Page 89 of Thief of Night
“Charlie?” her mother said, picking up on the third ring.
“What are you doing?” Posey asked, although the horror in her voice made it clear that she had a good guess.
“I am not a medium and I never was a medium,” Charlie said, too fast to be interrupted. “I pretended to channel that warlock Alonso Nieto, so that I could trick you into leaving your abusive, asshole husband. It was all an act. Smoke and mirrors. Lies. And Rand? He wasn’t teaching me how to be a better psychic. He was teaching me to help him scam people. He was a thief.”
Charlie hung up, shaking with rage.
Posey gaped at her. “What’s wrong with you?”
Typical Charlie Hall. Think you can fuck her over? She’ll fuck herself over even harder.
Her phone rang. She hit the button to send her mother’s call to voicemail. “Because I am not going to be extorted by anyone and certainly not by you. That medium bullshit? I did it foryou,because Travis hityou. And you hated me for years because you couldn’t stand all the attention I got from Mom. I bet you can’t stand that the only reason you have your dream—the only reason you’re a gloamist—is because I gave it to you.”
Posey’s upper lip curled, like a dog growling. “I got the best part of you when I got your shadow. There’s nothing left of you that I want.”
Charlie met the nastiness head-on. “Good. Because I threw away more of myself for you than I ever did for any man. It will be a relief not to carry your dead weight.”
“Good,” Posey shouted back, then grabbed her coat and headed for the door.
Which is how Charlie found herself sitting on the floor wet-eyed like a kid,when Red manifested. His eyes were embers and he was still half shadow, but he loomed in front of her, giving her a target for all that hurt and rage.
“Liar,” she snapped.
He was silent for a long time. Then he knelt on the floor beside her bed, light streaming through him, eyes like holes. “Charlie.”
She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. Once, she’d pinned her hopes of him getting his memories back on that vial she’d stolen from the vault in the watchtower, but now she wasn’t at all sure that’s what she wanted. “Are you—”
“If I could be him again for you, I would.”
Relief flooded her, guilt hard on its heels.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “For all of it.”
“Liar,” she said again, but there was no heat in it.
“For some of it, then,” he said, smiling as he corrected himself.
Charlie had already fought with her sister and her mother—even if she hadn’t given her mother the chance to fight back. She wasn’t sure she had it in her to fight with him too. “Explain. What happened? Why not just tell me?”
He glanced away from her, as though telling her all this was difficult. “Inviting me to the house was a trap.”
“Obviously,” Charlie said. “As it turns out.”
“It was a trapmeant for you,” he said.
Charlie felt as startled as if he’d abruptly kicked her in the ankle.
“Rose was one of those people who wanted to do good in the world,” he said. “Who was excited about her future and had boundless enthusiasm. And her shadow… Rosetalkedto her shadow. She wasn’t afraid of it.”
Charlie wanted to ask him so many questions, but she bit her tongue and waited.
“If Rose’s shadow had stood by when Remy was killed, I would have never forgiven her,” Red went on to say. “So when she came to the house to ask me for help, she was right that I owed her. And if she wanted me to free her from the person to whom she was bound, I’d do it. But something didn’t sit right. I saw shadows creeping around our house. And she was so cagey about obvious things, like the name of the person I was supposed to kill.”
“And you didn’t tell me all this, why?”
“I thought she wanted me dead, and for understandable reasons.” He spread his fingers against the wooden floorboards. “I couldn’t be sure and I felt obligated to try to help her. But then I became afraid that it wasn’t me that she was after, but you.”
“But why go after me?” Charlie asked. “I’m nobody.”
