward Oxbow. The others were waiting in the mailroom, away from spying eyes on the street.
“Well?” Charlie said. “Who was that guy you were talking to?”
“That was Brendan Wu,” Jonah said wearily. “Formerly a student at the Anchorage. Now a hosted shade. Serving as a kind of emissary for Lilith.”
“That was Brendan?” Alison looked astounded. “But he looked—he looked—”
“Normal. I know,” Jonah said. “No stink of decay either. I could smell magic on him, though.”
“Are you—are you sure that was Brendan?” Thérèse said. “I mean, I’ve only seen him a few times, but he looked—”
“It was Brendan,” Jonah said.
“Then we should have followed him,” Mike said. “Maybe he’d have led us back to Lilith.”
Jonah shook his head. “They’re not stupid. They know it’s a trap. Brendan said to tell you that they didn’t want to kill savants, but they would defend themselves.”
Mike asked the obvious question. “If he knew it was a trap, then why’d he show up?”
“He wants something from us,” Jonah said.
“What?” Alison asked.
“Lilith wants to talk to Gabriel.”
“Who won’t agree to meet with her,” Alison predicted.
“He must have said something,” Charlie said. “You two talked long enough.”
Jonah shook his head, feeling a twinge of guilt. You’re just like Gabriel, he thought. Keeping secrets.
“Well,” Thérèse said brightly. “Try again tomorrow night?”
“I don’t see much point,” Jonah said. “Lilith isn’t going to show up to any party we’re planning.”
“So you’re giving up?” Ali
son’s face was all thunderclouds.
“I’m saying I’m going to try and come up with a smarter plan,” Jonah said. “I’ll let you know when I do.”
Jonah walked back to Oxbow alone. He was just unlocking the door to his room when he got a text from Natalie. Call me. Emma’s leaving the Anchorage.
Jonah was tempted to take the coward’s way out: leave the guitar outside of Emma’s room, ring the bell, and run. But that would only leave mute testimony to his guilt—and convince her that she needed to leave for sure.
He put his ear to the door, hoping to get another hit of her musical magic, but heard nothing, not even breathing.
Jonah typed his code into the display on the wall in the hallway, then stood and waited for the scanner to verify. As he waited, he repeated his personal oath to himself.
You will not use your gift to convince her of your innocence. You will only use it to convince her to stay.
No response. Not that he guessed she would open the door to him, but he should be able to detect a rush of emotion that would tell him she was inside.
She was not.
Where else would she be? In the end, it wasn’t hard to figure out. She’d be packing up the workshop, her second home.
After a moment’s debate, he took the guitar with him, wanting to put it directly into her hands.
As soon as he entered the woodshop building, he heard the whine of a saw. Following the sound, he found Emma bent over the band saw, guiding a thin plate of pale wood through the machine, cutting the graceful curves that would become the back of a guitar. The sound rose to a shrill scream as the blade encountered resistance, then died as the wood submitted.
As Jonah watched, Emma reached up, adjusting a setting, lips tight against flying wood chips, safety glasses pinning her hair to her head.
The shop had been cleaned up since he’d last been there, Emma’s hand tools and fittings put away and her wood stacked neatly against the wall, a small sign mounted on the wall above, PROPERTY OF EMMA LEE, DO NOT THROW AWAY.
It was the first time he’d seen her in the weeks since Halloween, and now she was leaving.
He ghosted closer, wanting to breathe in her scent. And there it was: a mingling of sweat and sawdust and whatever it was she put into her hair. She’d stripped off her flannel shirt. Underneath, she wore one of those old-fashioned ribbed undershirts that exposed her muscular arms and capable hands. Sweat glistened on her face, dampened her hair, and ran into the hollow of her throat. When the saw stopped, he heard her humming the tune of some old blues song under her breath.