The Dark Glamour (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Y
ou could totally see the station from there,” Elodie whispered, pointing along the street. Tucked between a punk clothing store and an apartment building, a pub sat almost directly opposite the yellow-brick building Jane had seen in her vision of Annette. It was painted dark green, had a small dusty window on either side of its red door, and a sign hanging over the sidewalk said THE CHEEKY DRAGON. Elodie discreetly blocked her pointing finger from view with her other hand, looking around them suspiciously.

The stuff spies are made of,
Jane thought, smiling. Once they had left the stately buildings by the river far behind, Jane was even happier to have company. She didn’t exactly feel unsafe in King’s Cross, but it definitely wasn’t as nice a neighborhood as the Dessaixes’. Now and then, one of the men hurrying into or out of the station would glance up and stare at her in a way that made her wish she had worn a plain black raincoat instead of her rather flashy Burberry-plaid one. She was glad not to be there alone.

Ignoring the glances from passersby, Jane stopped across from the pub and took it in. The Dragon seemed to almost be squatting on the curb. A neon sign advertised Guinness, and a streaky chalkboard by the door listed food Jane was fairly sure would taste even worse than it sounded.
Why do these people insist on eating “kidney” when there’s “foie” out there?
Besides, if the kitchen was anything like the rather grubby bar she had seen Annette working at, Jane suspected that she really should pass on dinner.

“Good, I’m starved,” Elodie declared, dragging Jane across the street toward the red-painted door.

“Are you French at
all
?” Jane grumbled, but she good-naturedly let herself be pulled across the threshold.

A few older men—the same men, Jane recognized, who were in bars at five o’clock all over the Western world—were scattered around the dark room. One of the wooden booths was occupied by a twentysomething couple in cheap clothes; a small group of university-age students was gathered around a cluster of stools at one end of the bar. A very young-looking man in a stained white button-down shirt ran a grayish sponge along the bar. Jane twisted her fingers together: was this the right place?

Some parts looked familiar—the colors were right, and the general shape of the room—but she had seen everything from a perspective that she couldn’t get to without drawing an impossible amount of attention to herself.
And I don’t see Annette anywhere.

“Sit. Down,” Elodie hissed in her ear, and Jane’s knees buckled cooperatively. Fortunately, there was a wooden bench just behind them, but she suspected that she would have some bruises on her rear end from the impact.
No big; André will kiss that all better,
she caught herself thinking, and blushed furiously. “Is she here?” Elodie asked so softly that she almost just mouthed the words.

“No,” Jane whispered back. “And we’re kind of overdressed.” Elodie’s stylish boots, expensive top, and obviously well-groomed hair stood out like a stoplight, and Jane imagined that her own sleek Burberry look wasn’t much better. Three of the girls in the student-ish group in the corner, all in sweats and too-tight denim, had their heads close together in a gossipy pose. The young man behind the bar watched Jane and Elodie as though they were a pair of green, slimy aliens and didn’t make any kind of move in their direction. Jane twisted her hands awkwardly together on the table, then moved them to her lap.

“They’re just jealous.” Elodie giggled, pulled out a tiny camera, and snapped a few random photos like a giddy tourist.

“I’m trying to be inconspicuous,” Jane reminded her waspishly, kicking at her under the table.

“Can I get you something?” a British-accented voice asked them, and both girls jumped. A waitress was standing by their table, wearing faded jeans and a fitted white tee that emphasized her generous bust. Most important, she had wavy, shoulder-length dark-gold hair, an elegantly square jaw, and dark eyes like two deep pools.

Holy . . .
Jane kicked Elodie under the table again, harder this time. Elodie winced, but rose to the occasion. “We’ll both take pints of Guinness and fish-and-chips, please.”

Annette pursed her lips in concern. “Kitchen’s closed another half-hour,” she told them carelessly, her voice the liquid-gold sister of Malcolm’s deep rumble. “I can get you sandwiches, or you can just start with the pints and wait if you like.”

“We’ll do that,” Jane agreed, feeling strangely out of her own body. Although she had used her own natural, American-English accent to talk to Elodie, she faintly remembered that “Ella” was supposed to sound foreign—in fact, she was supposed to sound just like Elodie.
Shape up,
she snapped at herself, correcting the sound of the words in her mind. “We’ll wait, I mean,” she clarified when she realized that both Elodie and Annette were giving her confused stares. “With just the beers, is fine.”

