Insidious Read online

  “Why?” he asked.

  “To keep secrets safe,” a voice lilted from somewhere in the meadow. Both Joy and Ink turned, searching for the source. Ink’s hand lowered, the blade drooping, all but forgotten.

  “Joy,” he whispered in his crisp, clean voice with something like a warning. “Who else is in here?”

  She hesitated, still unsure of what to say—how to tell him. “Inq should be the one...”

  He turned on her, eyes wide. “Wait,” Ink said. “Wait—I know this place,” he whispered. Suddenly, he spun around shouting, “Inq!”

  “Ink?”

  Joy hadn’t said it.

  The tall, elegant woman stood between the shadows of the trees, leaf patterns playing over her skin, merging with the indigo glyphs like watercolor paint. She smiled at him, both dimples. Joy wondered what he must be thinking, but she saw only his body in stillness, like a long-held breath.

  The princess also seemed at a loss, her lips shaping themselves for words, but no sound came out. A smile painted her lips, and her eyes shone bright.

  “I am so happy to see you,” she said, “after all this time apart.”

  Ink said nothing.

  She tipped her head to the side, just like Inq. Joy twisted her fingers.

  “The last time,” she said slowly, each word bringing her another step forward, out of the wood, “you were injured. Do you remember?”

  Ink’s face turned in sharp profile, his eyes following her as she circled closer like a shy doe.

  “Inq brought you to me,” she added softly. “She told me what had happened. I was very proud of you—of what you did.” She shifted, and her curtain of hair fell into her face. Joy thought if she’d been like Inq, the dark marks would be flying over her skin. As it was, her voice was both tentative and strong. “I know that must sound strange, but it’s true.” She cupped her hands together, fingertips only just touching; it was the most peaceful gesture Joy had ever seen. “Do you remember what I said when you woke?”

  Ink moved, only a very little, the tips of his hair shaking no.

  The princess smiled. “I think you do,” she whispered.

  Joy bit the inside of her cheek. Ink could not lie.

  The princess stood before Ink, smiling down on him; he was considerably shorter than her—but the resemblance was unmistakable. Joy knew that that had been on purpose. Inq had given him a hint, even if he didn’t know it. They looked like her.

  Ink sized her up with his fathomless eyes, searching for something in her face. She matched him stare for stare, but hers was softer, like her voice as she spoke.

  “I said, ‘Look how they tried to break you—’”

  “‘—but you proved yourself stronger,’” Ink said, completing the sentence, almost without meaning to. Joy’s breath hitched at the sound of his voice, like mist fogging the crisp, clean rain.

  The princess nodded, a slow dip of her button chin. “And then I called you by your name and you woke.”

  A shiver passed over his body. It raised goose bumps on Joy’s skin.

  “That was my name?” he whispered. It carried a weight of heartache and years.

  “Of course,” the princess said through her smile. “A mother knows the name of her son.”

  It was as if her words struck him physically—he veered back, stung or stunned. Joy watched the flash-flurry of emotions, from awe to loss, hope to rage, and disbelief to something frightened and frightening. The princess endured it all without resistance. She waited. Joy waited. A breeze tousled the leaves and ignored them entirely.

  “You—” he said and stopped. “You are...?”

  “I am the last,” she said quietly, although her voice carried some of the timbre of Ink’s and Inq’s that pierced through all other sounds. “And you were the second to be made by my hands. But, yes, you are and I am and here we are, together, as it was when I first held you like a dream brought to life. Do you remember that day?” The princess spoke gently, but with the strength of conviction. “You opened your eyes and looked at your sister and smiled.”

  Joy heard the tiniest crunch of grass and a smooth, mellow shunk as the razor sank point-first into the earth.

  Ink collapsed to his knees.

  The princess knelt in the ground and held him, petting his hair as he began half-sob-laughing. Joy pressed her hands to her lips, pushing her smile against her teeth. This was the moment she’d been waiting for—the one that he’d never known and had wanted all of his life. It ached beautifully.

