Page 64 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

“Great,” Charlie said. “But you’re not bringing Red.”

Adeline’s eyebrows rose and her mouth curved in a smile, as though she was looking forward to a particular treat. “And why do you say that?”

“You think you have something over him because you could, what? Tell everyone what he is? Maybe make it seem like he did something bad? And of course, you have that paperwork he must have signed.”

Adeline gave a half shrug at that. She didn’t want herself portrayed as manipulative and probably thought the specifics weren’t important.

Charlie opened her clutch and put the party whistle inside. Then she took out her phone. Pulling up the record app, she pressed play.

“I watched. I watched plenty of people die so shadows could eat. Maybe I even cut a few throats myself.”

“It’s not legal to record someone without their permission,” Adeline said. “That’s a felony.”

Charlie smiled. “Well, I am a criminal.”

The smugness returned to Adeline’s expression. She folded her arms over her chest. “You can’t use it.”

“Of course I can,” Charlie said. “I can put it online, hosted in places that will ignore your takedown notices. I could get arrested, I guess, but one thing you ought to know about me—I have a terrible sense of self-preservation.”

“So what do you want?” Adeline smiled. “Not money, I imagine. Or perhaps not a small amount of money.”

“Leave him alone,” said Charlie. “Red isn’t going anywhere he doesn’t want to go and he’s not doing anything he doesn’t want to do. You’re going to let him walk away as Remy Vincent Carver without you telling him who that is.”

“What could you possibly get out of that?” Adeline asked, acid in her voice. “You think that he will love you when he doesn’t need you anymore? Or do you think he’ll love you for this, for saving him from me, of all people?”

“He doesn’t need to know about our conversation,” Charlie said. “He just needs to know he’s free. Pretend you’re a good person, if you want.”

Adeline’s lips pulled back in a snarl that was almost a smile.

“I don’t care about you,” Charlie said, stepping closer to her.

“But I care about him. He’s not your toy.

And before you say something disgusting about me and him, he’s not a toy at all.

For a while I thought you didn’t think he was a person and that’s why you treated him the way you did, but I realized that wasn’t it at all.

There’s a house full of staff here you’d treat the same way.

You don’t think of people as people, do you? We’re all toys to you.”

Adeline shook her head. “You’re wrong. You don’t understand anything about my relationship to Remy, or to Red. For a long time, all we had was one another. We looked out for one another. Cared for one another.”

“If you really believe that,” Charlie said, “there’s only one way to know if he feels the same. Let him decide for himself.”

“He will never be yours,” Adeline told her.

“Oh, I know,” Charlie said. He’d gotten her out of prison. He’d brought a shadow army to save her from Mark. She’d been a lot of trouble.

“This has been an interesting chat,” Adeline told her. “Now I believe I have other guests to be extorted by.”

“The first person I will give this recording to is Fiona,” Charlie said, with a tight smile. “So tell him tonight.”

Adeline took a sip from her coupe glass. “No,” she said, after a long moment. “I don’t think I will.”

As she walked off, Charlie half-collapsed onto a chair. She closed her eyes for a long time and when she opened them, Red was standing over her.

“I’m glad you could come,” he said.

“Malhar and Posey might be robbing you right now.”

Though his smile was wry, his voice stayed soft. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your family’s place for Christmas. I needed to get some things in order.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

“I spoke to Bellamy,” he said. “He told me about the arrangement you made.”

“There are advantages to not being a gloamist,” Charlie said, not wanting him to worry about her. “Since I don’t have a shadow, I can’t be possessed.”

“But why would you want to do such a thankless job?” he asked. “Alone?”

“Someone has to do it,” Charlie said. “Maybe I can make it a better position than it was when it was foisted on us. And if some Blights never get caught, well, then I have the easy excuse of my own incompetence.”

He didn’t look convinced. “Will you stay, after midnight, after the others leave? It doesn’t have to be for long.”

Charlie thought of Adeline’s helicopter flight out. Was he aware of it? Did he know she was expecting him to accompany her? Was he planning to give some final speech to Charlie just before his departure? “If you want.”

He gave her a smile full of promise. “This house is mine now. Adeline preferred a bit of extra money. It turns out that I’m the sentimental one.”

Charlie refused to let his ownership of the house bother her. He’d grown up here, no matter what horrors he saw. “You ought to have it if you want it. You ought to have whatever you want.”

“Knowing that you will be here when the party is over is the only thing I care about.” He threaded his fingers through hers, squeezed, then let go.

What she needed was another drink.

Charlie found Posey and Malhar sitting together on the stairs, staring at his phone. The satchel resting beside them looked more full than it had when they arrived.

“What’s going on?” Charlie asked.

Malhar turned the screen toward Charlie.

An article in Vulture: Graduate Student Illuminates Controversial Path of Shadow Quickening .

Next to it was a photograph of him, at the Umbral Elevation Retreat, staring intensely into a camera lens, one hand out as though beckoning. Posey could be seen behind him.

As she read, texts were popping up on his screen.

“This broke an hour ago,” he said mournfully. “Why aren’t reporters busy partying on New Year’s?”

“The coverage might get buried,” Posey offered. “If something, uh, really big happens.”

He sighed in a way that made Charlie unsure if he wanted that or not.

“The countdown is starting,” someone yelled from the other room. Staff came out of the bar area with trays laden with coupe glasses, passing them to anyone without a drink.

