Book of Night(115)

“Trick him?” Bellamy echoed, more intrigued than astonished. Masks were almost exclusively interested in mysteries, which led to lots of academics and even more mad scientists. Charlie had always figured they were a bit of a hodgepodge of the other specialties, and she could see why someone like Vince would be especially intriguing to them.

“He was deceived into conducting a ritual from the book, one that proved fatal—”

Charlie interrupted him. “That’s not true. You’re the one that killed Remy.”

“Did it tell you that?” Salt asked, making his voice gentle. “It used Remy’s life, and created this shell in which it’s hiding. It then absconded with the book and began murdering anyone who knew about it. A rare book dealer. Knight, who’d had access to the Liber Noctem while it was at Sotheby’s. And finally, a thief who I’d contracted to steal it back.”

It all sounded reasonable when he said it, and Vince stood there, denying nothing. Charlie could feel her control of the situation slip away.

“Shadows lie, my dear,” Salt went on. “If you have a Blight stitched to you, it will whisper in your ear, and every gloamist knows not to believe everything it says. That is why it is a heavy burden to drape yourself in another’s shadow.”

Charlie glanced at the Hierophant. As much as Salt might be enjoying this, the Hierophant was not.

“Both of you are claiming to have solved the murder. You’re saying that’s a Blight, and it’s responsible for all those murders,” Malik said to Salt, then turned to Charlie. “While you, for some reason, believe it was Lionel and Stephen?”

She nodded, glancing at Vince, who still didn’t speak. “Knight’s not the first gloamist Lionel Salt killed, either.”

Salt smiled and stood, pacing the room, clearly believing he’d already won. “Allow me to order proof of my version of events. Adeline, my dear, what did Edmund call his shadow?”

Charlie was dressed in the color. Red, the scarlet of poppies and cutthroats.

Adeline smiled at her. “Red.”

“And what was on the walls where Adam Lokken—that thief I hired—was killed?” he asked Charlie.

“The word ‘red,’” she told them reluctantly. “Painted in blood. But it was meant to threaten Vincent, since the Hierophant believed he had the book.”

“Vincent?” Bellamy echoed.

“She means me,” Vince said.

Adeline startled, and the others seemed surprised too, as though they’d forgotten he could speak.

“Isn’t it more likely that the Blight wished everyone to know who had murdered Adam and that’s why it covered the walls with its name?” Salt said. “The Hierophant has, again, I remind you, shown no inclination toward bloodshed.”

“The fuck he hasn’t,” Charlie said.

Salt’s hooded gaze was on her, unrelenting. “Now, how close to where Red was living was Paul Ecco murdered?”

“A few blocks, but I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“And how close to where Red was living was Adam Lokken murdered?”

Charlie sighed, frustrated. “He lived in the house where the murder happened, but he’d left. He wasn’t there. He hadn’t been there in days.”

“And who had he lived with in that house, prior to leaving?”

“Me,” Charlie admitted.

“And isn’t it likely that you got the book from Red, since you’ve been living with him—rather than that you broke through my extensive security.”

“I could show everyone how I did it,” Charlie offered sweetly.

“Yes,” said Salt. “That brings us to one other thing. Do you think there’s a reason he insinuated himself into your life, something about you he might have wanted?”

Charlie folded her arms over her chest, looking Salt in the face. “I don’t know. My tits? Maybe my ass?”

It broke some of the tension in the room. Vicereine snorted. Bellamy smiled. But Salt was undeterred. “You don’t suppose it’s because you’re a well-known thief? The Charlatan, who stopped taking freelance gigs, coincidentally of course, right around the time she met Red.”

Charlie took a stuttering breath. It had been one thing for them to know she was a thief, but it was a little different for them to know she was someone they all had some experience with. Although she’d done a job or two for Vicereine, the others had only experienced her as a cause of misfortune.

You’ve lost them, Charlie Hall. They’re never going to believe you now. You should have figured that a billionaire would make a pretty good con artist.

“Tell us, did it inform you it was a living shadow?” Salt asked. “Or did it give you a false name and a false history, along with its false face?”

Charlie couldn’t help thinking of the fairy tale of the scholar’s shadow, playing at love. Of Vince’s hungry mouth on hers. Of him cooking her eggs.

“I know who Vince is,” said Charlie. “And I know who you are. You poisoned me when I was fifteen. Your people chased me through the woods. Don’t talk to me about false faces.”

Bellamy raised his eyebrows. Adeline looked over at Vince, as though for confirmation. But it wasn’t like Charlie thought any of the Cabal would care all that much about something that had happened over a decade ago, to someone who wasn’t a gloom, even if they believed her.