As it flooded out the window, Charlie realized why it hadn’t taken the book with it. It couldn’t get it out the window or the door any better than Charlie could. But it could relocate the book so that the gloamist could come in tomorrow and slide it into his bag and leave without anyone the wiser.
It was almost dawn when she decided the shadow wasn’t waiting outside and went over to the basket to look at the book.
And scowled. It was the exact volume she’d been sent to slice the page from. And belatedly, with a sense of wicked glee, she opened the book and took out her razor.
Whoever the gloamist was who was attempting to take the book was going to be very surprised when he got it. She hoped he was furious. She had the sudden, wild urge to sign her work and fought it down.
By the time the first class filed in the next day, Charlie was feeling giddy with victory and desperately in need of a toilet to pee in. As they left, Charlie scrambled out from under the desk and behind the bookshelves. One more class. One more lecture. And then she was out of there.
The next group filed into the study. Charlie smiled at a boy who moved to stand near her. She wiped the edge of her mouth and then frowned at him.
“You have something—” she said.
He knuckled where she’d pointed and she reached out to fix it for him. “There,” she said. “Got it.”
Charlie managed to stay out of sight of the teachers until it was time to leave. Then she tried to file out with the others, head down. Just at the door, she heard a voice.
“Hey,” one of the teachers said. “You’re not with this class.”
She turned around guiltily, lipstick smudged. Watched the teacher’s eye go to the boy, whose mouth she’d smeared with her lipstick.
“Keith!” she said. And then Charlie was out the door, and out of the museum, with what she hoped was a believable excuse for hightailing it out of there.
Benny set up her meeting for later in the day, at the parking lot behind a coffeeshop in the middle of town.
Three twentysomething glooms showed up. One of them had a vape pen in her mouth. Another was carrying a skateboard. They looked at her as though they would never have hired her if they’d realized how young she was.
“Here’s your three hundred,” the gloom with the vape pen said, gesturing airily.
Charlie opened her mouth to object and one of the others interrupted, smirking. “Take it or leave it.”
“Leave it,” Charlie said.
“Where are you going to sell the page, if not to us?” said the boy. “You think anyone else is going to give you a better deal?”
Charlie wondered if it was one of them who’d sent their shadow into the Arthur Thompson House, cutting out the others. Or if it was someone one of them had talked to, trying to snake it out from under them.
She could tell them, she supposed. But she didn’t like them enough. “Six hundred, or I set it on fire. And the price is going up every time you negotiate.”
They looked at one another. “No way.”
“Seven hundred,” Charlie said.
One of them laughed, and she fished a lighter out of the bottom of her bag. Flicked the flint wheel.
“Fuck off,” said the one with the skateboard.
Charlie set the page on fire. It caught fast, burning to cinder in moments as they screamed. The ashes blew around, black shapes circling in the wind like shadows.
She sneered at the glooms, fighting down a wave of exhaustion at the lost night, the frustration at losing when she’d been so sure she’d won, and the certainty that this would have never happened to Rand.
“Do you know what you did?” the one with the vape pen demanded.
“I made sure no one would ever stiff me again,” Charlie said, and walked off, keeping her head high and her shoulders squared.
That night she uploaded the photo she’d taken online. Sometimes she still saw it passed around. She could always tell it was hers because a corner of her finger was visible at the edge.
16
LICK YOUR WOUNDS
By the time Vince got home, Charlie pretended to be asleep, evening out her breaths, tucking her cheek against the pillow, pressing her nose to the cloth. He stood in the doorway, looking at her long enough for the hairs to rise along the back of her neck.
She knew she would have to confront him, but not now. Not when she was exhausted and the anger she should be feeling had somehow drained away, leaving her heavy with sadness. She didn’t want Vince to be Lionel Salt’s grandson, didn’t want to have to wonder how far he’d go to protect his identity. If he’d murdered Hermes for recognizing him as Edmund Carver, did that mean he’d murder her too?