7
“WAIT.” LAKE LOOKED AT RHYS, then turned to Prince. Then back to Rhys. Then back again. “You guys are father and son . . . seriously?”
The two men left the question unanswered as they stared each other down.
Rhys had told me once that he belonged to one of those Sect legacy families—the ones who’d been loyal for generations.
My dad fought. I could hear his voice in memories. My brother, too.
What he hadn’t told me was that his father was the leader of an entire Sect division. He’d left that little detail out.
“Not ‘Dad.’ Director Prince,” Prince said, correcting Rhys’s initial greeting, and it was then that I noticed the difference in their surnames. Was Rhys a pseudonym? Code name? Was it for security reasons? Personal reasons? My mind raced. There was so much I didn’t know about him. Too much.
“Director Prince,” the older man repeated.
Rhys straightened his jean jacket with a sharp tug, but said nothing. The delicate contours of his lean face tightened with his frown, the muscles in his long neck stretching as he lifted his chin. Even with his soldier-like, attentive posture, he was challenging the man childishly. But then, he didn’t outright disobey him either.
Standing, Sibyl approached him to shake his hand. Only then did he seem to relax his body. “It’s good to see you again, Rhys.”
“Yeah, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” It was like the spell his father had cast had finally worn off. His expression softened. Rhys gave Sibyl one of his friendly good-boy grins that seemed to light up his soft brown eyes. Then, finally, he turned our way. “Girls, hello again. And sorry, Lake: Yeah, this is my . . . dad.”
His inviting smile strained at the word but didn’t waver until his gaze passed over me. His body quirked curiously once we made eye contact. But not even that lasted long. “Good to see you,” he said in one breath before he turned back to Sibyl.
“I already heard some of what’s been happening on the way here. The mission to capture Saul.” He snuck in a wry grin. “And that press conference. Phew! That was a nice bit of theater, but it doesn’t help us much. It’s already all over the news.”
“The increased public scrutiny puts us in an even more delicate situation,” Sibyl said.
“Director Prince has already discussed with me the possibility of moving the rings,” Rhys said. “I know we’ll have to operate in secrecy. I came here ready.”
Prince responded with a curt nod. “This mission must be executed with the utmost precision. Sibyl will catch you up on our present situation. The three of us will consider the plan of operations and go over the short list of agents from the North American Division I’ve generated. We need to get preparations under way as quickly as we can.”
Chae Rin leaned in, glancing at the rest of us. “What about us?”
“It’s late and you’ve just come back from a mission,” Sibyl said. “If this is going to go smoothly, we all need to be at our best. Eat. Rest. Train. Like usual. We’ll handle the operational logistics.”
“But—”
“We’ll send for you once you’re needed, not before.”
Chae Rin jerked her head back, but Sibyl, who’d already turned away, didn’t notice. Sibyl probably hadn’t meant it so bluntly, but Chae Rin knew the ropes as well as I did. We were the muscle. What did that pigeon-faced conservative senator Tracy Ryan call us once? Right. Biological weapons of mass destruction. A little dramatic, but the point was clear: We Effigies only pretended to be heroes for the rest of the world and the adoring fans with their homemade signs and handwritten letters. The reality was, we were tools of the Sect. They pointed us at whatever they wanted blown up and we did our best not to die.
We followed orders. But Natalya’s death had already taught us that working for an organization with as many secrets as the Sect meant trust was a luxury.
“She’s right,” Belle said as I watched Rhys from the corner of my eye. “There’s a better use of our time. Let’s go.”
She didn’t need to say much else. Following her cue, we stood up to leave.
With the breaches plaguing the Sect, Prince was being careful, controlling the variables of the mission right down to the agents he allowed in his task force. But we Effigies had our own mission. We’d have to be careful too.
Rhys turned his head slightly as I passed, as my shoulder grazed his arm. It was even worse than not being acknowledged at all. For one fleeting moment, my heart sped up. I almost hated myself for it.
I was the one who needed to be careful.
“Rhys.” I caught Prince’s voice just as I reached the door. “You know that I chose you to be a part of this task force because despite everything, I trust you. You are and always will be a soldier of the Sect.”
I knew it. Natalya knew it too.
• • •
My stomach hit the couch hard, my legs awkward and stiff over the armrest. That’s when I felt something crinkle in the pocket of my sweatshirt.
The fan letter. I reached inside and pulled it out. The pink envelope was sealed by an adorable bunny sticker.
