Page 6 of Thief of Night
“Emotions might also bleed through, if they’re very strong, but he won’t be able to pick through your thoughts unless you send them at him.”
Well, that was a relief. Maybe it wasn’t going to be as bad as she’d feared.
“What about memories?” she found herself asking.
“He’s notyourshadow, so there is a limit to the connection you can have with him. He’s not going to grow to become more like you. If you give him memories, he can absorb energy from them and experience them in that moment, but they won’t becomehismemories.”
That was also a relief.
Still, she couldn’t help wondering whether, in the night, he’d be able to rummage around in her dreams.
Stop being paranoid,she told herself.Vince would never do that.
Of course, if he did, if he even could, it’s not like she would know.
Malik went on, hands behind his back as he paced. “The most important thing—the thing youmustdo—is give him your blood regularly. Every day would be best, but every few days at least. That’s the only way to keep the connection strong enough for you to command him.”
He stopped and looked her directly in the eye. “And never forget—he’s not a person, he’s a Blight. You mustcontrol him,Charlie Hall. If you don’t—if we ever find that the tether has been broken or he’s acting independently, you will both lose the chance we’re generously granting you. And you will lose him, permanently.”
“Meaning what, exactly?” Charlie asked. “Spell it out.”
“Let’s leave it just as I said it.”
Vince looked at Malik with those burning eyes and smiled. “I will be tame for Charlie,” he’d said.
But Red didn’t recall making that promise. Once she and Vince were bound, he went silent. Outside, as she walked to her car through falling snow, she’d tried to cajole him, thinking he was mad at her for making a sacrifice of herself. Tried to tempt him with fresh blood squeezed from a finger.
And then those first words echoing in her mind.You’re not Remy.That voice, soft with menace. His body, forming out of shadow with no recognition in his burning eyes. Triumph souring in her mouth.
Charlie thought of that night often, wondering over the piece of Vince that had been taken from him. As far as she could tell, he’d lost more than a year of memories. Maybe if she could get that part of his shadow back, she would get Vince with it.
4Redredred
Charlie Hall was a puzzle and not one Red liked.
When he was young, Remy had asked him where he went when he was a shadow. Red had tried to explain the nowhere place, the not-here and not-there. How he could see the real world from it, but blurred and distorted and silvery. Time moved differently there too, as though he was watching a movie that played normally for a few minutes, then fast-forwarded, and played again, and so on and so on.
Watching Charlie clean her wound from the nowhere place, time seemed to slow instead of speed. She was facing away from him in the front seat of the van, using the rearview mirror to see her bare shoulder. Parked in front of her own house, but not going inside.
The shortness of her black hair framed the strong bones of her face, but it also emphasized the exhausted hollowness under her eyes. Not even the bright pattern of scarabs tattooed along her collarbone could distract from them once you noticed.
And he found himself noticing everything.
When she drew up her shirt, biting her lip as she poured peroxide over her skin, Red could barely look away. Most of the liquid missed the wound, soaking the seat of the van. The little that hit fizzed like soda as she winced.
He didn’t understand her.
Why not tell him to do it for her? He wouldn’t have been unkind about it. He had been slow in the mill building, but he hadn’t realized that the thing had just fed. He’d thought it would be weak, the task easy. He hadn’t known Charlie was in danger until she called out, and even then, he hadn’t realized how much danger.
He was haunted by the moment he arrived and saw her bruised and bleeding, Blight towering over her.
Red wished time would speed up, the way it used to, taking that memorywith it. Instead, he was forced to watch as she haphazardly glued her wound shut. Forced to note the shine of her eyes, the way her wet lashes dragged over her cheeks when she blinked, and how she swallowed a sob. The movement of her throat as she drank her Gatorade slowly, as though the electrolytes could cure blood loss.
Why had she put herself in that position in the first place, back at the mill building? She had talked the Cabals into tethering him to her by agreeing to be their Hierophant, butwhy? What did she gain? He’d been valuable to Salt as a killer, but he didn’t think she wanted him for that. Despite being a self-described con artist and thief, she seemed squeamish about murder. But perhaps that was why she needed him? Or perhaps she thought he could be valuable in other ways. He could steal too, he supposed. He knew the layout of various gloamist estates with large libraries full of rarities.
She told him that she’d tricked her way into being Hierophant because she loved him. Because she wanted to save him.
That was ridiculous. People were afraid of Red, not worried about him. He made them uncomfortable. Even Remy, who cared more about him than anyone else, had been afraid and uncomfortable around him. And fine, she hadn’t known what he was for some of their relationship. But she’d known when she tethered herself to him.
