I gazed back at Conn unwaveringly. “Yes,” I said. “I’ll come. And when I do … I have a favor to ask.”

“Name it.”

“Can I paint you?”

36

In my Sanctuary bedroom, I sat beneath the quiet tree, my back resting against its bark. I closed my eyes and kept seeing the boy and his horse, the Shade in her dress, Conn’s face.

I’d always thought that “counting the days” was a cliché people like Marsha used when waiting for the season finale of their favorite TV show. But I was doing exactly that: counting the days until Friday. Three days. After tonight, two. And then it would be one.

And then I’d be there.

Something flickered in the corner of my vision. A shadow, grazing over my bed.

I jumped to my feet. “Get out,” I said. “Or when I find out who you are I will make you pay.”

The shadow turned to flesh. It was Orion, and I can’t say I was surprised. “That’s my girl.” He perched at the edge of the bed, silkily swinging one foot. “Miss me?”

“No.”

Orion’s grin grew hard. Bright and glassy, like something that would break, and when it did, it would cut. “Can’t you even pretend?” he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer, because the answer was clear. “I’ll still give you another chance. One last chance to prove yourself to me.”

Well, that sounded icky. But before I could reply, Orion was gone.

I hated having no sense of privacy in the Sanctuary. Even when I wasn’t being watched, I felt as if I was, and my skin itched at the thought of those unseen eyes. As Orion got less flirty and more pushy, less graceful and more snakelike, more demanding, more vindictive, I longed for my closet-sized room at Marsha’s, where I could shut a door and block out whomever I wanted to block out, and let in whomever I wanted to let in.

Sometimes I really missed being human.

So I went down to the Archives with the thought that prowling around the human junk would be comforting. Like wearing pajamas and eating warm chocolate chip cookies, which was something Marsha and I did together a lot last winter.

Savannah was not glad to see me. “I hear Meridian’s roped you into her scheme,” she said.

I opened my mouth, then clamped it shut. I was supposed to keep that scheme secret—and should, if I wanted to stay on Meridian’s good side and learn more about New Year’s Eve. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said to Savannah.

She snorted. “Try again, Darcy. What’s Meridian up to?”

“If Meridian was up to anything, and if I knew, then obviously she wouldn’t want me to say anything, and she could have asked you to grill me about it, just to test me. To make certain I’m loyal to the cause.”

“Test you? You are testing my patience! Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to keep the Society from lashing out at the humans these last eleven years? Meridian and her crew are going to wreck everything Zephyr and I have worked for.”

“What do you mean? What are you working for?”

Savannah folded her hands on her desk. “Citizenship. Shades have no place in human society. But we should. We should have a place at the table. In government. In the halls of justice. We want rights, Darcy, and to sue for them we had to disarm, but how do you disarm when your very body is a weapon? When Zephyr was elected head of the Council, she had a mandate to try for a period of peace with the humans, so that when the time was right we could point to our reforms as proof of our good intentions. Zephyr has cracked down on rebellious plotters within the Society, and she’s mostly succeeded. There have been no terrorist attacks since Ravenswood. The IBI can’t refute that, and they are fools if they think it’s because of their increased surveillance and advances in technology. Oh, sure, they’ve made improvements. They’ve arrested some of our people. But we have let them.”

Could I really be on the same side as Zephyr, that power-hungry, youth-obsessed shrew? “Zephyr despises humans.”

“Of course she does,” said Savannah. “But she doesn’t want to destroy them. And given that there are more of them than us, we need to find a way to live with them.” Savannah crossed her arms. “It only takes one Shade with a bottle of poisonous gas to destroy our plans. One Shade. I would think that you, Darcy, with your obvious fondness for human things”—she waved a hand at the Archives—“would want to prevent that.”

“You and Zephyr voted against me,” I pointed out. “Because I was raised by humans.”

“We voted against you because you are an unknown element. As such, you are a risk to security at a time when security is paramount. Prove that we’re wrong. Help us, Darcy.”

I hesitated. “What makes you think Meridian’s planning an attack?”

Savannah gave me an irritable look that accused me of playing innocent. “In the past few days, there have been reports that Veldt is training Shades not to be afraid of fire. To use it.”

I remembered the IBI flamethrowers in the practice room. I remembered how, when I first met Orion, he’d been impressed by my (mostly faked) nonchalance over torches. “Fire freaks me out, Savannah. Sometimes I lose my mind when I see it. Even the smell … what makes you think I’d ever play with it?”

“All I know is that if Meridian has a plan, Orion’s part of it. And if he is, you are,” she said meaningfully.

I smacked a hand against my forehead. “Why does everyone think we’re a couple?”

Savannah blinked. “That’s what he’s told everyone.”

“Well, we’re not.”

“Then you should have no problem telling us what he’s planning with that troublemaking mother of his.”

I studied Savannah. I liked her, and liked what she was saying. I got wistful at the thought that humans and Shades in this world might find a way to live together, that Conn and I could actually go out on a date. We could grab some deep-dish pizza and nestle into a puffy-seated booth and let the whole world see us together.

But Savannah’s words still could be a trap. She could be working with Meridian, and this could be a lie designed to lure me into betraying myself. Even if it wasn’t, there were a lot of shadows in the Archives. A lot of places for Shades to hide.

“Sorry,” I told her. “I really don’t know anything. Can I look around in Section 8L?”

Savannah slammed her hands down on the desk. “Do whatever you want. But don’t think you fool me.”

I slunk guiltily away, ducking down an aisle and out of Savannah’s sight as quickly as I could. I rummaged through a tray of silver spoons, hoping that the noise might convince Savannah that all I cared about was finding more stuff to decorate my room. My fingers plucked out a spoon painted with a bird.

