The Reckoning of Noah Shaw Read online

  Which is precisely what my thoughts aren’t, not anymore. I feel trespassed upon, watched, like there are eyes on my skin, in my head, swarming like insects. I reach for my collar, what’s beneath it, without thinking, only noticing I’ve done it when my fingers feel silk instead of silver. It feels wrong, all of us following in Mara’s—no, M’s—shadow. I’m suddenly vertiginous with panic, with paranoia.

  “Stop,” I call out, as M walks through the Gothic arch of the staircase. She listens.

  We all do, as the air outside fills with screams. I catch a swift, dark silhouette moving past one of the massive stained-glass windows as the climber falls.

  42

  KNOW HIMSELF

  FOR THE FIRST TIME, I find myself genuinely shocked by someone’s death.

  I wasn’t yanked into someone else’s reality. I didn’t feel anyone else’s fear or sadness or shame. I watched someone die with my own eyes, from my own limited, blind perspective—just a falling shadow through stained glass.

  It might be a stranger. Someone who isn’t Gifted, someone I don’t know.

  It might be an accident. A prank gone wrong. A simple fall.

  Or it might not be either of those things. I don’t know because I can’t know, not for sure, not without my Gifts. I’m still broken.

  And glad of it.

  Goose is ashen, ill-looking. “I can’t—how did that—”

  Jamie’s eyes linger on the staircase, beyond M’s feet.

  M is looking at me. Waiting.

  “Well?” she says finally.

  “Well what?”

  “Are you coming or not?”

  She doesn’t wait for my answer, though, before she begins the descent.

  Perhaps I don’t know what happened for certain. But I’ve seen enough, experienced enough, to begin to guess that it wasn’t an accident. That none of this is.

  I’m in it, though. As is Jamie, whatever his reasons. But Goose—

  I pull him aside. “Listen, you can’t chunder in the chapel. Go out the front way, we’ll find you after, all right?”

  He looks stricken. “Did he fall?” His voice sounds young, unsteady.

  Goose is shocked and not thinking, not remembering, that I have no way of truly knowing, but now’s not the time to remind him. Or to describe the shape that my suspicions are forming.

  “Yes,” I lie. “Go.”

  I’m tempted to get down on my knees and thank Jesus when he listens, but Jamie and M are almost out of sight. I hurry down the steps as quickly as I can.

  We finally come to the enormous door. When M knocks, I’m afraid, for a moment, that when it opens, we’ll be walking in on some sort of ritual, with everyone chanting in robes.

  The door opens. It’s just the same party.

  Or what’s left of it; there are soiled linens and empty glasses on the tables, along with half-eaten plates and discarded trays of picked-over food, along with a handful of tuxedoed waiters clearing up.

  “Where’d everyone go?” Jamie asks.

  “The news has probably spread—it would be easier for everyone to exit through other colleges.”

  “You can get to others from here?”

  M nods as she walks. “Caius and Trinity are the closest. You don’t have to come along, but I’d like to find out what happened to that poor boy.”

  I wonder, for a second, what might happen if I call her bluff; if I turn to leave, collect Goose, and get out of here.

  But we’ve been followed every step. No reason to think it’ll stop now.

  So instead I ask, “How do you know it was a boy?”

  “Antiquated gender conventions and past experience,” she says, not turning around. “But feel free to assume otherwise.”

  I shut up the rest of the way.

  We emerge from the arcade through another staircase, which leads to a corridor, which leads to yet another staircase, and then, finally a library.

  Victoria is scrolling on her mobile, leaning against one of the grey walls. She’s framed by mullioned windows draped in red-and-white-striped fabric. A girl our age, possibly older, crosses the wide planked wood floors in a chartreuse dress and whispers in her ear as we approach. Victoria looks up.

  “Hi,” Victoria says to M.

  I don’t know why, but that surprises me, too. I expected . . . something more formal. Significant.

  “Quite an evening,” M says, walking over to Victoria. They trade kisses on each cheek.

  “Awful,” Victoria replies. “But I see you’ve returned with the guest of honour, at least.”

  I bristle. “There’s nothing honourable about me.”

