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Authors: Cecily White

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BOOK: Conspiracy Boy (Angel Academy)
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Snapped.

Ripped in half, until the two halves draped lifeless and deflated between us.

For a moment, calm hung in the air—an eerie stillness so quiet I swore I could hear the heartbeats of the squirrels outside. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t look away from it—this slowly darkening piece of myself that used to be connected to Jack.

No way.

I grabbed Jack’s sword, fully intending to attack the rift in hand-to-hand combat. Not that I could have done anything useful, but at least it would have made me feel better. About three paces from the opening, I had to abort that plan because a shredded demon the rough size and shape of a cocker spaniel hit me in the chest.

Jack launched himself at me at the exact time Luc tackled the demon carcass, both of them knocking me to the cut-stone floor. Like a hellish vacuum cleaner, the rift reversed polarity above me, blowing everything into the room from its endless, black belly.

It was, hands down, the most revolting thing I’d ever seen.

And, believe me, I’ve seen a world of revolting things. Shreds of demon skin covered the table. Scraps of demon spaniel littered the floor. On the salad plate near Seamus’s seat now lay a severed cloven hoof. And the worst part—the very most disturbingest thing I could possibly have imagined—was the bond thread that had just broken off from Jack.

Because it wasn’t broken anymore.

It had resealed itself to the nearest person to me, and quivered there like a tired kitten after a good romp. Securely connected.

To
Luc
.

Yeah, if this had been the end of dinner instead of the beginning, I probably would have hurled.

He must have seen it at the same time I did, because his gaze snapped to mine in such a look of utter shock, I couldn’t help but feel compassion for him. He rolled away from me before Jack could glance up, effectively hiding the bond thread from sight.

Thank goodness.

When the last demon shriek had faded to the Crossworlds and the remaining light strands dissipated into the ether, Jack finally swiveled to face us. “Maybe this cohabiting thing isn’t the best idea.”

I dragged myself upright enough to glare at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You should have let me handle it,” Jack said. “Alone.”

Luc raised a doubtful eyebrow.

“You mean let you get killed
alone
?” I said. “No, thank you. Besides, it’s not that bad. A few wet rags, maybe a mop—”

As if on cue, the chandelier landed on the table beside us in a spray of plaster and splintered wood that sent Jack into a wretched coughing fit.

“You were saying?” Luc said.

Let me just acknowledge, I
knew
this was a serious situation. I understood that. I also understood that, despite the excuses, it probably was my fault. “Well,” I said, when the dust had settled, “at least it can’t get any worse.”

For the record, one should never, ever utter those words.

It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion—you see what’s happening but you can’t, for the life of you, stop it.

“Luc, darling? Is everything all right?” Luc’s girlfriend peered through the doorway at us, her perfect features lodged somewhere between curiosity and horror.

Luc scrambled to his feet.

Or tried, at least. It took him a few attempts, slipping on his Gucci boots. By the time he got vertical, there was a streak of demon guts down the side of his pants and a fabulous patch of rubbery black demon skin attached to his cheek.

“Mum,” he said, blinking.

Jack stood slowly, his shoulders hunched like a toddler caught in the cookie jar. “Aunt Arianna, I’m so sorry about this. We’ll clean it up.”

“Heard that before, haven’t I?” She smiled, her lips pressed into the same adorable quirk I’d seen on Luc’s face a hundred times before. “Shall I tell Marguerite to cancel dessert, then?”

Nobody said anything for a few minutes.

In my case, it was because I’d forgotten what English sounded like. In the boys’ case, I suspect they were trying to figure out how to apologize without accepting responsibility.


Mum?
” I said, when my voice started working again. “But I thought you were his girlfriend. You’re so pretty. And so young.”

Luc dropped his forehead into his hands as his mother’s grin widened.

“Immortality does have its perks,” she pointed out. “Jackson?”

“Aunt Arianna,” Jack said, careful not to touch me, “this is Amelie Lane Bennett, Luc’s fledgling and lieutenant for the Sovereign Trials. Amelie, may I present her Sovereign Ladyship of the Immortal Southern District, Arianna Fassnight Montaigne. Luc’s mother.”

“Mother?” I repeated, dumbfounded. “As in, you gave birth? To
that
guy?”

The woman crossed the room and gave me a giant, inexplicably warm hug. “No worries about mistaking me. Luc should have introduced us
ages
ago.”

Flashbulbs popped, slashing bright spots across my vision. In the back of my brain, the jovial atmosphere registered, but I had no clue what to do with it.

