Page 75 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

There wasn’t nearly enough time for Joanna to regather all the little pieces that had shattered at the sound of her sister’s voice.

So she straightened up, pulled her shoulders back, and assumed a posture of control. This was her house. She turned on the hall light again. She opened the door.

Esther was right there.

They stared at one another. Joanna could feel how wide her eyes were but couldn’t control it and Esther’s mouth curled into a smile, reflexive, so familiar. For a moment she looked exactly like herself, like Joanna’s memory of her, good-humored and lovely in a way made vivid with energy, but then Joanna’s eye began cataloging the changes. Her face was still round but it was thinner, her chin pointier, those Kalotay dimples deeper, and there were faint lines in her forehead that deepened as she raised her eyebrows; an expression so recognizable Joanna could almost feel it on her own face.

“Hi, Jo,” said Esther. She jazzed the hand that wasn’t holding up her companion. “Surprise.”

Joanna had wanted Esther to come home since the minute she’d left. She’d imagined this exact scene so many times over the years, imagined wrapping her arms around her older sister, imagined crying into her hair, both of them talking at once, volleying questions and answers, imagined accusations and apologies and reconciliations. But now Esther was here, and Joanna couldn’t do any of those things.

She was so happy to see her.

And she was so angry.

She hadn’t realized before how angry she was—furious, really. Furious that Esther had left without looking back, had apparently given upevery modicum of love between them, had not even returned for Abe’s funeral, had left Joanna here alone to rot and die in this rotting, dying house. She was so angry she couldn’t speak.

The silence was broken by the big man, who let out an inarticulate groan.

“Can we come in?” Esther said. Her eyes darted to the rifle still in Joanna’s hands. “They’re on our side, I promise.”

Joanna cleared her throat. “What side is that?”

“I have a lot of stuff I need to tell you,” said Esther.

“Ten years’ worth of stuff?”

“Yes, but—no—specifically, like, seventy-two hours’ worth of stuff.”

“Look at poor Collins,” said the back seat passenger, and Joanna was startled to hear that he was English. The big one—Collins?—was rolling his head around on his shoulders, his jaw slack, moaning piteously. It was a pathetic sight, but Joanna was distracted by the feeling of two very small paws on her shin, and she looked down to find a dog jumping up at her, bright-eyed and wet-nosed. It was so blatantly adorable it looked like it had been cut-and-pasted.

“Down, Sir Kiwi,” said the English man. “Or the nice lady might shoot you.”

“Who are these people?” she asked her sister. She’d meant it to come out firm. Instead the words were plaintive. “Why do the wards work on his friend but not on him?”

“I’m Nicholas,” said the self-declared Nicholas, and held out a hand with such confidence that Joanna found herself shaking it without having quite made the choice. He had cold fingers, a strong grip, and a very convincing smile in a nice-looking, slightly puckish face. “Your other question has a longer answer.”

Joanna took back her hand. She turned away from him to her sister, waiting, but Collins’s knees buckled, and he started gagging, and there was a flurry of action to lower him to his hands and knees on the porch.

Nicholas looked at Joanna, his face full of impatience. She noticedthat he looked very tired, dark circles under his eyes, his mouth drawn, cheeks sallow beneath light reddish stubble.

“I can’t read magic and I can’t do spells,” said Nicholas. His concern for Collins seemed to make him more inclined than Esther to answer Joanna succinctly. “Nor do they work on me. That includes your wards. Collins here isn’t so lucky, obviously.”

His explanation floored her. She’d thought Esther was unique in her untouchability.

“He’s like you?” she asked her sister. Esther shrugged and looked away. It was Nicholas who answered.

“More than you know,” he said. “Which we will explain presently, but Collins doesn’t have that many brain cells to spare, so please, could you let him in before he loses one too many?”

There seemed to be no point in continuing to assert any silly semblance of power, so Joanna began to step back, then paused. She did have a chip she wanted to bargain for, after all.

“He can come in on one condition,” she said, turning to her sister and willing her voice not to shake. “You have to look at the book that killed Dad.”

Esther swallowed. “I will,” she said. “Or Nicholas will, he’s the expert.”

“You didn’t say anything about a killer book,” said Nicholas, sounding alarmed. But then he added, “I’ll look at anything you like, just let us in.”

Joanna stepped back and watched as Esther and Nicholas hauled their friend up and forward—watched as strangers entered her house for the first time in her entire life.

---