I missed home. I’d always thought my life was messy and hodgepodge, something pieced together by a year here, a year there. Now, though, my old life looked pretty simple. I studied the bird spoon and thought about that roll of money stuffed into Marsha’s tea tin. I thought about who got second chances, and who didn’t, and why. I wondered if Marsha would give me a second chance. Maybe she’d take me back. Maybe I could help her. Help her save up for whatever it was. I could set aside some of my money from working at the Jumping Bean. Marsha probably wanted to buy a new car, I bet. Hers was a heap of rust.

I slipped the bird spoon into my pocket and tried to focus on hopeful things.

Friday, I thought, and Conn.

But there was a problem with counting down the days until I’d see Conn. The closer I got to Friday, the closer I got to New Year’s Eve and Meridian’s plan.

37

A light snow was falling through the dark when I knocked at Conn’s door, and I could feel individual snowflakes as they tingled on my skin. I focused on that, on each cold pinprick, instead of on my nervousness, which seemed ready to eat me alive from the inside out.

Conn threw open the door, and lamplight from the studio poured onto the back porch. “Come in,” he said in that stiff, formal way that I now recognized meant something was troubling him and he was trying to hide it.

Conn’s apartment was warm. He had cleaned the gears and tools off the table and packed them into an open cardboard box that lay next to the mattress on the floor. A primed, stretched canvas rested against a wall, and on the floor beside it was a can of turpentine and a wooden palette. Exactly what I had asked for. I set my box of paints and brushes on the table.

Conn ducked into the kitchen and bustled around like someone trying to make noise. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like,” he said, “so I got lots of vegetables.” He tugged open the little refrigerator and began stacking eggplants, zucchini, and tomatoes on the bar.

“Conn, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Um. Actually … I’m a horrible cook. I once set this kitchen on fire.” He clapped a hand over his mouth. “I did not just say that.”

“Conn, you can talk about fire around me.” I studied him. Was … whatever it was … anxiety about cooking? Maybe that was part of it, but I got the sense that Conn was playing that up in order to distract me from something more serious. “Tell me what’s going on.”

He set a cutting board on the bar with a clatter.

“I can leave,” I offered.

“No,” he immediately said. “It’s … well. It’s Kellford.”

“Just say it.”

“In 1997, Kellford was part of the Vox Squad.”

I couldn’t find my voice. “Torture,” I finally said.

“Yes,” said Conn. “Voxing … it’s a separate division of the IBI. Field agents don’t usually do it.” His eyes begged me to understand something.

“You don’t do it.”

Relief flashed across his features. Then it disappeared. “No, but what does it matter?” he said bitterly. “I’ve made arrests. I knew what might happen after.”

Ruthless, that’s what Ivers had called him. I remembered the Conn I’d seen on the first day of school, when he was a nameless stranger who had radiated a danger I had willfully ignored.

But he was different now, and so was I.

Weren’t we?

“Kellford joined the squad in 1995,” Conn said, “and was promoted the following year. Apparently”—his voice was hard—“he excelled at his job. But in the winter of 1997, he was put on probation. He was stripped of his rank and exiled to desk duty for a long time. It’s only been in the last few years that he was allowed back in the field. Whatever he did wrong, it’s classified. But it happened right after Ravenswood.”

I choked out, “You think I had something to do with Ravenswood.”

“No. Darcy, no. You were a child. You couldn’t have been part of the attack.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you.”

“Then what do you think happened to me?”

He set his palms on the bar. Took a deep breath. “There was a dragnet after Ravenswood. For months, the IBI did anything and everything to pull in as many Shades as they could. It’s easy—easier—to arrest Shade children, but it’s usually frowned upon. They’re children, after all. It looks bad to the public—even to people who think that there’s no such thing as an innocent Shade, because if the IBI hauls in kids it looks like we can’t handle someone our own size. But the city wouldn’t have cared about any of that after Ravenswood. I think you got picked up. I think that Kellford … hurt you, and that’s why you can’t remember.”

I shook my head. “That’s not possible.”

Conn leaned across the bar, grabbed the collar of my shirt, and roughly pulled it aside, exposing the scar on my neck. “Then what is that?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

He let go, his fingertips brushing my collarbone. His hand fell to his side.

“The DCFS did a medical exam,” I said, because something had to be said or my face would betray how his brief touch shimmered inside me. “Psych exams, too. I was fine. Amnesiac, but fine.”

“If you can’t remember what happened to you, you clearly weren’t fine.”

“Well, the only way I can know is to talk to Kellford. Did you get his address?”

“No.”

Conn wasn’t the type to forget a promise. Now, was he the type to tell a lie in order to prevent some damsel-in-distressing?

Oh, yeah.

“I don’t believe you,” I told him. “And I will talk to Kellford. Either it’ll be at his home or at the IBI, surrounded by your oh-so-friendly co-workers.”

Conn hesitated. Then he grabbed a small pad of paper, scribbled on it, and ripped off the top sheet. He offered it. “Consider taking me with you.”

“I’ll consider it.” I slipped the paper into my pants pocket, where it rested against the bird spoon I’d taken from the Archives.

I sat on the stool at the bar. “Do you need help?” I pointed at the vegetables and cutting board.

“Um.”

“Don’t be too proud to beg.”

Conn relaxed, maybe as glad as I was to send the topics of Kellford and Ravenswood back to their shadowy corners. “Well,” he said, “I could use a little direction. Maybe you could…”

“Boss you around?”

“Please?”

“Sure,” I said. “First, don’t lie to me. Even if it’s in the name of some totally pointless chivalry. If I decide to let you tag along to see Kellford, and if any kind of fracas goes down, you are going to be the one at risk, you with your skin and bones and flesh. Not the girl who can ghost.”