Page 13 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

Pretend

As dawn glowed through the trees like a distant fire, Charlie sat on the edge of the road and summoned a Cosmic Cab, one of the Valley’s quirkier alternatives to Uber or Lyft.

Watching Red out of the corner of her eye as she gave her home address, she had the uncomfortable feeling that if she looked away, she’d find him returned to shadow.

“Don’t go,” she said as she put the phone away.

Red furrowed his brow as though not sure what she meant.

“I mean, you don’t have to disappear all the time,” she went on. “Though I understand why you might want to. I wish I could disappear sometimes too.”

He moved to sit beside her in the icy grass.

Maybe they couldn’t have anything more than friendship, but she needed to find her way to that with him. “You could talk to me more too,” she said, with a yawn. “I mean, obviously. Sorry, I’m tired.”

“I never used to sleep,” he volunteered, watching her closely. “But I do now. For a few hours, every night. Isn’t that strange?”

“Do you dream?” she asked, although she knew. He’d spoken in his sleep once, calling Adeline’s name.

“I think I always dreamed,” he told her, appearing surprised by his own answer.

She smiled up at him. “Can I lean against your shoulder?”

“You can, ” he said, as though surely she would think better of it.

But right then, she was willing to take any comfort she could get.

Like this, it was easy to imagine it was Vince who she was pillowing her head on—Vince, who cleaned their gutters and went grocery shopping even when it wasn’t his turn, who paid his part of the rent punctually and without complaint.

Vince, who’d seemed so stable he was an enigma.

The wool of Red’s coat was soft and carried the scent of cologne, something expensive, with clove and smoke in it.

Vince had smelled like bleach and the cheap soap she bought for the shower.

He had tried to make her believe he wasn’t anything special.

But even back then, some part of her had known: she might have him, but she couldn’t keep him.

And it had turned out that he wasn’t real.

Red was the hidden face of the man she’d loved, one she’d occasionally provoke him into showing.

Those glimpses had made her feel as though they had a wicked, shared secret.

Now that he showed that face to everyone, all the time, and maybe didn’t even like her, her feelings were a painful jumble of want and shame.

Vince had been the kind of person you were supposed to grow old and comfortable with. Red was a monster. You didn’t grow old with a monster. You set the world on fire together and burned up in the blaze.

Still, she pressed her cheek against Red’s upper arm and closed her eyes. Typical Charlie Hall, ignoring every warning. “Wake me when the car comes.”

She didn’t sleep. But she did listen to the morning calls of birds and felt the warmth of the sun cut through the chill night air. Let herself be comforted by his arm over her shoulder, as solid as if it were made of flesh.

Mr. Punch had given her an opportunity, so long as she didn’t fumble it.

She’d need to figure out what he was trying to hide from the other two Cabal leaders.

And she’d need to find the murderer, although she didn’t know how to do that—especially since a Blight could return to shadow and presumably stay there.

When she heard the crunch of tires on gravel, she opened her eyes.

True to its Cosmic company name, the Mitsubishi Mirage had been tricked out, obviously on the cheap: spray paint covered the body, pink and dark blue swirls obscuring a few dents and scrapes and creating something that looked vaguely galactic.

Charlie opened the door to the pounding rhythm of Eurodance music and a pink fur cover on the back seat. The ceiling had silver fabric glued to it, the whole thing studded with LED lights in changing rainbow colors. If you were high, this would not be a car to get into lightly.

She slid over, making room for Vince, and told the driver her address. The kid—probably a college student—dutifully typed it into the map app on his phone.

“Can you go through a Dunkin’ drive-through on your way?” she asked.

The kid perked up. “For sure.”

With that, Charlie rested her head against Red’s shoulder again. This time the hum of the engine and the spreading warmth of the heater lulled her away from planning. Moments later, despite the music, she slept.

In dreams, she found herself in the library of Salt’s house, lying on the rug.

She was no child, though, as she had been then, waking up in a sticky mess of vomit, poison, and fake blood.

Instead, she was her adult self, in the red suit she’d worn the last time she was there, and Rand sat in a leather club chair, looking down at her between puffs on a cigar.

Rand, her mentor in con artistry when she was too young to know better and he was too old to become better. Rand, whom she’d hated almost as much as she’d loved, and missed terribly ever since Salt murdered him.

