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During his brief time in Captive’s Sound, Asa had sized up Kendall Bender as--insubstantial Not terribly bright, not stupid, ena But grief had awakened soirl seeh the hallway, despite all the balloons and stuffed ani her locker, despite all the questions about her sister Her sandy hair wasn’t even brushed Probably she’d coht from the hospital

Asa stood very near the now-unused chemistry lab (The school had closed it due to potential contaht be Instead the class sat in study hall and watched "science docuned to ah to feel the enory not far below the surface It reminded Asa of pain It reminded him of home

Yet that darkness did not reach out to him, nor would it ever The One Beneath did not speak togirl

Let her call hiht’s disastrous attempt on Elizabeth’s life, no doubt Verlaine, Nadia, and Mateo were licking their wounds They were doubting the enough Waited long enough The tio, Mateo thought Plan B

The butler opened the door, and his eyes widened in surprise Mateo usually avoided Cabot House, showing up once a year for inspection/birthday wishes/weird, creepy, passive aggression froain as quickly as possible This was his third visit in three ain"

"Mrs Cabot isn’t expecting you," the butler said in his creaky voice His weedy, white eyebrows seemed to be frozen in an expression halfway between surprise and disapproval

"Just dropping by Let her know I’ room filled with ornate old furniture that hadn’t been used in a while A fine layer of dust grayed and softened every line, as though the room had been draped in a veil Mateo felt randson That was prettythe brocade wallpaper hung Cabot faone by A few of theed the upper stories of the house back when his ; this picture was stained with soot But the one that interested Mateo showed not the dae, but the person who had caused it

There, in a Colonial-era portrait, stood th dresses, and powdered wigs--and next to them stood Elizabeth Pike

Not Elizabeth as he knew her, of course She’d spentbackward from the old woman who’d ain look like a girl of seventeen In this portrait Elizabeth still had gray hair, the e, but the painter must have been skilled, because the face remained unmistakably hers Maybe it was the shape of her eyes; htly

No What made Mateo so utterly sure this was Elizabeth was the expression the painter had captured in her eyes: conteht everyone else in the world was beneath her, only fit to do her bidding

"Mateo" He turned to see Grander; it surprised hith Her ebony cane was clenched firled herself so that only one side of her face showed--the side without the horrible scars fro"

"Nadia and I are still together Thanks for asking" Mateo wasn’t going to waste any ti to make this woman like him Instead he simply stepped close and held up his phone "Listen, I need to know if you’ve ever seen this"

He brought up the picture Nadia had taken of a sy old paper--a sort of wreathed circlelines that crisscrossed one another At first Mateo had thought it looked vaguely Celtic, but that wasn’t quite right Really, it was uy they’d studied in art history, MC Escher Lines you thought led soles that shouldn’t have existed did

"That?" Apparently startled out of her usual gloon before"

Usually Mateo hated that his grandmother lived in the past, that he was buried under so much horrible family history, it felt like it could crush him But her obsession had finally paid off "Where?"

"It’s an old knife--part of the fa piece I’ve ever seen But I recall the syht it was some Cabot family crest, fallen out of use"

"Any chance I could have that knife?"

I for ite , okay? You can have it back soon" In theory, anyway: Nadia ht have to use it for some spell that would turn it to ash or God only knehat He’d deal with that if and when it happened "My friends and I want to look at it That’s all"