Page 44 of Thief of Night
“Salt used it to drug Remy to sleep. When he did that, I spoke through Remy’s mouth. I controlled his body. I was alone in his mind. Salt gave doses of ketamine to Cleophes of York to make the arrangement with him. That allowed Cleophes to use up his host. But even then, I don’t think he meant to harm the man; I think he was just too bent on his own goals to notice how far he’d gone.”
Charlie thought of her interactions with Red. He hadn’t shown up when she was in danger and had arranged a murder with Rose’s shadow, one that might be dangerous to her, at the very least. If he couldn’t hurt her, he couldarrange for her to be hurt, which seemed like an important distinction, although maybe not one Red was eager to share.
“Salt drugged his grandson?” Balthazar asked.
“He drugged a lot of people,” Red said. “He gave Charlie pentobarbital. That was one of his favorites.”
Balthazar looked over at Charlie. “I don’t recall you mentioning that.”
“Maybe you should have me over more often,” she said. “I’ve got lots of good stories.”
“Well, you’ll have to come at least once more,” he reminded her. “With my Blight.”
After they left, as they walked through the lot to the Porsche, Charlie stopped Red with a hand on his arm. “What about with us?” she asked. “Do you want what I want because we’re bound together?”
“That’s the thing.” His mouth twisted with obvious frustration. “How would I know?”
Later, in bed, she tried to stay awake, watching the window from the corner of her eye. Waiting for a shadow to slide through it, to come looking for him. Waiting for him to go out and the tether between them to slim to a skein of thread.
Listening, in case Posey came home, and might be in danger.
But no one entered and no one left. Red remained beside her all night, eyes closed, drifting in something like dreams.
The alarm on Charlie’s phone went off at ten the next morning, which should have been a reasonable hour except that she’d only fallen asleep when the sun was already bright in the sky, perhaps two hours before. Her head hurt and the idea of turning over and going right back to sleep was extremely tempting. Red was no longer beside her.
Cursing under her breath, she dragged herself out of bed and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
In the living area, she found Red’s long body sprawled on the couch, arm behind his head, handsome profile on obnoxious display. He wore jeans and a black Henley tight enough to draw her gaze, despite wishing it didn’t. On the television, someone with an accent was deep-sea diving to find the remains of U-boats. He had a book open on the cushion beside him, but she wasn’t sure he was paying attention to either.
The scent of coffee filled the air and he seemed to have a cup of it in front of him.
“You fixed the coffeepot?”
He gave her a familiar slanted smile. “Too many grounds in the tubes. I flushed it.”
“When did you start teaching yourself things that Remy didn’t know?” Looking back, she’d always assumed Vince’s habit of cleaning gutters and changing the oil in her car had been part of his human-boyfriend act. But Red didn’t pretend to be anything other than what he was. He shoved his inhumanity in her face. Half the time, he didn’t even seem to like her. Which—oddly distressing—meant his kindness in cleaning out the coffeepot this morning was likely real and his other, forgotten kindnesses had probably always been real too.
He frowned at her question. “I’m not sure.”
He didn’t like talking about Remy. And he definitely didn’t like admitting to anything that cast Remy in a bad light. Her question had probably stung, which was poor repayment for doing something nice.
She was sharp-tempered from lack of sleep, she told herself, and refused to feel guilty because her lack of sleep was his fault.
But she still wondered. Had Remy ever been unnerved by how clever Red was? Or had he accepted it as his due and found useful tasks to give his shadow—staying awake in class, studying geometry, writing their papers? She wished she knew if—in the end—he’d ever felt as though he was Red’s shadow. “What’s with the history lesson?” she asked, gesturing toward the screen.
Red looked up at her, a few strands of blond hair falling across his eyes. “The RMSLusitaniasank too quickly for anyone to evacuate because of its own speed—it pushed water into its body as it drove itself into the bottom of the sea. Had it been less good at what it did, the submarine attack might have been survivable.”
“That was the twin of theTitanic,right?” she asked.
He gave her a strange smile. “No, but people think that because they were both such famous disasters. A matched pair.”
For a moment, she thought he was making a remark about the two of them, but that couldn’t be right.
Leaving him to his naval warfare, Charlie went into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of irritatingly totally decent coffee.
There, she took out her old phone and a new glass screen protector she’d bought from the drugstore. She wiped down her cracked screen and put theglass over it, hoping to keep her fingers from getting cut. Despite her skepticism, it seemed to work and she could finally get to her messages.
One from Vicereine telling her to call. A few from her mother, a few more from Adeline, one from Fiona, asking about their lunch date. Some from friends she’d asked to help move her into the Northampton apartment later in the week asking whether free pizza would be provided.
