She felt pretty sure the seat next to hers suddenly bursting into flames was not an accident. She had to take the trip she needed to the library with a singed sleeve. The smell of burning hung in the air, as she flicked through old yearbooks and records and any accounts she could find of the last girl to ring the bell.
But all she got for her trouble was a tiny picture inThe Harrowhall Gazette’s records, in the aftermath of the event. Lilibet in the center, fairly clear, and enough like her that she could understand why someone might squint and think so. The same billowing curls and waves of dark hair, similar big brown eyes. Something in her expression that seemed familiar, from a thousand looks in the mirror. More beautiful, of course, much more beautiful. But yes, it was there.
However, the man with her—she could see what that being had meant.
Kindness shone out of his face. It radiated from his being. She could almost imagine the warmth Lilibet must have felt, from the look he was giving her. And it made any resemblance to Harkerveryhard to imagine. It softened out every edge, every line. Made him seem like so utterly a different man that she couldn’t imagine anything as mad as a monstrous double, living just beneath his skin.
It just didn’t make sense.
And she couldn’t find anything else that made it add up tosomething. No sign of a secret sibling he might have had, no connection to the man she knew. No hint of anyone like him lurking in the backgrounds of their lives, watching their every move. In fact, there wasn’t even a hint of their untimely deaths—despite the fairly reasonable record keeping she uncovered, for the era she now knew they had lived in.
Late eighties, it seemed like.
But there was no listing for Lilibet. No listing for Bram.
You were supposed to save me from sinking even deeper into being seduced by him, she thought sourly, at the books piled around her.
The books said nothing back.
She left with less than she had started with, and so late for dinner with Anaya that she completely forget to go change her blouse. And of course Anaya noticed immediately. “Did someone try toburnyou?” she whispered over bowls of asparagus soup. “Just because you won that thing that makes you amazing?”
While all around them people stared, and made faces, and basically answered the question for her friend. “Honestly, it wouldn’t be so bad if ithaddone that,” Mina replied, as she poked at her food. “But I still can’t conjure much of anything.”
“I’m sure you will once you’ve spent some time snogging fen.”
“I don’t think snogging is possible with beings that have no faces.”
“So you’ve been there already? You’ve been there and seen?”
“Only for a little while. And I didn’t get far.”
“You went alone, then.”
She had been chasing a swirl of sour cream around her bowl, with her spoon.
Now she looked up at her friend. And sure enough, there it was, all over her face.
The barely concealed glee at the thought of digging up some juicy details.
“Yes. But honestly if you ever want to—” she tried, just to dodge having to explain everything that happened, without really explaining it all. However, all she got was a hand wave. And a slightly pointed,you-know-what-I’m-askinglook.
“I know you would take me. But I think you get that’s not what I was asking.”
“Harker didn’t come with me. He stayed in his room, while I went through.”
“And after you came back out? And you were alone with him, in said room?”
Anaya raised one eyebrow. Leaned forward, in the exact way Mina would have loved, if this was a real conversation about being with a guy. It was the kind of thing she’d dreamed of, in high school. The world of cool hookups, and being able to actually talk about them afterward.
Only this was a bizarre bloodthirsty hell, instead.
Mixed with something else she couldn’t explain.
And it made her protest too tensely.
“We didn’t do anything. I was just helping him.”
“So he was trapped inside his clothes, and you lent him a hand escaping.”
