Stiletto Read online

  Footsteps sounded behind me. Brendan’s strong arm wrapped around my shoulder, and I let him pull me closer.

  “You okay?” he said, quietly enough that it wouldn’t wake the others.

  “I’m good,” I lied. “Are the others still asleep?”

  “Alec and Cate, yeah,” he said.

  I remembered, with the corner of my brain that could still care about things like this, that they’d all been fine with sharing the mansion’s only empty guest room. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Dogs seemed to prefer sleeping in big piles, so why should werewolves be any different? But the thought of Cate snuggled up to Brendan all night irritated me.

  “I’m about to go take my turn on patrol,” Brendan said. “I hope she comes back.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  I didn’t want Sienna anywhere near my home or family. But I did want her near me.

  I wanted to rip her limb from limb and see if she felt like trying to hurt my sisters again afterward.

  Outside, a couple of the Wildwoods, Cheyanne and Matt, walked slowly up to the house to trade off. Cheyanne had insisted on taking her turn, but since she was still in her teens, Brendan had told Matt to go with her. I couldn’t handle the thought of any of the teen Daggers patrolling out there, but Brendan had said to me in an undertone that it would be much more dangerous to not let Cheyanne take her turn with the rest.

  He moved to go, but I grabbed him and pulled him back close to me. “Just one more minute,” I said.

  He wrapped his other arm around me, then, and held me tightly. He dropped a small kiss on top of my head, and for once, the affection didn’t unsettle me. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe it was the stress. Maybe I just liked the feel of his arms around my shoulders.

  The front door opened, and he left to talk to his wolves. Their voices murmured in the foyer as they traded off, and Brendan told them to go catch a few more hours of sleep. The front door closed again.

  And then Ginger plummeted from the sky to the driveway and collided with the gravel. She hit the ground and rolled, sending up a spray of dust and pebbles. Her broom jerked away behind her and trembled in the air for a moment, then fell to the driveway and lay still.

  I somehow managed to set my coffee on the windowsill, and then I was running so quickly my body tingled with the sudden effort. My blood pulsed through my limbs as I dropped to my knees next to Ginger’s curled-up form.

  “Gin.” I shook her, and she whimpered. I rolled her onto her back and checked her pupils, then her pulse.

  Brendan got back to her a moment after I did.

  “Get Clancy,” I barked at him.

  He took off toward the house as Ginger forced her eyes open.

  “Where’s Nelly?” she demanded.

  Her voice was as rough as the gravel she was lying on. I risked a glance into the sky, but it was as empty except for clouds, which was somehow worse than not knowing.

  “They’re not back yet,” I said.

  She closed her eyes again and muttered curses to herself, most so mumbled I couldn’t make them out. By the time Clancy arrived she had fallen silent again, and it took the two of us to get her inside and into an infirmary bed.

  I paced outside in the hallway across from Blaze while Clancy cleaned Ginger up. Brendan was walking circles around the house outside, and I half wanted to join him. This hallway didn’t have enough room to run, and I needed to run. The jittery caffeine energy mixed with my own fear, and my heart felt like a hummingbird’s.

  “How did she look?” Blaze asked. Her phone was in her pocket now. She leaned against the wall, as still and focused as a predator.

  “Rough,” I said. “Clancy won’t let me in until she’s got her settled and awake.”

  “Probably a good thing,” Blaze said, and I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself.

  It didn’t work.

  “My mom’s still out there. So’s Grandma.”

  “Yeah.”

  She tapped her fingers rapidly on her thigh, looking like someone jonesing for a cigarette, although I knew she didn’t smoke.

  “That’s the risk of this business, kid,” she said.

  Blaze was one of the only members of the coven who could call me kid and not piss me off. I knew she wasn’t just making up platitudes, either. Her mom had died during a mission, a long time ago before I’d been born. Blaze knew what it was like to wait for her mother to return, and what it was like when she didn’t.

  I kept pacing as a sick feeling churned in my stomach.

