Summoning the Night (Arcadia Bell #2)(32)

He paused, remembering. The look on his face unnerved me. It was as if he was recalling some life-changing experience that could never be repeated. A sublime meal, or the perfect sunset on a romantic vacation. I’d never seen him look that way when talking about Yvonne. All I’d heard were horror stories. How she’d neglected Jupe. Flirted with drug addictions. Cheated on Lon. Sliced him open with a knife before his divorce trial. Of course, I knew there had to be good times, too. But the way his eyes glossed over as he relived one of these memories made my throat tighten and my stomach queasy.

“She was . . . exquisite,” he reminisced. “Not just her looks. The whole package. Her knack didn’t only affect how people saw her on the outside, it made you believe that she was kind and funny and caring. Charming. And I wanted her.” He blinked, and the memory faded. “I knew that she was lying about something. I knew it was big. But I didn’t know she was hiding a knack until after I’d knocked her up.” He paused. “Jupe was an accident. We’d been seeing each other on and off for several months. She didn’t want to keep the baby. It complicated her career and she wasn’t ready to settle down. I was pretty sure the baby was mine, based on her emotional reaction when she first told me, but I didn’t know for sure. I followed her to an abortion clinic. I had to transmutate in order to talk her into keeping him. She was the first non-Hellfire person to see me do that.”

I stared at the floor, a little shocked by the story. A little sad, too. “I guess she was pretty surprised by the transmutation.”

“Not as surprised as I was when I later overheard a phone conversation with her mother, a few months into her pregnancy. That’s when I knew I’d been duped.” He looked up and gave me a tight smile. The overhead lights in the kitchen were off. A single bulb over the sink created shadows under his eyes. Low voices and music droned from the television in the living room.

“But my finding out didn’t change anything. She was still using her knack, and I was still crazy about her, even though I knew better. Told myself that I could see her for what she really was because I could hear her emotions. I asked her to marry me a couple months before Jupe was born. She refused. Twice. She only caved a couple of weeks before her delivery when her pregnancy got difficult. After she had Jupe, she still kept her ability turned ‘on’ all the time. Persuaded me to take her to the Hellfire Club and get her inducted when one of the thirteen in the Body died. A mistake, of course. When she’s transmutated, she could make the Pope himself renounce God, fall to his knees, and worship her.”

“Damn.”

His finger traced out a pattern on the counter. “That’s when things began disintegrating between us. We moved to Miami for a few years. She quit using her knack on me. Just didn’t care anymore. I couldn’t believe how different she was without it. I knew in my head that I was being manipulated the whole time she was using it, but when she stopped . . . I was suddenly living with a stranger.” He shrugged. “And you already know the rest of it. The drugs, the parties, the cheating. Her mom and I became closer the second time Yvonne got out of rehab. She was the one who convinced me to leave.”

“Hold on. Yvonne’s own mother persuaded you to leave her daughter?”

“She flew down from Portland one summer and told me stories about Yvonne’s childhood. Up until that point, I was convinced that I could save her, if I was patient enough. Tried hard enough. But I couldn’t. I took Jupe and moved back home. My parents died, I built this house. And now we see her at Christmas. Usually.”

Jupe never mentioned her, except in the broadest sense. All his retold childhood memories included Yvonne’s family—her sister, Adella, and his grandmother, who were both still actively involved in his and Lon’s lives—but never Yvonne.

A long moment ticked by. “Do you think the fact that you’d undergone the transmutation spell before you got Yvonne pregnant—”

“—has something to do with what’s manifesting in Jupe?”

“Well, yes.”

“Possibly. He hasn’t inherited someone else’s knack. Despite my doubts before he was born, he’s clearly not the milkman’s kid.”

“He’s definitely yours,” I agreed with a smile.

He pressed the heel of his palm over a brow, deep in thought. This wasn’t so bad, Yvonne’s knack. Definitely not as bad as the nightmare knacks I’d dreamed up for her. I could see that it upset him to admit the whole messy story, but it didn’t make me think any less of him. He must’ve thought it would, otherwise he wouldn’t have keep it quiet until now.

But something was still bothering me. Anxiety twisted inside my stomach—the source of it just out of reach. My thoughts tumbled and churned.

“What’s wrong?” Lon said, startling me.

“Hajo came on to me,” I blurted. “He wanted me to sleep with him as payment for the job. The potion was a compromise.”

Lon’s eyes tightened, searching my face.

“Nothing happened, of course. He tried to kiss me, but I stopped him. I just wanted you to know.”

His expression was unreadable, so I immediately felt a little silly for confessing. It’s not like I did anything wrong. Why was I telling him this now? My heart pattered a nervous rhythm as I struggled to sort it all out. “I guess if the situation was reversed, and someone had tried to kiss you, I’d be pretty pissed if you kept it secret. Does that make sense?”