“Yeah, that happened,” he said. “But you went into the basement to face him knowing you were going to die, didn’t you?” I nodded. “That was your penance, kid.” I didn’t take umbrage at him calling me kid, surprisingly. “Yeah, a lot of people died at the hands of that maniac, but you didn’t wrap your fingers around any of their throats, didn’t kill a single soul up to that point and hey—news flash, you haven’t killed anyone since! You are not a killer, Sienna. You went in there to die, knowing he was going to eat you alive and do God-knows-what to you. You knew and you went anyway. You faced the fire and you walked out the other side. Yeah, it’s not all spun out yet, and there’s the little complication of him mind-jacking you, but past examples say that that can be settled. So my question is—are you gonna blame yourself forever for stuff you didn’t even do?”
“I…” My voice was ash. “I don’t know. They’re all dead, and I’m alive.”
“Mm-hm. Got a way to fix that?” I shook my head. “Did you do it? Really do it? Go out there and kill a swath of people?” I shook my head again, this time tears welling up. “Forgive yourself. Explain it however will get you through the day—that you couldn’t have stopped Wolfe then anyway, that it wouldn’t have made a difference, he would have killed just as many people over the next hundred and thousand years he lived—whatever it takes to reconcile in your head that it was not your fault. Anyone who calls you weak for not wanting to die is an idiot. If that includes you, then stop being an idiot.”
“I could have gone sooner.” My voice was even hollower now. “I don’t have a future.” I looked up at him and the lump in my throat was big, enough that it was choking me, enough that a little sob escaped and I wanted to hit myself in the chest for letting it out. “I lost my future in the moment I killed Wolfe—when I found out what I was. Even if I got past all the rest, I still have no future, not a normal one anyway. I can’t touch anyone. Ever.”
“Can’t touch anyone? Your mother was a succubus, yes?” He waited for me to nod. “You’re familiar with human biology, how we breed? Explain your existence, please.”
“I don’t know. She could have,” I faltered, “artificially, you know. I never asked her the finer details because I didn’t know what she was at the time. There are ways it could have happened without touch, real touch—but none of that changes anything. I can’t lead a normal life. I can’t have a normal relationship. I’m a smoking crater with nothing around for miles.” I bowed my head. “I am death.”
“Wolfe was death,” Zollers said, stern, “and you’re nothing like him. You’re like…like a fragile package. ‘Handle with care’.” He stood up and grabbed a blanket from the back of his couch. He threw it around me and hauled me up, wrapping his arms around me in a hug. I started to struggle but something stopped me.
“I just…” I choked out, “I just…want to be normal.”
I could hear the Cheshire Cat-like smile in his voice. “You’re seventeen years old and you feel like the world is ending around you.” He pulled me tighter, and the gentle pressure was reassuring in a way that I had never known. “Sienna…this is normal.”
Chapter 21
“Gavrikov wants Kat Forrest.” I stared across the desk at Old Man Winter, a few hours later. I felt better after talking to Zollers, more determined. I had some clarity. Old Man Winter watched me the same as always, but next to him, Ariadne seemed to study me with more suspicion, more wariness. “But you probably knew that, because you know her name’s not Kat, not originally.”
Ariadne’s facade of wariness broke and she looked at Old Man Winter, then back to me. “What do you mean? What’s her name?”
“Klementina Gavrikov,” I said, forcing myself not to smile. It wasn’t funny that Old Man Winter hadn’t told his top lieutenant, who I liked to snark at, something of vital importance. Or at least that’s what I told myself as I mashed my toe into my shoe and against the floor. Nope, didn’t smile.
“She’s his…” Ariadne blinked three times, then looked to Old Man Winter for confirmation.
“Clone,” I said, “or at least that’s what he thinks.”
“He is incorrect,” Old Man Winter said, his hands steepled in front of his face.
“Don’t tell him that,” I said. “I don’t want to see what happens when a human bomb gets told he’s wrong.”
“She is his sister,” Old Man Winter said, as though I had not interrupted. “Not a clone.”
“Oh?” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Gavrikov…Aleksandr,” I said, softening my tone, “seemed to think she had died in 1908.”
“She did not.” He stared back coolly. He did everything coolly, dammit…I wished I had his glacial reserve. Half the time I was trembling beneath my badass exterior, just a scared kid. “She is as long-lived as any other powerful meta and as adaptable at healing. Whatever happened to her, she recovered.” He hesitated. “Though there is a…cost to her power.”
“There’s a cost to any power, it seems.” I breezed it out, way more than I really felt. “After all, if I used my power constantly, I’d end up with the mental equivalent of a clown car.”
Ariadne didn’t seem to find that amusing. “Her power, when used to excess, triggers almost the opposite.”
“Personalities leave her?” I shrugged. “Explains a lot.”
Old Man Winter spoke. “She loses her memory. If a Persephone-type reaches the end of their strength and continues to heal or grow a life, it is at the cost of their own faculties. They become a blank slate, new, fresh. Young again, as well, but at the cost of all they remember.”
“Tabula rasa,” I said with a breath.
“Indeed.” Ariadne took her usual place by the window. “If Gavrikov is after her, it would be best if we hid her for a while.”
Old Man Winter gave her a subtle nod. “You know where.”
“The basement? You’re gonna send her to the basement, right? Where you stuck me when I was hiding from Wolfe?” I shook my head. “Bet the flower girl will love that. Couldn’t you send her to another campus?”
Old Man Winter’s reaction was subtle, but not so subtle I missed it. “It would be best to have her close at hand.”
“Why?” I was curious. “Because you can protect her better here?”
His answer was lacking in any kind of subtlety, and it rattled me. “Because it is not wise to deprive a man who can explode with the force of a nuclear bomb of the only thing he desires—the thing he would be willing to do anything to get.”
I felt a pressure deep in my throat, this time less raw emotion and more…unsettling. “Yeah…that doesn’t sound too wise.”
Chapter 22
I found myself in the cafeteria. The glass had been repaired from when Clary and I had our epic battle, but the kitchen looked as though it were closed. The options for meals appeared to have been carted in by caterers; the serving buffet (which we had destroyed) was gone, replaced by long tables, heating elements and silver devices designed to keep the food warm. Most of the cafeteria ladies were gone, but the few that were left gave me glares as I passed. Nothing new there.
Until I got to the end. I picked up a croissant and put it on my plate, ready to face the inevitable crowd to see if there was a place for me to sit by myself. “Excuse me?” The light voice jarred me and I looked up to see one of the cafeteria workers. She was young, a little older than me, but round of face and with big brown eyes. She smiled at me and I looked back at her. “Thank you. For warning us to get out of the kitchen before it happened.”