  I wasn’t ready for that second feeling. Not yet. Not today.

  Not ever.

  The infirmary door opened, and Clancy beckoned us in. Her normally bright face was drawn tight, and she kept her voice level and low.

  “You can talk to her, but don’t make it too long,” she said. “She needs rest.”

  I nodded and didn’t object when Blaze followed me into the room.

  Ginger’s head was supported by enough pillows to build a fort. I sat on a rolling stool next to her and waited as she pried her eyes open. She had one black eye and cuts all down her face, and her arms were covered in bandages where Clancy had cleaned and dressed her injuries.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” I said softly.

  There was a long pause, while Ginger seemed to be taking in my face. The clock on the wall ticked the seconds by, each one seeming loud and long.

  “Where’s Cerise?” she said.

  She blinked at me like I knew the answer to the question, and all I could do was shake my head a little.

  “She’s not here,” I said.

  “I told her not to come,” Ginger said.

  Tears welled up in her eyes, seeming hot and painful amid all the cuts and bruising. I handed her a tissue, and she delicately tried to pat them away without hurting herself.

  “She was right behind me,” Ginger said. “I thought she was with me.” Her voice hardened. “We were stupid to go in there. What was Nelly thinking?”

  “Same thing as the rest of us, probably,” I said. “That we’d had enough.”

  “My wife—” Ginger said.

  She swallowed, hard, and I watched her push the thought away as clearly as if it had been a physical thing.

  “What happened?” I said. “Anything you can tell us will help us figure out how to fight back.”

  “Don’t know that there’s a point,” Ginger said.

  This wasn’t like her. Ginger was nothing if not determined. I handed her a fresh tissue, which she twisted in her scraped-knuckle hands but didn’t use.

  “Was it that bad?”

  “It was bad,” Ginger said. “There weren’t even that many vamps, but she got us trapped. We thought the kids were still in one of the locker rooms, so Nelly and Ruby distracted Sienna while Cerise and I went to sneak the girls out. But Sienna must have seen us, because—”

  Again, she fought to regain control, and I handed her another useless tissue.

  “She’d planned for it,” Ginger said. “Of course she had. She trapped us. Lights went out. We held our own against the vamps, but… You know the kind of chaos you get when it’s that crazy.” She shifted in the bed and tried to hide a wince. “It was pretty clear she’d moved the kids, so we tried to get out. And I thought they were behind me. Cerise was right behind me.”

  “Always am,” someone said from the doorway.

  I spun around, ready to fight or scream or goddess knew what, and Cerise limped in the door. Ginger let out a strangled sound, tried to leap from the bed, and was instantly repelled by one of the stay-in-bed-or-so-help-you spells Clancy had put on all the mattresses. The magic buzzed like electricity against Ginger’s body, but she kept trying to break through it anyway until Cerise had reached her.

  I pushed back from the bed to give them room, then looked away to give them privacy as Ginger burst into another round of tears. Cerise murmured to her for a few minutes while Blaze tapped her toe against the infirmary tiles and tried
to rein in her impatience.

  Once Cerise had settled herself next to Ginger’s knees and Ginger had gotten her sobs under control, I ventured back to them. Cerise was almost as much of a mess as Ginger had been, with bruises marring her face and a good chunk of her hair singed off. Clancy ventured toward her with a fresh damp cloth and ointments that smelled sharply of herbs, but Cerise waved her off.

  “I’m fine,” she said shortly, in a way that let me know she wasn’t fine at all. She rested the back of her hand gently against Ginger’s face. “My poor girl.”

  “What happened?” Ginger asked.

  I nudged myself forward to hear the answer.

  “Sienna caught me,” Cerise said. “Dragged me off to a closet, beat me up some, and then let me go.”

  Blaze scoffed. “She let you go? Doesn’t sound like the Sienna we know and love.”

