Mondays ran long, dreadfully long. But if there was ever a perk to a long Monday, it was the fresh fall air and the leaves under heel, and the slow walks back to coffee shop near campus.
Lately, there had been a lot of good things in the bad. Phillip hadn't come back into Tisper's life since his last visit, and from what her grandmother said last they'd spoken, his marriage wasn't bidding so well since the move.
Sure, Jaylin was a distance away now, but he was in steady hands. And there was no better person to leave Julia with than Aunt Petunia; a woman who swore on health-drinks like kale was a religious deity. And to top it off, Tisper had snatched her first real date ever—with a boy named Patrick Wilson. If tall-dark-and-handsome had a face, it was Pat. He was a tight-end in high school, a socialite and an outstanding student. But as hot as he was and as pretty as he looked catching a football, Tisper hadn't taken into consideration the slightest chance that he might be dreadfully, dreadfully boring.
She sighed into the steam of her seasonal latte, the nutmeg sweet on her tongue. Patrick glanced up from his phone, one brow quirked up high.
"Nothing," Tisper said in reply, thumbing the cardboard seam of her cup. They'd barely spoken, save for a "hey, how you doing" before Patrick was stuck to the screen of his phone.
That was what she loved about Jaylin. He didn't give a damn about those things. Reality was his staple, attentiveness was his trade.
She hadn't thought of Jaylin in a romantic way since they were fourteen years old, and little Jaylin Maxwell was throwing punches in the boy's locker room. He couldn't fight worth a damn, but dare anyone condemn her for the cotton bra she wore over nothing at all, or the makeup she powdered on in her locker mirror. He always made sure to get one hit in—to make it hurt just enough before he was pummeled by the bigger boys. How could a princess not fall for her knight in shining armor?
But she outgrew those thoughts, those feelings. Jaylin would always be her hero, but he was no prince of hers. He was something much, much more important.
He was a great guy, Patrick, and sure it was only their first date—but if this was what love was meant to feel like, then every novella and romance novel she'd ever read were grave over exaggerations.
Something caught Patrick's eye and his attention finally left his phone and stuck to the cafe windows. "No way. Look at that Bentley! I've never seen one like that before."
Tisper rolled her eyes over to the sleek, showy metal body of the black luxury car. She didn't know cars. She didn't care about cars. But wherever there was an automobile show, there was Patrick somewhere nearby to rave over them. That was fine and dandy and all, but did those have to be the first words he'd said to her in the past fifteen minutes? Like I'm supposed to know what a Bentley is.
It was a black car, that's it. Nothing special. Maybe a little prettier than most, but a car is a car is a car—her own being the only exception. She loved her little red convertible more than most people love their children.
But it wasn't just a car. It was Quentin's car—and she'd only known by the petals of a weeping redbud that rimmed the windshield and danced off in a passing breeze. The same twisted weeping redbuds that lined the Sigvard's gravel driveway.
He was standing outside, leaning against the passenger door, holding a phone to his ear but not saying a word. He was nearly unrecognizable behind his Ray-Bans, hair unmade and brushed back by clammy hands, and a lazy button-up dress shirt, half un-tucked from his dark jeans. Unpoised, Quentin Bronx was a whole different person. And like he'd read the thought right from her mind, he turned his head and she could feel his eyes behind those glass veils.
"Uh... Hey, Pat, I'll be right back."
Patrick looked confused, but something about the tight flex in Quentin's jaw made her rush out of the door before he could get a word out.
"What?" she asked, as soon as the cold air rolled over her and the doors swung shut at her back. "What's wrong? Where is he?"
"How do you know?" Quentin asked, ending his phone call.
"You're waiting for me, aren't you? Why else would you be here, waiting for me, if not because of Jaylin? Now where is he, before I put a brick through that pretty little wagon of yours."
"I don't know..." Quentin said softly, like he hated the sound of his own voice, "...where he is."
Tisper scoffed out an ugly sound. "You don't know?"
"I don't know."
She reached into her purse and wrenched out her purple umbrella, extending the pole with a button under thumb. "What do you mean you don't know? You brought him there to protect him. What did you do with him?"
