makeup in fast-forward as she got ready. Sloane was always perversely fascinated by how many steps Esther’s skin-care routine had. Sloane could never have remembered that many things in the morning. Not without coffee. And maybe amphetamines.
“I’m not watching her put on makeup; it’ll give me hives,” Sloane said, but Ines was already reaching over the island. She skipped forward on the video, past the impressive powdering and lining and staining, until there was Esther back in her gray sweater again, sipping from her teacup.
“I have some news to share,” Esther said with a waggle of her eyebrows. She was talking in her video voice, chipper and unctuous—similar to her speaking voice, but more. “No, I’m not talking about the big punch from my girl Sloane—the link to that is in the caption.”
Sloane sighed. “Fantastic.”
“February thirteenth, I’ll be launching Essy, my very own lifestyle brand!” Esther’s perfectly lined eyes sparkled. “That’s right, you’ll now have a one-stop shop for all the product recommendations and reviews you could ever ask for! And you know you want to be an Essy girl.”
“Well,” Sloane said as Ines stopped the video. “That was inevitable, I guess.”
Ines turned off the stove and tipped the eggs onto a plate that waited on the counter. “I invited her to come down with me in a couple weeks. You should come too. Get away from the cold.”
“I love the cold,” Sloane said. “It’s my Nordic blood.”
“No, it’s your determination to love what everyone else hates and hate what everyone else loves,” Ines said. She jabbed the rubbery eggs with the tines of her fork. “You should still come. I’m going to kidnap Albie.”
Sloane winced at the word kidnap. “Have you seen him since . . .” Sloane said. “Did he tell you if the prototype worked or anything?”
Ines’s brow furrowed. “No—he came home last night and disappeared into his room right away. But it worked. It must have.”
Sloane felt the irrepressible need to sleep, suddenly.
“Maybe it’s not so bad,” Ines said, shrugging a little. “If the world is breaking—that girl floating toward the sky, my God—maybe we’ll need magic to fix it.”
“If anything, magic is what broke it,” Sloane said darkly.
“You hate it so much,” Ines said, nodding to the knot of scars on Sloane’s hand. “But you’ve never explained why.”
Sloane put her hand under the lip of the counter. “I don’t hate it, exactly,” she said. “I’ve just seen what it can do.”
“So have all of us.”
“Yeah.” But Sloane didn’t mean the Drains or the leveling of the tower or even the death of the Dark One. She meant the taste of copper and salt on her tongue as she had surfaced after the Dive.
Her coffee had run out, and only foam was left.
11
THAT EVENING, Sloane got a text from Esther: Nice jab. Bert would be proud. She included a link to a blurry cell phone video of Sloane punching the Dark One acolyte. The still image in the article was of Sloane with teeth bared, her fist up by her face. Sloane looked herself over, the sheen of sweat on her pale face, the weird hollowness to her eyes. It was an expression she had seen in the mirror often since the Dark One’s death.
“Shit,” she said aloud. Matt had just gotten home from a coffee meeting with Eddie. He was hanging his coat up in the closet.
“There’s a video of the punch online,” she said.
“What a shock,” Matt replied, closing the closet door. He had the sleeves of his powder-blue shirt rolled up to his elbows.
“I’m not sorry, you know,” she said. “That guy was a piece of shit. He deserved it.”
“That’s not the issue.”
“I was defending you,” Sloane said.
“Yeah, and that is the issue,” Matt said. “I don’t need you to defend me, Sloane. I can take care of myself.”
“But you weren’t going to,” Sloane said. “You’re so—passive about stuff like this—”
“Passive?” Matt laughed harshly. “Passive? What do you think I’ve been doing every day since the Dark One fell, exactly? Twiddling my thumbs?”
“No, of course not.” Sloane scowled. “But guys like that—”
“Are not my problem,” Matt said. “They’re easy to spot and easy to avoid. My real problem is contented people who smile while refusing to lift a finger for anyone who isn’t them. That’s who I spend every day fighting, trying to get them to fucking do something. And it would be really nice if my fiancée could understand that instead of making things harder for me.”