Annette nodded crisply and moved off, although Jane caught her glancing curiously over her shoulder at their table.

“We sound like sisters all of a sudden,” Elodie whispered sardonically.

“Um,” Jane replied wittily, still watching Annette out of the corner of her eye. The girl had an athletic squareness to her, but her movement wasn’t especially easy or graceful. She reminded Jane of an overgrown puppy still trying to get used to the new length of her limbs.

“It’s a good idea,” she went on. “No one has ever been able to figure out where I’m from.”

“That was the idea,” Jane confirmed. Annette was behind the bar, carefully pulling the Guinness tap over a tilted glass. “El, I have no idea what to do next.”
I didn’t actually think I’d find her,
she realized uncomfortably. Even at her most optimistic, her search had been so far-fetched that she hadn’t been able to really imagine this moment. Everything had been hypothetical, but now she was just a few yards from a very, very real Annette.

Elodie rolled her eyes in a manner that Jane felt was unnecessarily exaggerated. “Well, you could lurk in the shadows and stalk the girl until either she notices and freaks out, or your clock strikes midnight, Cinder-Ella.” Jane stuck out her tongue. “Thank God you didn’t try to do this alone.”

Jane opened her mouth to argue, but Annette was coming back. And she had to admit, Elodie was absolutely right. Without the prior knowledge she had used as an “in” with Laura Helding, or the casual confidence she had gotten from André’s obvious attraction to her, she felt completely out of her depth.

It’s not that I’m not personable, either,
she sulked privately as Elodie effortlessly began chatting with Annette.
People like me plenty. I just don’t really know where to start with a total stranger I have so much secret history with
. But Elodie evidently did, because Annette—or Anne Locksley, as she introduced herself—seemed willing to chat. She was even willing to pose for more of Elodie’s obnoxious tourist photos: she obligingly leaned her head first near Jane’s, then Elodie’s as the camera changed hands, and smiled generically.

“ ‘Anne’ is a great name,” Jane jumped in while Elodie was fussing to get the camera back in its little case. “I love those really classic ones. Is it a family name?”

Annette (
Anne!
) seemed to almost-but-not-quite flinch. The moment was so quick that Jane nearly missed it, but a glance over at Elodie’s concerned frown confirmed that she had seen the girl’s reaction, too. “Anne” was already back to her casual self, though. “Don’t really know,” she admitted.

“Well, it’s pretty,” Jane offered awkwardly. Anne flashed a smile before whisking herself back to the bar.

“Nice,” Elodie whispered ironically.

“Well what am I supposed to do?” Jane whispered back. “Show up out of the blue and ask her what happened in the Hamptons when she was six and allegedly died?”

Elodie chuckled. “I wasn’t saying you weren’t being direct
enough,
Jan— Ella. I think you scared her off.”

“I don’t have much time,” Jane reminded her friend, taking a largish swallow of her beer and then self-consciously wiping the bitter foam off her upper lip.

“Don’t be silly,” Elodie told her in an exasperated tone. “We have these whole pints. And then at least one more, with food. And then two whole weeks, in case you need them.”

Jane nodded noncommittally. After all of the unexpected twists in the mission so far, it felt impossible to just sit back and relax and let things take their course. She sipped her beer again, more carefully this time. She stiffened when she saw Annette—Anne—heading back toward them with green paper place mats and rolled-up silverware.

Elodie kicked Jane under the table with one of her pointy-toed boots. She mouthed something that looked a lot like
“Chill,”
and Jane obediently attempted to do just that.

“Thanks,” she said when Anne had set their table. It sounded a little squeaky, and Elodie kicked her again. She seemed to be enjoying herself far more than Jane was.

Anne turned to leave. Elodie made an urgent face at Jane, who, fearing another kick to the shin, cleared her throat. “Um, so I just came in from . . . the train,” she improvised, realizing belatedly that she had no idea where trains came into King’s Cross from. “And my cousin—” she seized the opportunity to kick Elodie, who waved like a pageant queen, “—will be working all week and doesn’t know this part of the city well, anyway. Is there anything around here you can recommend? For, um, sightseeing?” It was a long shot, if the sights on their way to the pub had been any indication, but at least Elodie kept her pointy toes to herself this time.

