My breath caught. Dec would be devastated to find out anyone knew about his parents and did nothing to warn them. “The Guild knew?” I glanced at the still empty back seat. “Ian knew?”
“Yeah, but…the rules and all of that.”
I spun in my seat and suddenly Alex’s shirt collar sat bunched and twisted in my hand. “I’m only going to say this once,” I whispered. “If you ever tell Dec, if anyone ever tells Dec, I’m going to hunt you down, and I promise you, you will never sleep well again.”
Alex shivered and grabbed at his shirt. The red cotton looking too much like blood. “Get off me, you nutcase. If I were going to blab, I would have done that already. I just needed something to use on Sheridan so he’d take the fall for marking the cards in the poker game.”
I inhaled. Something inside me shuddered with the effort. “Get out of my car,” I growled. “Now.”
Alex didn’t wait for a second invitation. I gunned the engine and was off before the passenger door shut.
* * *
I drew the shades in my room and crawled into bed, sure that the pain in my head was more a product of Alex’s confession than Ian’s possession. The kicker was, for once, Alex was right. The Guild did have rules about telling people about their imminent deaths. And I had to agree those rules made sense in the abstract. We couldn’t go around stopping people from dying like we were gods or something.
Those regulations were harder to stomach when I thought about Dec’s parents specifically and what their deaths had done to my best friend.
I went back and forth about whether to be pissed at Ian for keeping his knowledge to himself. He had reached out to the Guild, so one point to him, I guess.
“Flower sperm?” Ian asked.
I should have been surprised he was suddenly in my room, but somehow it seemed fitting. I stared at him.
“Don’t worry. I wasn’t really listening. The subject matter just caught my attention.”
“I’ll bet.” I pulled myself up against the headboard. “Did you honestly tell the Guild about Dec’s parents?”
Ian flinched as if he’d been caught doing something illegal. “I thought they might consider getting off their thrones and doing the right thing for once.”
“How did you know the Hamptons were going to die?”
“Hell, Griffin. How do you know anything? A feeling. A dream. Some freaking tea leaf out of place. I just knew.”
There was a tone in his voice that was off. Defensive rather than cocky. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“If you’re ever going to join the Guild, you have to learn to ask more specific questions. Try again.” Ian’s eyes were hard and steely, testing me.
“What do you know about Dec’s parents’ deaths?”
Ian smirked. It was the smirk he used when he dismissed his brother Colin. My fists clenched. I tried again.
“I can feel it. You know something.” I reached down inside myself and realized it was true. I might not to be able to read Ian anymore, but I did know this. “What is it?”
Ian paused for a moment. “So, I’ll reward you with a little story. The Guild. Charlotte Norton specifically. She thought what St. Hilaire really needed was credibility. And spectacle. But mostly more money. A lot more money. The town had no obvious way of raising it, so she drafted me and the Hamptons to call the spirit of Sarahlyn Beck.”
“What?” I thought of the statue in the square. Sarahlyn holding out her hands. Rocks in one, gold in the other.
Ian stood and placed the heel of his boot on the windowsill. He didn’t look at me. “You’ll remember from school that Sarahlyn was rumored to be an alchemistic. They said she could literally create gold. Who better than her to solve St. Hilaire’s fiscal issues?”
“That’s absurd.”
“Of course. But it worked.” Ian paused and turned, a mix of pride and regret merging in his eyes. For the first time, it seemed like being Ian Mackenzie was an exhausting thing to be. Knowledge had a weight. And Ian knew many things.
“What do you mean it worked?”
“I mean, the Guild formed a team. We contacted Sarahlyn. And we helped Charlotte Norris convince her to tell us where she’d stashed all the gold she made.” Ian fiddled with the crank of the window, opening and closing it and opening it again.
I looked away, afraid that if I complained, Ian would stop talking. “Congratulations. What am I missing?”
“Don’t be dense, Griffin. What you’re missing is everything you learned in school. Ghosts don’t just give you shit. There’s a price for everything.”
Before I could point out the obvious about Ian being a ghost and therefore having some ulterior motive himself, he sat on the bed and put his head in his hands. Talking in the direction of the floor, he said, “Rice and Norton were nonchalant; they’d gotten most of what they wanted. Where do you think the new gymnasium came from? Or the upgrades to that ridiculous old train? Just ask your father how much that thing costs to keep in working order. But Sarahlyn told us we would pay. I assumed she meant me, because, well, I just did. I never thought she was going to go after the Hamptons. At least not until I heard about the crash.”
“You’re saying Sarahlyn Beck killed Dec’s parents?”
Ian’s head snapped up. “I’m saying I believe the Guild was aware of the risks and asked us to help them anyhow without putting any of their own pretty little necks in jeopardy. And yes, I’m saying that Sarahlyn Beck somehow caused the accident that killed Dec’s parents. Ergo, the Guild killed Dec’s parents.”
Knowledge had a weight, and this knowledge sat on my chest so heavily, I couldn’t take in any air.
“And probably others,” Ian said quietly.
Two questions played tug-of-war in my head. They both sucked.
I went for the hardest one. “You?”
Ian rolled his eyes, trying to look like he didn’t care about the answer. He repeated, “Everything has its price.”
I reached out a hand and forced myself to place it on Ian’s back. His muscles rippled under my touch. I had to remind myself that he was a ghost. “Did she kill you too?”
Ian turned with a vacant and unreadable expression. Then he sprung up from the bed. “I shared my suspicions with the Hamptons that things weren’t going to end well,” he said, avoiding my question. “And they had the same feeling I did. Rice was climbing the walls because the numbers weren’t matching up and things were getting strange.”
“Strange?” I asked. “In St. Hilaire?” My head was spinning with all of this new information.