Page 21 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

The Lusitania and the Titanic

That night, she decided to take Balthazar up on his offer and directed Red to drive to his place in Holyoke.

She hadn’t mentioned the papers Balthazar had given her the last time that they’d met and hoped Balthazar wouldn’t bring them up.

Getting that missing piece of Red’s shadow felt more imperative than ever.

If he had his memories back, they would be on the same side again.

But for now, at least she could learn how to be a better gloamist.

Balthazar Blades lived in a converted brick firehouse that overlooked the canal in Holyoke. The place had a parking lot, absolutely no lawn, and, if you didn’t know better, you might think it was abandoned.

Balthazar seemed to like it. He’d even stenciled the words “GO AWAY” on his door.

Ignoring the sign, she banged several times. When no one answered, she turned to Red.

“Can you…?” she asked.

He reached out a hand toward the lock, his fingers turning to smoke, and then a shadow fell across the wood. A moment later, he flinched back.

“Onyx,” he said. “There’s a strip of it in the baseboard too.”

“I guess it’s me, then,” she said and fished her lockpicks out of her bag.

She had the first pick in when Balthazar opened the door. “ You, ” he accused.

“You invited me over,” Charlie said, pushing past him into his house. He’d evidently been sitting on his couch, listening to music. A cup of thick Cuban coffee sat in front of him on the coffee table.

“I suppose I did. Can I offer you something?” Balthazar asked.

“I’ll have what you’re having,” she said, nodding toward his cup.

“You should,” he told her, walking into the kitchen.

She glanced around the room, her gaze snagging on her shadow, so clearly not in the shape of her own body. She hadn’t even seen Red turn back; he’d just melted away between one moment and the next.

It felt like being alone, but she had to remember: she was never alone.

With a sigh, she headed into Balthazar’s kitchen.

He was just finishing adding the condensed milk to her coffee.

Years ago, she’d done jobs that he arranged, stealing books detailing ancient gloamist techniques so he could sell them on to the highest bidder.

Now, she wasn’t sure how to characterize their relationship.

Not quite friends, but they knew too much about one another to be only acquaintances.

“So,” he said, pushing the cup toward her. “You want to be a real gloamist?”

She hesitated, then tried to find the words to express something that both was the truth and omitted the worst of her fears.

“I want to know what being a real gloamist means for someone with a shadow that was never part of me. I’ve always heard there was the difficult but right way—to use your shadow like an extension of yourself—and the bad, but easy way—to give it the means to be independent.

But if that’s true, I’m bad from the jump.

And I don’t think that can be true, because…

because I don’t think that Re—” She stopped herself in time.

“I don’t think that Remy was bad because he helped Vince exist.”

Balthazar regarded her for a long moment. “Huh.”

Charlie sipped her coffee and appreciated the way it made her feel as though she could punch a hole straight through a wall.

“Let’s go sit down and talk about what you do and don’t know.” He led the way. “You know, like civilized people.”

She settled herself back on his couch.

“You have no idea what he’s capable of, do you?” he asked.

The fact that she wasn’t even sure what he was asking, showed her just how right he was. She glanced at her shadow again. “I guess not.”

“He can possess people.”

“Like Mr. Punch,” Charlie said, trying not to seem overly unnerved. She didn’t think that meant Red could possess her .

Balthazar leaned back with his coffee, lured by the prospect of shit-talking. “I see you met the new head of the puppeteers.”

“Well not exactly,” she said. “I met a lot of people speaking with his voice. It was immensely creepy.”

“Not surprising. Bellamy says he thinks he met Mr. Punch once, but it was years ago and he went by another name.”

Charlie remembered Red telling her that he’d seen Bellamy and Balthazar together outside of Rapture.

“Is Malik dead?” Charlie wasn’t sure what it took to take possession of a Cabal. Probably less than it had when there had been four of them. Vicereine and Bellamy should have pushed someone into the role of carapace leader sooner.

Balthazar gave a nonchalant wave of his head. “I don’t think so. The rumor was that he made it out of town. How far out of town is another question.”

“Rooster Argent at all mixed up in this?” Charlie asked, leaning back herself. She hoped Balthazar might have something interesting to say about him.

