Midnight Dolls (2 page)

“
Y
ou know, you're always getting yourself into things like this,” Peregrine says twenty minutes later, after she and Chloe screech up to my house in her vintage Aston Martin. Her snake, Audowido, is draped over her shoulders like a shawl, and the way he's staring at me unsettles me, as usual. “I was right in the middle of getting a manicure, you know. Now I've chipped the polish on three nails, Eveny. Three nails!” But despite her words, I know she's worried. She's chewing her bottom lip almost hard enough to draw blood.

“So sorry to inconvenience you.” I turn slightly, wincing as I jostle my broken arm.

“Well,” she says, looking me up and down. “You'll owe me for the manicure anyhow. Twenty dollars.” Audowido hisses his agreement.

I just glare at her until she sighs and crosses her arms.

“You know, we can't be here to keep you from getting hurt all the time, okay?” she says. “And you can't be so irresponsible. This town is counting on all three of us.”

I roll my eyes. “Gee, really? I hadn't realized.”

Peregrine opens her mouth, but Chloe cuts her off with an elbow to her ribs. “What Peregrine's trying to say,” Chloe says, “is that we're both very glad you're okay. You must have been really scared.”

I nod, which sends pain shooting through my arm again. “Caleb got the guy,” I say. In the corner, Caleb, who is scratched and bloody, looks up and meets my gaze. In his eyes, I see both fury and anguish; protecting me is his job, but taking a life still carves a piece out of your soul.

“The bigger problem,” my father says, striding into the room with a handful of herbs, “is how the hell this monster got into Carrefour. Isn't the wall supposed to be protecting us from people like that?” He bends beside me and hands me the herbs. “Are you okay, honey?”

“She will be,” Peregrine says before I can answer. “If you go away and let us do our thing.” Peregrine's bought into the viewpoint her mom has held for a long time: that my dad is indirectly responsible for causing the trouble that has plagued Carrefour, beginning with my mother's death. The mothers' sosyete seems to believe that things were fine in town until my father arrived for the first time two decades ago, and that he somehow opened us up to attack from the outside. In other
words, if he hadn't come here, danger wouldn't have found us.

“I can speak for myself, Peregrine,” I say.

She shrugs and flicks her hundreds of snakelike curls over her shoulder while giving my father a dirty look.

“Peregrine—” my father begins, but then he seems to realize this isn't the time to argue. He closes his eyes briefly and says, “I know that if the three of you work together, you'll be much more effective at healing Eveny than I could be by myself. So please, just help her.”

Peregrine turns away without replying and grabs the herbs from my hand. She takes a quick inventory of what my father has brought—white oak bark, althea, bay leaf, and walnut leaf. “Good choices,” she says grudgingly. My father nods and walks away.

“You're going to have to do this one without holding my hand,” I say, turning to Peregrine. Typically, when the three of us cast together, our power is strengthened when we join hands. But with my broken arm—the very thing we're here to heal—I don't think I'll be able to hold on without excruciating pain.

“Don't worry,” Peregrine says, and for an instant, her defenses are down, and I see concern in her eyes. “I think if Chloe and I both grab on to your waist, we can still complete the circle. Okay?”

I nod, and she reaches for me more gently than I would have expected, inching one side of my shirt up to my rib cage and gesturing for Chloe to do the same. Once they're both
touching me, Peregrine grasps the handful of herbs and takes Chloe's hand, so that the plants are between them. “Come to us now, Eloi Oke, and open the gate,” she murmurs. Chloe and I join in on the second and third repetition, and as always, the air pressure in the room shifts as soon as we've said the phrase a third time.

Audowido hisses softly as Chloe begins to hum. Music isn't always necessary in a ceremony, but the spirits like it, so when you're asking for something big, it doesn't hurt. She keeps humming a single note as Peregrine chants, “White oak bark, althea, bay leaf, and walnut leaf, we draw your power. Spirits, please heal Eveny's broken arm and the other wounds she received at the hands of her attacker.”