“What’s that?” Chae Rin shut the door behind her. “Is that the fan letter?” She came up to the couch and, before I could shove it back into my sweater, snatched it out of my hands.
“Hey!” I tried to get it back, but she danced out of the way.
“Let’s see what we have here.” Quickly peeling off the bunny sticker, she slipped out the letter. “Ooh, it’s handwritten!”
I could see the girl’s tiny cursive writing through the thin notepaper. Chae Rin made sure to annoyingly alter her voice as she read.
Dear Maia,
You’re so cool! All my friends like Belle, Lake, or Chae Rin—
“Damn right.” Chae Rin puffed out her chest.
—but to me you’re totally the coolest because I feel like you’re kinda just like me. I hope you don’t read the comments online and feel bad about all the people saying you’re not super-hard-core enough. You started like a month ago—and your scythe is so cool! I’m even making one out of cardboard!
“Did you hear that?” Tilting her head, Chae Rin let out a loud, affected sigh as she held the letter to her chest. “She’s making one out of cardboard. Oh, you’re just . . . just the coolest!” She’d said it as if literal tears were dripping from her voice.
My cheeks were burning. “Shut up,” I grumbled, though it wasn’t easy hiding how pleased I was. Someone thought I was cool. Maia Finley. Well, better late than never.
There’s a fan convention coming up in August and I would love for you guys to show up! Please think about it!
“That would be fun!” I said.
“All those neckbeards. No, thanks.” Chae Rin tossed the letter, then the envelope, back to me. “Well, congrats, kid. You finally have a wittle fan! It’s like you’ve come full circle: from an Effigy fan to an Effigy fan’s soon-to-be disappointment!”
“Oh, just. Quiet.”
I could hear Lake giggling as she passed by us both. Shoving the letter back into my sweatshirt, I flopped onto the sofa as Chae Rin walked away.
I’d left my suitcase by the door, but Belle was already dragging hers up the stairs of our dorm. Our little home.
Home. I hadn’t been home in two months. Sibyl’s training regime denied us access to our homes and families to stay focused. Even Lake, who lived in London, was not allowed to venture into the city to see her mom and dad. I knew Uncle Nathan was alive, at least. But I hadn’t had the chance to tell him with my own mouth that I’d become an Effigy. He certainly knew by now. After losing his brother, sister-in-law, and niece to a fire, he’d lost his other niece to destiny.
Uncle Nathan was the only family I had left. I should have told him right after I knew I’d become an Effigy. It was too late now. Though maybe it was easier not having to face him.
In either case, I had a new home now, for the time being. Since I’d left New York in April, this round, two-story flat had become Effigy Central, and it was trashed accordingly: cookie crumbs on the carpet, dirty dishes in the sink, empty bottles overturned on the table next to a sticky television controller. Lake always tried to keep the place clean and Belle was very tidy, but these days, as the missions and stress piled up, not even Lake’s nagging could keep the combined sloth of Chae Rin and me in check. I was sure half the dirty pairs of socks on the floor were mine.
As I picked one up and inspected it, Lake went straight for the fridge. It was all an open space with no walls separating the living room and kitchen, so I could hear her loud and clear when she said, “Okay, I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten anything since that fried crap at the airport. You guys want something? Let’s see what we have here.”
Lake pulled out one of the many containers labeled with her name on it—not that it ever stopped me or Chae Rin stealing them. “Maia.” She waved one container at me. “Plantains?”
Pulling myself up, I could see the banana-like fruit was already cut, but uncooked. Being Nigerian, Lake had a similar love for certain foods my Caribbean mother would cook back when she was alive. A few days ago we went on a supervised venture into town—supervised because Sibyl had to be sure Lake wouldn’t try to escape and see her family in Woolwich. Little did Sibyl know, Lake’s parents knew the owner of an Afro-Caribbean store in Southwark.
“Your parents are still in Nigeria right now, right?” I asked her. “For that wedding or something?”
“Yeah, that’s what they told the store owner to tell me.” Lake let out an overly dramatic sigh as she was predisposed to do. “They’re off having fun while their daughter is trapped in this facility doing missions instead of joining in the festivities. They’re so cruel. It’s like they don’t even miss me.”
I doubted that was true. Mr. and Mrs. Soyinka had gone to great lengths to protect her in the past. The seventeen-year-old was as sheltered as you’d expect from a pampered only child. But it was fun going to the Afro-Caribbean store with Lake—a nice little connection between us. A decidedly more normal one than the cosmic link we already shared.