“Amelie, are you okay?” Jack asked from a few feet away.

I wasn’t okay. My chest felt like I’d been hit by an NFL linebacker. Like I’d been run through a washing machine and shaken out to dry. It was weird enough to think of Luc having a mother, like, in the abstract sense. Weirder still to have her sending me dresses and starting rumors about me. But to realize that she was also possibly the most beautiful woman on the entire planet?

It fried my brain.

“Amelie.” Jack nudged my shoulder carefully. “Are. You.
Okay?

It wasn’t until I followed his gaze to my hands that I got his meaning. The glow of the bond—minus the one disconnected thread—had receded to a small cluster of moving light threads at the palm of my left hand. Jack’s skin still held a gentle luminescence, but nothing as pronounced as the light wad I held. Under the dim flicker of the candelabras, his was barely noticeable.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Good,” Jack said quietly. “A curtsy would be appropriate now.”

But all I could do was stare. Because it wasn’t just the bond that had me wigging out.

For the first time in months, it occurred to me that
that
could be me. Young forever. Frozen in time. Immortally preserved.

Without Jack.

And for the first time in months, my heart started to pound.

Chapter Nine:

Pieces of Normal

“I can’t do this.”

I flopped on to the fleecy, cashmere blanket at the foot of my bed. Messy, yes, but better than passing out on the floor. In the fireplace ten feet away, flames crackled in manic orange bursts, and downstairs, the hall echoed with servants cleaning up after the fight. It didn’t seem to matter that the guests had left or that Arianna had long since retired to her suite. My nerves still jangled like a wad of spare keys.

“Marguerite, did you hear me?” I repeated to the woman tending the fire in the hearth. “I don’t think I can keep this up. Maybe I can get Luc through the Sovereign Trials, but that’s it. I can’t be Immortal.”

She poked at the embers and added another log to the fire. “You may not have a choice.”

“My cafeteria lady says everyone has choices. For example, this morning I chose not to rip out Luc’s entrails and feed them to the dog. Look where
that
got me.”

“We have no dog.”

“To the cat, then.”

“Annabelle keeps an aquarium,” she noted. “You could discard his Lordship’s innards there.”

I lifted the heels of my palms to my forehead, but said nothing. It’d been nearly an hour since the disaster at dinner, and in that time, Luc and I hadn’t uttered a word to each other. The bond thread between us had faded almost immediately after I’d noticed it, but that couldn’t erase the memory. When I’d left him downstairs, he’d cocooned himself completely in a blanket and had his eyes closed and forehead pressed against the bar.

I didn’t blame him.

I kind of wanted to block out reality, too. The whole time Jack and Arianna chatted with Seamus, I’d looked everywhere
but
at them. The wall. The ceiling. My hands. By the time Seamus’s crew departed, I knew precisely how many antique tiles there were in the dining room ceiling, how many wood grains in each board of the table, and I held a whole new level of respect for whatever poor peasant workers had woven the millions of meticulous knots in that priceless Persian rug beneath the table.

“You’re making this more difficult than necessary,” Marguerite said as she settled the fireplace poker back in its holder. “I know life here can be complicated, but perhaps if you tried a bit harder—”

I cut her off with a groan.

Not to sound like a teenage cliché, but she clearly didn’t get it.

I
had
tried. Every day, I tried. Every time I
didn’t
run to Jack’s office or hightail it home to my dad, that was me trying. But it was like
trying
into a vacuum. No one would tell me what was going on with Petra and Dominic. And now Jack had decided it was too dangerous to hang out with me.

Defiantly, I began to strip off the jewelry I’d slathered myself with earlier. Garnet rings and ruby bracelets, crystal earrings that dangled still-moist bits of demon flesh. My fingers shook as I tugged on the blood-slicked clasps. This whole being in limbo was killing me. Everything that made me happy was fading away, and I had no idea if I’d ever get any of it back.

Like clockwork, the things I cared about mentally ticked off in my mind: Dad, Lisa, my friends, my freedom…
Jack
. He might not be gone yet, but I couldn’t deny this weird sensation I kept having, like things were changing and I couldn’t stop them. The bond thread snapping just punctuated what I already suspected.

“I’m going to bed,” I announced, facedown in the blanket. “And showering. Definitely showering first.”

“Shall I send Annabelle to help you undress?”

“Only if you want her to die.”

Marguerite sighed. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

I don’t know if she expected me to say something else, but she stood at the door for an eternity. Or maybe it was just a few minutes. Either way, it was a relief when I heard her exhale and shut it with a
click
.