Anne pursed her wide lips thoughtfully. “Well, we’re not far from Regent’s Park, and that’s pleasant enough, especially in good weather. There’s a theater and a zoo. Madame Tussaud’s is over there, too, if you like wax, but it’s a bit eerie for me.”

Jane shuddered in agreement: the silent, motionless, shiny-faced celebrities at the New York branch had made her distinctly uncomfortable. “The park sounds better.” She nodded. “It’s always good to get a local’s perspective—or someone’s who works here at least,” she corrected herself, although this time her awkwardness was entirely faked. “I suppose you could live anywhere.”
Could she have run away? Was she kidnapped? Did she just get lost?
Nothing made sense. The six-year-old’s disappearance and presumed death had made national headlines for nearly a week. And her witchy mother had an even more effective way of finding her daughter at her disposal, as Jane had obviously demonstrated. Even now that Jane had found Anne, something major didn’t add up.

Anne snorted a sarcastic laugh, leaning against the back of Elodie’s side of the booth. “Don’t know about
that
. You wouldn’t believe the rent at Buckingham Palace these days.” Anne waved her hand dismissively, and her follow-up sounded sort of like an apology. “I’ve been around here since I aged out of my foster place. I’d moved a bit, so I like sticking to just the one flat now. People rag on this neighborhood, but it’s home, you know? Didn’t mean to snip just then. I’ll go see if the cook’s in yet.”

Jane smiled as warmly as she could, but Anne was already heading off again.
Does she even remember that she used to have a different home?
“Well, now I want to adopt her,” she murmured to Elodie.

Elodie was craned around to watch Anne go. When she turned back, Jane could see that her face was troubled. “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” she whispered.

“Think what she must have been through,” Jane urged as quietly as she could. “You don’t know what it’s like to grow up without parents—”

“Shh. You still grew up with family. Jane, I’m sure she’s had it rough, but she didn’t have your Gran keeping her in line, either. And she . . . I just get a weird vibe.”

“She’s a witch,” Jane whispered, taken aback by Elodie’s reaction. “We give off weird vibes.”

Elodie looked doubtful but tried to hide it with another sip of Guinness. “I liked you fine.”

Jane laughed out loud, prompting a new round of stares from the university kids. “And what’s that supposed to say about your instincts? Look where that’s gotten you.”

Elodie smiled. “You, miss, needed my help. Obviously.”

“And she needs mine,” Jane retorted, but she had doubts of her own.
I can give her her family back. She seems to want to belong somewhere, and I can show her where that really is. But that means turning an innocent girl who’s already had a tough life over to Lynne Doran. That’s not what most people would call “help.”

Elodie seemed lost in dark thoughts of her own, and by the time their food came out—crispy, oily, and, most of all, hot—it was a merciful distraction from their gloomy silence.

Jane never could have predicted it, but finding Annette seemed to bring up yet more questions and problems—rather than solving any.

Chapter Twenty-Six

J
ane poked at a sliver of Cornish mackerel with her fork, pushing it around her plate for a moment before remembering where she was and carrying it politely to her mouth. It was better than the oily, deep-fried fish she and Elodie had gulped down that afternoon, definitely. And any sane person would cheerfully have taken a late dinner at the celebrated Hibiscus with a dangerously sexy man over an early one of reheated standbys at a grimy pub.

Guess I’m feeling insane again,
Jane admitted complacently. The gray, gold, and ivory tones of the dining room were soothing, the food was extraordinary, and the wine was plentiful, but her companion’s obvious bad mood made it impossible to really enjoy.

“The white-onion ravioli is delicious; would you like a taste?” Tonight, André’s accent sounded coarser somehow; instead of purring, it almost grated.

What are you still doing here and why won’t you leave?
Jane wanted to shout at him. She still had no idea where he was going after London, because, day after day, he just wouldn’t
go
. And while she was sort of curious about the private guided tour of the Tower of London he had insisted on planning for the next morning, thanks to his near-constant attention, she was starting to feel more like a prisoner than a spy. She tapped her fork nervously against the rim of her plate. “No, thanks,” she replied weakly.

He tilted his head in a fashion that suggested genuine concern for her mood and well-being, and Jane cursed her overly suspicious mind. Just because she and André were both lying to each other didn’t mean they couldn’t get along for the moment.