With Sibyl’s ban on seeing our families, it was a connection we both needed.
As she poured the oil in the frying pan and turned on the heat, Chae Rin bent low and pulled some soda out of the fridge. “You know, I thought I’d be more tired, but weirdly it’s like I’m wide-awake. Why is that?”
“You’re a scary adrenaline junkie.” I got onto my knees and dangled my arms over the couch.
Chae Rin walked over to the utensil drawer. “You could be right,” she said.
Then she threw a knife at me.
“Hey!” I caught the tip inches away from my forehead. “Um, what the hell? Are you bored?” I added as Chae Rin laughed.
“Just keeping you on your toes, rookie.” She leaned back against the fridge and took a big slurp of her soda. “Looks like all my training is really paying off. I’m impressed.”
“So you’re bored.” I tossed the knife onto the kitchen table a few feet away. It clattered against the wood. There was a reason why Chae Rin had her own room. Same as Belle. There were only three to spare anyway, and Lake and I rooming together decreased the likeliness of a pillow suffocation happening.
The four of us were a team. It was what I kept telling myself. And on those long nights I couldn’t sleep for fear I’d see Natalya, those nights I’d stayed awake trying not to think of Uncle Nathan or my dead family, it was the comfort of knowing there were three other girls with me that made life more bearable. But things weren’t always easy, no matter how much I wanted them to be.
“Maybe instead of trying to kill me, save your energy for the next mission,” I said.
“Another one.” Lake slid slices of plantain into the pan. The thick, sickly sweet smell sizzled into the air. “Will I ever get a reprieve from all this blood and death?”
Chae Rin smirked. “Life was a lot easier back when you were still dodging the Sect’s calls, huh, Victoria?”
I was so used to the stage name that I usually wasn’t prepared to hear anyone use Lake’s real name. Chae Rin only did it to piss her off.
Lake shot her a dirty look, grabbing the handle of the frying pan menacingly. “You’re really asking for half a pint of hot oil in your face, aren’t you?”
“In any case,” I said loudly before this got ugly—as it often did, “now that we’re all here, there’s something I need to tell you. It’s about what happened in Morocco.”
Chae Rin sat at the table and crossed her legs. “So are you finally going to tell us what you saw in that dream of yours?”
My fingers gripped the sofa.
“You saw her, didn’t you?” Lake said over the sizzle of her pan.
“Yeah. I saw Natalya. And she . . . she wasn’t . . . right.”
Chae Rin and Lake stared at me. But it was the shuffling upstairs that caught my attention. I swiveled around and looked up to see Belle peering down at us from the iron railing on the second floor, her hair loose over her shoulders. She’d shut the door to her room so quietly I hadn’t even noticed she’d left it.
“What do you mean, she wasn’t right?” Belle asked, looking down at me.
“Wow, it’s like Bloody Mary,” Chae Rin said in a low voice. “Say Natalya’s name three times and Belle suddenly appears.”
Belle usually ignored her snide comments, but this one earned Chae Rin a look so cold even she looked a bit shaken. Quietly, Chae Rin took another sip of soda while Belle started down the stairs.
“Maia, what do you mean?” Belle repeated, her eyes on me.
I always had to choose my words carefully when it came to Natalya. “What I mean is that she wasn’t right. She was violent. Scary.” I shuddered, thinking about the sword in Rhys’s chest, but I didn’t dare utter that detail. I couldn’t. “She entered into my dreams.”
“But that has happened to you before, has it not?” Belle stopped by the couch. “The only way to see former Effigies is to scry. Peeling back the layers of your own mind to access their memories. You would have to be in a trance—or else, you would have to be dreaming. You have seen her memories in your dreams before.”
“But this time was different. Before, I’d just fall asleep and see her memories. This time, I was having a dream of my own and she appeared. In my dream, she ran around Marrakesh, telling me to catch her. That’s when she led me into a new memory.”
“Led you? Is she like your spirit guide now or something?” Chae Rin asked. “Telling you stuff, leading you places?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. I mean, in the past, whenever I’d glimpse her memories, it’d be an involuntary thing. She’d only tried to directly communicate with me twice. Once when I took my oath at Ely Cathedral. And then in France, the first time I scried properly.”
And then she’d tried to take my body.
