Insidious Read online

  “They told me the same thing,” he said again slowly. “That you were going to trap me by my name and sell me to a zoo or to scientists or something equally horrifying. And even if you were innocent, they said that the adults were probably using you to tease me out of the forest and that they were ultimately after the Glen. The elders talked about humans ransoming me back or torturing me to find the graftlings. That they’d burn the First Forest down.” His fingers shook, and the cords on his arms stood out in wiry tension. “Stef, they said anything—everything they could think of—to make me believe the worst, to believe them and not you. And I did.” He wiped his hands on his shirt. “I did. And I’m sorry.” He shook his head, eyes full of apology and regret. “I kept my promise, and I waited because I needed you to hear it. I needed you to know. I needed you to know that I didn’t—”

  And his words snuffed out like a candlewick. Stef stood waiting for them, but there was only the plucked-string silence.

  “You waited,” Stef said, finally. “You waited for over a decade on the off chance you could trick my sister into setting up a meeting that I might never come to?”

  Dmitri smiled as if he couldn’t help it. “There was always a chance.”

  Stef stepped forward. Dmitri stepped back, surprised.

  “What?” Stef said. “What is it?”

  The DJ waved at Joy, who would have been just as happy to be forgotten completely at that moment. “I promised her I wouldn’t threaten you or attack you or be within ten feet of you.” He took a step to one side, pacing along the edge of his promise. The pact kept him back. “I promised that I wouldn’t come near you. I wouldn’t touch you...” His voice slowed as he looked at Stef, taking in the glyphed glasses and the red-iron bracelet and the inside-out/backward shirt—all the protections Stef wore to keep the Twixt at bay. “I promised that I would be alone—and I am,” he said. “I am very alone.” Dmitri’s gaze crossed the distance like a physical touch. “And I promised that I wouldn’t intend to do you harm.” He crossed his arms protectively over his chest and bowed his chin. “Stef, I never intended to do you harm.”

  A great shuddering breath whistled through Stef’s teeth. He stuck his hands deep in his pockets.

  “Well,” he said. “You did.”

  Dmitri nodded. “I know.”

  “A lot,” Stef said.

  “I know,” Dmitri said. “I’m sorry.”

  Stef nodded, and something inside him shifted. Joy could see it melting his face, smoothing his posture, softening his eyes and changing his voice into something liquid, quick and rushing.

  “Do you have any idea how long it took?” he said. “How long I hated myself for being duped? For being stupid? Hating the fact that I let myself be so easily used?” His voice gained heat. “I felt like an idiot for believing that anyone could—” his words skipped tracks “—let alone believe me—and not make me out to be some sort of freak.” He kicked the dirt, his words growing softer. “Do you know how long I thought I’d been under some sort of spell and if I could just figure out how to break it, then I would be normal and not...not?” Stef pulled at his short sleeves as if he could cover his arms. “That’s how I got into magic in the first place,” he said. “That’s how Vinh found me—trying to somehow bleed it out of my veins.”

  Joy felt a chill thread down her spine. Stef tugged on his bracelets and straightened, glaring intently at the young man from the Twixt. “I thought it was because you were one of them, an Other Than,” he confessed. “I thought it was because I was human and you weren’t and that you had manipulated me with magic and that if I was with someone human, I would feel different.” Her brother stared at the satyr in rough blue jeans whose every look, every gesture wanted to deny it, his face crumbling, but he stayed silent, listening, although it clearly hurt. “But it never felt different, and I never felt the same.” Stef took a deep breath and stressed every word. “It wasn’t because you were Folk, Dmitri. It was because it was you.”

  Dmitri’s arms dropped as he suddenly jerked backward and spun in place like he’d been struck. He coughed and slapped his legs helplessly, bending forward, half laughing, half crying, gasping as if the air had been punched from his lungs. He curled his stomach over his joined hands tucked in his gut and stamped the ground with one hoof.

  “O theé mou,” he groaned. “I hate hasty promises!”

