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“We’ve spent a lot of time doing what we’re supposed to do,” I say. “I think we should start doing what we want. And this is what I want. You’re what I want. You’re what I’ve always wanted.”
“Well, good,” she says, tucking a lock of spun-gold hair behind her ear and leaning back in her seat. Her smile is all teeth. “Because there’s no turning back now.”
Her gloved hand turns the wheel sharply, and I feel the giddy rush that comes only at the end of things, that comes when, despite everything, I realize that we actually got away with it.
Every con artist’s fairy tale.
The big score.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Several books were really helpful in creating the world of the curse workers. In particular, David W. Maurer’s The Big Con; Robert B. Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion; 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. Thanks to Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, Josh Lewis, and Robin Wasserman for looking at many, many permutations of scenes and for their suggestions on two scenes in particular. Thanks to Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, Maureen Johnson, and Paolo Bacigalupi for the many helpful suggestions and general cheerleading while we were in Mexico. Thank you to Justine Larbalestier and Steve Berman for their detailed notes and focus on getting the details just right. Thank you to Libba Bray for letting me talk the whole end through with her. Thanks to Dr. Elka Cloke and Dr. Eric Churchill for their medical expertise and generosity. Thanks to Sarah Smith, Gavin Grant, and Kelly Link for helping me polish the whole book to a shine.
Most of all I have to thank my agent, Barry Goldblatt, for all his sincere support; my editor, Karen Wojtyla, for pushing me to make these books far better and for the care she took with all aspects of the series; and my husband, Theo, who gave me lots of insight into private schools and scams and who once again let me read the whole book to him out loud.
LILA ZACHAROV IN 13 PIECES
THE SUMMER LILA CAME back from Europe, everything was different. She was used to drinking her coffee with a croissant dipped in it and taking the Metro by herself. She liked shopping in Le Marais. She had been to Rome and to Madrid and Marrakesh. Before her return, her father had even let her go to a salon and have her hair chopped to chin length and dyed bright pink. She knew she’d changed—but she figured everyone else would be the same.
They weren’t.
Cassel was taller, for one thing. He went from about her height to probably near six feet. It made him look alarmingly adult with the new hard angles of his face and a slight roughness to the skin of his jaw. He must have started shaving.
Her mother was angrier. They fought constantly—over Lila’s hair, over how independent she was, and the music she listened to and the books she read. And boys. Every time a boy tried to chat her up on the beach, her mother interrogated her about every detail of what he’d said, warning her in dire terms about diseases and pregnancy. Her mother grew so paranoid that she actually relented about Lila hanging out with Cassel, since he was a known quantity and his grandfather was always home.
So Lila and Cassel spent a lot of time sprawled on an old leather couch in the basement of his grandad’s house, renting black-and-white films where smoky-eyed starlets drank cocktails and laughed in the face of danger. They once even convinced his oldest brother, Philip, to drive them to a vintage store at an indoor flea market a half hour away. There Cassel got a fedora with a red feather in it while Lila bought a pair of huge sunglasses and a scarf to tie back her hair like an old-time movie star.
Afterward they walked around, looking at the other stalls.
“Did you see that knife in the shape of a snake?” Cassel asked. “Isn’t a knife-shaped knife scary enough? Why disguise it? I mean, how is a snake scarier than a knife?”
Lila grinned. “I thought the rhinestone eyes were a very frightening touch.”
“Look at this!” He grabbed a beret off a hat rack and plopped it down on her head. “I bet you wore one of these all the time in Paris.”
She laughed, trying to yank it away from him. They spun around and she was suddenly very aware of him, of how close she was to being in his arms.
“That’s how I pictured you, anyway,” he said, grinning, looking down at her, shockingly handsome with his sooty lashes and square jaw. He had the face of a pirate or a Romani prince.
“Oh, you pictured me, did you?” she asked. “A lot?”
His arms rested on her shoulders as he tilted the hat with gloved hands. He shook his head. “Barely ever.” Then, with a yank, he pulled the beret down over her eyes.
She howled, pulling it off and chasing him through the aisles as shopkeepers yelled after them. It was only after they’d stopped in the parking lot, still laughing and gasping for breath, that she realized what it meant that her heart was still slamming against her rib cage, that she was still looking for an excuse to touch him, that her whole body seemed to thrum with joy at his happiness.
But she had no idea what to do about it.
* * *
It’s not that Lila didn’t like weddings. It’s just that, by thirteen, she had gone to lots of them. Her father’s business was full of bad young men who planned on dying young and rich, with a wife and children to weep over their graves. Criminals were, as a rule, disgustingly sentimental.
Her father had to preside over all the weddings, as necessary as the luck curse and the pair of rings. He had to give out envelopes of money to the brides, just like he gave envelopes to the widows at the funerals that would follow. And since her parents’ divorce, Lila had become the woman on his arm.
She had acquired a closet full of dresses to go with her new role. Half of them were black.
That day, she was in light gray. As the bride and groom danced, she played gin rummy with her cousin Anton for silver candied almonds. He mostly won.