  “On that we can agree,” Victoria says. “But I wasn’t referring to you.” She looks at Jamie.” I am terribly sorry about tonight.”

  Jamie shrugs neutrally.

  She can’t mean—Jamie? I try to catch his eye without being obvious about it. He won’t look at me. What’s he got himself into?

  “The police’ve fetched the body,” a man’s disembodied voice says. I try and locate the source of it, and notice a roundish figure descending a rolling ladder, using both hands.

  The fabric of his suit is so unusual I recognise him as the man who waylaid me earlier straightaway. What was his name?

  “Do they know anything more, yet?” M asks.

  “Not that they’re sharing,” the man says. He looks and sounds more familiar than he should, like I’ve known him long before tonight. “When they do, I’ll let you know.” I briefly notice the girl moving behind me out of the corner of my eye.

  “Thanks,” Victoria says to him.

  The man withdraws a pale yellow silk handkerchief from his suit pocket and wipes his hands. “How do you do?”

  “I’ve just watched someone kill himself,” I say. “How do you do?”

  “Very, very unfortunate,” he mumbles. “Very unfortunate.”

  “Did the police determine it was a suicide?” Victoria asks the man. He shakes his head. “No.”

  Victoria turns to me. “How do you know he killed himself, then?”

  “Can we cut the shit, please?” I say. Every nerve is frayed, on edge. They’re taunting me. Playing with me. “I know that you know what I am. What we all are.”

  Victoria looks around the room awkwardly, then at me. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

  “I swear to God—” I start, just as M puts her hand on my arm.

  “Maybe you should have a lie-down,” she says.

  I shake her off. “Maybe you should tell me what Jamie’s the fucking guest of honour of,” I say, kicking myself for doubting myself earlier. “Why is he even here?”

  “Dude,” Jamie says. I shoot him a dangerous look and he backs away, arms raised.

  “What, am I supposed to pretend this is normal? That there’s some perfectly ordinary explanation for all of us being here?” I snap, having fucking had it. I round on M. “That it isn’t dodgy for my father’s solicitor to know you, given you’re supposed to be dead?”

  M pauses, studying me with concern. “Who exactly do you think I am?”

  “Mara Dyer’s grandmother,” I say through clenched teeth.

  M looks quizzically at me, then Victoria. “Who is Mara Dyer?” she asks.

  I feel like screaming. “Your granddaughter. Daughter of Indira, who’s your daughter with the professor. Both of them believed you killed yourself seventeen years ago. I thought that too until you showed up outside my flat in Brooklyn last week and told me I had to come back to England if I wanted to save Mara from the professor, whom you met in British India two centuries ago.”

  She looks at Victoria, then back at me. “Noah, my name is Em—”

  “M,” I repeat. “M for Mara, because she was named after you.”

  She’s shaking her head as I’m nodding mine. “Em for Emma,” she says. “Emma Sarin. Because my mother loved Jane Austen and Sarin is not an uncommon Southeast Asian name. I told you my name when we met at your family’s manor. Your
sister Kate was there.” She looks concerned, well-meaning, and her expression’s a copy of Indi’s, I realise.

  Victoria, the unnamed man, and Chartreuse look on as if to say, See?

  Kate. Kate. I hope to God she’s nowhere near here; there’s nothing else I can do about it at the moment. I cross my arms, lifting my chin. “So, what then? You’re here tonight because . . . ?”

  “Because I was one of your mum’s closest friends at college,” she says. “I got to know your father a bit, after she died, and he put me in touch with Victoria, who helped me get involved with the foundation.” Emma—no, M—looks to Jamie, now. “I started explaining that to your friend, when we saw each other at Front Court.”

  I look to Jamie, then, finally. He’s sitting in a black leather wing chair opposite a globe. “Tell them. Tell them about Mara.”

  He looks uncomfortable. “She’s your ex-girlfriend? What do you want me to say?”

  “Tell them what you told me,” I order him. “Tell them what you’re really doing here.” When Jamie shrugs helplessly, I say, “He told me he’s a spy.”

  Victoria puts a finger on her lips. “A spy,” she repeats.