"I thought I was protecting him, but I fucked up," Quentin said, depositing his cellphone in the front pocket of his jeans. "I need you to come with me so I can find him and un-fuck up."
A molten lava bubbled inside of Tisper, a red hot ire bursting from the seams of her. This was no time for vague responses. She brought her umbrella to her shoulder and gave the back window of his hundred-thousand dollar luxury car a hard wack. The glass cracked, but not enough to impact. She swung it forward again and again, bashing the loose glass in with the wooden handle until only a gaping hole remained.
With no glass left to bash, she gave her bent and battered umbrella a glance before dropping it to her side, adrenaline scorching her fingertips. And by the passenger door, Quentin still stood, shock and aggravation in his shaded face, but not much more than that.
"Are you done?" he asked, pulling his glasses away. The light fell over his bloodshot eyes. A fresh scar marred his left brow.
Tisper felt the attention on her back, the entire street and every face in the coffee shop peering right through her—right at the mess she'd made. Namely Patrick, who stuck to the window with a look of horror, like she'd just murdered a human being in front of him and she still wore the blood on her hands. Not that I wanted a second date anyway.
Tisper gathered herself, brushing her loose locks behind her ears and gritting her teeth. "No. I don't think I am."
Quentin threw his arms to his side, utterly exasperated. "Okay, fine. Hurry up and break the rest. I'll even help you, but we need to go."
"We?" Tisper guffawed. "I'm not going anywhere with you. Not until you tell me where Jaylin is."
"I don't know!" Quentin scorned, his voice deep and frightening. There was a flash of something in his eyes—a beast in them. And for a moment, she swore they'd changed shape and color. It frightened her at first, until Quentin shut his eyes and shook his head and when he opened them next, they were the same earnest brown they'd always been. "I don't have time for this. I need your help—Jaylin needs your help. I'll give you whatever you want. Just get in the car."
He was rounding the front without an answer, cracking open the driver door. Tisper hesitated, looking to the coffee shop, where Patrick stood from his chair agape, then to the ninety-degree bend in her broken umbrella.
She chucked it to the cement and followed after.
-
The Sigvard's home was more alive than she'd seen it since the last of Alexander's parties. She wondered why they'd become an annual event; from what Jayin had told her, Alex didn't have many friends. And yet the parties were thrown twice a year—one, for New Years, the other for the Fourth of July.
She recalled the first time she'd heard of the Sigvards, sophomore year in high school when the summer smasher was all anyone could talk about. It wasn't Alex who threw the parties then, it was Anna.
Maybe they went on in her memory.
The people who cluttered the manor now weren't party guests though. They were rushing back and forth, taking from stacks of supplies and packing them into black bags. They were strange things—vials and baggies full of dicey green leaves. Bottles of pills and freezer bags filled with organic protein bars and water bottles. She knew what it looked like now and the sight struck her ill.
"He's missing, isn't he?" she asked, following Quentin through the grand foyer. "He's missing and you're sending a search out."
"Yes." This time, Quentin didn't skip a beat.
She wondered at first if Jaylin had disappeared the same way he'd gone the night of the bonfire party. Then she smelled a sweetness in the air.
"Jaylin's missing and you're baking cupcakes?"
Quentin opened his mouth, took in a breath of air, but words failed to leave him. There was a shade of helplessness on his face that Tisper might have found adorable in any other situation.
"Yeah," he uttered, sounding somewhat ashamed. And as he stalked towards the kitchen, weaving through bodies, Tisper followed in pursuit. Quentin reached for the oven door and she shoved herself between, slamming it shut with her rear.
"Fuck your cupcakes! My best friend is missing, why are you in here playing Martha Stewart?"
"Would you mind?" He brushed her aside and brought the pastries out of the heat. "Baking keeps my head steady."
"Oh my god," Tisper gawked and slid a step down the counter, arms folding over her chest. "What does he see in you?"
Quentin looked at her in a moment of hesitation and set the pan on the stove with a rattle. "Lillabeth, wrap those for the food bags please." Then he turned as a maid took his place and paced out of the kitchen, his gait almost too quick for Tisper to shadow after.