  It made Joy want to call her mother, but she doubted she’d get good reception down here.

  Ink touched the princess’s shoulders, holding them at arm’s length. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me everything.”

  And she did.

  * * *

  Joy hid in the dappled shadows trying not to overhear the long, detailed history of what had happened to the princess and why she was here. Words like King and Queen and traitor and coup as well as hidden door floated over the make-believe brook. Joy rubbed her arms and tried to remain inconspicuous as she grew more uncomfortable the longer they stayed.

  She squinted out over the meadow and into the wood. Where was Inq? Was she going to come down anytime soon? Was she afraid? Contrite? Pissed? Ashamed? Joy was all too familiar with Inq’s protective wrath and wasn’t eager to experience it again. From the shadows, Joy watched Ink listen to his mother’s voice with an intensity she could all but feel on her skin. She remembered what it felt like to be under his scrutiny, to be so completely the object of his attention, for him to be totally absorbed. He looked as if he was storing up every word, every second of the time spent discovering this person, learning where he came from, who he was, where he belonged in the world.

  “And that is why you are here? Trapped inside the Bailiwick?”

  There was something in Ink’s voice that caught Joy’s attention.

  “I came here for my safety,” she said. “But I remained here to safeguard our hope for Return.” She sat up a little straighter, the runes on her neck black as ink. “Your sister and I fashioned you both in our family image in the slight hope that someone might recognize you and remember...but even our closest allies could no longer recall their King and Queen and there was no hope of convincing them otherwise.”

  Ink considered this as he replaced each of his instruments into his trifold wallet and tucked it back into his pocket, sliding the chain through his first two fingers. “So either the Council must locate and open a door that they cannot remember, or the door will open when all the Council members are dead?” he said. “And then you will be free?”

  The princess closed a hand over his. He stared at her hand, at her fingers, the same way he’d once watched Joy’s hand take his—curiously and academically interested.

  “I will be free when our people are reunited,” she said. “When they can return to our world and I can greet my mother and father and introduce them to you and Inq. When all families will be whole once again.” For the first time in what felt like hours, the princess looked directly at Joy. She felt pinned, caught under glass. The woman smiled. “We have a plan.”

  Ink looked at Joy.

  “A plan?” he said. He didn’t sound happy. “You have a plan?”

  “It was Inq’s plan,” Joy said, rubbing her palms against her capris. “Remember Enrique’s funeral? She said she needed a favor. She thinks I can find the traitor.”

  “And kill him,” Ink said, his eyes flat as chits. “She wants you to kill a member of the Twixt.”

  It was more a statement than a question, and it put her in dangerous territory—she could not deny it, and yet she wanted to refute it. The way he said it squashed any inclination she had of telling him about what had happened to the Red Knight. She’d already done much more than just kill someone in t
he Twixt.

  “I said I wouldn’t do it,” Joy said.

  Ink hardened—his skin, his muscles, the planes of his face, the tone of his voice. It was a frightening, instantaneous transformation. Joy shrank back.

  “Good,” Ink said and stood up. “You should not be the one to do it. And since we do not know who the traitor is, our priority is to open the door.” He touched the wallet in his back pocket. “By any means.”

  “No—” Joy started, but he pushed past her, walking quickly and resolutely up the stairs. “Ink?” Joy said helplessly and glanced at the princess, who stood up slowly, solemnly. Her gaze locked with Joy’s.

  “Stop him.”

  Joy needed no other prompting and launched up the steps.

  “Ink!” she screamed, not caring that her voice bounced back in the dark. She couldn’t see him up ahead. She gasped for breath. “Ink!”

  She exploded into the moist doorway of Graus Claude’s open mouth ringed in teeth, blinking to clear her eyes just in time to see Ink stalk past Kurt and Inq by the door.

  “I’d start with Maia,” Inq called helpfully after her brother. He ignored her as he unsnapped his straight razor with a flick of his wrist.

  “Ink! Stop!” Joy cried, tripping over the line of ruby-red fire. She stumbled out onto the carpet and fell to her knees.