  “Goodness,” the man says.

  Em, or M, bites her lip before saying, “Just so we’re all sure we understand you, you’re saying you think I’m over a century old, and that your friend here is a teenage spy?”

  “I’m not mad,” I say. Insist, really. But then, that’s what people who are mental always say, isn’t it? The cracks are beginning to show through the paint.

  “Why don’t you sit,” Em says to me. Chartreuse comes up, offers me a glass of water. I almost take it before remembering the champagne glass at the party—how Jamie knocked it aside before I could drink it.

  “I’m not drinking your poison,” I growl, withdrawing my hand so fast that Chartreuse stumbles, only just catching herself on my shoulder to avoid a fall.

  “Heavens!” the man says, and again, that jolt of familiarity. His name—does it start with a D? “Dear girl, are you all right?”

  “Just breathe,” Em says to me, sounding like a twenty-five-year-old yoga instructor as she demonstrates how to do it. I’ve never felt more capable of murder.

  “Please sit,” Victoria pleads. “You look exhausted.”

  I feel exhausted. Wrung out. “Thanks, but no,” I say, peeling Chartreuse’s hand off my shoulder. I begin backing up toward the door. “I think it’s time we leave.”

  No one responds. I’m almost to the door. It can’t be this easy, can it?

  “Jamie?” I ask him.

  “Yeah?”

  “You coming?”

  “Okay,” he says, standing up slowly. He turns to the bemused-looking adults. “It was nice meeting you all. Thanks for the food and stuff.” He smiles at them, but it doesn’t take.

  “Make sure he gets some rest,” Em says.

  “And some tea,” Dalrymple chimes in—Dalrymple! That’s his name. “Tea always helps.”

  “Sure thing,” Jamie says, adding a little salute before turning around.

  I take another step backward. My legs collapse beneath me.

  A wave pulls at my consciousness. I struggle against it, but the current’s too strong. I hear Em’s voice before the grey walls shade into charcoal, and deepen into black.

  “It was Leo,” she whispers in my ear. “It was Leo who died. Now sleep.”

  43

  THAT IRONY IN LIFE

  THAT WAS MEAN.”

  “It was, a bit.”

  “A bit? I think you might’ve broken him.”

  “I feel slightly guilty.”

  “Only slightly?”

  “One must find ways to amuse oneself.”

  “How true.”

  “He’s coming round, ladies.”

  I blink stupidly, opening my eyes to the same odd library I passed out in, and the same people in it, with one addition.

  Isaac is sitting opposite me. His body is draped casually in the leather wing chair Jamie had been occupying, but his expression is a mixture of anger and fear.

  “James,” Victoria says. She’s out of my line of sight but I recognise her voice. Jamie appears in my field of vision, then, dressed not in a suit, but jeans.

  “Hey,” he says to me.

  I try and sit up, but my muscles don’t work. “What did you do to me?” I ask Victoria, over his shoulder.

  “Charlie helped you sleep.”

  “You looked like you needed a rest,” M says.

  I clench my teeth to keep from screaming. “You drugged me?” I ask the girl, still wearing her gown.

  “She doesn’t need to use drugs,” M says. “She’s Gifted, like you.”

  “Like us,” adds Victoria.

  “Why? Why did you do this to me?”

  They look at each other. “Do . . . what?”

  “Lie to me,” I say through gritted teeth. “Bring me here.” A trickle of sweat rolls down my temple, onto my neck. I can’t even lift my hand to wipe it. “Bring us,” I add, glancing at Isaac.

  Victoria glances at the floor. Mr. Dalrymple looks constipated. Charlie’s eyes keep darting away, so it’s M who says, “We needed a sacrifice.”

  Mr. Dalrymple makes a sound like he’s choking, which turns into a high, keening laugh. After another moment, Victoria breaks into a grin. Charlie looks embarrassed.

  “They’re fucking with you,” Jamie says. He turns to them. “Guys?”

  “Sorry, sorry,” says M. “It’s just, you make it so easy.”

