The Dark Glamour (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

J
ane hurried along one of the paved paths that curved downtown through Central Park. She felt almost foolish, thanks to the stares she kept getting from other park-goers; upon reflection, the trench-coat-and-giant-sunglasses uniform that she had taken out of retirement for this occasion seemed to be attracting more attention than it was deflecting.
Apparently, it’s more conspicuous in the park on a nice day than around the Port Authority in March.

But it was too late to change, and she enjoyed the safe, cocooned feeling the outfit gave her. She needed every ounce of advantage she could get, anyway: she was on a particularly nerve-racking errand. Just the thought made her want to pull the collar of her coat a little more tightly closed, but she reminded herself sternly that, for the first time in a while, she was walking into an unpleasant confrontation while holding all the cards.

It was harder to hold on to that thought when she came around a bend and found Lynne, tall and stern and immaculately groomed as ever, standing in a small clearing under a chestnut tree. Waiting. Jane gulped down the lump in her throat and stepped off the path, feeling her red-painted Louboutin stilettos sink into the grass. Lynne’s eyes raked slowly from Jane’s vertiginous platform heels to the top edge of her oversize sunglasses, and Jane suspected that her mother-in-law once again disapproved of her wardrobe.
Mine . . . Ella’s . . . until I start wearing nothing but Chanel, that’ll never change,
she thought ruefully, and was gratified to see Lynne’s eyebrows pull together at her obviously unexpected smile.

She respects confidence,
Jane reminded herself, fixing the smile in place as if with glue. In Book and Bell the day before, this had all seemed fairly straightforward, but now, face-to-face with the woman who had ruined her life in an impressively thorough way, it was harder than she had expected to remember that she had the upper hand.

Lynne spoke first. “I believe you said you have some information for me,” she snipped impatiently, and Jane felt stronger by the moment as she registered the tension in the other woman’s voice. “I assume it has something to do with my son.”

“It doesn’t,” Jane croaked, and cleared her throat hurriedly. “It’s about your daughter.”

Lynne’s face was so immobile that it looked entirely different. “Jane Boyle? You mean my daughter-in-law. Although, of course, I love her like my own,” she finished with a cruel smirk that made Jane shudder in spite of herself.

“She sent me here,” Jane went on, visualizing the words she had practiced with Misty just before she said them. “But I meant your actual daughter. Malcolm Doran hired me to find Annette.”

Lynne’s expression turned thunderous, and Jane braced herself: when witches got that angry, bystanders weren’t always safe. But Lynne was, of course, an expert in her craft, and nothing changed except for the air between them. “Annette is dead,” Lynne finally said in a voice like a snake’s hiss. “You of all people should know I couldn’t be tricked into believing such an obvious lie.”

Jane felt magic building in the older witch like a battery charging. She realized that she had to get the truth out quickly before Lynne lost her patience and attacked, and she braced herself just in case her time was running out too fast. “Stand down,” she snapped, surprising both of them. But Lynne was still listening, so she decided to go with it. “I have proof.” As slowly as she dared so as not to spook Lynne more, she reached into her handbag and pulled out her phone. She had already primed the photo of herself and Anne that Elodie had obligingly sent that morning (without so much as an “I told you so,” Jane noticed appreciatively). She tossed the phone gently to Lynne, who caught it deftly.

Bitch just had to be coordinated, too,
floated across Jane’s mind. Most of her attention, though, was occupied watching every one of her enemy’s muscles for sudden movements. The chestnut trees around them waved gently in the breeze, and where the late-April sun dappled Lynne’s face, Jane could see that her skin looked unusually thin and tired. Lynne didn’t speak or move, but she almost seemed to shrink into herself as she took in the photo.