I went rigid, my blood pumping faster as I thought of it. “I used to just dream my own dreams. And then suddenly one night, I began to dream Natalya’s memories. But since France, I’d been hearing her more often in my head. And then this happened. I thought maybe it was because of the experiment messing around in there. But what if the true problem was that the barrier between my mind and hers was already deteriorating even before then?”
Then Natalya would have more freedom to play around in my head. It’d make taking my body all the easier. My throat tightened as I thought of the possibility. I rubbed the sweat beading off my flushed forehead.
“Well, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe it was something she could do all along and she’s just decided to be more proactive,” Lake said from the stove, her spatula dripping oil onto the counter. “If that’s the case, then isn’t it a good thing? We know the Sect lied about Natalya’s death being a suicide. We know Vasily tried to kill you.” She listed them off with her fingers. “We know he and some agents from Research and Development helped free Saul from Sect custody. I still think she wants us to know the whole story regardless of anything. She led us to the box in Belle’s old foster home, but since then it’s been radio silence. We’ve been waiting for her to beam another message to Maia.”
But all I’d gotten from Natalya were taunts and hazy dreams of her death played on instant loop like a broken nightmare channel.
“Each time you’ve been in contact with Natalya’s consciousness, you’ve learned something about her death,” Belle said. “Her investigations of Saul, moving under the Sect’s radar. It was because of all her efforts to find out the truth that she was . . .” The next words caught in Belle’s throat, but she covered herself quickly, sweeping back her long hair. “If she’s leading you somewhere, it’s for a good reason.”
Or she was messing with me. That was the problem. It’s like Natalya herself couldn’t decide if she wanted me to know the whole story behind her death and the mystery that she’d died for—or if she simply wanted to use her memories to lure me into a trap to take my body.
As if purposefully planning the cruel irony of her timing, Belle added, with utmost certainty, “It’s Natalya. We can trust her.”
I took the fan letter out of my pocket and turned it over. “The last time I trusted Natalya, she tried to take over my body,” I reminded her quietly.
Belle stood frozen to the spot for a moment. “Yes, well,” she said quickly. “I told you once before, scrying has its risks. Normally, you need to be calm. You need complete control of yourself. But at that time, you were in the middle of facing Saul. Such a high-stress situation would obviously compromise the barrier between your consciousness and hers. Given that, it makes sense that her mind would cross over involuntarily.”
The letter crinkled in my hand. “Except it wasn’t involuntarily.” The words fell from my mouth, heavy like the stone sinking in the pit of my stomach. “She very, very purposefully chained me up in my own mind.”
And I remembered every painful second. It was like being buried alive several feet underground. My mind was probably weaker for it now, which made it easier for her to scratch at the surface of my subconscious.
But did Belle understand that? From the awkward purse of her lips to her subtle attempts at avoiding my knife glare, her reluctance to accept the truth was obvious.
“We were both in danger.” Belle raised her head almost in defiance. “I’d been captured by Saul. Chae Rin, Lake, and all the train passengers were the hostages of phantoms. You weren’t enough to save us. She would have seen everything through your eyes.” She met my gaze as if to challenge me. “She would have wanted to fight.”
“Seemed to me like she just wanted to live.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Belle’s words evaporated into the silence that stretched out between us, unbroken but for the sizzling of Lake’s frying pan.
There it was. That insidious, nagging suspicion that had bloomed the moment we’d spoken for the first time at La Charte hotel: that I was nothing more than a replacement borrowing Natalya. I lowered my head. That night in France, as she’d held Saul’s ring in her hands, I really believed for a second that she’d do it: wish me away and Natalya back into my body. It would have been an easy wish to grant. Saul had said so himself. I wanted to believe in Belle. I wanted to believe in the tears she’d shed as she dropped the ring and collapsed to the ground. And though there were times it felt as if she were finally warming to the idea of us as a team and of me as the fire Effigy, other times I couldn’t be sure.
Maybe she wanted Natalya back. Even if it meant I was gone forever.
“Wait.” Chae Rin placed down her soda can and stood from the table. “You’re excusing what Natalya did now?” She looked at her in disbelief. “Are you a body-snatcher apologist?”
But it was clear that Belle had realized her mistake. She was already shaking her head as each of us watched her. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Wow.” Chae Rin let out an incredulous laugh. “That’s kind of a new low.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Her voice rang out over the room. Regret was clear in the pale blue of her eyes as she faced me again. “That’s not what I meant.”