  Mr. Dalrymple starts laughing again, and then M joins in the giggle fit. M seems like a different person entirely; but she’s never been anything she seemed to be, has she? She slid from one role to the next, changing her mannerisms, colloquialisms, speech patterns—sometimes in the span of a single sentence—gauging and reacting to whomever she speaks with, shepherding them in the direction of her choice.

  “You said Leo’s dead,” I say, injecting as much venom into the words as possible. “Were you fucking with me then, too?”

  That does sober them up. “Sadly, no,” Victoria says, but she doesn’t look particularly sad.

  “You killed him,” I say blankly.

  “Your father killed him, actually,” M says. “Or anyway, his science did.” She sighs. “Never really was one of his strengths.”

  Victoria cuts in. “The researchers he hired used different versions of the protocol over the years. As far as we can tell, we think that whatever mechanism his geneticists modified to switch the artificial gene on and off had a kill switch, for lack of a better term.”

  Goose’s theory. Maybe it’s just something that happens to the copies.

  “The stuff that’s been happening,” Jamie starts. “Everyone you’ve seen who’s killed themselves? They . . . self-destruct,” he says sadly. “It isn’t anyone’s fault.”

  “Well, to be fair,” M says, holding out her hands and looking at me, as if to say, “Except yours.”

  “I’m responsible for my father’s actions, now?”

  “Who said that?” She looks around. “Did I say that?”

  “How did Leo die?” I ask. “Explain it to me.”

  “You were there,” M says. “You saw what we saw.”

  “More than that,” Victoria says. “You’ve felt it, in the past, haven’t you? Experienced what they experienced? A form of extreme empathy, yes?”

  “I didn’t feel it, when he died,” I say.

  “Because you don’t want to feel it anymore,” M says. “You don’t want to feel anymore, full stop. That’s why you tracked down our friend, here, isn’t it?” She glances at Isaac, tsking.

  She’s wrong, obviously—at least the bit about tracking down Isaac is. Not that I’m about to correct her. “Spare me the psychoanalysis, please. It’s boring and you’re shit at it.”

  M breaks into a smile.

  “Leo was going to die,” Victoria says evenly. “There wasn’t anything any of us could do to stop it.”r />
  In a twisted way, it’s comforting to hear. Spares me the guilt from having ignored answering the suicide question the second they stopped violating my mind. The guilt from avoiding my ability; it didn’t help Sam, or Felicity, so why bother trying to get it back? Easier to choke it down and keep it there, to believe they’d have died anyway. That there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it, not then, not ever. I was never rebelling against what the professor and my mother and everyone insisted I should be; I was hiding from it. Like the coward my father always said I was.

  I’m nearly sick just thinking it. I look at Isaac for anything, something, a hint, but he’s expressionless and blank. If I hadn’t seen him earlier, when he’d just woken up, I’d never know he was in there.

  “Why can’t he talk?” I ask.

  “He can talk,” M says quietly. “He chooses not to.”

  Something about those words flicks a switch in my mind, shining a dim light on a memory; of Mara, pale and dead-eyed and limp.

  She could move. She chooses not to.

  My jaw clenches. Have they done something to him? Originals with access to the fruit of my father’s poisonous research—they could do whatever they wanted.

  Or perhaps he’s silent by choice—betraying nothing so they’ll have less to use against him, by his reasoning?

  Isaac’s survived the longest of us, from my generation. I should follow his example.

  But I can’t seem to help my mouth.

  “So why this little get-together?” I ask them. I’m tempted to ask more, but Isaac’s presence reminds me that anything I say might play into their hands.

  They’re older than you and smarter than you and stronger than you.

  Maybe. Probably. But we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have something they want. That’s leverage.

  Mr. Dalrymple withdraws a tube of ChapStick from his pocket and lines his lips, popping them loudly. It’s the only sound in the room.

  “That’s . . . not an answer,” I say, when no one does anything else.

  “When your father had his geneticists apply the Lenaurd protocol—it’s a game of roulette, what ability a carrier ends up with,” Victoria starts. Her voice is robotic, technical, an echo of Dr. Kells’s. “Usually the abilities aren’t replicated, or if they seem to be replicated, it ends up never quite being an exact copy, regardless.”