"Really," she said, bobbing at his heels, "what exactly are you getting out of this whole Jaylin thing to begin with?" She tried to keep at his side as they shuffled up the stairs, but Quentin was ahead of her in two steps. "You came out of no where. People don't just come out of no where and take you home to live in their mansion."
Quentin didn't answer. He swung open a door so heavy, Tisper could feel the impact rattle the air as it hit the wall behind it.
"Hello? Is there some kind of command to get you to talk?" She puttered at his heels, trying to get a good look at his face. "Speak, boy."
He gave her a gentle push into the room.
Lounging on a black leather couch, in front of a sheet-covered grand piano, Matthew and Sadie both snapped their heads to the intrusion.
"Okay, we're all here now," Matthew said. "Spill it, Bronx."
Sadie brought her legs up and tucked her chin over her knee. "Please tell us, I'm anxious."
Tisper was nearly bursting. "Why are they here?"
Quentin let the door shut and made for a liquor bar in the corner of the room. He poured one shot of something brown and tossed it back, not a flinch, not a sound. From the back of his frame, Tisper could see him set the glass down, and she watched the strong curl of his anxious fingers as they laid flat the hair on his crown. It seemed Quentin had his tells too. He was nervous. The kind of guy who fixated on his hair when emotions ran high.
"Jaylin's here because of his curse." He turned to them, slouched against the side of his piano. "You've been told before about the lichund. But as far as you know, it's only a name with an ugly side effect."
"So tell us," Sadie's teeth chattered as she talked. Tisper could tell she was frightened for Jaylin. She slid her stiff muscles down into the couch beside her and clutched at Sadie's hand.
"Everything. Tell us everything, Quentin. We can take it."
Quentin reached onto a bookshelf beside the television, picking a book from the top with a bare, frayed spine. He tossed it on the table in front of them and made once more for the liquor. "Turn five pages in," he said, filling his glass.
Matthew was the first to reach forward. He opened the blank leather cover and thumbed across the pages. Each, one after another, were blank.
"There's... nothing," Matthew said.
Then Quentin turned back, threw his drink to the open pages. The liquid inside splashed down on the paper and Tisper jumped backward with a gasp to escape a stain before she realized it was only water. And as it soaked into the pages of the book, lines began to emerge from what once was a slate page. Words, written in lateral loops of cursive—so rich and elegant, she could hardly read it. The water soaked down the white canvas, and brisque, delicate strokes appeared in the paper.
They fell across the page like ink spilling down glass, until the three of them were staring at the scrawling of a horrid creature, its long wolf-like snout unhinged, saliva stringing from the tips of its canines and webbing down its chin. She'd seen something like this in horror movies—the way they looked like the twisted makings of man and wolf in one, but this creature was different. Horns burst from its skull, twisting and curling like the shells of wentletrap snails, spiraling towards the heavens and some towards hell. This wasn't a monster, it was a demon.
She shuttered, jumping as Matthew moved beside her to take the book into his palms.
"What kinda Hogwarts shit..?"
Quentin sat down in front of them and pulled the soaked page delicately from the spine."That's the only way we can keep documentation on the lichund. Anything else risks exposure. I thought about showing Jaylin, but...seemed like a bad idea in the grand scheme of things."
"What is it?"
"Water-activated ink."
Tisper was lost in herself. Lichund. That was the lichund? That thing was what Jaylin was cursed to become?
"No one would ever think of wetting a book. Not to get anything out of it." Sadie was gaping at the pages, entranced by the way water turned to words. "Amazing."
"So that's it," Tisper babbled, numb as the beast glared back at her. "That's Jaylin."
"No." Quentin was holding his jaw, watching the words disappear on the page he'd set aside to dry. "This was Anna. We had photos. A few were sketched onto paper and the photos were burned."
"Why did you take them to begin with?" Sadie asked. "That's—no offense—kinda fucked up."
"Believe me, I didn't enjoy it. We were observing her. Looking for answers, solutions—we were looking for a way to turn her back, so we studied every change in her behavior. She was the first lichund to belong to the West in over a decade. They wanted to know all there was to know about her, and Anna wanted it too. She wanted to contribute to the sciences behind it. There were binders, logs left behind by the medics. Recordings, videos. They were all burned after she died."