Charlie, Posey, and Malhar went into the ballroom. There, beside the fireplace, knots of people had begun to chant: thirteen, twelve, eleven, ten, nine… Posey grabbed three glasses of champagne off a passing tray. Together, they shouted the seconds down: three, two, one…

Half the party seemed to have confetti cannons. Popping sounds rang out. Shiny paper rained all around them. Everyone began shouting and hugging one another.

The musicians took up playing “Auld Lang Syne.” Fiona pressed a papery kiss to Charlie’s cheek. Posey pulled her into a hug. Then Red was in front of them, leaning down to embrace her sister, then pulling Charlie into his arms. He kissed her, full on the mouth.

“Happy New Year,” he whispered against her ear. And then, before she could respond, he’d moved on.

After that, the party began to wind down. Cars came. People trickled out. By 1 a.m., nearly everyone had gone.

“You want us to wait in the car for you?” Malhar asked Charlie.

She shook her head. “I can take a taxi back.”

“If you’re sure,” Posey said and hugged her again. The satchel bumped against Charlie’s leg and the weight of it suggested there were at least a few books inside.

After they left, she noticed Adeline coming down the stairs. Her makeup had been washed off, her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and she had on travel clothes. Several staff were bringing down pieces of luggage. One of them was taking a painting from the wall.

“Time to go,” Adeline told Red. “Are you finished saying goodbye?”

“I’m staying,” he told her, casually, as though it was a small thing to say.

That brought her up short. She blinked twice. “We won’t be away forever, but for now, I need you with me.”

“Nonetheless,” he said, spreading his hands.

Charlie found herself nearly as astonished as Adeline. His words from the car outside the jail came back to her: Stop trying to save me .

“Red.” Adeline grabbed his arm, impatient. Her voice growing sharp. “We are not having this conversation now. We can talk about it in New York.”

“You’re used to giving me orders,” Red said. “So I am going to forgive you for that. But you should take your hand off me.”

Adeline clearly wasn’t sure how to take those words.

“The funny thing about an inheritance,” Red said, “is that if it’s yours, you get it.”

“But the lawyers…” Adeline had never liked spelling out her plan to get control over him, so she stopped there.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Even a Blight, if he has a wealthy enough grandmother, or is about to inherit an enormous fortune, can convince a lawyer not to do something illegal that doesn’t even benefit him. But let’s not talk about money or paperwork.”

Salt had once given Charlie a book of fairy tales as a warning about Red.

He’d earmarked one where a scholar’s shadow runs away, becomes wealthy, and ultimately forces the scholar to pose as the shadow of his shadow.

Salt had hoped the story would convince her to help him stop Red, make her see the danger he posed, passing for human.

But the story contained a truer truth. She suspected that even Salt had missed the real lesson—with enough money, no one cared if the rich guy was a shadow or not.

Adeline opened her mouth. “We both know—”

“Don’t,” Red interrupted her. “Don’t threaten me with what you know. Because then I will have to threaten you with what I am.”

For a long time, they just looked at one another. Then her eyes slid to Charlie, as though weighing both threats.

“I’ll miss you,” Adeline told Red, finally. “But we’ll always have Monaco. Tu seras toujours le premier que j’ai aimé. ”

“ Il est temps que tu me laisses partir ,” he returned.

She didn’t even look in Charlie’s direction as she swept past.

Then Fiona came downstairs in soft pants, a scarf around her hair. “Addy is kindly giving me a ride back to New York. Where I hope you will come and visit me, sweet boy.”

“I will,” he promised her. “Really, I will.”

She patted his cheek. “Goodbye for now.” She turned to Charlie. “And you too.”

“So you’re okay with…” she blurted out. “You’re okay?”

Fiona smiled. “Of all people, I understand how complicated families can be.” Then she headed out.

After the last of the guests departed, the caterers finished cleaning up. Then they left too.

Red twirled the house key around his finger, giving Charlie a truly wicked grin.

“So, what does it feel like to be filthy rich?” she asked, walking to where he stood.

“Filthy,” he told her.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Stop taking all those caviar baths.”

“Come with me,” he said. “Let’s go outside. You can borrow a coat.”

The closet was full of faux furs, real furs—including a stole that had two beady-eyed mink heads on either end of it—as well as ski-ready puffers and raincoats. He pulled out a man’s wool peacoat and draped it over her shoulders.

They went together out onto the lawn.

“I wanted to give you a present for the holidays. Something that you would really love. Something that would show how I felt about you. You know, you’re not the easiest to shop for, Char.

You can steal your own diamonds. And your own occult books.

But I did think of something.” From his pocket, Red drew a silver lighter.

It appeared heavy and engraved with something that might have been a family crest. He struck the flint wheel with his thumb, setting the wick alight.

A dangerous thing for a Blight to do, but he held it steady.

“So, how about we burn this place to the ground?”

She looked at him in astonishment and then that astonishment morphed into a slow smile. “No one has ever said anything more romantic.”

The fire started slowly, but it spread fast. By the time Salt’s mansion was fully ablaze, the flames were so high that they seemed to scorch the very stars.

Against that backdrop, Red took Charlie in his arms. Her eyes, reflecting the conflagration back at him, were as bright and burning as that of any Blight.

Charlie Hall, glue trap for disaster, crooked from the day she was born, who’d never met a bad decision she wasn’t willing to double down on, had finally met her match.