Page 39 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“You want to steal the collection and sell it to the highest bidder,” Joanna said. She’d been throwing out guesses, though her mother wouldn’t tell her yes or no either way. “You’re going to retire to Paris and eat croissants every morning.”

“No,” said Cecily. “Too many pigeons in Paris.”

“You’re going to burn the house down so I’ll have nowhere to liveand nothing to do and I’ll be dependent on you for everything,” said Joanna.

Cecily was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I hope you can’t truly imagine I’d do such a thing.”

Joanna sat up against the arm of the couch. “I couldn’t have imagined you’d trap me in your living room, either.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Cecily said. “I’ll end the spell right now and we can get to the house in time for you to set the wards, if you’ll only take me with you and let me in.”

“If it’s not the wards you want to get to,” Joanna said, “then what?”

Cecily set her mouth and shook her head and Joanna lowered herself back down, eyes finding the afternoon sky again through the window. “That’s what I thought,” she said.

There was a part of her, buried so deep in fear she’d need a shovel to clear its face, that was curious to see what would happen when the wards went down. A part of her that felt a strange, soaring interest—almost elation. The wards were a tether as well as a safeguard. What would happen when her tether was cut? The house hadn’t spent a night unwarded since Abe had first stepped foot in it nearly three decades earlier, infant daughter in his arms, the body of his murdered lover hundreds of miles away. What would happen when the protection he and Joanna had so painstakingly maintained, disappeared?

There were—or at least, had been—people out there who’d shown their willingness to kill for access to Abe’s collection... but that had been almost thirty years ago. The dropping of the wards would mean only that the house would be like any other house; visible and accessible if you had the address, and no one, to Joanna’s knowledge, had the address. So it was possible the cataclysmic event she’d always feared (swarms of armed men pouring through her windows? All her books carried off by malice and violence?) might not come to pass at all, or not anytime soon.

But what did Cecily want if not to expose the housetosomething, someone? In those weeks after Esther had left, Cecily had been like aperson possessed, debating Abe constantly, trying to convince him to drop the wards, to leave the books, to give up his life’s work. But why? For whom?

Cecily was the only person who could give her those answers, and Cecily refused.

Joanna gave it one last try. “I’ll take you to the house,” she said, and her mother straightened, “if you answer three questions under a truth spell.”

Cecily’s expression, which had been hopeful and alert, fell instantly. “I won’t be able to.”

“That’s not possible,” Joanna said, exasperated. Abe had put her under one, once, to show her what it felt like. She’d been twelve or so and he’d asked simple, silly questions he already knew the answers to: How do you make a fried egg? What’s my favorite Allman Brothers song? Why did Esther get mad at you yesterday? He had told her to try to lie.

She couldn’t. It had felt like the truth was a ribbon that unfurled on her tongue anytime she opened her mouth. No sense of striving or discomfort: she simply told the truth, over and over, her attempted lies transforming somewhere past her voice box.

“It isn’t that I don’t want to give you answers,” Cecily said. “It’s that I cannot. I know you don’t understand and I’m sorry. If I could explain, believe me, I would.”

Joanna felt a wave of helpless anger surging through her, and she shut her eyes tightly and held her breath against it until it passed. She’d tried anger, she’d tried tears, and neither had worked. Maybe part of her was curious, yes, but the rest of her was her father’s daughter. She could not let the wards fall.

Cecily had refused the truth spell, but she’d seen her mother’s posture change at the hope of a bargain, which meant Joanna could hope, too. For Joanna, a bargain was a chance to reach the wards in time; for Cecily it was a chance to restore some fragment of the relationship she’d broken when she’d drawn her blood across that door.

She stood from the sofa and crossed the room to stand in front of her mother and the invisible barrier, arms crossed. Cecily shifted in her chair as if she, too, might stand, but she didn’t, just looked up at Joanna with wary eyes.

“You say you haven’t done this in order to destroy the wards.”

“I have not,” Cecily said immediately. “I only need the wards down so I can get in. You can put them back up tomorrow, I swear it.”

“But you won’t tell me what it is you want to do.”

“Ican’ttell you.”

Joanna took a frustrated breath. Cecily kept repeating that word,can’t, can’t, can’t,as if her silence were a matter not of will but of ability. Joanna decided to take this at face value. “Is it something I’d stop you from doing, if I could?”

Slowly, Cecily said, “No. I don’t see why you’d stop me.”

“Would you let me watch you do it? If I took you into the house?”

Cecily went very still, attentive like a dog in sight of a rabbit. Joanna could see her thinking, eyes darting back and forth as she considered this. “Yes,” she said, finally.

Joanna felt a swell of triumph. She could set the wards and get some insight into her mother’s motives at the same time.

“Here is my proposal, then,” said Joanna. “We have about two hours before I need to set the wards. In those two hours, you will end this spell, let me blindfold you, and I’ll take you to the house and let you in. You can do what you need to do and then I’ll drive you back. If you try anything at all with the wards, or if you try to get into the basement, or if I tell you not to do something and you do it anyway, I’ll never speak to you again.”

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