“What?” I asked, waves of sensation running through me like current. I was sure I’d misheard. This wasn’t how things happened. The Guild had a process and they kept to it. There were letters written. Signed. Sealed with wax and a stamp. Hand delivered. The Guild’s summons weren’t delivered by angry young men in dark library basements.
Colin slapped me on the side of my head. Coming from him, it was a surprisingly brotherly gesture. “Summoned, Griffin. They want to meet with you.”
I pulled on the sleeves on my coat, appreciating the way the rough wool was so tangible, so grounding, in my hands. “Officially? Why?”
Colin gave me a half smile. “Yeah. I mean, the letter is coming and all. But Charlotte Norton told me herself. They want to get to you before school starts. Something about their new plans for this year and needing someone really good in place.”
My breath caught. I stumbled back a step, examining Colin for any sign that he was screwing with me, but there was nothing. I swallowed hard. Get ahold of yourself, I thought. You’re more than this. I crossed my arms and centered myself, and then reached out to sense Colin.
“Reel it in, Griffin. I’m not bullshitting.” Colin leaned over and squeezed my shoulder hard. The thick wool was the only buffer between my skin and a bruise. “Welcome to the club.”
Chapter 37
Dec
A loud hum in the corner of my room woke me up. “Morning, Tristan,” I said, eyes still closed.
“I love when it rains and the sun is shining,” Tristan said. “It makes everything look so magical.”
I forced myself awake. “You believe in magic?”
Tristan walked into the light and sat on the edge of my desk. “You mean, you don’t? There are many things that can’t be explained by pure science.”
From anyone else, this would be an attempt at a bad joke, but Tristan looked as sincere as always. “You do remember you’re in St. Hilaire, right? This whole town defies science.”
Tristan beamed. “Doesn’t that prove my point?” He looked wistfully toward the window. If there was one thing Tristan was an expert at, it was looking at things wistfully. He picked a snow globe off my desk that Harriet had brought back from the city with her; it had a miniature Empire State Building inside, and he was turning it over and over, making it snow.
I didn’t really know what to do with my newfound appreciation for him. I didn’t want to be the type of person who only valued things when he was afraid he’d lose them, but maybe that’s just who I was.
“What do you dream about?” Tristan asked out of the blue.
I concocted a bunch of lies in my head, but then decided to be honest. “My parents, mostly. You?”
“Yes, although I’m not sure that I truly sleep.” Tristan looked down at the globe in his hand. “But, me too. Sometimes.” He raised his eyes to meet mine.
“You dream about my parents?” The words hurt as I said them. “Never mind. So, looks like I’m not the only one stuck here.”
“I’m not sure that’s true any longer,” Tristan said. “I think…something is changing.” He stuck his hands out, and now, if I squinted, I could almost see the bones beneath his skin. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t bones. It was the stripes of my carpet showing through where bones should be. I shook my head.
“Crap. I can’t… Let me call Russ.” I reached for my phone, dialed, and when Russ didn’t answer, said “Crap” again.
My head was a mess of things I wanted to deny. My parents. Tristan. The image of Russ lying on the floor with a needle sticking out of his arm.
In a way, the last one was the worst because I should have stopped him. How selfish did it make me that I sat and watched my best friend shoot who-knows-what into his body just for my benefit?
It terrified me that he might be doing it again right now.
Russ had always had a sort of restrained recklessness, and I suspected that was at the heart of his interest in Ian Mackenzie. There was little Ian wouldn’t do, and if Russ wasn’t stupid enough to participate, he at least wanted to be close enough to observe. I hadn’t wished Ian dead, but I was glad he wasn’t around. He wouldn’t have mixed well with a bunch of syringes.
I turned my thoughts back to Tristan. “Can you stay put for a minute?”
When Tristan nodded, I threw a sweatshirt over my T-shirt, stepped into the hallway, and knocked on the door across the hall.
Annie answered, her headphones draped around her neck. Her hair was damp and lovely, and I wanted to lean in and return the kiss she’d given me. The kiss we hadn’t even found time to discuss. Was it any wonder I wanted to get the hell out of here?
We stood there awkwardly, staring at each other. I said, “Something is happening with Tristan.”
She removed the headphones and followed me back to my room, where Tristan sat on the floor with his arms wrapped around his legs. “I don’t think it’s an emergency,” he said, “I mean, I don’t think anything is going to happen right away.”
“What do you mean ‘happen’?” Annie asked.
Tristan held out his insubstantial hands and shrugged an apology.
Annie settled herself on the floor and took one of Tristan’s barely there hands in her own. “Have you remembered anything else?” she asked.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about my father, actually.” Tristan drew a deep breath before he continued. “My father had never worked a day in his life and had no desire to begin. That was why he married my mother. For her money. He never loved any of us. My mother had doted on me, piano lessons, music teachers, she’d been so proud of everything I’d accomplished—but my father was jealous. And after she died, he quickly drank through her whole fortune.”
I watched Annie while we waited for Tristan to get to the point of his story; her face was lined with concern.
Tristan continued. “Anyhow, we had to live on something, so my father became a thief who represented himself as a type of mystic, telling fortunes and performing sleight of hand on the street. When he swindled the wrong people, we had to flee England. He told my brothers and me to keep to the shadows, but there was my music. I was seventeen and loved performing. I didn’t want to stay in the shadows.” He cleared his throat as if the words were awkward in his mouth. “Plus, I wasn’t wholly unknown at the time. I had signatures, musical signatures.”
It was chilling to hear Tristan tell us his story as if he were alive. Strange to think of him as seventeen, the same age as me and Annie.
Annie had other things on her mind. “The unfinished chords. The countermelodies,” she said.