Balthazar gave her a private smile. “Rooster is the face of gloamists and was a good friend of Malik. Mr. Punch’s absolute opposite. They must hate one another. I hear Rooster is supposed to be enlightening Silicon Valley types at a spa upstate next week.”

Ice picks for the rich, Charlie recalled from the chat.

Balthazar snapped his fingers. “I have an idea. Let’s get Vince to give you a demonstration.”

Charlie wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that.

“Vince,” Balthazar said, louder than he needed to, as though he was calling someone in another room. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Red was suddenly standing to one side of her.

“God’s tits, that’s startling,” Balthazar told him. “Okay, Charlie, we’re going to try some basics. Get up.”

She stood, feeling a little foolish.

“The first and most important thing is to know how to block the pipeline of energy that exists between you and Red. If you don’t, he could suck you dry if he wanted to, like a milkshake through a straw.”

“What’s stopping him from doing that now?” Charlie asked with a sinking feeling. This was what Posey had been warning her about.

Balthazar shrugged. “If you really don’t know how to block it at all, then good manners, I guess.”

Red smirked.

“And maybe becoming top of the Cabal’s most wanted list,” Balthazar said. “But as you well know, some people live for danger.”

Charlie hated this. “Okay, so what do I do?”

“Do you feel the connection between you and your shadow?” he asked.

“The tether,” she said, nodding.

“If you had to point to a physical place it comes from, where would you say that is?”

Charlie touched her belly. She could picture it just beneath her lungs, a pull from the center of her body.

“Excellent!” Balthazar sounded genuinely relieved. “There are some people who have no idea where they’re connected or have multiple points of connection and that’s so much harder.”

Red watched her, eyes hot as coals. Did he think she was a fool for not knowing any of this? Did he worry what she was learning would make it harder to kill her?

“Some people think of the tether as a leash, but I prefer to think of it as an umbilical cord.”

Charlie made a face. “Gross.”

“Don’t be so sensitive. My metaphor is excellent. An umbilical cord sends nutrients through it, just like our tether allows us to share power and energy. By pinching the cord, you can stop the flow.”

“Like really pinching it?”

“It’s not solid, so you’re going to have to do it with your mind,” Balthazar said. “Imagine the pinching. Or twisting. Just don’t imagine cutting it.”

Charlie felt very foolish as she focused on the thin skein of shadow. She could almost feel it against her skin, as thin as spider silk and the weight of a cloud. She imagined pinching her fingers together over it.

“Well?” she said. “Did anything happen?”

Balthazar sighed. “I suppose not, since your shadow wasn’t actively draining you, although you would think it cost him something to be so physically present for so long.”

“You would think that,” Red agreed, with a smile that was pure menace. Balthazar acted as though he didn’t notice.

“Okay, let’s try something more impressive. Charlie, I want you to step into Vince.”

“What does that mean?”

“Put him on like a coat. Go on. Try it.”

Feeling very foolish, she walked up to Red. “Is that okay?”

She half expected him to be insulted by this exercise, but he merely reached a hand toward her.

She reached back, but instead of touching skin and muscle, her hand flowed into his arm.

And as she moved toward him, she moved into the same space he occupied, the air somehow thicker where he stood.

She panicked a little, worried she would choke, terrified by the memory of suffocating.

You’re okay, Red told her. I am not going to hurt you.

“Okay,” Charlie said out loud. “Okay.”

“Good!” Balthazar said. “This is carapace gloaming. From where you’re standing, Vince could become something like armor for you. Or he could—”

Charlie felt a tightening around her waist, as though arms held her and then shadow wings spread out to both sides of her back. She felt the rush of air beneath her and she was suddenly hovering above the floor. High above.

“That,” Balthazar said. “He could do that.”

A sound bubbled up her throat, half awe and half terror. She looked down on the room from that height and felt the pull of magic . Real magic. Oh, she thought. Oh.

She’d spent so long pretending that magic was real, conning people into believing in it, that the desire for it had seemed dangerous. But guarding her heart from the sheer joy and awe of flying was impossible.

“Come on,” Balthazar said. “Enough. Back down, you two. We have more to practice.”

Red set her on the ground, then took a few steps back, a hesitant, slanted smile on his face. He was clearly hoping she’d liked it and just as clearly worried she hadn’t. Perhaps worrying he’d scared her.

The stupid grin on her face should have answered all his questions.