“I don’t know how it happened,” Jane told her eventually, “but you were lied to.” It wasn’t the full truth: she didn’t know the exact mechanics and she hadn’t gotten confessions from any of the perpetrators. But she had already decided that she wasn’t going to sell out the Dalcascus just yet. There was no real need to, since they would lose so much from Annette’s return already—and probably have to run for the hills anyway, lest Anne recognize them and spill the beans. Besides, implicating them might make Jane seem petty or vengeful, and she needed Lynne to believe and respect her in order for her plan to work.

Lynne stared at the screen for several long minutes. Sparrows sang in the bushes, and a red-tailed hawk wheeled overhead. Jane could hear children’s laughter somewhere nearby, although no one passed their little clearing close enough to be seen. She wondered if the magnetic charge of their magic helped keep passersby away; she certainly would have avoided their current spot if she hadn’t had to be there.

When Lynne’s voice sounded again, Jane jumped a little. It was hoarse and broken and nothing like her usual controlled purr. “Where?” she gasped. Her dark eyes swept up to meet Jane’s, and Jane was stunned by the change in them. Lynne had always been cool, commanding, thoroughly in charge. Now, with her widened eyes and softened, uncertain mouth, she looked like a supplicant.

“I can tell you exactly how to find her,” Jane went on. She said the words just as she had practiced them, but inside she felt shaken by the rawness of Lynne’s need.
That was the whole point,
she tried to tell herself. It was harder than she had ever imagined, to bargain when Lynne looked more like a distraught mother than an arch-nemesis. Jane shivered a little in the warm spring sunlight and reminded herself that she had to be as careful as possible, just in case. “But I’m going to have to insist on some terms, of course.”

Lynne nodded absently, glancing at the picture every few seconds as if she were afraid it might disappear. “Name them.”

Jane cleared her throat again, still feeling unpleasantly guilty. “First, my employer insists that you immediately call off the search for him and his wife,” she delivered quite smoothly, all things considered. “The police, the reward . . . it all needs to go away. Everyone must stop looking for Malcolm Doran and Jane Boyle, including you.”

“Of course.” Lynne frowned, and Jane reminded herself that she was only useful to Lynne in the absence of Annette, anyway. That condition had been, by far, the easier of the two.

“And then there’s my fee. I took this job on commission, so to speak. I will need you to turn over your magic to me right now in exchange for Annette’s current name and address.”

Jane held her breath; she had no idea what kind of reaction to expect, but fireworks didn’t seem unlikely. Rendering Lynne powerless was the only safe way to reunite her with Annette. For one thing, it made it that much less likely that she could ever change her mind and come after Jane. For another, it made it much less likely that she would make Annette miserable. Lynne could be a good mother, Jane had eventually decided, if she had to give up being the perfect witch.
Besides, if she picks Anne over her power, I won’t feel so guilty about turning Anne over to her,
she thought anxiously.

Lynne reached into her handbag.

“What are you doing?” Jane demanded anxiously, rallying her own magic into something like a shield, but Lynne just smiled dismissively.

When the older woman removed her hand from her purse, Jane recognized the object she was holding as a silver athame. “Tell . . . Malcolm . . . that those terms are more than acceptable,” Lynne announced placidly, and held the slim dagger up to her lips. She closed her eyes, and the earth spun sickeningly under Jane’s feet. Lynne inhaled and Jane felt as though she were being smothered, and then Lynne exhaled onto the athame. Even in the relatively warm air, Jane could see her breath fog up the mirrored surface briefly, and then it disappeared as if the blade had absorbed it. And then there was nothing at all in the small clearing except for Jane, Lynne, and the small silver object Lynne was tossing gently back across the grass to her.

She didn’t even hesitate,
Jane marveled, fumbling to catch the athame. There was no question of a trick; she could feel Lynne’s magic in the object. It coiled against her fingers below the surface of the silver, and Jane shuddered involuntarily as she shoved it into her own purse. She had believed that Lynne would trade anything for Anne—had been counting on it, in fact. But somehow the speed and ease of Lynne’s capitulation had caught her completely off guard.
She truly does love her daughter,
Jane decided, feeling almost awed. For the first time since she had come up with the whole idea, she actually felt good about bringing the mother and daughter back together. Against all the odds, she suddenly felt sure she was doing the right thing, rather than just the right thing for
her
.