She smiled wanly. “I know I must seem like a bit of a drag today,” she admitted. “I’ve been having a lovely trip so far, but my business has taken some unexpected twists.” She and Elodie had eventually had to accept defeat earlier in the evening. The Cheeky Dragon wasn’t much to look at, but apparently it was an extremely popular after-work stop for a lively blue-collar crowd. By the time they had eaten enough of their food to decently call it “finished,” there was barely room to turn around. Having another pseudo-casual chat with Anne would have been impossible, so Jane and Elodie had agreed that they had done all they would be able to do right then. Jane would just have to return—during lunch, she thought might be better—and try again. “How about you—what’s on your horizon this week?” she prompted, dipping her fork into a strawberry-balsamic reduction and sucking it thoughtfully.

“I believe passionately in unexpected twists,” André replied with a twist of his full lips that Jane could practically feel on her own skin.

That’s not an answer.
“I don’t mean to press, but I would at least like to know your travel plans. I might need to take a side trip to Europe, and it might be awkward to run into you on the street somewhere after you’ve gone through all this trouble to be mysterious.” That was a lie, of course: she intended to be back on a plane to New York as soon as humanly possible after convincing Anne to come with her. But it was a pretty low-risk lie and well worth the trouble if André believed it.

He seemed frozen for a moment, although he continued to chew his ravioli and reach for his wine. But just as quickly, the impression was gone. “You haven’t even told me what you’re doing here,” he pointed out reasonably. “Not the truth, at least. But you want to know where I’m going next? Ella, my dear, this is hardly in the spirit of our . . . arrangement.”

Of course he didn’t buy the hard-partying cousin thing.
Jane sighed to herself.
Probably because I completely forgot to ever mention her again after the jet touched down.
André swirled his thick red wine inside the crystal balloon of his glass and watched her expectantly. She stared into his black eyes intently, trying to read something from them the way normal, non-witch women so often claimed that they could.
The last time I was in a Michelin-starred restaurant on this side of the ocean with a too-handsome man, he was playing me, too,
she recalled sadly. When Malcolm had swept her off her feet, she had imagined having a real family, a loving partner, and an unshakable place in the world. To an orphan who had been raised in near isolation by a grandmother so fearful that she had cut herself and her ward off from the world, those hopes had been irresistible. Even her six successful years in Paris hadn’t been enough to allow Jane to shake off the lonely confusion of her childhood, but Malcolm’s arrival had promised to finally do the trick.
But I’m not fooled this time, and surely I have more reasonable expectations than I did back then,
she reminded herself hopefully.
Now all I want is to be left alone.

“I’m here about Malcolm Doran,” Jane heard herself say, and felt momentarily dizzy with her own daring. She had no idea if it was brilliant or stupid, but the die was cast, so she finished the roll: “And Jane Boyle.”

André stared at her for what felt like forever, while her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest. There was no mistaking the predator behind his handsome face this time; he looked as though he might leap across the table to go for her throat.

Emboldened by his total shock, Jane swallowed another bite of mackerel in a way she thought actually passed for nonchalant. “Do you know where they are?”

André finally seemed to collect himself, although he picked up his fork and set it down a couple of times for no apparent reason. After the third time, he set it carefully on the tablecloth, and Jane saw a real smile playing around his lips. “Ella, once again you amaze me.”

“I figure they couldn’t have stayed hidden so long without each other,” she pointed out, hoping her adrenaline would pass for conviction. “After all, he’s got all that money, and she’s got . . . other gifts.”

“And you think they’re in London,” André prodded, and then frowned. “But now you ‘may’ have to go to the Continent. Ella, darling, have you been playing me the whole time with this London nonsense?”

“Have you?” Jane countered. “You said you were thinking of ‘making a stop’ here—which I assumed was a convenient fiction anyway—but now, three days later, we’re touring the city and sipping wine like we’ve got all the time in the world. I can’t help but wonder if we’re not following the same lead.”
The same
fictional
lead,
she reminded herself sternly.
So keep it simple and vague.

“Katrin and I have been looking for them as well, of course, for some time now,” he admitted casually. He went on to say more—she could see his mouth moving—but a crazy roaring sound had filled her ears. It was as if she were standing directly under a waterfall.

