Page 115 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Twenty-four hours of in-person explanation and a spell to make me a concert-level pianist.”

Esther raised an eyebrow at Joanna, who shook her head. “We don’t have anything like that yet,” said Esther, “but I’ll work on it.”

“Wait, where are you? Are you with someone?”

“I’m in England, in a car with my sister.”

Collins made an offended noise through his mouthful of brownie.

“Show me!” said Pearl.

Esther turned the phone around and Joanna found herself face-to-face with a pretty, tear-streaked blond girl in Carhartt overalls. She waved tentatively.

“Aww, you look like Esther,” said Pearl.

“Thank you!”

Esther turned the phone back around and said, “I’m taking you off video, okay?” and the chiming of the bells was gone. Esther raised the phone to her ear, scrunched herself up in a corner of the back seat as if that would afford her more privacy, and said in a low voice, “I’ve missed you so much.”

Collins, exhibiting rare tact, turned on the radio, and warm cello filled the car as Esther murmured to Pearl. “This okay?” he said. “You can find a pop station if you want. Isn’t that what you like?”

“I think my pop sensibilities are a little dated,” said Joanna. “This is nice.”

“We’ll do London later this week,” Collins said, waving his hand in the direction Joanna supposed was the city. “Nicholas has a whole tourist thing planned out, Tower of London, the Soane Museum, Westminster Abbey, basically a bunch of freaky haunted shit he thinks you’ll like. And maybe we could, I don’t know, eat dinner. I mean, have dinner. Gooutto dinner. You and me. If you want.”

“Yes, please,” Joanna said. She was struck by the bubbling urge to laugh, so she did, and Collins’s hands relaxed on the wheel.

“Nicholas gave me a credit card,” said Collins. “He told me to take you somewhere really fancy.”

“I don’t need fancy.”

“No one needs fancy, but maybe you want it. Also, on this side of the pond,fancymeans you’re into someone.” He darted a sideways glance at her. “You probably know that from all your romance novels, huh.”

“Yes,” she said. “But books can only teach you so much.”

They sped through fields lightly whitened with snow, some of them dotted with bright russet cows, not so different from Vermont in some ways except far fewer trees and no mountains. After a while, Collins rolled the car to a stop on the empty road and Joanna looked around, confused. There were wintery rolling fields as far as her eye could see, not even a farmhouse to break up the monotony of land and sky. The narrow country road stretched out before them and vanished over a distant hill.

“You ready?” Collins said, looking at her. “We’ll add your blood to the wards soon as we get to the house so you won’t have to go through this again.”

With a start, Joanna realized what he meant. “We’re here?”

“At the boundaries of the wards, yeah,” he said. “The driveway’s right there.”

She squinted through her window, following his gesturing hand, but all she saw was grass, snow, brush. The more she attempted to focus thehazier her vision became, like Vaseline was being slowly smeared across her eyes, and her head began to pound dully. She’d never been on this side of the wards before.

“Can you see it?” she asked Esther, twisting in her seat, though she knew the answer. Esther nodded.

“I’ll go fast,” Collins said, and hung a left straight into the hedge.

Joanna braced, but it wasn’t impact she felt: it was stomach-turning, brain-scrambling nausea, as if her head had swapped places with her feet and her organs were being impossibly rearranged under her skin, her heart sliding toward her kidneys, her lungs splitting apart and spinning down her arms. Everything was streaked dark and wet like her eyes had been rotated in their sockets and she heard herself moan, an animal sound from a throat that barely felt like her own, a throat that was burning with bile as she retched, trying in vain to locate herself within her own body as the world flipped and slithered around her.

Then, as abruptly as the chaos had begun, it stopped, and Joanna was aware of herself once again. She was folded over, the seat belt holding her up as she dangled over her knees, drool on her chin, hair in her eyes, Esther’s hand gripping her shoulder.

“Ugh,” Joanna managed. She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth and Esther, who was leaning into the front seat, smoothed the hair away from her face. Joanna hoped Collins wasn’t looking.

“It’s over,” Esther said, her hand cool on Joanna’s brow. “We’re here. You okay?”

Joanna swallowed, testing herself for nausea, but it had retreated.

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