Page 28 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Bravo,” said Richard. “The vampire has been staked.”

Nicholas sketched a bow, slowly, so he wouldn’t get dizzy and add fuel to Maram’s earlier concern.

“I suppose I’d best start writing, then,” he said.

Collins could resent him all he wanted for enjoying luxury, but even he had never accused Nicholas of being lazy; not that it mattered what Collins, an employee, thought of him. But Nicholas reveled in luxury for the same reason he reveled in work and study. It was all he had.

“Good chap,” said Richard, rising. “Collins, I’d love to give you the day off, lord knows you deserve it. But you understand that until we speak to everyone in the house, we need you to stay on the clock. You, at least, have more than proven your loyalty.”

“Yes, sir,” said Collins, but the bodyguard’s eyes were not focused on Richard. They were focused on Nicholas. The expression on Collins’s face was unfamiliar, the twist of his mouth softer than his usual scowl, his chin tilted downward, and when he caught Nicholas’s gaze his own skittered away, as if he’d been caught out. It wasn’t a look of irritation. It wasn’t amusement. It wasn’t even pity.

It was guilt.

But what could Collins possibly have to be guilty for?

“Maram, darling,” said Richard. “My study.”

Maram touched Nicholas’s shoulder and followed Richard out, leaving Nicholas and Collins alone in the drawing room.

“What—” Nicholas started, but whatever expression he thought he’d seen on Collins’s face was gone, and his eyes were fixed on the floor. He looked bored, tired, grumpy. Normal.

“What?” Collins echoed.

“Nothing,” said Nicholas, and turned to leave.

8

Joanna liked dusting the books. It was satisfying to sweep the soft, luxurious paintbrush across their covers, along their spines. It reminded her of brushing Esther’s hair, which Esther, a glutton for touch, had always begged her to do when they were young. Each of the volumes in the collection felt to Joanna like old friends, all their cracks and blemishes well known and forgiven, and save for the book Abe had died with, she knew the story behind each one. This one, sewn loosely with silk thread and bound in red cotton, had been found by her late paternal grandmother in a market in Montreal in the sixties; this one with a stiff leather cover had been tracked down by her father via a classified ad in the early nineties; this one, an Arabic scroll from Palestine, had been Esther’s mother, Isabel’s, from before she’d met Abe. Some of the spells within the collection were used up, but those books sounded the same as any with still-dark ink, as if whatever power that had once filled them still lay coiled inside.

She did not dust the book that had killed her father.

She’d asked her mother about it many times. Cecily had remained silent though, either refusing point-blank to answer any of Joanna’s questions or lapsing into that infuriating cough she affected whenever she didn’t want to talk about something. Maybe Joanna would try again today, at her mother’s house for lunch. Probably it would end in an argument, but at least it would be a nice change of pace from the old standard they’d enacted the day before.

The note her father had left still lay beside it and she glanced at it quickly before moving on to the codex of wards, though the codex hardly needed tending; she used it too often for it to ever collect dust.

As she emerged from the basement into the kitchen she heard a longscratching sound in the foyer, and a pulse of hope beat in her throat. Hastily she emptied a can of tuna into a bowl and quieted her footsteps as she hurried across the kitchen, managing to open the front door so carefully it made no noise at all. There on the porch, like an expectant guest, sat the cat. He had one paw extended as if he’d been about to knock, but retracted it when he saw her and crept back a few steps.

Slowly, so slowly, she lowered herself into a crouch and set down the bowl of tuna. She put it halfway between herself and the cat and waited, breath held, as he craned his head forward ever so slightly and sniffed the air. He turned away toward the porch steps and her heart fell; he turned back, and it leapt. Then he was face-deep in the bowl making wet little gnashing sounds, and Joanna went to her knees to watch him eat. He was the color of autumn, all stripy silvers and swirling browns, and his eyes, slitted with pleasure as he ate, were apple-juice amber.

It was a cold morning. The temperature had dropped the previous night and Joanna had woken up shivering, the embers of the stove nearly banked under ash. Where had this little cat slept? His fur looked thick, but was it warm enough for the coming winter? She wanted to pet him very badly. He finished eating and sat back, licking his chops, eyeing her.

She held out a careful finger, pointing at his face. She had read once that cats liked this because the tip of a human finger looked like a cat’s nose, and the cat put out his own nose to sniff, tail twitching. Then, as if he’d decided something, he stepped quickly forward and butted his head into her hand.

The delight she felt at this unexpected touch was so entire it was almost painful. She stroked his head, his cheeks, she scratched behind his ears. He was so warm and soft, so present, his eyes inquisitive, and she found herself beaming down at him as he came closer, his tail trailing along her kneeling legs. She felt a hum beneath her hand and for a moment she thought it was the books, that same many-timbred murmur, then she realized he was purring. For some reason this brought tears to her eyes.

She pet him for as long as he let her and when he wandered away she stood up with the half-eaten bowl of tuna. Holding it out, she backed into her house cajolingly.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” she said. “Come inside where it’s warm.”

But he turned his head sharply at a sound she hadn’t heard, leaped off the porch steps, and dashed across her muddy garden into the trees.

She watched him go, feeling a bizarre joyful pride that he’d let her touch him. It was rapidly overtaken with worry. Worry he’d be caught by a coyote, or hit by a car, or that it would snow overnight and bury him, frozen, before they’d even gotten a chance to get to know one another, before she had a chance to care for him.

There was a ragged comforter in Esther’s old bedroom—perhaps if she put it out on the porch, he could make a kind of nest for himself, a place to get warm. He’d associate the porch with food and comfort, and by extension, Joanna, and soon enough he would deign to come inside.

She left the front door slightly ajar in case he changed his mind and hurried back into the house. In the living room she pushed aside the heavy wool army blanket she’d used to cover the stairwell and creaked her way up to the second floor, which was notably colder and darker. In Esther’s room she found the overhead bulb was blown, but it didn’t matter. It was still midmorning and the big window let in a milky light, so she could see her way to the closet just fine. Esther’s bed was as it had been when she’d lived there, made up with the first and last quilt Cecily had ever made before deciding it wasn’t a hobby for her, and a Nirvana poster curled on the wall. Otherwise, it looked like what it was now: a storage room.

Sometimes it was hard to remember a time when her whole family had lived under one roof, when her sister was in her life and her parents got along. In the months before Esther had left home without warning, Abe and Cecily had fought near daily, and for a while Joanna had blamed those fights for pushing Esther out. Abe and Cecily made an effort to keep their arguments from their daughters, sometimes even taking their fights into the forest so they could have it out away from any human ears,but the tension between them was so thick and sticky it was almost visible, like layers of cobweb.

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