Briar Queen_ A Night and Nothing Novel - Katherine Harbour Page 0,4
will see.”
FINN HAD FORGOTTEN the story of Swan Lake, of the wicked swan and the pure one, and the evil sorcerer who ruled both. The costumes were phantasmal, the swans in tatters of gossamer, feathers, and primitive half masks, the sorcerer a feral figure in black fur and plumes, a cross between an Aztec priest and a glamorous werewolf. When the curtains parted and the orchestra’s music soared, Finn sat, enchanted, and didn’t say a word. She’d been afraid the ballet might resurrect her grief for her ballerina sister, but she became lost in the gorgeous story and the music. Jack, who was from the Victorian era, when such productions were a luxury meant only for the wealthy, was reverentially quiet.
Anna Weaver, now fifteen—who still became silent and lost whenever her own murdered sister was mentioned—never took her attention from the stage.
Afterward, outside the Marlowe Theater, Anna asked if they could visit her sister. Finn looked frantically at Jack, who said gently, “Of course.”
“Annie!” Someone moved from the theater crowds. Finn recognized Kevin Gilchriste, Fair Hollow’s local celebrity, who had starred in a movie about wolves and winter and a girl in red. With his spiky brown hair and model cheekbones, he looked like he belonged in an Abercrombie ad.
“Kevin.” Anna smiled shyly. “Did you like Swan Lake?”
“I did. I came with . . .” He glanced over his shoulder. “Well, she’s still in there. Anyway, happy birthday. Hey, Finn, right? And Jack?”
“Hey.” Finn watched warily as Kevin held out a hand to Jack. Jack gripped it and said, “I liked your movie.”
“Thanks.” Kevin stepped back, nodded to Anna. “I’ll see you at the shop, Annie.”
As he vanished into the crowd, Anna gazed longingly after him, and Finn thought, Is that how I look at Jack? Like a little kid? She turned her head to see Jack watching her with some amusement and said, rebellious, “Should we really be visiting a cemetery, knowing what we know about your family?”
“Phouka’s regime is a lot less deathcentric—is that a word, ‘deathcentric’? We’ll be fine.”
They drove to Soldiers’ Gate. Although the sun had set, the gates were still open, revealing a Gothic and haphazard landscape of tombstones and mausoleums beneath snow and tree branches still crystallized in melting ice.
Anna led them to a simple granite headstone piled with bouquets of flowers, angel figurines, and trinkets. She bowed her head, her sun-gold hair gleaming. Finn glanced at the headstone carved with the name Angyll Weaver. Anna whispered, “I miss her.”
“I miss my sister too.”
“The girl who was named after flowers.” Anna turned to Jack and frowned. “You’re human now. They’ll use that against you.”
“I know.”
“Who’ll use it against you?” Finn’s heart jumped. “Jack?”
Anna answered in her usual cryptic fashion, “I see their shadows in my dreams; even when I’m dreaming about stupid things like my mom’s meat loaf, or gym class, I can see the shadows, running—”
A cell phone buzzed in Anna’s coat. As she took the phone out and frowned at a text, Finn crouched down near Angyll’s marker and righted a vase of chrysanthemums that had tipped over. “What shadows, Anna?”
“I don’t know.”
“There you are,” came a voice from behind.
They whirled around.
Moving through the tombstones, the lamplight silvering his citrus-bright hair, Absalom Askew was a vivid figure in a jacket of red fur and jeans with embroidered Chinese dragons snaking up the sides.
“Absalom.” Jack wryly greeted his friend. “Imagine meeting you here. In a graveyard.”
“Jack. Finn.” Absalom Askew’s red Converses didn’t make a sound on the crunchy snow and leaves. “Nice to see you out and about.”
Finn carefully asked why he was there.
“I’ll show you. Come, my children.” Unusually solemn, Absalom led them to a tombstone engraved with a winged girl reading a book. Beneath this image were the words: Here lies someone’s child, one who was sweet and mild, one who, in our eyes, will, above all of us, rise. The name Mary Booke was scripted into the marble.
Mary Booke had been Nathan Clare’s true love, a human girl stolen by the Fatas, raised among them, and murdered by Caliban. As Jack sank to a crouch before the stone, his face solemn, Finn said, “Who had this made?”
“We did.” Absalom looked at her. “No one in your world knew who she was.”
Finn touched the tombstone as Jack spoke softly—that, Finn knew, was when he was at his most dangerous. “We were all just pawns to you, weren’t we? To get rid of Reiko.”