  But he didn’t stop. Ink swiped a line in the air and strode through, leaving her behind without a second thought.

  Joy blinked at the space that was no longer there. The moment held its breath. The stone fountains gurgled. Graus Claude squatted, eyes milky, mouth wide. The fibers in the carpet scratched Joy’s skin. She felt tender and raw. Tears wet her face.

  “Delicious,” Inq preened with barely contained glee.

  Joy pushed herself up. “Bring him back,” she said.

  Inq shrugged. “I can’t.”

  “Then take me to him.”

  Inq clasped her hands primly. “No.”

  “He’s off to kill everyone on the Council!” Joy said. “Do you know what that will do to him?!”

  Inq’s eyes glinted like gems. “Nothing I haven’t endured,” she said. “I’ll say one thing for my brother, he gets straight to the point.”

  Joy stared at her. She’d meant to have this happen all along! Joy shook her head. This was wasting time! She grabbed her purse and Filly’s pouch, but the matchbox was empty. The office was full of watery things, not a bit of fire in sight. She blinked around helplessly, taking stock. Inq was unwilling. Kurt was stoic. Enrique’s car was back in Glendale. She was stuck. She had to get Ink. She had to stop him. Now.

  “We all have to grow up sometime,” Inq cooed. “Just remember, Joy, you started this.”

  “And I’m going to stop it,” Joy shot back as she scrambled behind the desk and started opening drawers. Kurt moved swiftly to stop her, but she grabbed the top drawer and saw a glint of glass. She snatched up the familiar stained-glass box and fumbled with the latch, upending the pouch on the desktop and grabbing the chalky dice. The knucklebones felt soft in her sweaty palm. Kurt grabbed her wrist. She glared at him. She didn’t know what else to do.

  “Help me,” she said. “Please.”

  The butler hesitated, then his mask came down, his not-so-human persona comfortable with being and doing uncomfortable things in the name of the Twixt. His hand squeezed her wrist. Joy winced and dropped the knucklebones. They hit the desk and rolled over once, inert. Inq smirked.

  “She made me promise not to try,” Inq said. “But she never asked him.”

  Kurt snorted in disgust and grabbed a piece of paper from the printer. He took a familiar-looking silver pen out of his jacket pocket and pressed it into Joy’s hand. Her fingers curled around it—it was expensive and heavy. Inq took a step toward him, but Kurt gave the cap a twist and a concealed well appeared, filling with viscous black fluid shot through with neon light.

  “Write and he will hear you,” he said.

  Joy took the pen and wrote the word Stop and then quickly added Please. Inq squinted at the words as if she were fighting a headache. Kurt touched the paper, eyes on his lover.

  “It is written in blood,” he said. “Their blood. That way, they can hear you inside their head...even without voice.” He straightened and glanced at Joy, ignoring the Bailiwick yawning behind him. “Tell him that this is not the way.” She dutifully scribbled those exact words, accidentally smearing the w with the side of her hand. She gave the pen back to Kurt and rubbed at the oily stain, feeling jittery and sick. He scooped up the old bones and pushed them into her palm.

  “Stand there,” he said, gesturing to the carpet. Joy moved aside as he typed a password into the computer.

  Inq cocked her head as she approached the mahogany desk, arms crossed. “You told me you didn’t know his password.”

  Kurt was busy typing in coordinates, his focus on the keys. “Sometimes you forget—I am human,” he said in his gentle tenor. “I can lie.” He clicked the mouse and nodded to Joy. “Now.”

  She tossed the yellowed bone dice on the floor, where they tumbled and rolled to a halt. Kurt clicked the mouse, and a laser level to the floor shot out, striking and rebounding off each of the knucklebones, creating a fractal pattern that hovered over the carpet. Joy stared at the Spirograph pattern as it grew more solid, more intense.

  “Go quickly. You can catch him,” Kurt said. “I will take care of the Bailiwick.”

