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.But I supposed that, having been Beneath, he was as involved in Kin dealings as he possibly could be.“Is that how you normally handle this sort of thing?” Mickey asked.“Nothing about that was normal,” Mom answered.“You’re right—Harrowers don’t attack openly.They like seclusion.They like dark spaces and easy targets, and they don’t play to an audience.Especially the weaker ones.And this one was about as weak as they come, this side of the Circle.I’m not even sure how he breached it.This attack wasn’t random.This was…something else.”I glanced at Leon and found him watching me.When he spoke, his voice was soft.“Audrey.”My heart thudded.I didn’t answer.He wasn’t talking to me.He was talking about me.Mom set a hand on her hip.“What about her?”“She was the target.”“The demon went after Mom,” I said.“Because she went after it,” Leon replied.“A month with almost no Harrower activity, and then two attacks in a single week.And you’re the common denominator, Audrey.You were the target.”I bit my lip.I could argue that it was coincidence, but I knew it wasn’t.“Iris,” I said.“It was Iris.”There was a beat of silence, broken only by the tick of the hall clock.Mom closed her eyes briefly.“Please clarify,” she said.“At the park, right after the Harrower attacked.I heard her voice.She said my name.”“Iris,” Leon repeated, giving me a searching look.“What about Saturday?”“I wasn’t certain that time.I thought I imagined it—that’s why I didn’t mention it.” I glanced away quickly.“This is your cousin?” Mickey asked.“That girl who was at Harlow Tower.The one who was responsible for all those killings last year.”I thought of the twin scars on the backs of my ankles, slender lines of puckered flesh where Harrower talons had torn through the skin.Tink bore those scars as well.But we were the lucky ones.We were alive.Patrick Tigue and Iris had bled Kin girls all across the Cities in their hunt for the Remnant, and most had not survived.She and Tigue left a trail of bodies behind them—names that were etched in my memory, faces I still saw in my sleep.Mickey’s investigation into the deaths was how he’d stumbled upon the Kin’s secrets in the first place.But, guilty or not, it wasn’t as though Iris could be arrested and prosecuted.Mom must have had the same thought.Though Mickey alerted her to any suspicious reports that might indicate Harrower movement, there wasn’t much he could do in this situation.“Iris is a Kin problem,” she told him.Mickey snorted.“She’s an everyone problem, from what I remember.”“But not everyone can deal with her.We can.”He ran a hand through his hair.“She’s been there—Beneath—all this time?”Mom hesitated a moment before answering.“We think so.”I looked at Mickey.He knew better than any of us just what the Beneath was like.But for once, he was entirely unreadable, his face blank.No hint of Knowing came to me—not that familiar sense of stillness and quiet.No flicker of memory.Finally, he said, “Poor kid.”“Sympathy would not be my first reaction,” Mom said.The blank expression vanished.He gave Mom an amused look.“Wasn’t mine, either.It was just the better one.”“Regardless,” Mom continued, “if Iris is back, we need to figure out what she’s after.”“Revenge,” Leon suggested.“She’s trying to get back at Audrey.”But that didn’t seem right.Iris had never wanted me dead.She’d needed me.Needed my blood.For an instant, Harlow Tower rose in my mind.I saw the gold lettering that spelled out its name, the flat surface of its roof, powdered with snow.I saw Iris across from me, the triple knot burning against her throat.She kicked a knife toward me.The metal was cold in my grip.Show me your blood or I’ll show you his, she said.And then—Audrey.“I don’t think she was meaning to attack me,” I said.“She’s been trying to communicate with me.She’s…” I remembered my dream.Listen.“She’s trying to tell me something.”“By sending Harrowers after you,” Leon said.“Sounds like her standard MO,” said Mickey.“No,” I said.Another memory surfaced: the two of us standing on a deserted street.An empty gray sky above us.Something clicked into place.“She’s trying to break through the Circle, I think.She must be trapped Beneath.When we were there before, she couldn’t get us back out on her own, remember? We needed Shane to bring us back out.She must be trying to use the demons’ powers to get through and talk to me.” And since Kin powers didn’t work well Beneath, it had apparently taken more than one attempt.“Last time she wanted to talk to you, she tried to get you to unseal Verrick,” Mom said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]