“Her name is Anne Locksley now,” she told Lynne softly, and then went on to tell her every detail about her daughter’s second life that she could think of. The only thing she left out was the involvement of the Dalcascus in Annette’s disappearance. There was a decent chance Lynne would eventually figure out that part of the story on her own, but the woman’s easy sacrifice had given Jane a happy glow she didn’t want to risk having tarnished just yet. She liked this side of Lynne . . . and would be just as happy to be far away if the old, vengeful side ever came back out again. “I assume that this concludes our business,” Lynne said finally. Jane scanned Lynne’s face for any hint that this was all an unfathomably elaborate hoax, but Lynne’s peach-lipsticked mouth remained soft and vulnerable.

“Please give your employers my best,” Lynne told her briskly, tossing Jane’s gold Vertu back as an afterthought. She hesitated for a moment, her eyes boring into Jane’s, and Jane was unaccountably surprised to see that her onetime nemesis’s eyes still had the strange, contact-lens-like layer of darkness over their irises.
Somehow I always assumed that that was a result of her magic,
Jane realized.
I guess it’s just the way she looks
. It made sense, of course: both Malcolm and Anne had quite dark eyes. But something about Lynne’s had always looked unnatural to Jane, tacked on somehow over her real eyes.

“I will,” she replied hesitantly, and then forced her voice to steady. “I’m sure they would want me to wish you the same.”

Lynne smiled an absolutely unfathomable smile, and for a second Jane didn’t know if she wanted to hug the woman or run for her life. She did neither, though, because Lynne followed the strange expression up with even stranger words. “I always did see some of myself in you . . . Ella.”

By the time Jane had fully processed that parting shot, Lynne was halfway down the path.
But she said that to me,
Jane suddenly remembered,
not to Ella. She had told me I reminded her of herself on my wedding day.

Jane took a few steps back to the paved path and sank down onto a nearby bench, fighting the urge to laugh out loud. Lynne had seen through her disguise. There was no way of knowing how or even when the older woman had figured it out, but it didn’t really matter. Lynne had willingly—eagerly—accepted Jane’s terms, and all her magic was now safely stowed in the athame in Jane’s purse.

I took her magic, and she knows who I am, and all she could think about was getting to Anne,
Jane marveled, and slowly a weight she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying began to lift from her shoulders.

I did it.

She practically skipped out of the park. She couldn’t wait to tell Dee . . . and Malcolm.

Chapter Thirty-Four

T
he next morning, Jane found herself sitting on her hotel bed, staring at Lynne’s athame. It was more or less the same position she had spent the entire previous afternoon and evening in, but it didn’t feel old yet. The thin, double-edged blade was as long as Jane’s hand, and its mirrorlike surface seemed to almost absorb the earth tones of the bedroom. The handle of the athame was made of silver, as well, but the similarities ended there. Every inch of the hilt was deeply scarred with strange symbols and letters, and it was so tarnished that only a few gleams of the metal were still visible underneath the black crust. It was beautiful, really. The only problem now was deciding what to do with it.

The most obvious choice, of course, was to take its power for herself. She remembered the way she had picked up the silver ring Gran had left for her; she remembered her immediate conviction that it was
hers
. She felt sure she could do this again with the athame, and let its magic flow into her the way Celine Boyle’s once had.

It was an attractive option in a lot of ways. She would be at least twice as powerful as she already was—more than powerful enough to keep any remaining enemies at bay. She would be unstoppable . . . or she would feel unstoppable, at least, and therein lay the problem with that plan. The magic in the blade was Lynne’s, and Lynne was—or had been, at least—pretty impressively evil and power-hungry. Jane had never heard or read anything to make her think there was such a thing as good magic or bad magic, but there certainly were bad witches out there, and she was reluctant to inject their current into her own veins.