I waited until she’d gone before stripping off the heavy gown. Each starched ribbon and threaded jewel seemed to weigh a ton, far more than it had before dinner. I balled it into the laundry basket then reached around to pluck the sparkling barrette out of my hair. It fell in sticky red waves over my shoulders.

Okay, so maybe I
was
being an immature snotbag. There were tons of girls who would kill to be in my position. Engaged to Luc Montaigne. Surrounded by money. Never mind the assassins and the heartache and the constant chill. Life could be a lot worse, right?

I hauled myself vertical and dragged my body to the shower. Rivulets of water traced chaotic paths down my body, but I just stood there, unmoving, until every memory of blackness and demon goo had vanished.

With a deep sigh, I shut off the water and toweled dry before the chill could take hold again. It didn’t matter. Even the searing shower couldn’t ward it off for long. It made me wonder if the demonblood inside me had turned my heart to dry ice—like if it ever did melt, maybe it would just vanish to mist. Then I’d be heartless.

I grabbed a hairbrush and flopped onto my bed. My bed—although it was an exact replica of my old bed at home—felt alien and strange. Such a great metaphor for the Montaignes’ life. It looked comfortable from the outside, but when you took away all the pomp and fluff and luxury, it just felt fake.

I was still lying facedown on the bed, clinging to my hairbrush and self-pity, when a knock sounded at the door.

“Go away,” I shouted, muffled by the pillow.

The door cracked open.

“If you’re here to kill me, make it fast. I won’t fight you,” I said as Luc settled onto the edge of the bed a few feet from where I lay.

“We’re not there quite yet,” he replied. “First comes the psychological torture.”

I peeked out from my pillow. “Nicholas Sparks movie marathon?”

“I’m not
that
cruel.”

“Says the diabolical overlord.”

I half tucked my face back into its hiding place in the pillow, but the smell of him still reached me—sandalwood soap and musk with just the hint of alcohol. Like he’d showered, changed clothes, then kept drinking. At least, I hoped he’d changed clothes, otherwise Marguerite would have a nasty time cleaning the bedspread.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked, still muffled.

“That’s a bit like asking if I’m conscious, don’t you agree?”

After tonight’s disaster, I totally did.

Seriously, that had to be the most disturbing dinner party I’d ever been to,
including
the family dinner Lyle had dragged me to where his grandmother asked if I wanted to borrow her vibrator. Granted, she’d been referring to post-demon-slaying muscle soreness, but that’s not the kind of thing you expect to hear at the dinner table.

“Speaking of people who hate me”—I sat up with a sigh—“is your mom still here?”

“She’s lodging with Harvey at the flat in case any family members show up.”

I frowned. Jack and I had hidden at Luc’s French Quarter townhouse for a few hours last fall while we figured out how not to get killed. Nice place, but hardly the same caliber as the mansion.

“It’s considered untoward to share quarters with non-Immortals,” Luc explained. “Mum dislikes the stigma.”

“Fabulous,” I groaned, tugging the blanket around my legs. “Whatever, it’s just as well. I feel weird with her in the house, especially knowing Jack’s here, too.”

At the mention of Jack, Luc dropped his gaze to his hands. “About that, we need to talk.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “we do. I have tons of questions about this whole prophecy thing, and you and Jack have been about as helpful as an infected toenail.”

“I meant about what happened at dinner.”

“Oh.” I frowned. “That was an accident.”

“It’s
always
an accident,” he said. “That’s not my concern. I’m talking about what happened
after
.”

“After?”

He reached across the bed and pressed an index finger against my shoulder. Like a static electricity halo, a tiny pearly glow appeared. “This can’t be normal.”

I peered at him over my pink comforter but said nothing. Honestly, what could I say?

No, a bond thread snapping and reattaching itself to a guy who didn’t even share my species’ area code wasn’t normal. But I wasn’t normal. Neither was he.

The problem was, I had no idea anymore what defined normal. Life had been so shaken up and spit out in pieces, it left me feeling like a completely different person. I wanted things to go back to the way they were before, but even then I wasn’t sure which version of before I really wanted. My brain ached from the evening’s stress, my body thrummed with pain and Crossworlds residue, and deep down—on a very deep, visceral level—I wanted nothing more than to be unconscious.

“I heard you on the phone earlier,” I said, propping myself up on an elbow. “My arms feel like lead, my head is killing me, and I still have to brush out my hair. But as soon as I’ve done all that, I’m going to stake out your room and follow you to wherever you’re going. Just so you know.”

