Page 62 of Strange Lights

“I’ll do whatever it is you ask me to. I’ll have him perform the tasks you require, and then why not let me have him?” I shrug as if I were asking for a new pet, not a person.

She stills, rips her gaze from the sky, and turns her full attention on me. Scrutinizes. Doesn’t answer for so long, I fear I’ve overplayed my hand.

“You’ll never finish the collar on your own,” I say. “You need me; I want access to him.”

“You want access to him? I’ll just throw you in the cell with him. I wouldn’t need to give you the key for that,” she says. Terror washes over me. She’s always a step ahead of me. If she locks me in, too, there’s no one else coming to save us.

I keep my voice steady. “That would also work adequately. I trust you would let me out when the collar is finished.”

She turns back. Sweat drips down my neck as I wait, heart in my throat, for her to call my bluff and thwart my latest plan.

“Fine then, make your own mistakes.” She hands over the key so suddenly, I nearly drop it. “Don’t expect my sympathy when he disappoints you. Take it from me: Humans never live up to expectations. Let’s go.”

“What?” I almost don’t hear her as I slide the key safely into my pocket, hope making me lightheaded.

“Show me what you’ve accomplished. If it works, then you can do with him what you’d like afterward.”

I have the key in hand, but I miscalculated. Adele means to go with me to see the first test of the collar. It isn’t ready. I haven’t even attempted to do anything that has a hope of working.

Luca is wearing his old T-shirt and jeans, the ones I keep washing and returning. He gets to his feet, his smile disappearing as he spots Adele behind me.

“It’s probably too much to hope for that you’ve come to let me out,” Luca says.

Adele ignores him and speaks to me instead. “Well,” she says, gesturing at the collar, “show me you’re telling the truth.”

It’s a thin metal band, silver plated, that locks seamlessly with an old spell I’ve added. It doesn’t work the way I’ve told Adele it will. She wants mind control. This is nothing but cold, inert metal.

“I’m not wearing that,” Luca says flatly, though he knows it’s nothing but a pretty piece of jewelry at this point.

I hesitate, heart beating fast. It doesn’t matter if he wears it or not when it doesn’t work. If only there were some way to communicate with him to just pretend. I wish we had come up with a plan for this scenario. Adele gestures at the tranquilizer she’s brought along. “Do I need to do it for you?”

“I will kill you if you try to leash me with that,” Luca says to Adele.

“Kingsley,” Adele snaps at me. I’m only a daughter when it suits her. Otherwise, I’m an employee. “Stop wasting my time. I have other business to attend to.”

Swallowing hard, I shake my head. I can’t do this. “I need to make another modification. It’s not going to work⁠—” I continue to flounder through excuses.

The disgust rolls off Adele in waves as I stand clutching the collar tightly. I haven’t fooled her. She knows I haven’t been trying.

“I’m running out of time and ideas,” Adele says. “This has to work.”

“What’s the deadline? Those dead bodies you have aren’t going to get any more dead. You’ve never explained what you want. An army of the dead?” I’m not sure if it’s courage or panic that makes me say it.

Adele laughs a sharp, brittle laugh.

That little voice inside my head is screaming at me. No, no, no, not dead⁠—I can’t think of what to do.

“The deadline? How much life do you want, Regina? That is the deadline⁠—if you appreciate your own life, you will work to find me a solution.”

In my head I see an image⁠—my mother, letting me dangle over open air as I plead for her to hold on.

“Immortality? Is that what we’re inventing now?” My panic is tinged with a red hint of fury. I’m so tired of games and doublespeak.

“No,” she snaps. “I’m trying to give you a chance before I have no choice but to⁠—”

“Stop with the death threats,” I snarl, letting my temper get the better of me. “I’m already willingly doing everything you ask of me. Do it yourself then if you’re unhappy with my progress.”

“I cannot,” she grits out. Her temper must be fraying as well if she’s letting something like an admission slip.