Chess hissed. “Oh, all things are ‘possible,’ gal,” he said, and a single finger-snap saw him safely “decent” once more; so much so as a mere set of clothes might make him, any road. In return, the girl just nodded—hiding her reaction damn well, if such casual miracles weren’t her daily bread.
“Thank you,” she said, simply. Chess shrugged.
“What I’d most like to know is how you spotted us, in the first place,” he replied.
“Should’ve picked a better fake family name than ‘Chester,’ might be, you wanted to stay inconspicuous.”
“Might be; Ed ain’t all too quick on the draw, sad to say, when it comes to mendacious matters. But that’s not the whole of it—is it?”
She took up a fold of her skirt, drew it between two fingers. “It’s true how when first I checked you two in, you and him—” she nodded at Morrow “—seemed just about the same height, same colour hair, eyes, and whatnot. Same arrangement of whiskers, even. But something tickled me even then, and I recalled a tip my Mama taught me. . . .”
She held up one hand—her left—and slipped the slim gold band off her little finger, a ring custom-made for one whose bones must’ve been even more delicate.
Holding it up, she explained: “Look through one of these, sidelong, and it shows things as they really are; magical creatures, or those you s’pect may be so. That’s ’cause matrimony’s sacred bond peels away all falsehoods.” At Chess’s grin: “Go on ahead and mock. But when I did, first thing I saw was you, Mister Pargeter, the tin-type of all she’d warned me ’bout. A Judas-head with poison eyes, walking widdershins through this world, whose wishes all come true. A man with no shadow.”
“I got a shadow.”
“Not all the time, you don’t.”
This last revelation didn’t seem to surprise Chess quite as much as Morrow might’ve thought it would. Instead, he stopped short—appraising her with simple objective interest, all other passions momentarily suspended.
“What are you?” Chess asked. “Not a hex—not quite. But still . . . something ’bout you I recognize. A . . . taste.”
He sniffed hard at her, mouth halfway yawned open—as though she smelled so delicious, he wasn’t sure what-all to do. Yet she just faced him down, resolute.
“Different, is all,” she said. “No good trying to feed off me, though. I know that much.”
“Oh no?”
A tiny head-shake. “All’s you’d do is kill me—that’s what my Mama always said. Wouldn’t like the afterglow too much, either.”
“Sounds like a lamentable smart woman, your Mama.”
“I like to think so.”
“All right. Then . . . what do you see now, lookin’ at me full-on?”
Miz Colder inhaled delicately, let her eyes drift from his as the lids slid faintly to, mimicking the bare beginnings of what quack Spiritualists called a trance. And suddenly, Morrow felt the same prickling chill he’d had on first coming face-to-face with Asher Rook, more than a year ago—like watching a snake slide slowly ’cross your path: This was no mere confidence-show, some drab provoking ghosts for profit, telling sad and frightened folk what they most wanted to believe, but the truth behind a thousand pretty lies made flesh.
For years, investigating frauds at Pinkerton’s behest, Morrow’d heard tell of people who saw things both true and inexplicable, secrets too painful to sell but too accurate to ignore. Those who saw trouble coming in dreams, or talked to God, and actually seemed to get answers . . . like Rook never had, but long-dead Sheriff Mesach Love—once champion of Bewelcome, itself turned not exactly miraculously to salt in Rook’s wake—had claimed to. Not hexes, but nowhere near normal folk, neither.
Seemed like Miz Colder’s absent Mama must’ve been one such rare creature—and if so, no surprise her daughter shared those same gifts. For blood did tell, they said.
(Yes, soldier. Indubitably.)
Once more, he braced himself internally against that awful rib-slat noise.
But heard only Miz Colder’s voice dim down, shedding its humanity by cold degrees, saying, “. . . somebody . . . standing behind you.” Only a hint above a whisper, yet the room so abruptly silent her words struck low, toneless notes, like rag-muffled hammers on a Chinese gong. “Yes. In the dark, behind the Black Mirror—his name a door, unlocked. Opening.
“Tez . . .
cat . . .
li . . .
poc—”
Without thinking, Morrow leaped forward and slapped her ’cross the face, hard enough Chess actually started; the girl herself staggered back and blinked, holding her jaw.