Luc turned his head an inch to face the window. Beyond his reflection, pinpricks of light poked through the night sky, eclipsed only by the brilliance of the moon. It amazed me sometimes how human he could appear, his hands fidgeting lightly in his lap, skin scented with the musky residue of magic and whiskey. Almost like a real guy.

“Luc,” I said, my voice weary, “why can’t you just take me with you?”

It took him a second to reply, and when he did, it came out more as a sigh. “I honestly don’t even know anymore.”

We sat like that for a couple seconds in silence, neither of us looking at each other. It felt like I was supposed to say something, but I had no idea what.

“So, I’m going to kill Jack, huh?” I eventually asked.

“That’s the rumor.”

“Will it be messy? And painful?”

“To be sure.”

“Mmm,” I said. “Can I kill Annabelle first?”

“That can be arranged.” Luc smiled then, and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning back. At some point, the drama of it all just got absurd. If you didn’t find a way to laugh, you’d probably start eating Styrofoam for breakfast.

“I’m leaving in ten minutes,” he said and started to stand. “I’ll be exiting the south garage door and traveling by foot. Can I trust you not to follow me?”

“I make no promises,” I replied.

“Then you’ll have no promises to break.” He switched off the light on my bedside table and started toward the door. “Wear comfortable shoes. And bring a coat.”

“I will. And Luc?”

He paused.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, and the door clicked shut.

I waited a few seconds before rolling to my side. With the reflection gone from the window, the sky outside exploded with stars. It was beautiful, in an intergalactic mess sort of way. Like someone had crushed diamonds and scattered a handful of the glittering dust across black velvet. It sent shivers up my already freezing spine.

Once his footsteps had faded, I slipped deeper into the covers, absently fingering my cell phone. Jack had given me specific instructions only to use it for texts, and only in an emergency. Did tonight count as an emergency?

I thought so.

U awake?

Jack’s reply came back almost instantly.
Unpacking. You?

In bed,
I texted back.
What wing are you in?

East.

I paused for a few moments. The east wing. That meant he was less than a hundred feet away from me.

Can I come over? Two minutes, I promise.

The phone lay silent for so long this time, I wondered if he’d gotten the message.

Jack?
I texted again after a few minutes.

He finally replied.
Talk tomorrow. Need to do a few things first.

I sighed.
Tomorrow, huh? Can we run away to Paris then?

This time the response came back quickly.
Not unless your French has improved since last week’s exam. Go to sleep. Talk later.

Don’t tell me what to do,
I texted back.
Love you.

Love you, too.

It wasn’t the snugglefest I’d hoped for, but it would have to do. I slipped my feet out from under the covers and into my waiting sneakers.

True to his word, Luc emerged from the south garage exit exactly ten minutes later. Maybe I was paranoid—wouldn’t be the first time—but it seemed like if Luc was going to be kind enough to tell me how to follow him, then I at least owed him the courtesy of being sneaky about it.

I huddled low as his footsteps faded in the direction of the French Quarter. Luc got so much practice getting himself noticed, it never really occurred to me that he
could
be sneaky. As I followed him now, I could tell that notion was all wrong.

In the first three blocks alone, he shifted directions twice, disappeared down an alley, waited at a bus stop, then dashed across the street as soon as the bus pulled up. Seriously, if I hadn’t understood that he was using evasion tactics, it would have driven me up a tree. By the time he stopped in front of a warehouse apartment building in the central business district, I was ready to call it a night and go submerge my fingers in a pot of steaming coffee.

Fortunately, there was a stone alcove a few buildings down that I was able to scoot into. Across the street, Luc stood with his back to me, staring up at a rather nondescript brick wall. I had no idea what he was waiting for, but I dearly wished he’d get on with it. The sooner he went in the front door, the sooner I could get around to figuring out my own backdoor way in. Not only was I freezing my butt off, but the smell here was overwhelming. Cotton candy and popcorn and chocolate, along with that decidedly human funk underneath the soap and bathroom aroma. It only made sense once I realized I was standing outside the Children’s Museum.

I recognized it because my father had tried to take me there years ago, after Mom died—his last-ditch attempt to make things normal for me. He’d bought me snacks, had balloon animals made for me in Armstrong Park, the whole nine yards. I think it was somewhere between the bubble exhibit and the pretend grocery store that I summoned a Nyrax demon.

BOOK: Conspiracy Boy (Angel Academy)
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