Page 61 of Strange Lights

“I’m going to get you out, Luca.”

“What if you can’t? Will you promise to kill me yourself before she figures out a way to use me?” He walks back over, sinks to the ground in front of me. We are separated by only an inch.

He asks this so casually, as if it were as easy, as inconsequential as lending him a pair of socks.

“I’d rather promise to kill her,” I say. Though my traitorous heart whispers that I’m too much of a coward to go through with it.

“Reggie, please. I’m serious. I don’t want to be turned into a weapon to be wielded. I don’t want to be used like that. That fate would be unbearable.”

It sits between us, unspoken. That this is already a fate I live out every day.

“Promise me, promise me you’ll kill me yourself before you let her do that to me,” he begs. He’d be resting his forehead against mine if it weren’t for the walls, the mask.

I don’t trust my voice, but I nod my acquiescence and stand to go. I can’t be here anymore.

“Come with me,” Luca says urgently. “If I make it out. Come with me.”

“Do you mean that? Do you really mean it?” I ask, trying to read his face.

“I do,” Luca says fiercely. “Come with me.”

I would break my promise to him in a heartbeat, but Luca isn’t a liar; he means it. I nod once, then again, resolution straightening my spine.

“Okay, okay. I’ll get you out of this cage, and then we’ll run.” I have no idea where to start, but in this moment, I mean it.

For the first time in a while, I start, yet again, to plan my escape.

26

Checkmate

I have to stall Adele as I plan and prepare. As much as I hate it, the best idea comes from Adele herself and her insistence that I “get a collar and a leash on that beast.”

So I create a collar. The physical form is easy, a simple metal band. The spell work is trickier. Or so I tell Adele. But I manufacture problems. The material won’t hold the spell. I order supplies to test more, delaying me for a week.

The thing that scares me the most is that I’m pretty sure I know what I’d have to do to make the collar work. An old spell book contains the arcane method. I haven’t dared try it, not that I have any desire to. I plan to hide the book so Adele never gets her hands on the idea, because the method requires no tether. In fact, the spell depends on no tether.

Meanwhile, I quietly pack and hide the go bags again. I don’t intend to tell my sisters until the last minute. I’m too afraid something will go wrong. I need a moment of distraction, Adele’s attention elsewhere, perhaps one of her evenings when she’s sequestered with her weather experiments⁠—she’s been busy with them as of late⁠—and then Luca and I are going to take the girls and run. I’m going to steal one of the cars and count on Luca’s experience once we’re out of Agency 51. He is adamant that he can keep us safe. That if I can get us out of the mountain, he can help with the rest. All I need is the damn key to his cell.

I’m running out of time. There’s only a week left on my deadline when I approach Adele. My anxiety rises with every hour that passes, night ticking away to early morning, as I lurk inside her living quarters, waiting for her to return from her experiments.

Adele doesn’t notice me at first. Long enough for me to register that she moves stiffly. Long enough that she removes her mask and I see her face, pale and drawn, depleted from her experiment. She doesn’t acknowledge me when she does take notice.

“I need the key to the cell. I need to test the collar,” I say.

“This key?” She digs it out from her pocket and holds it up for me to see. Then closes her fist around it. “I’m not stupid, Regina.”

“Certainly not. If you were, my life would be easier.” I know Adele respects my cruelty more than any pandering. “I need to put the collar on him if it’s going to work.”

“And that’s all you want? You think your infatuation hasn’t been blindingly obvious?” She laughs, cutting right to my heart.

“I’m not stupid enough to think that he wants anything other than freedom.” I hand her this fear, this truth of mine so I can make my lie convincing. She pushes past me, opens the balcony curtains, and stares out at the sunrise, the world lightening by degrees.

“Good. Because whatever you think he feels, he doesn’t. How could he?” She wields my worst fear casually, throws it in my face.

“I know. But I’ve realized the collar is the way to get what I want anyway.”

“Ah, maybe you are mine after all,” Adele says absentmindedly. As if I ever needed reminding. But that’s exactly who I need to be at this moment, Adele’s daughter. I’m her mirror, and she will expect to see a monster.