They hit Mrs. Cliffton straight in the face.
“Matilda!” Dr. Cliffton yells, and the sound of her name echoes, and I think numbly, She can’t even hear him.
Mrs. Cliffton blinks several times. Her eyes turn glassy, as if she’s just wakened from a deep sleep and she’s still caught somewhere between waking and dreaming.
Oh, I realize. The slate-colored dust. Hypnosis Variants.
“Matilda!” Dr. Cliffton charges toward Stefen, giving Will a hard shove. “Will, run! Go!”
But Will doesn’t run. He regains his balance and bolts toward Stefen, just behind his father.
Stefen is too quick for either of them.
He throws another blast of slate-colored Variants over Dr. Cliffton and Will as if he were casting a net. Will stops running. The dark blue of his eyes lightens and then becomes blank. Something inside of me slips, like an anchor coming unmoored.
“Stay there and be still,” Stefen directs Dr. Cliffton and William, and they instantly obey. I am frozen in place, watching in horror. I cover my mouth so that I won’t make a sound.
Where is Miles? I could sob with relief when my fingers feel a prick, sharp enough to draw blood. It is the beautiful, saving point of my Star, coming out of its binding. My heart leaps as my hand closes around it.
I’ll kill him myself before he gets to Miles.
“Malcolm,” Stefen asks. “Tell me now. Where is the girl?”
He answers immediately in a monotone voice: “The Mackelroys’ house.” I draw in a sharp breath.
“And do either of the children have the Helena Stone in their possession?”
Dr. Cliffton blinks. “I do not know what that is.”
The Helena Stone? I fumble with the ring, feeling the metal under my clothes lying hot on my breastbone. Why is Stefen so desperate to have this? It has to be more than a simple trinket if he is willing to go this far to get it.
Which means I have to make sure that he never does.
“Never mind,” Stefen says with impatience. “Victor, where is the Mackelroy house?”
“I’ll show you,” a second voice says. A man steps from the shadows.
It’s Victor Larkin.
I have to hide my mother’s ring. And suddenly my thoughts clear, and I know exactly where to put it. I have to find Miles’s perfect hiding spot, where it lay for months. I begin frantically feeling along the wall for the shelf. Terror scrapes down my spine like the serrated edges of a knife as I fumble along the stones with my fingers. I feel a break, but when I reach my hand inside, it is too shallow. My pulse throbs as I keep looking.
It’s been a minute, maybe more, when my blood suddenly chills. I know, instinctively, that it’s been silent beyond the wall for much too long.
I scramble back to my peephole.
They must have asked William a question, and I couldn’t hear his answer.
The Clifftons are standing in a row, as still as dolls.
And they’ve all turned to stare straight at my hiding place.
“Hello at last, Aila,” Stefen says softly.
He is standing right behind me.
I pivot and scream, scrambling away from the new handful of the Variants he’s drawn from his pocket. He advances on me, and I stumble when I catch a glimpse of his left ear.
One final horror for me to find.