I didn’t have to choose with Gran’s ring,
she reminded herself. She had
known
it belonged to her. This magic, on the other hand, was something she would have to consciously choose to take on, and she had no idea what consequences such a choice might bring. It might mean nothing more than that she was the most powerful witch around . . . or it might mean that the power in the athame shouldn’t be hers but was anyway. It could change her somehow, and she might lose the ability—or the will—to get rid of it once it did.

And none of that even addressed what might go wrong
outside
of her if she took Lynne’s magic. In addition to the power Jane had been born with, she had already received a huge dose of magic from Gran—more than she even knew how to effectively use yet. Adding the contents of the athame to her own potent magic would almost certainly attract the attention of the other witches who were still active in the world, most of whom had probably already heard the name “Jane Boyle” by now. The extra magic would make her even more of a target than Lynne’s maliciousness had.

André and Katrin would be the first ones after her once they figured out what had happened, she knew, and the thought of the vicious Romanians stalking her around the globe made her shudder. And while it had been her plan to let Lynne think Ella had disappeared into thin air, taking the Doran magic with her, the fact that Lynne apparently had connected Ella with Jane made it even more dangerous to create new enemies for her fading alter ego.

Jane’s fingers convulsed on the handle of the athame. The power in it was tempting, no question, but there was also something repellent about the feel of it against her skin, and she let the dagger go quickly.

If she couldn’t take Lynne’s magic herself, then what could she do with it? Part of her was tempted to just throw the thing into a Dumpster somewhere, but the idea made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on their own. If it was a bad idea to use the magic, it was a worse one to let it out of her control.

So am I just supposed to carry it around in my purse like a toy Chihuahua? A cursed toy Chihuahua?

That hardly seemed like an ideal strategy. Most of the magical community would probably assume that she was using the magic; carrying it around would make her no less a target, yet with no more ability to defend herself. And if any witch worth her salt got within twenty yards of the little silver knife, she would absolutely know what it was Jane was carrying. Jane could feel it through the leather of her purse, across half her bedspread, pressing in on her dreams while she had slept.

I know where to keep something valuable,
she realized with a sudden flash of hope.
I know where to put something secret.

It was a Sunday morning, and banks must be closed, but she had James McDeary’s card somewhere among her things with his private, emergency number on it. If anyone could get her where she needed to go, it was him. “First Trust Bank of New York,” she muttered, digging through her enameled card case. “Corner of Rector and Trinity.”

She left the bank an hour later, feeling about twenty pounds lighter. Just as she had suspected, the bank manager had been eager to help the baroness . . . even if he’d had no idea who she was. It was actually better that way, she decided: this time, he had done nothing but fawn all over her, while the first time they had met, when she had been posing as Malcolm’s sister, he had suspected something.
Because I took the unicorn,
she realized, a small piece clicking into place in her mind. At some point, Malcolm must have mentioned that the “personal item” in his safe had belonged to his late sister, and then a very-much-alive sister had showed up to claim it.
No wonder he looked so freaked out
. Jane giggled to herself.

She had been walking uptown ever since she had left the bank, allowing the soothing buzz of the streets of Manhattan to drain the extra energy from her nerves. But when she reached Houston Street, she stopped cold.

She had come face-to-face with an electronics store’s display window full of (THIS WEEK ONLY!) discounted televisions, all showing Lynne Doran’s face. Jane stopped walking as the camera zoomed out, and a photo of Anne Locksley that looked like a passport picture—or maybe a mug shot—appeared beside Lynne’s. TWENTY-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY SOLVED, the banner read. HEIRESS RETURNS TO OVERJOYED FAMILY.