Panic. Even if it was just a shadow, I wasn’t used to seeing it sweep across her features. Suddenly, she looked sheepish, ashamed of herself. “That’s not what I meant, Maia,” she said, shaking her head. “Please don’t take it that way. I would never.” The regret in her eyes as she pleaded with me told me she remembered that moment in France as well as I did. “I wouldn’t.”
I played it off with a shrug. “I guess I’ll just have to believe you, right?” I wanted to. I had to.
“My, what a well-adjusted, functional bunch we are.” Chae Rin rolled her eyes. “Okay, look, we all know Natalya was your mentor and you and her were tight while she was still breathing or whatever, but we need to be realistic about our situation.”
Nudging Lake out of the way, Chae Rin went over to the kitchen cabinet. When she reached under the pile of magazines in the bottom drawer, I knew what she was looking for. We had to put it in an unsuspecting spot after all.
She pulled it out: the cigar box Natalya had buried underneath Belle’s old floorboards. A couple of weekends ago, Belle had cleaned off the moss and dirt that had clung to the dark wood, polishing the stunning handcrafted carvings in appreciation for their design. But it was what was inside that mattered. Lifting the lid, Chae Rin pulled out a small shard of white stone—the same mysterious stone that comprised Saul’s rings.
“You said Saul wants the rest of this, right?” She squeezed the tip of the shard delicately between two fingers. “A death-powered stone that grants wishes. One of the dead fire Effigies in Maia’s head knows how to find it. That’s why he kept coming for Maia. Natalya led us to this thing. She clearly wants us to figure this whole mystery out, but given what happened to Maia, that doesn’t mean we can trust her completely. It’s possible that she wants two things at once.”
She wanted us to solve the mystery she couldn’t. But she also wanted to live again. No one knew which she wanted more. Maybe not even Natalya herself.
Placing the shard back in the box and shutting the lid, Chae Rin turned to me. “Kid, Natalya isn’t going to stop talking to you. And that’s fine. We need her. Listen to what she has to say, but keep two eyes open, you know? Not everything she says may be on the level.”
No. No, it may not be, least of all Natalya’s last living memory: Aidan Rhys, standing over her as she struggled to breathe from the poison he’d given her.
But was it really true?
And for the thousandth time I tried to justify my doubts, though it’s not like they weren’t already justified. If I, from the depths of my mind, could see her using my body to decimate Saul’s phantoms in France, then Natalya could see everything I saw. She would have seen me with Rhys. She would have felt the way my chest tensed whenever he was close to me, the way my body flared to life when he smiled. She would have known—
I thought back to the way his head moved to follow me, almost involuntarily, as I passed him on the way out of the briefing room.
She would have known.
And Natalya hadn’t wasted a single moment snatching my body the moment my mind crumbled at the thought that he might have killed her.
I knew how much it had meant to her, feeling the air rushing through her lungs again, feeling her muscles burning with adrenaline. More than needing me to find out why she died, she needed me to regain the life she’d lost. It was everything to her. But those memories had felt real. Too real to be lies. And—
And I didn’t know what to think anymore.
“Maia.” Belle’s voice snapped me out of my desperate thoughts.
“Y-yes?”
A pause. “Has she shown you?”
There was a strange twinge in her voice as she spoke.
“Shown me what?”
“Who killed her?” Belle didn’t even look at me as she asked it.
It took only a second for my whole body to flush, for my head to swirl in frenzy as I scrambled for the words I was now used to saying. “No, no. Not yet. Everything I see is choppy, you know? Hazy. Unfinished. You were right when you said scrying can be kinda unreliable when you’re not super trained.”
“Then we’ll keep training.” Belle turned for the stairs. “If we are going to take on Natalya’s final mission, we need to know the whole story.”
“Sure, for the mission,” Chae Rin said under her breath. “Not like she wants to carve up whoever killed her.”
Carve up whoever killed her. The thought of it chilled me to the bone.
Belle shut the door of her room behind her, leaving us in an awkward silence.
“Well, these are done!” Lake said suddenly, turning off the heat on the stove, her cheerful voice breaking the quiet dread that had settled over us. The hot, oily slices of fried plantain were already drying on a paper towel–covered plate. “Maia, you want some?”
She always tried hard, Lake. Whenever she noticed the mood taking a turn for the worse, she’d put in her best effort to lift it again. But with my heart squeezing against my rib cage, I could only manage a smile. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry. I’m going to bed.”
After a few labored steps up the staircase, I disappeared into my room.