  Joy nodded as she stepped into the light that seared her eyeballs and stung her nose. She opened her mouth to say something, but all the breath funneled out of her as she was yanked downward/outward/forward and forcibly spat out into a wall.

  She bounced off a gleaming slab of birds’ eye maple and laid a hand against it to steady herself, dimly realizing that it was warm to the touch. It was shaped like a door but had no handle or knob or keyhole—it was a single bumpy sheet of golden, polished wood. The light was dim and she felt moist, underground. Joy tried to figure out where she was while slowly coming to terms with her feet holding her up. Ink rounded a corner and stopped dead in front of her, his eyes burning hot as coals.

  He stared at her warily, trying to pierce an illusion that wasn’t there.

  “Ink,” she said, her voice scratchy. “Please, stop.”

  He moved slowly toward her, accepting the possibility that she could be real.

  “Joy?” he said. She nodded. His grip fanned along the razor’s handle. He touched a finger to his temple. “I heard you—”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “Thanks to Kurt.”

  Ink’s jaw tightened. “I hate that pen,” he muttered. He tested the blade’s weight in his hand. He focused on the door behind her. “You should not be here for this. You should go. Now.”

  “I can’t,” Joy said. “It was a one-way trip.”

  “To catch me,” he said flatly. “To stop me.”

  Joy took a step forward, “Ink, please.”

  “Move.”

  The word was like a fist. Joy stumbled, realizing that she was physically barring his way. She was literally the last thing standing between him and his intended victim, the first Council member whose death could both free the princess and undo him completely, demolishing everything he believed in—the same thing he’d loathe in her if he knew the truth: that she hadn’t merely killed the Red Knight, but obliterated him completely. It went against everything Ink was made to do, what he stood for, what he believed. Murdering one of the Twixt.

  She licked her lips. “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Move,” he said, deadly calm. “Now.”

  Her fingernails bit into her fists. She stared at Ink, hot-pink fire roiling in his eyes. She had a horrible flash-thought of her scalpel—his scalpel—but couldn’t imagine ever raising it against him. She would never, ever hurt him, and
she knew he could never hurt her—but to be this close, blades drawn, seething, made a small part of her doubt. The rest of her stood her ground.

  He was beautiful, terrible, his breath coming in heaves—she could see his heartbeat pulse in his throat—and somehow she stayed, feet planted as if she could hold him back with her bare hands.

  “Ink,” she said. “Please, stop. Listen to me.”

  He roared, “No!”

  Ink swept his razor, and Joy flinched, but it wasn’t aimed at her—or anywhere near her—and it tore a hole in the air near the doorway, gaping like a mouth in surprise. But there was only half a line; the slash that should have continued to pierce the golden doorway disappeared, repelling Ink’s magic to slice through time and space. With a snarl, Ink attacked the walls in a mad fury, slicing the air into ribbons that gaped and bled scenes of several faraway places, but wherever the gouges scored the wood, they were neatly absorbed without so much as a peek into another place. Joy watched him throw himself into his furor, arms bulging, hands sweeping to slice again and again, his hair whipping across his eyes, the silver chain slapping against his leg. His breathing became desperate, the world around him shredded and torn. Ink finally flung himself at it blindly, but reeled back, deflected like the blade itself. He twisted in a miserable, tight-fisted rage.

  “They wasted her,” he cried, his eyes hot and furious. “She has wasted her life alone in a cell, choosing to remain behind to help the Twixt, and for what? For them?” He kicked the door. Joy was surprised it didn’t break. His fingers spun the handle of his razor, shining bright and wild in the placid, golden light. “They threw her into the Bailiwick and they forgot about her! Such gratitude! Such sacrifice!” Indignity trembled in his throat and down his arms, shuddering in his chest. “They torture her still by forgetting everything! Betrayal hangs over her head to this day!” he seethed. “Traitors walk freely among the Council while she hides down in a hole!” He stamped his heel and slashed at the air, tearing another space into jagged ribbons, holes leaking moonlight and starlight and sand, windows to anywhere, so many lost places. His hands became fists. “It’s not fair!” he shouted.