Asa wasn’t all bad. He couldn’t be. He deserved a chance. But could he be given one?
“Is there—” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Asa, is there any way to free you?”
His hand froze, still holding a bag of rice, halfway to the shelf. “. . . Free me?”
“From Elizabeth.”
“Only the One Beneath could do that. I serve at His pleasure.”
“Then, from the One Beneath.”
Asa turned to her then, his gaze impossibly sad. “Nothing any mortal could ever do.”
“It’s not fair, that you got—stolen into this. Kidnapped. Shanghaied.”
“Shanghaied. An old word. I like that.” Asa shook his head. “No. It’s not fair. But it’s the only existence I’ll ever have. I’ve accepted it.”
“Does that mean accepting everything that’s going to happen here? Everything that’s happening to my dad?”
“Don’t you know I’d change that if I could? Most of this world—this stupid, corrupt world—who gives a damn what becomes of it? But I’d save the lot if I could, just because you live here.”
It was too much. Verlaine stepped back from him. “You’re toying with me. Again.”
“I’m not. I wish you could believe that. Not that it makes any difference, I suppose. But we can’t help wishing, can we?”
Their eyes met, and once again Verlaine felt it—that unmistakable surety that she’d finally been seen, that one person in the world could really, truly look at her and see the truth. That had to be some kind of demonic magic, like the burning of his skin or the voodoo he’d worked on her besotted cat. And yet she couldn’t not revel in that unfamiliar feeling.
“Give me one thing,” she said. “One truth, and I’ll believe you.”
Asa blinked. “What?”
“Tell me one thing that will help us against Elizabeth. Anything real. Give me that.”
He stepped closer to her, until they were very nearly face-to-face. “All right,” he said. “One truth.”
“Say it,” she whispered.
“You know that Elizabeth’s responsible for the deaths of your parents,” he said. “For the fact that no one else can see you. But do you know why?”
She hadn’t expected his truth to be about her. Verlaine blinked, suddenly unsure. “No. I don’t know. I’ve never known.”
“Everyone in town loves Elizabeth, don’t they? They adore her. She’s only a dim shadow in their memories, a vague impression of the perfect girl.”
“Well, yeah. That’s her magic at work.”
“But what part of her magic?” Asa reached up and brushed a lock of Verlaine’s silvery hair from her cheek. “Elizabeth’s not that lovable on her own. So she steals the very ability to be loved. She steals it whenever she feels she needs more, and who do you think she steals it from? The very people who have the most. The ones whose hearts would be pure, whose joy in living could be unbounded, the ones who nearly every single person would find themselves drawn to as if by the gravitational pull of the stars. In other words, she stole it from you.”
Verlaine shook her head. “That’s not me.”
“It is you. Or, I should say, it ought to be. Who can feel joy when everyone else overlooks them? Whose heart can stay pure when they’re tormented by loneliness, and by jealousy for the simplest human connection? No one. Though you’ve come closer than anyone else I’ve ever heard of. There’s so much good in you, Verlaine—so much light, not even Elizabeth could take it all.”
“Stop,” she said, stepping back from him. “Please stop.”
“The theft is an illusion, really.” Asa’s voice was desperate now. “You still possess it, this ability to be loved, but the light shines on her instead. Like a candle that’s only visible in a mirror, do you understand?”
Verlaine shook her head. She was dangerously close to tears. “I don’t understand any of it. You have to stop.”
But Asa kept going. “The illusion doesn’t work on demons. I know you, Verlaine. No one else in the world does, but I do.”
“You could be making all of this up.”
“You know better.”
She did. But Verlaine had learned to deal with a hard world. She had learned to hold on to what she knew was true even when faced with hatred or indifference. She could hold on to it now, too.
“You’re a demon,” she said. “You’re helping the person who’s ruining my life. Whatever you feel doesn’t matter. Whatever I feel doesn’t matter. You’re here on this earth to do evil, and I’m here on this earth to stop you. So—that’s that.”
Asa straightened. He looked even sadder than she felt, and Verlaine had the absurd urge to comfort him.
Or maybe that was only the urge to put her arms around him.
“That’s that,” Asa said, and he turned and walked out into the cold. The door shut behind him, untouched.
21
NADIA SAT ON THE 22 BUS, HEADING NORTH ALONG Clark Street, cell phone clutched in her hand. Texts from Verlaine kept scrolling along the screen, one after the other, each of them explaining what Elizabeth had stolen from her, and why. Although Verlaine’s misery was clear even through textspeak, Nadia couldn’t bring herself to feel anything—and for once, she didn’t think dark magic had anything to do with it.
She was only ten blocks from her mother’s new home. Nine blocks. Eight. A powerful numbness had settled over her, which Nadia knew was an attempt at self-preservation.
Only a few minutes remained before she faced the person who had hurt her more than any other. She couldn’t afford to have feelings right now.
When she alighted at her stop, her boots sank down into days-old snow, already gray and crusty. Nadia had missed so many things about Chicago—Ann Sather, the “L,” real pizza. But she’d forgotten about some of the sucky parts, like snow that never melted and only became grimier. Or cold that bit through your coat and your flesh to make your bones quiver. Days like today: Nadia had managed to blot those out.
It was amazing, the things you could make yourself forget.
She double-checked the address as she walked along the street. Stupid, she told herself. It wasn’t like she hadn’t memorized this from the moment she’d first seen it. But her hands had started trembling, and despite the cold, sweat made her skin sticky beneath her thick coat and socks.
What else can Mom do to you? Nadia told herself savagely. How could this get any worse than it already is?
The apartment building was a nice one, but there was no doorman, and Nadia was able to slip in as someone else was walking out. As the aged elevator shuddered its way upstairs, Nadia clenched her fists, spread her fingers, clenched them again. She was ready for this. She had to be.
Finally she stood at her mother’s door. Only then did it occur to Nadia that Mom might not even be home; despite the ample settlement Dad had paid out in the divorce, she might have taken a job. Or just gone out, to shop or visit the Art Institute, something like that. Her mother had a life now, a life that didn’t include her at all. Nadia hadn’t thought of it because she couldn’t imagine it. Their lives still had that jagged hole torn in the center, the place where she had been. Maybe Mom had moved on.
But she still knocked on the door.
Mom answered it.
They stood staring at each other for a long moment. Nadia didn’t feel as though she could speak. All she could think was that Mom looked awful—even haggard. Her soft brown hair, which she used to always wear braided back in complicated, impractical, romantic styles, now hung lank around her face. She’d lost weight, though she’d been thin to start with. Instead of one of her rich cowl-neck sweaters in plum or rust or gold, she wore a plain T-shirt that didn’t look very clean. Even though this was the first time she’d seen her daughter in more than half a year, her mother’s face showed no reaction save a great tiredness.