Tisper shivered at the thought. Anna was one too...a lichund. That beautiful girl was a beast like this.
"What about computer files?" Matthew asked. "Emails'n shit?"
"We never use technology when it comes to the lichund. When it comes to werewolves at all, really. Files can be brought back from the dead. Computers can be accessed by almost anyone if given the opportunity. Pen and paper is just safer."
Sadie watched the ink fade from the outer corners of the sketch. "Not safe enough, obviously."
Quentin gave his head half a shake. "Nothing ever will be. That's why the documents you signed were so important. You're contracted now to never speak a word of what's happening here."
"But what is happening here? Where's Jaylin?" Matthew asked.
"Missing," said Tisper bluntly—spitefully, even. He was missing. They didn't protect him like they promised.
Sadie looked at her, her plump lower lip taken into a bite. Then her eyes traveled to Quentin for explanation. He said nothing, but gazed into the drawing of Anna, something dead in his stare. He was watching her fade from his life for the second time.
Tisper rose to her feet, swept off the back of her jeans and stood at attention. "So what do you need us to do?"
Quentin's eyes dragged over each of them, then they settled on Matthew. "You. I need you here working with Lisa. We rely on the herbs from the garden to cure our ailments, heal our wounds. The maids are busy tending to my sentinels so help her gather. Watch over the house while I'm gone. Can you do that?"
"I guess. But I don't get it. Why can't Alex do that?" Matt asked. "I'm not a damn gardener."
"Because Alex is downstairs in the foyer," he said, looking to Sadie this time, "waiting for you."
"Me?" Sadie looked almost frightened for a moment. "Why only me?"
"You'll think I'm insane if I tell you—so I'll let Alex do it. Just know you're a valuable asset. I could smell it on you the first time we met."
Before she could ask any more questions, Quentin looked straight athwart the table to Tisper herself. "You," he ordered, filling that scotch glass with liquor once again, "are coming with me." Then he tossed the drink back and dropped the glass on the bar with a hasty rattle. "Now you'll have to excuse me," he said. "My cupcakes are burning." Then Quentin carried himself to the large double doors, both swinging both open at once and slamming crudely behind him. Their echo settled into her bones, and Tisper breathed in the faint stench of rich liquor.
"God this is insane," Matthew was whispering in the silence Quentin had left behind. "Can't decide if he's batman or someone's grandma."
"Why do I have to go with Alex?" Sadie grumbled.
Tisper's mind was set on the doors.
She left the room, following in Quentin's shadow, hurrying down the steps after him. He was already on the ground below, speaking to a redhead, and a gangling man with dark skin. "...ten on the coast," he was saying. "One in each city." The couple nodded their heads and dismissed themselves.
She pursued as he left the conversation, following Quentin around the bend of the hallway and through the maids quarters.
"What was that?" she asked now that they'd finally found some silence. "That ink. Something that—it shouldn't exist." She turned to her side to swerve past a scurrying maid, then she was right on Quentin's heels again. "I know something else is going on here."
Quentin stopped at the garden door with the glass hummingbird and turned to her. He waited for her question, but Tisper was still pressing him to answer her last.
"Well?" she pushed. "Where did you get it?"
Quentin shoved the door open, words riding low on a stoic breath. "Witches," he said. Then he held out a hand.
Unsure of if he was joking or not, Tisper hesitated in place. She watched Quentin—the sureness in his face, the glint of temporary sunlight, cracking through the slate-gray clouds and shimmering in the dark of his irises.
"Where are we going?" she asked, toes of her boots knocking against the threshold.
Quentin waited patiently, his palm out to help her down the rough and uneven cobblestone steps. "To find Jaylin." He smiled just slightly. Just enough. And Tisper knew that it was only to comfort her. Because the most precious person in her life was missing, and each passing moment she spent in this place was turning her world into the unimaginable. There was no time to take it in, no time for explanation. But there was time to take his hand.
"Quentin Bronx, you are knightly," she said, fingers sliding into the heart of his palm, "but you better hope your armor's fucking shining."