  The oath worked, preventing him from taking even one step closer.

  Stef shrugged shyly—there was nothing he could do.

  “I release you,” Joy said quickly, waving her hands from the sidelines. “I take it back. All bets are off!”

  Dmitri laughed, staring imploringly at Stef. “Too bad it doesn’t work like that,” he said through a wide, silly grin. “Would that it did. But we agreed that for here, now, these are the rules. And the rules can’t be broken.” He fished out another glow stick with fumbling fingers tripping over themselves and held it out to Joy, eyes still on her brother. “But next time, things can be different,” he said. “And this is for you, as promised.” He handed her a short branch shaped like a Y, worn smooth with oil and age. He pressed it into her hand. “It’s a dowsing rod. But instead of seeking water, it seeks hana—residual spell energy—straight to its source. You’ll have to name the spell, but it can guide you from there.” Joy nodded, her fingers slick on the wood. He looked at her then, brown eyes sparkling and fervent. “You will have to be the one to light the beacon again, but not for another twenty-four hours. Bring him back,” Dmitri said quietly. “Bring him back to me. Please.” He backed away from them, then, smiling, arms wide. Beaming, he pointed at Stef and laughed with a rolling, bouncing gait. “I can wait,” he said like a promise. “I can wait.”

  He snapped his fingers over his head and the bubble popped.

  They stood in Abbot’s Field, the neon an afterimage on their eyes.

  Stef stared around as if he couldn’t quite believe it...or didn’t want to believe it. His head turned slowly—wide-eyed, scanning, searching. Joy stayed very still as he took a shaky step toward the car. Then another. The crunch of stones grinding underfoot confirmed which reality was real.

  Her brother opened the car door, watching his fingers lift the handle, and dropped heavily into the front seat. Joy hesitantly climbed into the passenger’s side. They both clicked their safety belts and sat in the parking lot, staring out at the grass. There was a long moment of quiet.

  Stef shifted gears and backed out of the lot. Flipping on the turn signal, he exited slowly onto the road. Joy tucked the glow stick and the scalpel into her purse. She squeezed her fists against the ball of suppressed sorry that she wanted to say, but couldn’t quite find the words. She hadn’t known. She hadn’t realized. She felt Stef’s every twitch like the edge of a ward, crackling.

  They stopped at a red light. Joy looked at her brother. His hands hadn’t moved from their death grip on the wheel, and his eyes didn’t turn away from the road as he spoke.

  “I don’t know if I love you more or hate you more right now than I have in my entire life,” he said. “Don’t talk to me for a while, okay?”

  Joy pressed her hands between her knees. “Okay.”

  “No,” he said calmly, exasperated. “No talking. I mean it. Not one word.”

  Blinking back tears, Joy nodded. This was what happened when people weren’t honest—when they kept things from one another, from the people they loved. They got hurt. She saw it in her brother’s eyes. She’d heard it in Dmitri’s voice. She should have told Stef right then how they were part of one another’s worlds, that he was part-Twixt, too, but now she was too late. She wanted to respect his wishes and really didn’t want to add another shock to what was already obviously tender and bruised. She didn’t want to disrespect what he’d just heard, what he’d just said. She glanced at his wrist beneath his bracelet. There were old scars there. I didn
’t know!

  She stared out the window, feeling invasive. Joy shouldn’t have been there for that entire conversation, but because of their rules, she’d had to accompany him there, and she’d have to bring him back. Stef knew it, Dmitri knew it, and she was sure they all wished that she had chosen her conditions better. Some rules were definitely meant to be broken.

  Joy pulled out her phone. There was another conversation that had to happen—if anything, this whole mess had convinced her that some secrets were too important to be kept between siblings.

  Respecting Stef’s silence, Joy typed a text to Luiz.

  You there?

  It was only a moment before she got an answer. Always for you. There was an ellipsis as he typed more. Antony called. Said you were on the warpath. Something about Raina?