“Cuban cigar,” Rand said, taking a deep drag and then pursing his lips to make smoke rings. “Nothing but the best for Lionel Salt.”

“What are you doing here?” Charlie asked, pushing to her feet. “Shouldn’t you be dead?”

Rand grinned fondly. “You know me, always sneaking into places I’m not allowed. Anyway, I came to warn you.”

Charlie looked around the room. “I think it might be too late for that. Salt’s dead.”

“You can’t trust the people in the castle,” he said, shaking his head. “None of them. Not even the prisoners in the dungeon.”

Was he talking about Red?

“They’re like vampires,” Rand went on, turning the cigar over and pressing the burning part into the center of his palm. The scent of singed flesh filled the room. His familiar smile turned strange, menacing. “They’ll drink your blood.”

And then Charlie jerked awake with a gasp. She was still in the back of the Cosmic Cab, the music still thumping. Cold air from an open window might have been what woke her, because the driver was accepting a tray of drinks.

“I ordered you a large coffee with cream,” Red said and for a moment, she couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. How had he remembered how she took her coffee?

She scrubbed a hand over her face, realizing a coffee order didn’t mean he’d gotten any memories back. All it meant was that he’d been paying attention these last few weeks. “Right. Thank you.”

The driver handed her a huge coffee, passed a smaller, equally milky one to Red along with some change, and kept a whipped cream monstrosity for himself.

Red had ordered himself a coffee. That was interesting. So he did want to eat and drink like a human.

“What are you staring at?” he asked her.

“You used to take yours black,” she told him, pointing to his cup.

He blinked. “Did I?”

“Maybe you just wanted to seem like a badass,” she told him.

He took a tentative sip, his face not really allowing her to guess if he liked it.

It came to her that he might not know how he preferred his coffee.

Even back then, maybe he’d taken it black because he’d chosen that once, at random—possibly he’d heard someone order it that way—and stuck with it.

Maybe a lot of what she’d thought she knew about Vince had been protective coloration.

That gave her an idea.

Back at the house, Charlie discovered that Posey had gone out, leaving behind only a dirty plate in the sink and a single tarot card, face-up on the counter. The Hierophant.

She knew the meaning, having spent years listening to Posey read tarot for people over Zoom.

It was an endorsement of convention, of strictures and rules.

A representative of an institution. But since it was also the title of her job with the Cabals, Charlie thought the card was probably just meant to annoy her, which it did.

Charlie went to text Posey that she’d made it home okay, but as soon as she pulled out her phone, she remembered that she couldn’t. She called instead, but her sister sent the call straight to voicemail.

Only a few months ago, Charlie was used to knowing where her sister was at all times. She’d been used to a Posey that hid in the house, that was neither dangerous nor likely to put herself in danger. With her quickened shadow, Posey had now become both. Charlie just had to get used to it.

“I’m going to make ramen for breakfast or whatever you would call this meal,” she said, reaching for a pot. “Do you want some?”

“Me?” Red asked.

“You had coffee in the car,” she reminded him.

When Remy died, he had pushed all of himself into Red. That—on top of the power Red had already—had made him be able to pass for human, something no other Blight seemed able to do.

He watched her from the corner of the room as she boiled noodles and two eggs. Watched as she added soy sauce and sesame oil and chopped up frozen spinach.

“Try the food,” she said, setting a bowl down in front of him.

He hesitated, but then brought the spoon to his mouth. She could almost see his incredulity as he ate, as though it wasn’t something he was allowed to do. But he swallowed it, just as he had swallowed the coffee. A moment later, his eyes met hers.

“I couldn’t always do that.”

“What does it taste like?” she asked.

“Salt,” he said. “Like sweat.”

An odd—and slightly gross—thing to compare it to, but he wasn’t wrong that sweat was salty. He’d probably tasted skin before, when he was licking off blood. “What else have you eaten?”

His expression shifted, as though searching through his memories. “Birthday cake.”

She gave him a curious look.

“Remy said it was our birthday, not just his.” There was a shyness to Red in that moment. “He wanted me to eat, so I learned how. His grandfather thought I was a parasite. A mimic. He didn’t like when Remy let me do nice things.”

Charlie wondered if that was because Salt was very invested in Red doing not-nice things for him. “And you could taste the cake?”

“It was too sweet. Especially the icing.”