Page 65 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

Esther clutched the boarding passes in her hands. This stranger’s cheerful, no-nonsense attitude reminded her of Pearl, if Pearl was the kind of person who could ever keep a pair of sneakers clean, and though she wanted to resist, being told what to do by a pretty, authoritative girl was like balm to her frazzled soul.

“You won’t tell me who you work for?”

“I can’t tell you who sent me here,” the girl said. “Icantell you my day job’s with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage? But that isn’t exactly relevant.”

“If I take this flight,” Esther said, “what will happen to me?”

“Hopefully nothing bad.”

Not exactly the words of reassurance Esther wanted. “And if I don’t take it?”

The girl looked at her in sympathy. “Nothing good.”

21

Half an hour later, as Esther moved cautiously down the aisle of the plane toward her seat near the back, nothing on the flight seemed out of the ordinary. All the people around her were preoccupied with the business of stowing luggage and wrangling infants and loudly asking the flight attendants if they sold compression socks aboard and if not, why not. But any one of these people could be cloaked in magic and Esther wouldn’t know it. They could all have books in their carry-ons. They could all be working under mysterious orders, for people they wouldn’t name, for reasons no one would explain to her. They could all be threats.

Yet here she was. Closing herself voluntarily into a flying metal tube instead of making a getaway into the outback of New Zealand (did New Zealand have an outback?). Trusting a stranger, again, simply because she happened to know a sentence in Spanish, a sentence that meant a lot to Esther, a sentence that moved her. Literally, lately.

She’d been assigned a window seat. Neither the middle nor aisle seat were occupied yet, and she put her duffel in the overhead compartment and settled herself in, gazing out at the tarmac. If someonewasgoing to kill her on the plane, fine. She’d rather die in the blue sky than in that gray detention room.

When she turned her gaze back to the aisle, someone was blocking it, staring down at her. Two someones, actually, both of them young white men around her own age. One was tawny-haired with reddish stubble, handsome and well-dressed, while the other man, towering behind him, was very tall and broad-shouldered, with bright blue eyes and a mouth that looked like it was about to curse.

Nothing about their appearance could quite explain Esther’s sudden inexplicable conviction that she did not want to be seated next to them.

It was only that the way they were looking at her pinged a warning bell inside her, and the wide, practiced smile the shorter one offered did nothing to quiet it. Her heart kicked into high gear as he double-checked their seat numbers.

Not here,she thought,please, not here,but a second later the man was hoisting his bag into the overhead and then sliding into the seat beside Esther, another bag perched on his lap. His big friend folded himself into the aisle seat, scowling at the way his knees pressed up against the seatback in front of him.

The smaller man’s carry-on gave a small shake and a muffled whine, and Esther understood, with a flicker of reluctant delight, that it held a dog. The guy twisted in his seat, angling his whole body toward her, and running his palms down the thighs of his trousers as if he were nervous, though he still had that easy smile on his face. He looked expensive.

“Hello,” he said. “God, I’m glad to be sitting. Airport was an absolute madhouse, wasn’t it?”

His accent was the kind of English that made Esther think of horse races and corgis. She nodded infinitesimally but made no other reply. He was undeterred.

“We couldn’t get on our last flight, there was this sudden problem with our tickets when we were about to board, so we had to scramble to get rebooked on this one,” he said. “Torment! Where are you headed?”

She gave him the most unimpressed look she could manage. “Same place you are,” she said.

“Right, naturally,” he said, and seemed finally to take her hint. He bent over to slide the carrying case under the seat in front of him, then unzipped one of the mesh windows so he could put his hand inside. Esther caught a glimpse of wet black nose and fluffy fur and clenched her fingers into fists. It had been nearly ten months since she’d seen a dog and the urge to pet this one was overwhelming. She hoped once the planewas in the air the guy might put the carrying case on his lap again, maybe even let the little dog stick its head out and say hello. He zipped up the window and sat back in his seat, picking a hair off his dark trousers.

“What kind of dog is that?” she asked, unable to help herself.

“Pomeranian,” the man said, nudging the carrying case fondly with his booted toe. His boots were high-quality leather, waxed laces.

“Don’t worry,” he added. “She’s good on planes, she won’t yap the whole way.”

Up close Esther was realizing that the dog’s owner was younger than she’d first thought, but surface-aged by a visible pall of exhaustion. His skin was sallow, lips chapped, and there were purple half-moons beneath his eyes, one of which was very bloodshot. The nice clothes and posh accent had distracted her.

The broad, blue-eyed man had leaned over his friend’s lap and was staring at Esther with the fixed intensity of a cat looking at a squirrel, until the posh one dug an elbow into his ribs in a gesture he clearly thought was subtle. They didn’t speak to one another, but at least they didn’t try to speak to Esther either, and little by little she began to relax. Her nerves were shot right now, after all; she was reading danger into nothing.

The overhead intercom crackled to life, the flight attendant cheerfully thanking active military members and members of the Gold Wings Plus program, and soon enough the plane was barreling down the tarmac. Esther’s stomach lifted as the wings caught air and the ground began to shrink beneath them, gem-green and patchworked with roads and buildings, then replaced by the sparkling blue of the bay as they set off across the open water.

She turned from the window and opened the mystery novel she’d bought at the airport hours before. It was performance more than anything else. She was far too keyed-up to make sense of the words. The man next to her took out his own book though he didn’t open it, and yes, she was all nerves, but still she would’ve sworn that something about hisenergy was off. He kept jiggling his leg and she wondered if he was afraid of flying. He’d said his dog was good on planes but mentioned nothing about himself.

“What’re you reading?” he asked suddenly, swiveling toward her again, moving his whole head like an owl.

She showed him the cover rather than speaking, hoping he’d finally read the signs that she didn’t want to engage in conversation.

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