  I remembered, briefly, that Sienna was one of Blaze’s more distant cousins. Blaze had always seen her as something of a protégé, but I’d never talked to her about how her feelings might have changed since Sienna’s betrayal. In truth, I hadn’t wanted to know the answer.

  Now, it was pretty clear that Blaze was about as ready to tear our cousin into tiny pieces as I was.

  “It wasn’t out of kindness,” Cerise said. My heart clench at the edge in her voice.

  The infirmary grew colder than it had been a moment before, and I wasn’t the only one to feel it. Blaze crossed her arms over her chest, and Ginger squeezed Cerise’s hand.

  “Sienna had a message for you,” she said, looking at me. Her voice was controlled and tight in a way I didn’t trust.

  I tried to take a deep breath, and the air seemed to catch in my throat.

  “Sienna said to tell you that further rescue attempts will be a waste of time. The children are dead. So are Nelly and Ruby.”

  The words echoed in my head without coming together to form meaning.

  “The rest of the coven is instructed to join Sienna,” Cerise said, her voice as muffled as if she was trying to talk to me from the bottom of a pool. “If they don’t, they chose the consequences. I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

  Time slowed, and my mouth opened and closed while I tried to cobble her words into something that made sense.

  Blaze put an arm around my shoulder, and I sat while the clock ticked on.

  22

  Icy wind cut beneath the collar of my jacket and triggered sharp goosebumps down my arms. The night sky was clear for once, and with that clarity came the cold. Winter was approaching, and there was nothing I could to to turn back time.

  Behind me, my bedroom window squeaked, and the old frame rubbed against itself as someone slid the window open.

  “Want some company?” Alec asked.

  I shrugged. I didn’t care either way. I didn’t have room for feelings or opinions. Not anymore.

  He climbed out onto the roof, his black sneakers gripping the shingles with a soft scratching sound. He settled next to me, drew his knees up like mine, and wrapped his arms around them.

  “You okay?”

  “I don’t know, am I?”

  My words were as sharp as the wind, and Alec didn’t seem to mind.

  “You will be,” he said.

  The quiet confidence of his words kind of made me want to punch him. I needed to punch someone, and Sienna wasn’t making herself easy to find. I’d tried, both by skulking in the alleys near the Orbs arena and by tracing her with every spell I could muster.

  I’d been trying for weeks, and my efforts had all come to nothing.

  No one in the coven had been able to find the bodies, either. Every spell we’d attempted had fizzed out, and when Blaze and a few of the others had tried to break back into the Orbs arena, they’d found new locks on everything and security guards patrolling the area. Clearly, whatever had happened down there had caught the attention of the owners, and Sienna had moved on.

  “Don’t tell me how I feel,” I muttered.

  “Okay.”

  That made me want to punch him, too.

  And then his arm wrapped around me. I buried my face in his shoulder.

  I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. There was too much to think about, too much to do, too much to grieve for, and through it all the mantle of the Stiletto was heavy on my shoulders.

  “I’m thinking of moving the coven,” I said. “Sienna knows we’re here. Clearly magic and patrols haven’t been enough to keep her away.”

  But I wasn’t thinking of doing anything, not really. I couldn’t give up the mansion. Even if I could, I’d never persuade any of the grieving mothers or furious sisters inside to leave.

  This was our home, but I had no idea how to protect it.

  “I’m the Stiletto now,” I said. My voice interrupted the silence, and the words hung in the air for a few seconds as if waiting to see whether I’d try to snatch them back.

  I let them hang, let them sit for a moment while I turned them over and tried to figure out what to do with the information. I’d been trying to figure out what to do with it since the night Ginger and Cerise had returned, and I was still coming up empty.

  “I spent my whole life wanting to be the Stiletto,” I said. “Grandma had the role, and then Mom had the role, and it only made sense for me to have the role, too. Now I don’t know.”

  “What’s happening at Carnelian?” Alec asked.

  I shrugged. “Cherry’s still working on coming up with obituaries and fake causes of death for Mom and the kids before we announce anything. Sounds like they’re going to go with carbon monoxide poisoning.”