  She wiped moisture from her eyes. This wasn’t about Raina. This was about secrets. She was sick of secrets. She typed with her thumbs. Tell Inq that “when” is now & I want to be there or I’m telling him first.

  There was a slight pause before he answered. That sounds bad.

  Joy typed back, Hopefully it gets better.

  * * *

  Stef parked the car and slammed the door behind him. He didn’t look back as Joy exited her side and walked away from the condominium. The last thing she needed was to be locked inside a pressure cooker with her brother upset—she remembered the feeling all too well during the Year of Hell when everyone stewed in their own, private juices, the air fairly thick with loathing. She’d soaked up her dad’s depression like a sponge and had made it her own. Whatever Stef was feeling was too much for her right now. She took the sidewalk around the back and followed it east.

  She typed a quick text to Monica as she walked.

  I think I want a do-over starting from about midnight on.

  Monica’s reply came quickly. Rough morning?

  Joy grimaced. It’s going to be a loooooooong weekend.

  Family vacay = CRAZY TIMES. *hugs* Call me later!

  Joy shut off her phone and stopped on a park bench to write another sort of message. She dug a small pouch out of her purse and loosened the strings. Inside were tiny rolls of translucent paper, a mini pencil and a box of matches from Antoine’s Café. Joy unrolled a piece of vellum that hadn’t been there before. Call Inq immediately, it said. Joy remembered smelling burnt vellum back before Inq had appeared at the door. She’d never checked her messages or written back. Filly would be itching for news. Joy took out a fresh piece of paper and spread it out on the back of the matchbox. She wrote: Got it. Thanks! Heard about my gala? GC is worried about SL’s motives. Suspects there will be trouble.

  Her agreement to keep Filly informed as to the latest gossip was a tightrope walk over a pit of poisonous snakes on fire, but the young Valkyrie had been good to her word to be there for Joy in case of emergencies, and she’d also saved Joy’s life more than once. If sending her a little bit of news kept Joy on her good side, it was a price she was willing to pay. Besides, the brash warrior woman had proven that she did not play into politics and respected Joy enough to try to keep her from being played. Neither Graus Claude nor Inq had told her that they had manipulated her by using her True Name, forcing her to let go of her scalpel or Ink, and Ink himself hadn’t a manipulative bone in his body. In fact, he didn’t have bones.

  But now he has a heart.

  There was only one more match in the matchbox. She’d need to find more soon. Joy scraped the match to light and burned the vellum to ash. Filly would get the message in her matching pouch and would send a reply. It wasn’t quite Verizon, but it worked.

  Brushing the dust off her fingertips, she continued down the sidewalk, winding toward the C&P. She debated whether she could grab a Clif Bar without Hai or his father thinking she was there for some other reason, but then considered that she might actually have another reason. She hadn’t actually promised Stef she wouldn’t go. She removed the strange branch from her purse as she walked.

  It looked new and felt old, like it was an antique that had been recently polished. The wood was faded, and the whorls looked almost like writing, the grain more like panels, the knots more like knobs. It reminded Joy of a wishbone, something superstitious that harnessed all the power of wishing. It felt strong in her hands, solid, sure. She held on to the handles and pointed the leg ahead of her, feeling nothing. She whispered the word “Glamour.”

  A quiver tickled her palms and buzzed up her arms. It swung to point at the C&P. Figures, she thought. Wizard At Work.

  She let go with one hand and the feeling stopped. She could reset it with a word, but the glamour spell was the only one she knew by name. She stopped experimenting as she neared the convenience mart with its bright posters advertising cigarettes, lottery tickets or a Mega Gulp for only $1.99. Joy hid the Y-shaped stick back in her purse and caught a whiff of smoke. The tiny pouch coughed up a curl of gray. She tugged out the small piece of vellum that had appeared. It read Promise? She smirked at Filly’s thirst for mayhem as she pushed her way into the convenience mart, passing through the door with its two-tone hello chime.

  The C&P was empty save for Hai behind the counter flipping through a magazine, looking bored. He glanced up as she entered and nodded. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” she said, checking the aisles. “Is Mr. Vinh available?”