We all hum for a moment, our three voices combining to send a sweet sound into the universe. I'd like to imagine our singing heading up toward heaven, but the truth is, we only deal with spirits trapped in the nether, and those spirits live beneath us. Not exactly hell, but close. So I look down and concentrate, and after a moment, I feel a warm buzzing in my shoulder that spreads slowly down my arm like honey. Then there's the sensation of something pulling gently at me, and I can feel the pain being sucked out.

Finally, the room seems to vibrate with energy, and I don't hurt anymore. Audowido looks me up and down and, apparently sensing that the charm has worked, hisses in Peregrine's ear. She nods and stops humming.
“Mesi, zanset,”
she says. Chloe and I repeat the words, which mean
Thank you, ancestors
.

The air pressure regulates after we've said the phrase a third time, and the three of us look up at each other. As usual, I feel exhausted; the spirits draw on our energy to complete charms, so performing zandara always leaves us tired.

“You okay now?” Peregrine asks, looking me up and down.

I touch my arm gingerly, then shake it out. I sigh in relief. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good,” she says. “Then let's talk about what the hell just happened. How did Main de Lumière get in?”

“We don't know for sure it was Main de Lumière,” I remind her. But in my heart, I know there's no other option. High-ranking Main de Lumière soldiers—such as Aloysius Vauclain, the man who tried to kill me last month—are descended from the same line of magic haters, and they tend to be startlingly pale, with white-blond hair and almost translucent blue eyes. That's exactly what my attacker looked like behind the ski mask.

“There's no doubt,” Caleb says from the corner. I turn, startled. I'd almost forgotten he was there. He crosses over to us and stands beside me, so close that I can feel the heat radiating from his skin. “When I took off his mask afterward . . .” His voice trails off and he looks at the ground. “He was definitely Main de Lumière.”

“Okay. But how did they get in?” Chloe says.

“I don't know,” I say. “But this isn't good.” Since Carrefour's founding in 1904, the town has been protected by a magically charmed gate. It's what keeps us safe; only residents
can enter, using a special key, and when they bring visitors in, which is rare, those people are powerless to harm anyone. The fact that a Main de Lumière intruder has gotten in—and succeeded in hurting me—means that something's wrong with the charm.

“We'll have to cast again as soon as possible,” Peregrine says. “We're in danger all the time until we can fix this.”

“Should we leave town until we figure it out?” Chloe asks. “This has never happened before.”

Peregrine and I look at her in surprise, and I can see Caleb's head jerk up too. “Leave Carrefour?” I ask. The town has been a safe haven for our families for over a hundred years, and on top of that, leaving would put all of the innocent townspeople at risk, because we wouldn't be here to protect them. Abandoning it is unthinkable.

“Just for a little while,” Chloe says. “Until we know we're safe?”

“Let's talk to our mothers about it,” Peregrine says. “Ready to go?” she asks Chloe.

Chloe shoots me a concerned look. “You going to be okay?”

I nod. “Yeah. And thank you. For healing me.”

“Of course,” Chloe says.

“That's what sisters are for,” Peregrine says, and I'm not sure whether or not she's being sarcastic until she gives me a quick hug good-bye and whispers, “I'm glad you're feeling better.”

They disappear out the front door in a cloud of perfume,
leaving Caleb and me alone in the parlor.

“You're really all right?” he asks. For a second, all I can think about is the last time he kissed me and how amazing it would feel if he did it again. But then he takes a big step backward and says, “Look, I'm sorry.”

“For what?” I say.

“I failed you—again.”

“No, you didn't. Why would you ever think I'd be in danger in my own backyard? And you were here in an instant, Caleb.” It suddenly occurs to me just how quickly he arrived. “Wait, how
did
you get here so fast?”

“I was meeting with your dad,” he says, avoiding my gaze.

“Meeting with my dad? Why?”

He looks away. “There were some things he wanted to talk to me about.”

“What things?”

Caleb shakes his head. “That's between me and your dad, Eveny. We're just concerned about keeping you safe.”