  It felt like the kind of thing I should laugh at, but laughter felt as impossible as tears.

  “Josette’s handling the fashion house for now,” I said. “After Grandma got kidnapped, we came up with a better plan for handing off responsibilities in case she ever got ‘sick’ or ‘stranded’ again.”

  At least Carnelian wasn’t likely to end up in my lap, not for several years. I didn’t have the experience to run it. Josette did. She’d handle the next few collections and make us all proud.

  It was hard to feel like any of it mattered.

  Alec kept holding me, and I kept letting him. Being held by Alec wasn’t the same as being held by Brendan. There were no sparks, no tension.

  Not that I could feel sparks now.

  “How are the moms?” Alec asked quietly.

  I shrugged.

  Down below us, a couple of dark figures crossed the lawn. One was Sorrell, coming back from one of the training missions the teens went on a few times a month, and Roux was with her as chaperone. I remembered those missions, back when Blaze or Poppy or Mom had taken me out and let me practice my skills on a young manticore or vampire who just needed a good talking to.

  Now, the thought of Mom and vampires made my throat close up.

  I stood abruptly, shaking Alec’s arm from my shoulder as I went.

  “I need to go figure out assignments for next week,” I said. “You can stay out here if you want.”

  I left him there, sitting on the roof under the stars.

  Grandma’s home office was deeply familiar, and once I was inside with the door shut, it was possible to almost pretend everything was normal. I kept feeling as if she’d walk through at any moment. And then she didn’t. And then she didn’t again.

  I sat in her chair behind her desk and pulled up the Daggers’ schedules. They were all kept in a sturdy calendar book, and their obligations and assignments faded in and out in black ink whenever something changed. I could adjust any of the calendars with Grandma’s enchanted silver pen, and I spent the next hour going through the overflowing inbox of reports and requests and letters of inquiry. Grandma only accepted requests from new clients in hard copy, and it wasn’t a normal day unless at least a few folded paper airplanes were pecking at the window and letters were being dropped down the chimney by ravens.

  For what was supposed to be a secret society, we sure had a lot of people trying to get in tou
ch. I wondered what would happen when the word of our losses got out.

  I sorted out the most pressing cases and assigned them as best as I could. Some of the mothers whose children had been murdered had agreed to let me take them off duty for a few weeks or maybe months, and some of the others had begged me to give them something, anything, to focus on. I tried to balance the jobs with the Daggers, and always felt a tugging anxiety in the back of my mind like I had done something wrong.

  Someone knocked on the door, and I called for them to come in. Brendan stepped into the office and closed the door quickly behind himself.

  “I found her,” he said. “Sienna. I found her.”

  23

  I paced back and forth in the office, thoughts firing at a rapid pace at odds with my sluggish heart.

  “It’s too risky,” I finally said.

  Rowan sat still while I strode past her.

  “It’s the best idea we’ve had in a while,” she said.

  “This is why you wanted her here?” I said to Brendan.

  He’d told me where I could find Sienna, and then Alec and Rowan and Cate had all showed up, because apparently Brendan didn’t know how to keep his big mouth shut.

  “It’s a good idea,” Brendan said.

  “It is a good idea,” Cate said, even though no one had asked her.

  “It’s insane.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s not good,” Brendan countered.

  The fireplace in Grandma’s office gave off a warm, crackling light that illuminated Rowan’s face and made her dark eyes more fervent than usual.

  “This is the closest we’ll get to perfect timing,” Rowan said.

  She twisted to look at me as I strode around the back of her chair. This office wasn’t big enough for the kind of marching around I felt like I needed to do. My legs were jumpy, and I wished I’d managed to talk myself into going for a run earlier. I wasn’t used to sitting around, cooped up, grieving and avoiding grieving in equal measure. I had to act.

  But this kind of acting was ridiculous.

  “She just murdered eight people,” I said. “Six children. My mother. Nelly.”

  “I know that,” Rowan said.