  “He’s not here,” Hai said. “Can I help you?”

  “I don’t know,” Joy said. “I had a question for him.”

  “Animal, vegetable or mineral?”

  “Um...neither,” she said. “It’s sort of Other.”

  “Ah,” Hai said, understanding. “Have you asked your brother?”

  Joy bit her tongue and grabbed a Carrot Cake bar, handing it over with a five-dollar bill. “We’re not speaking right now,” she said. “But he didn’t know. I’m trying to find the name of a spell.”

  Hai counted her change. “What kind of spell?” he asked casually.

  Joy hesitated. Hai was as close to the wizard as she could get; his father bragged that his son was the 3-D computer imaging genius behind the glamours that were his mainstay with members of the Twixt. She wasn’t sure if Hai was an apprentice like Stef, but he knew the business.

  “It’s a type of blanket spell,” she said. “One that would make everyone forget—and not just forget, but be unable to remember what had happened, no matter how much they’re reminded about it afterward.” Joy pocketed the change. “A Level Ten or better.”

  Hai frowned, drawing his every facial feature downward. “You’re not thinking of doing anything like that, are you?” he said. “That’s seriously bad magic.”

  “No, no, no—not me!” Joy said, trying to make her innocence quite clear. “I think someone else has done something like it, and I want to figure out who.”

  He tapped his fingers on the counter. “You’ll need a dowsing rod.”

  Joy lifted the stick out of her purse. “Like this?”

  Hai’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah,” he said. “Like that.” He grabbed a notepad. “The only spell I know like that is called an Amanya. It’s one of those spells that belong in the black zone.” He tapped her purse with his pen. “You use that to pick up the spell resonance—every crafted spell has one, and it would have to have a looping signal that would refresh over distance to compensate for spell degradation over time.” He drew a quick Y-shaped doodle on the page. “The rod can pick up the base code and follow the resonant emissions back to their origin point or person. It’s like tracing the ripples back to the stone that hit the pond.” The pen stilled and he glanced up. “You know that if someone went to all that trouble to be forgotten, they won’t be eager to be found out.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I think they got caught in the spell, too. I’m just planning on pointing it out and letting the Twixt have ’em.”
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  Hai tapped his pen on the paper. “Harsh.”

  Joy said, “In this particular case, I’m not a big fan.”

  “You know the tien will rip them apart,” Hai said, using his father’s term for the Folk. “But if whoever cast the spell doesn’t necessarily know they cast the spell, and no one else can remember, either, then how are you going to prove that it happened at all?”

  Joy unwrapped her snack and took a bite. “I’m hoping that’ll be someone else’s problem.”

  Hai shook his head. “You have to be careful—blanket spells can easily cause a paradox, and in a paradox, the earlier spell wins. Spells are notoriously time-and variable-sensitive. Negate one condition, and the whole spell unravels—that’s why memory spells are tricky and why we don’t use them in our glamours.” Hai leaned on the counter. “There’s a better way to handle this, you know. All memory spells have a safeguard built into them, in case it hits the caster, too. Sounds like that’s what happened. You can sever a spell at its origin, which releases the caster and, in this case, would restore that one person’s memory. It won’t lift a blanket spell, but you can prove what happened by forcing the one who cast the spell to remember that they did it, and, if they are tien, then they’d have to tell the truth. Even if the rest of the Council doesn’t remember, they know that none of them can lie about a known truth.” He rapped the pen against the pad again. “That is why memory spells have a safety attached—if you do not know what’s true, then you can lie, which is a nasty violation of their laws.”

  “Breaking the rules,” Joy said.

  “Which are supposed to be inviolate,” he said. “The tien like things black-and-white, all-or-nothing.”

  Joy tipped her head. “So how do you sever a memory spell at its source?”

  “Now, that we can do,” Hai said proudly. “My father can ensorcel something for you. He’ll be back after lunch, but you’re going to need to give him something with an edge that can cut.”