Of course they have
. She felt like she might laugh out loud, or burst into tears, or fall to the floor in a seizure. Katrin’s sharp body and short black hair appeared clearly in her mind, but unlike the times when she had only half-seen André’s sister, this time she knew exactly what the woman’s face looked like. It really
had
been a coincidence that Mystery Witch, who had been stalking Caroline Chase all over town, was also staying at the same hotel as Ella Medeiros. Her being there had nothing to do with Ella at all . . . she was just staying in the same hotel as her brother.
When she lost track of me in New York, they thought I might have gone . . . gone back . . .
“You’re going to France,” Jane concluded dully. Her tongue felt thick and clumsy. “You thought—she might have gone there. Home.”

André shot her a strange look, and she thought she might be stupidly repeating what he had just said. But she couldn’t help it; she couldn’t make her ears or even her eyes focus right. Everything was swimming in front of her, even André’s dangerous purr of a voice.

Lynne hired them,
she thought frantically; almost hopefully.
Finding me was a condition of the merger
. But things were starting to make an even uglier kind of sense than that. If Lynne found Jane alive, she wouldn’t really need the Dalcascus for anything. All the parties and shopping trips and negotiating sessions were moving things along between the Dorans and the Dalcascus, but the best way to seal the deal would be to make sure Jane didn’t pop back up again.

My lover is coming to kill me,
she realized sickly. She had thought that she was just flirting with danger, but it had been in her bed nearly every night for the past two weeks.

“Now. Tell me why you chose London,” she heard André insist from what sounded like a great distance, and she shook her head in confusion. She tried to speak, but no sound came out. “What brought you here?” he asked again, and this time the threat in his voice was barely masked at all.

Jane reached for her water glass, watching the hand that brought it to her mouth in sudden fascination.
Is my skin getting paler?
she wondered wildly. She had a panicked urge to try to hold up her knife to check her reflection. “A friend,” she blurted out randomly. “I got a tip.”

André’s stare grew darker. “And?”

And now I’m going to turn back into a pumpkin. Into Jane, I mean.
She knew it was too early, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she should be hiding her face, that it was changing back by the minute. She could practically feel her hair growing. “And nothing,” she gulped desperately. “It turned out to be nothing.”

“Ella,” André rumbled, “I’ve been more honest with you than that.”

“I’m sorry,” she told the sickly spinning air around where she thought his face should be. “I need a couple more days to . . . run down leads. From my friend. But I think this was all a mistake.”

“Apparently,” he replied archly, but his eyes were blackly furious. A waiter approached their table, but paused and then turned away quickly.
No help. Just me and my stalker, here.
André leaned closer, and Jane focused on the way his black hair scattered the light. “Ella, we both know that Jane and Malcolm went their separate ways weeks ago. And I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I don’t believe this ‘tip from a friend’ nonsense, either. We could be helping each other look.”

“Sure, if I tell you everything I know,” Jane retorted.
I don’t even know what I know.
“It’s not like we can split the reward—the real one, I mean.” Three million dollars would be easy enough to divide up, but not the advantage some lucky hunter could get from bringing Jane Boyle back to Lynne. And as it stood, the Dalcascus would gain even more from Jane’s untimely death than from anything Lynne might offer them for her.

“Ella.” André smiled confidently, and Jane shrank back in her chair. “We can work out all sorts of rewards.” He slid his hand across the table and grasped her left one before she could pull it back. His olive-skinned fingers traced the plain silver ring on her middle finger; it felt as though he had slid his hand under her skirt right there in the middle of the restaurant. “With your . . . talents . . . I’m sure we could find a mutually acceptable agreement.”

He knows we’re using each other,
Jane reminded herself, dedicating every muscle in her body to not jerking her hand away.
He’s just wrong about why
. No wonder he had remained so attentive even after finding out she was a witch. He was just as interested in Malcolm and Jane’s whereabouts as Lynne was; Jane’s bluff to interest her mother-in-law must have been equally intriguing to the Dalcascus.

Jane stared at her hand under André’s. It looked tiny and trapped, and most important, it kept looking like Jane’s.
Didn’t Misty say the disguise could . . . slip?
“I feel sick,” she whispered in perfect honesty. “Thank you for dinner, but it seems to be disagreeing with me.” She yanked her hand free of his, gave an impossibly bright smile to everyone and no one in particular, and all but ran from the restaurant.

I have to get to Annette,
she heard herself thinking distantly as she reached the street and began to run.
I’m not safe without her. Until she’s back home, I’m not safe anywhere . . . not as anyone.