The Hearts We Sold(58)

“—and you’re missing school, and I swear I smelled something like cordite on you the other day.”

Dee took another drag of coffee, if only so she had time to think of an excuse. “Are you going to report me?”

“No,” said Gremma. “I just want to know what’s going on so I can go back to normal puzzles like how the human body works. This is driving me up a wall. I couldn’t focus on chemistry the other day because I spent half an hour trying to figure out your new extracurricular activities.”

And for a moment, Dee considered it. She considered telling Gremma everything—about her heart, about her parents, about the Daemon, about that cobbled-together homunculus, about Cal falling to the sidewalk, about Cora’s hollow eyes, about the sensation of James’s mouth on hers, their fingers woven together, about the fact that her life was some kind of screwed-up fairy tale and she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be reading Faust or Cthulhu or if she was even going to survive all of this—

But the words knotted in her throat, and she found herself unable to speak them aloud.

Gremma saw the distress on her face and she softened. “Fine,” she said. “Not now. But later, I swear to everything that I hold dear. Later, Moreno. I will get it out of you.”




The text came on a Saturday afternoon.

WE NEED TO MEET, said Cora. JAMES’S APARTMENT. TONIGHT. 8PM.

Dee could almost hear Cora’s stern voice in the all-caps message.

She texted James. Did you just get Cora’s message?

yup.

Did she volunteer your apartment as a meet spot?

it’s not the first time. u need a ride?

Dee considered; she ran through the scenario of asking Gremma for the Camaro, then quickly typed a reply.

Yes, please.




She met James on the curb. Her stomach was twisted into knots; she hadn’t seen him since the road trip and part of her was nervous. She didn’t need to be flustered. After all, they were friends. But her mouth went dry when his car pulled up and he stepped out.

And then she froze in horror.

She raised a finger. “No. No, no, no.”

James reared back a step, startled. “What?”

Now that they had returned to their old lives, it seemed James had gone back to dressing in his usual wardrobe. With one notable addition.

“You are wearing a straw hat.” Dee couldn’t believe she was even saying the words—but there it was, perched atop his rumpled hair. “You are not wearing a straw hat.”

“Pretty sure those are two contradictory statements,” said James. He was grinning, reaching up to tweak the offensive accessory.

“That is possibly the most hideous thing I have ever seen,” said Dee. She was rooted to the spot, paralyzed with disgust.

“You’ll work for a demon,” said James, “blow up magical voids, juggle a double life, watch friends get killed… and this is what breaks you?”

“It’s got a hole in one side,” said Dee, making no attempt to hide her despairing tone.

“Does it really?” James pulled the hat off and poked a finger through said hole. “Oh. Look at that.”

Dee snatched the hat from his hands and tossed it into the bushes. “Now look what you’ve done,” said James.

“You said we should live for today,” said Dee. “That fedora is not living. That hat is the opposite of living.”

“Technically, it was a trilby,” said James. “And did you just call my hat undead?”

She laughed and it turned into a snort. Which made him laugh, in turn.

It occurred to her that that was exactly why he wore it. He knew it would distract her, get her to focus on something trivial. And all at once, her nervousness faded away.





“No one else is going to die,” said Cora.

James and Dee simply looked at her.

They were still sitting on his Ikea couch, the one stained with paint and charcoal. Her back was to the couch’s arm, her feet tucked beneath his thigh. The contact felt comforting. A box of pizza sat open on the coffee table. Cora had declined the food. She had also declined a seat in favor of pacing back and forth, much in the manner of a general at a war council. There was a fire behind her eyes, Dee saw, a burning that had not been there before. Her body was tight with pain, her face rough with sleeplessness.

Cora said, “This is wrong. We’re wrong. We were wrong to make deals and the Daemon was wrong to change us. He is going around turning us into these… things.” Her fingers touched a lump in her pocket—and Dee thought that must be where she was keeping her knitted heart. “This is wrong. He can’t do this to us. We’re all being kept alive on a string.”

“I think you mean our lives hang on a thread,” James corrected, as if unable to help himself.

Cora threw him a heated look. “I have been awake for nearly three days straight. Do you think I give a damn about the phrasing?”

Ah. So that explained her slightly unhinged appearance. “If you do not mind me asking,” said James. “Why have you been awake for three days?”

“I’m going to stop him,” snapped Cora. “I will not let him take another heart. I’ve been following the Daemon for three days. Or trying to. I’ve mostly managed.”