Except the routine isn’t as effective as it used to be either. Uncle Nik’s words keep floating up in the back of my head, haunting me like a restless spirit.
“If they ever find out that you stood against them…”
He counted the woman I saw on Wednesday as one of the evils who needed to be eliminated. The woman who sent Kenneth after me twice, likely three times if I assume he was responsible for Other Elodie’s death.
Does that mean she already sees me as standing against her, even though as far as I know I’ve never done anything to her?
What if it isn’t my glim that’ll ruin my matches’ lives?The enemies I’ve somehow made could destroy them just as easily.
I cross my legs and close my eyes for my meditation, but my consciousness refuses to detach from my body. The images of the black-and-silver-haired woman and of Kenneth slashing at me with his knife cycle through my head in an endless whirlwind.
How can they be connected to my attacks and the immediate aftermath in both of the realities I’ve lived in… if those attacks aren’t also connected?
When I was stabbed in the back and nearly murdered at seventeen in my old reality, it looked like Kenneth met the same fate. But he was a highborn Hearst in that world too.
Why was he wandering around Asher’s dreary neighborhood? It wasn’t anywhere nearhishome or any usual upper-class lucent territory.
Was he really another victim… or was he the one who stabbed me there too?
Even as my mind shies away from the idea, it makes a nauseating sort of sense. If Mystery Woman ordered Kenneth to attack me in my former world, and Uncle Nik had me murder her to protect me… couldn’t he have arranged to get rid of Kenneth as well? He had plenty of magic of his own. He found me so quickly after the attack…
How long had he been following me? How much did he see—what did he do before he came to me and promised it could all be okay?
Too many questions I can’t ask him. Not that I’m sure I’d have had the courage to even if I found myself face to face with my uncle again.
Some of those questions he might not have the answers to either. The biggest one that looms over me while I drench myself in a searing shower: why would some uber-powerful lucent psychopath have come after me in any reality, let alone both?
It’s possible that Other Elodie’s poking around near The Eclipse and the dance club and Beacon Prep clashed with Mystery Woman’s “evil” activities somehow. But what could I have possibly done in my old reality to piss her off? Almost everything about my life there was different from here. I kept my head down, tried to stay out of people’s way.
Maybe I’m putting together pieces that don’t actually fit. Trying to assign meaning to make myself feel better about how messed up my whole situation is. What kind of vast conspiracy is going to span multiple parallel universes?
I swipe my hands over my face, give my head a shake to clear it as well as I can, and get dressed for another day at school.
As I’m heading out to the car, my phone pings. The message that pops up is nothing but a heart emoji.
Before I left his family’s “safe house” condo the other day, Salvatore showed me how to disengage the magic in the lock in case I ever needed to escape there on my own—and set us up in one of the quick-deleting messaging apps for more discreet communication. Apparently even with that, he’s being cautious about how much he says when he doesn’t know what company I’m in.
Or does he?
I scan the street before I drop into the back seat of the car. It’s impossible to tell whether he’s watching over me in his stalker-y way right now or just anticipating seeing me at school.
Either way, the knowledge that I’m on his mind steadies me a little. I shoot off an answering heart in return and lean against the buttery leather with a smile.
The smile lasts until I emerge under the beaming morning sun at the edge of the main Luminary green and immediately see Simone Palenti marching toward me.
I hesitate, one hand on my satchel, the other windingstrands of ephemera around my body in case I need to conjure a hasty defense.
Simone hasn’t gotten in my face since she confronted me at my locker a couple of weeks ago, maybe because Salvatore’s toned down his public interest in me, but she was pretty obvious with her threats both then and in the texts she sent me earlier.
It seems wisest to pretend I still don’t know what she was going on about.
“Hi, Simone,” I say coolly. “What’s up?”
She struts around me with a flick of her long brown hair that sends a whiff of pomegranate perfume into my nose. “Just making sure you remember your place. Your kind shouldn’t mix with ours.”
Salvatore might not be openly cozying up to me anymore, but I can’t imagine he’s entertained the slightest advance from his second-or-something cousin either. And he’s obviously been more absent from family activities than usual considering how much time he’s spent on the whole match-stalking gig.
Is she fishing for any hint that his disappearances has to do with me?