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“Just tell me what you did. Just say it.” It is a terrible desperate thing to plead with someone to crush your hope.
“This really isn’t the kind of thing you just say over the phone,” she says reprovingly.
“Say it!” I shout.
“Okay, okay. I worked her so that she loves you,” Mom says. “She’ll do absolutely anything for you. Anything you want. Isn’t that nice?”
“Fix it,” I say. “You have to undo it. Put her back the way she was. I’ll take her to you and you can work her again so she’s back to normal.”
“Cassel,” she says, “you know I can’t do that. I can make her hate you. I can even make her feel nothing at all for you, but I can’t take away what I’ve already done. If it bothers you so much, just wait it out. The way she feels will fade eventually. I mean, she won’t be exactly the same as she was before—”
I hang up the phone. It rings over and over again. I watch it light up, watch the hotel’s name scroll across the caller ID.
Lila finds me sitting in the hall, in the dark, holding a still-ringing phone when she comes out to see what’s taking so long. “Cassel?” she whispers.
I can barely look at her.
* * *
The most important thing for any con artist is never to think like a mark. Marks figure they’re going to get a deal on a stolen handbag, then they get upset when the lining falls out. They think they’re going to get front row tickets for next to nothing off a guy standing out in the rain, then they’re surprised when the tickets are just pieces of wet paper.
Marks think they can get something for nothing.
Marks think they can get what they don’t deserve and could never deserve.
Marks are stupid and pathetic and sad.
Marks think they’re going to go home one night and have the girl they’ve loved since they were a kid suddenly love them back.
Marks forget that whenever something’s too good to be true, that’s because it’s a con.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Several books were really helpful in creating the world of the curse workers. In particular, David R. Maurer’s The Big Con, Sam Lovell’s How to Cheat at Everything, Kent Walker and Mark Schone’s Son of a Grifter, and Karl Taro Greenfeld’s Speed Tribes.
I am deeply indebted to many people for their insight into this book. I want to thank everyone at Sycamore Hill 2007 for looking at the first few chapters and giving me the confidence to keep going. I am grateful to Justine Larbalestier for talking with me about liars and Scott Westerfeld for his detailed notes. Thanks to Sarah Rees Brennan for helping me with the feeeelings. Thanks to Joe Monti for his enthusiasm and book recommendations. Thanks to Elka Cloke for her medical expertise. Thanks to Kathleen Duey for pushing me to think about the larger world issues. Thanks to Kelly Link for making the beginning far better and also for driving me around in the trunk of her car. Thanks to Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, Gavin Grant, Sarah Smith, Cassandra Clare, and Joshua Lewis for looking at very rough drafts. Thanks to Steve Berman for his help working out the details of the magic.
Most of all, I have to thank my agent, Barry Goldblatt, for his encouragement; my editor, Karen Wojtyla, who pushed me to make the book far better than I thought it could be; and my husband, Theo, who not only put up with me during the writing, but also gave me lots of advice about demerits, scams, private school, and how to talk animal shelters out of things.
RED GLOVE
For the little white cat that appeared on our doorstep just after I started this series.
She lived only a short while and she is much missed.
1
I DON’T KNOW WHETHER it’s day or night when the girl gets up to leave. Her minnow silver dress swishes against the tops of her thighs like Christmas tinsel as she opens the hotel door.
I struggle to remember her name.
“So you’ll tell your father at the consulate about me?” Her lipstick is smeared across her cheek. I should tell her to fix it, but my self-loathing is so great that I hate her along with myself.
“Sure,” I say.
My father never worked at any consulate. He’s not paying girls a hundred grand a pop to go on a goodwill tour of Europe. I’m not a talent scout for America’s Next Top Model. My uncle doesn’t manage U2. I haven’t inherited a chain of hotels. There are no diamond mines on my family land in Tanzania. I have never been to Tanzania. These are just a few of the stories my mother has spent the summer spinning for a string of blond girls in the hope that they’ll make me forget Lila.
They don’t.
