A Lesson in Vengeance(16)

It feels like a peace offering, so after a moment I say, “How is the book going?”

She grimaces. “Not well. I’m starting to think writing about murder wasn’t the best of plans, considering—”

“Considering you can’t kill someone to see what it’s like.”

“Precisely.” Ellis sighs. “Of course, the story isn’t about murder, per se, it’s a character sketch, but I’m sure when the book’s out I’ll hear all sorts of complaints from murderers regarding my insufficiently accurate representation of their pastime.”

Ellis’s gaze is steady, and there’s nothing about her eyes or the set of her mouth that implies any deeper meaning than what she’s said. But all at once I feel as if she has knotted her fingers in the threads that hold me together, pulling them taut and close to breaking.

“I suppose you could read memoirs.”

Ellis laughs, which isn’t at all the reaction I expected from a girl who—according to Hannah Stratford—takes her writing habits so seriously that she intentionally got arrested in small-town Mississippi just to see what it’s like. “Yes, I suppose I could. Do you have any recommendations?”

This can’t be innocent. Ellis is a writer; she knows how to choose her words. She’s implying something. She’s implying guilt.

My next words come out stiff and synthetic: “I’m afraid I’m not as well versed in the murder memoir genre as I should be.”

“But your thesis is on the Dalloway witches,” she says. “Surely you know quite a lot about these murders in particular. You can’t imagine all the research I’m going to have to do in order to re-create their lives and deaths faithfully on the page.”

My stomach has turned into a stone. I’m frozen with the tea halfway to my lips, all the excuses dead in my mouth—

Not that she would accept my excuses. How could I explain the way my past feels as if it’s intertwined with theirs? The dark magic that bites at my heels no matter how fast I run?

She knows.

She can’t possibly know.

But Ellis’s gaze has already slid away from mine, fixing instead on my bookshelves. “What are these?”

I twist round to look. For a moment I think she’s pointing at Alex’s postcard—but no, it’s right below that. I’ve stopped putting them in their hiding place.

“Tarot cards.”

“Tarot?”

“You use them to read the future. Allegedly.”

One of Ellis’s dark brows goes up. “Are you a psychic, Felicity Morrow?”

“No. But they’re fun to play with anyway. I don’t really believe in…all that.”

The words taste false on my tongue in a way they didn’t before. Maybe it’s how the air in the room has felt heavier ever since Ellis came in, a prickle rolling along the back of my neck. I shift my weight, and my chair—balanced on three legs with this uneven floor—wobbles.

Ellis picks up the deck and flips through my cards, pausing on Death. Everyone does.

“Can you read mine?” she says abruptly.

“Right now?”

“Unless you’d rather wait for the witching hour.”

The choice of words makes me flinch. Even so, a part of me wants to say yes, just for the aesthetics. Another part of me wants to refuse entirely—because this feels like a play, like a move on a chessboard, a game for which I don’t know the rules.

But if I say no, that would answer Ellis’s suspicions in a different fashion. It would show her I can be rattled.

I slip out of my chair and we move to settle on my bed instead, Ellis passing me the deck to shuffle. She reclines back against my pillows, elbow propped on the mattress and her hair pooling black atop the duvet.

“Do you mind if I smoke?”

I do mind. But for some reason I shake my head, and she withdraws a silver cigarette case from her jacket pocket. There’s a pack of matches with the candles lining my windowsill; she steals one, lights her cigarette, and waves the matchstick to quench the flame. The scent of red phosphorus lingers in the air.

“You need to think of a question to ask the cards.” I split the deck again, reshuffle.

“Do I have to tell you what it is?”

“It will help me interpret the cards if you do.”

“All right. Ask them about us. You and me.” Her lips quirk. “Are we going to become friends?”

I almost laugh, but she seems serious, so I bite my cheek and draw three cards. “Fine. ‘Are we going to become friends?’ The first card is you.” I tap the back of that card. “The second is me. The third card is us together.”

Ellis pushes herself upright, crossing her legs and placing her hands in her lap like a child in school. “I’m ready.”

I turn over the first card. It depicts a woman riding a stallion, her sword held aloft and her hair streaming out behind her like a banner. “The Knight of Swords,” I say. “You’re—surprise, surprise—ambitious and driven. You know what you want, and you pursue it at any cost. That can be a good thing, of course, but it has downsides; you can be impulsive and reckless, too, more focused on your goal than on its risks.”

She nods, and from the set of her lips, I take it she’s rather pleased with herself.