Cole’s head ticks toward his younger brother with a trace of a wince. I don’t know what to make of his initial reaction, but his reply comes out even—though gentler than he’s spoken to any of the rest of us. “That would work for us because it’s just us two at home. These three wouldn’t be able to get away with hiding their hands from their families for days on end.”
Asher deflates slightly, but Byron lifts his head. “We could. We’re lucents, aren’t we? It’d be simple enough to cover the bond mark with a small illusion.”
“And then what?” Cole demands. “There’s still a dead body lying here. Even if we don’t say anything, whoever’s backing Kenneth will know what she sent him to do and how he must have died. Alerting the police will protect Elodie better than lying about it.”
Salvatore snorts. “How much have you dealt with any kind of police? They just want easy answers and open-and-shut cases. You think they won’t have all kinds of questions about how Elodie ended up killing Kenneth, why I was here,why she snuck out of her house? I wouldn’t have believed he was psycho if I hadn’t seen him myself. They’ll probably sayweambushedhimfor some made-up reason. We’ll be handing them ammunition to screw over Elodie completely.”
I hadn’t thought about that either, but he’s right. Tonight’s events barely make sense to me, and I lived through them.
The chill of the night washes over me with a gust of breeze, forming into clammy fingers that wrap around my stomach. My other three matches look at me, processing Salvatore’s words.
Asher speaks up tentatively. “What do you want, Elodie?”
Radiants help me. I want Kali to appear and twist time so none of this ever happened. I want to wake up in my dreary apartment in my own reality with the versions of these men I was supposed to belong to.
But if there are any gods watching over us, or if the supernatural beings who gave us our lucent powers still exist, none of them have shown any interest in intervening so far.
I draw in a breath, fighting to keep calm amid my panicked thoughts. “I’d never have wanted our bond to spark like this. To drag you all into my problems. But I don’t see how we can pretendallof it away, and?—”
Salvatore breaks in with a cocky smirk and a flex of his hands. “Of course we can. It’s kids’ play, a shíorghrá. No body, no murder.”
Before I can ask what he means, he’s showing us. Magical power quivers through the air—and Kenneth’s body collapses in on itself.
No one could ever say Salvatore doesn’t have a sense of humor, dark though it might sometimes be. As his alchemist glim breaks flesh and bone down into their component elements, a whoosh of expelled oxygen warbles through Kenneth’s clothes to mingle with the breeze, and then those clothes crumble too. The fibers of his hoodie and jeansmingle with carbon and calcium and whatever else makes up a human body.
In the space of a few seconds, our classmate’s corpse transforms into what looks like a stuffed toy dog standing as high as my knee. White button eyes gleam eerily in the moonlight.
I don’t know whether to laugh or vomit.
Somehow I don’t think this is the kind of act the radiants envisioned when they mingled with humanity, if they had any idea they’d pass on some of their supernatural powers in the first place.
“What the hell—stop!” Cole bursts out, too slow in his shock. He lunges at Salvatore, grabbing his arm.
Salvatore flicks open his switchblade, and the professor jerks back, not so furious he’s lost his sense of self-preservation.
An angry flush still blotches Cole’s pale face. “You idiot. We didn’t decide—now there’s no way we can tell anyone what he did.”
“Exactly.” Salvatore keeps grinning as he draws back his foot. He punts the stuffed dog figure over the bridge’s railing. It hits the water with a faint plop.
And then all that’s left of Kenneth is the blood congealing on the boards.
Well, almost all. The mafia heir nods to the murder weapon lying where Kenneth once was. “I left you the knife. In case there’s ephemera in that you’ll want to read more. And for evidence or whatever.”
“Or whatever,” Byron mutters, but his voice is nearly as impressed as it is incredulous.
I wish I could tell him that his glim will be impressive too, in ways much more suited to him.
Cole sounds as if he’s restraining a growl. “You have no idea how much more trouble you’ve probably landed us in.”
Salvatore shrugs. “I don’t think so. We’re Elodie’smatches. It’s our job to take care of her. We can do it better than any fucking cop. Aren’t you the most brilliant lucent of the decade or some shit? And Worth here is top of the class—when Elodie’s generous enough to let him have it.”
He turns his smirk on Byron before his attention shifts to Asher. I can’t stop myself from tensing.
As the only of my matches not to have established any reputation beyond “charity case” in the eyes of our classmates, Asher tenses up too. He speaks confidently enough, though. “I’ll help any way I can. Whoever’s behind the attacks—we can’t let them get away with it. No matter how powerful they are.”
Exactly like my Asher would have said. My throat constricts with a faint ache.
Apparently we’re working together. I’ve plunged my matches into danger whether I like it or not.