There were plenty of similarly terse and sensationalistic headlines below various family photos: apparently, Anne’s reappearance was big news.
Bigger than her brother’s disappearance,
Jane thought with something that felt almost like jealousy, and then she laughed at herself a little. Wasn’t that the point, after all? Besides, it really was a pretty spectacular story. Half the televisions were showing old photos of Annette as a little girl. At first, Jane guessed that they were Lynne’s pictures, but there were at least a couple that had to be from later, after Anne became a British foster child. The other screens were promising interviews with the family; there was even a brief clip of Lynne’s husband with a glass of whiskey in his hand and tears in his eyes.

Damn, that woman moves fast.
Jane blinked, trying to count flight hours against the time change between New York and London.
I slept,
she decided eventually; obviously, Lynne hadn’t bothered with such trivia. The full-on media blitz that her onetime nemesis had literally pulled off overnight was impressive, even for a Doran. As Jane continued on, she realized that news of Anne’s triumphant return to the bosom of her loving family was everywhere: televisions, news tickers, even printed papers had all managed to pick up the story in a hurry.
It’s like magic,
she thought smugly, and smiled as she hailed a cab.

The little screen facing the backseat had a promo clip of an interview with Laura and Blake Helding, who surprised Jane by managing to sit beside each other without clawing each other’s eyes out. They presented a relatively united front, unwaveringly telling the story of Annette’s supposed death in carefully edited bursts, interspersed with information about the amazing discovery that she was alive, after all. Ella’s name, naturally, never came close to being mentioned. Somewhere in all the drama, Jane registered the news that Malcolm was in rehab somewhere in Austria, and his wife was home with her family, waiting for the annulment papers that would put a period at the end of her (totally un-newsworthy) ordeal. Laura elegantly implied that anyone who didn’t respect poor Jane Boyle’s privacy during this difficult time deserved to be drawn and quartered, while simultaneously exploiting Anne’s tragic childhood for all it was worth. Jane was frankly impressed by her friend’s media savvy, and even went so far as to wonder if it would be possible for them to stay in touch once the circus had calmed down.

Or maybe we don’t have to wait that long,
she realized once she got back to her room. A silver tray was waiting conspicuously on the little table just inside her door, and resting on top of it was a thick, creamy envelope. She didn’t even need to look at the handwriting of Ella’s name to know who it was from—she felt sure she would recognize that stationery for the rest of her life—and she slid it open curiously. Instead of the personalized note she had expected, what she pulled out of the envelope was a formal, engraved message . . . an invitation, she realized after a confused moment.

The Dorans, it seemed, would welcome her presence at an intimate gathering of friends and select members of the press intended to welcome Miss Annette Doran back to her rightful place in Manhattan society.

The soiree was set for the following Saturday night. It would be the last day of her disguise, Jane realized, and instinctively turned toward her full-length mirror to check her appearance. Almond-shaped black eyes stared back at her from Ella’s mahogany face. In spite of her fears during the incredibly stressful previous week, the orb’s spell seemed to be going strong.
Based on when I woke up as Ella, I’d have until midnight,
she reminded herself. She pulled the closet door open, banishing her reflection and replacing it with her impressive collection of party dresses.

Am I seriously considering this? I wonder what Anne will think, seeing me there,
Jane thought with a little restless agitation, closing the closet door again firmly. But, of course, Lynne must have told Anne about her part in their reunion already. And if Lynne was willing to forgive and forget the steep bargain Ella had driven, why should Anne hold a grudge of any kind against her? She had been a little deceptive, sure, but obviously everything was working out for the best for everyone.
And in record time,
Jane mused: getting as many invitations as she felt sure had been sent out engraved on such short notice was nearly as impressive as the media blitz Lynne had arranged to coincide with her party-planning.

She turned the invitation over and over in her hands. It meant something to her that Lynne was willing to bury the hatchet to this extent, but it still felt wrong somehow to go and toast Anne’s arrival in New York.
I did my part,
she decided.
They can take it from here without me.