Though she knew she shouldn’t, Ridley pushed the door open a little wider and looked inside. Her eyes traveled across the room’s contents: A dresser covered in makeup and hair products. Candles in varying shades of blue and purple arranged among the books on a shelf. Trophies from dance competitions lining the top shelf. The school blazer hanging on the closet door. A black jacket draped over—
Surprise surged through Ridley’s chest. She knew that black jacket with the popular cartoon demon-cat embroidered on the back. It was Shen’s. Unless, of course, Serena owned the exact same one. But given that it didn’t fit in with the rest of the girly items in this room, and that Shen had admitted before disappearing that he’d been in love with Serena, the jacket was very likely his.
Where are you, Shen? Ridley thought, gently pulling the door back to its original position. Shen had accidentally killed an elemental man outside Ridley’s home. Then he’d tried to kill Lawrence Madson and Archer—succeeding in the case of Lawrence. He’d been convinced they were both part of the Shadow Society and were at least partly responsible for Serena’s death. Ridley had insisted he was wrong about Archer. A sick feeling that had nothing to do with arxium twisted her gut. Turned out she was the fool, not Shen.
She left Serena’s bedroom behind and found Archer and Mrs. Adams in the living room. As expected for an apartment in the heart of the Opal Quarter, it looked like it came straight from an interior design showroom. But it also looked a little more lived in than the Davenports’ penthouse home. There were far more framed photographs—Serena’s face was everywhere—plus a couple of dirty coffee mugs, a wrinkled blanket on one of the couches, and a half-finished plate of fresh fruit on the coffee table.
Archer looked up, his expression brightening when he saw Ridley in the doorway. She quickly averted her eyes, hating the way her stomach flipped over when he looked at her like that, as if she were suddenly the only important thing in the room. Her body clearly hadn’t received the memo yet that she and Archer were no longer a thing.
“Feeling better?” Mrs. Adams asked.
Ridley thought of saying something about the jacket. Or saying something about Shen, at least, since she didn’t want to admit to looking into Serena’s room. She wanted to let Mrs. Adams know the two of them shared a connection. One of Ridley’s best friends had loved Mrs. Adams’ daughter. But she wasn’t sure if Mrs. Adams even knew about her daughter’s relationship with a guy who lived in what could almost be considered a slum in comparison to the Opal Quarter. And even if she was aware of it, bringing up anything that had to do with Serena would probably only cause her pain.
“Yes, thank you,” Ridley answered, stepping into the room. “Um … are you two getting along any better than when I went to shower?” Her eyes moved to Archer’s ear, and she could just make out the edge of a small patch of gauze stuck behind it. “I see you managed to remove Archer’s AI1 without leaving any major wounds, so that’s a positive sign.”
“Archer and I had a long chat. He told me quite the story.”
Ridley sat opposite Archer, tucking one leg beneath her. “Is that the story about how his family’s part of the Shadow Society, but he’s apparently turned his back on everything they believe and has been helping elementals for months now?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Just checking we were both given the same story.”
“You don’t believe him?”
Ridley looked at Archer, holding his gaze this time. “I want to. I just don’t know if that’s wise.”
Mrs. Adams nodded. “I know what you mean. He told me a similar story several weeks ago when he’d just returned to Lumina City. Not the Shadow Society part, but that he knew about elementals, and that his time overseas had changed him. I wasn’t sure I believed him and I—I didn’t want to talk about Serena.” Her voice hitched slightly before she continued. “It didn’t matter to me that Archer Davenport suddenly cared about her death and wanted to pass on his condolences.”
“But you did tell me,” Archer said, “before pushing me out the front door and slamming it closed, that if I was ever desperate and in need of somewhere to hide, I could come here. You said you wished,” he added in a quieter tone, “that Serena had had somewhere to hide when she was trying to get away from them.”
Mrs. Adams inhaled deeply. She looked at Ridley. “I did say that. And now … well, him being part of the Shadow Society for so long was a fact that was bound to only make me hate him more. So the fact that he told me anyway makes me think it’s probably the truth.”
“Or he told you because I already know, so I probably would have told you by now if he hadn’t.”
Mrs. Adams appraised Ridley with a slight tilt of her head. “You are a skeptical one, aren’t you. Did he break your heart? Is that why you think it unwise to trust anything he has to say now?”
“Uh, should I perhaps leave the room so you two can continue talking about me as if I’m not here?” Archer asked.
“Yes,” Ridley said, but she was answering Mrs. Adams, not Archer. “That is what happened.”
Mrs. Adams nodded. “Smart. I’d probably feel the same way if I were you.”
“Good. Anyway … so …” Ridley looked at Archer again. “Both your amulets are gone? And your commscreen?”
He nodded. “Put them all into a brown paper bag, opened a window, and sent the bag flying as far as possible on a conjuration.”
“Magic? How daring.”
“Mrs. A said she didn’t mind.”
Mrs. Adams frowned. “I did say that, but I think I might object to being called Mrs. A.”
“Sorry.” Archer smiled apologetically. “Too familiar?”
“Too … old.”
“Old?”
“Um, anyway,” Ridley interrupted. “I can use my own magic again, so we can leave any time. Like now, before Archer becomes too annoying and you throw us out. We should probably—”
The sound of something falling in one of the other rooms cut through Ridley’s words. She paused, lips parted, her eyes darting to Mrs. Adams. She had also frozen.
“Does someone else live here?” Archer asked quietly.
Mrs. Adams shook her head, rising silently from the couch. She padded over to a bookshelf, extended her hand toward a book with a wide spine, and slid it from the shelf. She flipped the book open. It had no pages, only a compartment with a small black object Ridley couldn’t properly see but was fairly certain was a gun. Mrs. Adams slipped her hand around it.
Beside Ridley, Archer sucked in a quick breath and said, “Saoirse?”
16
Ridley’s gaze shot toward the doorway she’d walked through barely a few minutes before just as Archer said Saoirse’s name. A slight figure was standing there. Wrapped in her favorite rainbow sweater, her gray-streaked auburn hair scraped back into a tight ponytail, it was most certainly Saoirse.
Ridley let out a heavy breath as she stood, her hammering pulse still pumping adrenaline through her system. “Saoirse, what are you—you can’t just do that! You almost gave us heart failure. Mrs. Adams was about to … I don’t know, shoot you or something.” Even as the words left her mouth, she remembered appearing in Meera’s bedroom in much the same fashion. And in Lilah’s bedroom not long before that. In fact, Ridley had entered a great many homes in exactly the way Saoirse had just appeared. With a twinge of both guilt and annoyance, she forced the reminder away.