Page 43 of Thief of Night
“Good!” Balthazar said. “This is carapace gloaming. From where you’re standing, Vince could become something like armor for you. Or he could—”
Charlie felt a tightening around her waist, as though arms held her and then shadow wings spread out to both sides of her back. She felt the rush of air beneath her and she was suddenly hovering above the floor. High above.
“That,” Balthazar said. “He could do that.”
A sound bubbled up her throat, half awe and half terror. She looked down on the room from that height and felt the pull ofmagic. Real magic.Oh,she thought.Oh.
She’d spent so long pretending that magic was real, conning people into believing in it, that the desire for it had seemed dangerous. But guarding her heart from the sheer joy and awe of flying was impossible.
“Come on,” Balthazar said. “Enough. Back down, you two. We have more to practice.”
Red set her on the ground, then took a few steps back, a hesitant, slanted smile on his face. He was clearly hoping she’d liked it and just as clearly worried she hadn’t. Perhaps worrying he’d scared her.
The stupid grin on her face should have answered all his questions.
“Next, I want you to look out of his eyes,” Balthazar said. “Vince, pick out a book from my shelves and take it into that corner. Now, no cheating and telling her the sentence you’re looking at. Charlie, you go over there.” He pointed to the opposite side of the room.
“I don’t know how to do that,” she protested.
“You’re not getting in his head,” Balthazar said, with an annoyingly accurate assessment of her fears. “You’re just looking out his eyes.”
Charlie stood across the room from Red and concentrated, imagining that instead of sending him a message, she was reaching through the tether that bound them. She pressed her eyes shut. She tried to picture the page. But no matter how hard she focused, she couldn’t seem to make it work.
Finally she gave up with a groan and flopped down on Balthazar’s sofa.
“Experiment at home,” Balthazar told her, waving a hand as though it wasn’t important. “I’ve had nearly enough of you, especially since I haven’t been paid for my services yet. But in reference to your earlier question, let’s put it to Vince. And I am interested in his answer. You see, Charlie is supposed to be getting me my own shadow.”
“I heard.” Red appeared entirely solid as he walked to the couch and sat beside Charlie. A few locks of dark blond hair fell across his eyes.
“I’ve never had a shadow attached to me that either wasn’t my own orwasn’t dormant.” He gave Red a searching look. “She can control you, correct?”
“She can,” Red said.
“Iwon’t,” Charlie said.
Balthazar made a frustrated noise. “Does she need to give you an order?”
After a moment, Red spoke. “If she tells me to do something directly, I’ll do it, of course—if she thinks a command at me, I’ll have to follow it. It’s not something that I can be tricky about either, like some enchanted creature in a fairy tale. I’llwantto do it the way she means for me to. Sometimes the thing will be over before I can even think it through.”
“For how long?” Balthazar asked. “I mean, how long do the commands last?”
“I don’t know—but I’ve never tried to resist them,” Red said, looking puzzled. “With Remy, it took a long time before I thought of us as separate. I didn’t see them as commands. They were extensions of what we wanted.”
“Fine.” Balthazar took a big sip of his coffee. “But what if my new shadow wants to hurt me?”
“It can’t,” Red said. “It won’t.”
Charlie puzzled that through. If Red was saying that a shadowcouldn’thurt the person tethered to them, that was one thing. But he was implying a shadow couldn’twantthat and that couldn’t be true. Rose had asked him to kill the gloamist to whom she was bound. He was lying.
“What about the last Hierophant?” she asked, since she couldn’t ask him about Rose without admitting to what she knew. “How did his shadow drain him?”
“Ketamine,” Red said.
“What?” Balthazar demanded, leaning forward.
Red frowned. “It’s a—”
“I know what ketamine is,” Balthazar interrupted, rushing the explanation along.