I stare at him. “Yeah, heaven forbid you guys let me in on that plan.”

Caleb sighs heavily. “Look. It's better this way, okay? I know I have to . . . separate myself from you. It's what your dad wants, and I agree. So just let it go. Okay?”

My stomach lurches. “I can't. You know I can't.”

He sets his jaw. “And you know where I stand. I'm glad you're okay this time, but I should have sensed it before I heard you scream. It's exactly why I can't be with you, Eveny. My feelings are still getting in the way of our protectorate link.”

“Which I should never have agreed to restore,” I mutter. I'd let Caleb and my father persuade me, a few days after Drew's funeral, to reverse the charm I'd cast to sever the bond between Caleb and me.
If you die
, my father had warned,
this town will be in serious danger, because you won't be here to protect it.

Caleb shakes his head. “Knowing I let you down . . .” He pauses and draws a ragged breath. “It's horrible. And I won't let it happen again.”

“Caleb—” I begin, but he's already walking away. My heart sinks as I watch him go. I understand where he's coming from—he's trying to do the right thing—but I'm getting tired of century-old rules dictating who I'm allowed to love.

“Look, you can't just come back into my life and start trying to change it,” I say a few minutes later as I walk into the kitchen and find my father sitting at the table.

He looks up. “Eveny, I'm not trying to change your life.”

“Then what do you call talking to Caleb about me behind my back?”

“That isn't about changing your life, Eveny. That's about protecting you.”

“Don't you think I should have a say in what happens to me?”

“Of course. But it's my responsibility to make sure you're okay.”

I laugh. “Seriously? You're gone for almost my entire life, and then you turn up when I'm seventeen, and suddenly I'm
your responsibility
?”

He stands up and takes a step toward me. “Sweetheart, I know how you must be feeling, and I'm so sorry for any pain I've caused. But like I've told you, I was never really gone.”

I cross my arms and try not to feel so torn. The problem is, I can't just jump into a warm father-daughter relationship with a man I hardly know. Since my mom died, the only parent I've had is my aunt Bea, who has avoided my father as much as possible since he's been back. I know that she, like Peregrine's and Chloe's mothers, believes he's at least partially to blame for bringing trouble to Carrefour.

“Look,” I finally say. “I know you're trying to do the right thing here and that you want to protect me.”

“Of course I do, Eveny,” he says.

I hold up a hand. “Let me finish. What I'm trying to say is that this is hard for me, okay? I've spent the last fourteen years taking care of myself, with Aunt Bea's help. And whether you were looking out for me or not, that's not the same as being here.”

He looks at me for a minute. “Of course. I understand.”

“And you have to trust that I can look out for myself too. I'm not a kid anymore.”

“I didn't mean to imply that you're not capable of taking care of yourself, Eveny. But you are a kid—
my
kid. And I'm going to do all I can to protect you.”

I stand there in silence for a moment, and I'm surprised to feel tears in my eyes. I blink a few times and change the subject. “So what did you say to Caleb anyway?”

“I wanted to remind him of his responsibilities.” He
doesn't meet my eye. I wait for him to go on, and finally, he adds, “It's his job to protect you. Nothing more.”

“Don't you think he knows that?”

My father shakes his head. “He's let himself get distracted by his feelings for you. Not only is that a bad idea, but it's forbidden by the rules of zandara. Caleb needed to hear that again. And frankly, so do you.”

I bristle at this. “That's not your business.”

“I'm sorry, but it's just not something I can ignore,” he says. “Not when it comes to your safety. In fact, I'm thinking about bringing someone else in to help keep you safe.”

“I don't need anyone else!”

“Yes, well, there's going to come a day when being in the right place at the right time isn't going to work anymore for Caleb Shaw.”

I settle into bed just past eleven to study my mother's herb journal, which I've been reading and rereading every night, trying to absorb the things she had learned about practicing zandara. She never had a chance to finish filling the journal out, because she was killed when she was only twenty-eight. Seeing all the empty pages at the back always makes me sad; they're like a symbol of her incomplete life.