Chapter 69: Chapter 14: Lost at sea

> “This was the truth of it. But still Rita withheld one final secret. Her true legacy, the First Seat of the New Amsterdam Table, that would pass to another. To me.”

I finally woke up.

Frankly, I don’t know what it was exactly that triggered it.

Maybe Jade had done all she set out to do in those two weeks. Maybe her control over me had naturally waned to the point of breaking. Or maybe the arrival of the final remaining piece of my old life had been enough to stir my sense of self from its forced slumber.

I sat up in my bed in New York and looked at my phone, plugged in and charging away on my nightstand like nothing odd had happened. Tapping the screen twice, I nearly vomited when I saw the date appear.

And then something else unexpected appeared.

A text from Duncan.

“Hey, we need to talk.”

Yeah, that’s the last thing I needed to do right now.

I put the phone down and assessed the situation. My studio apartment, which I had moved into shortly after Beatrice disappeared, was immaculate. But that had not been the case when I had left for Boston. The stacks of boxes were gone, the closet next to me was full to the brim with clothing I didn’t recognize, save for the invisibility cloak, and I was wearing pajamas that were a far cry from my regular ratty sweats.

But one thing I did recognize: the glamour stone. It still hung around my neck, like a portable prison, and my body was still buried beneath its alchemy. I drew it out of the satin nightshirt that Jade must have bought me and stared at it. Its formerly pale green color now shimmered with a vibrancy that shocked me. And when I went to pull it up around my neck, it suddenly gained about 20 pounds, causing me to drop it in an instant. Once it rested back against my chest, the stone magically deflated back to its normal weight.

Ty’s words came back to me, ones that I had ignored amid the search for the Dragon’s blood. She had said that the glamour wasn’t a stone, but a person. And her warning from the day she had first given me the necklace now rang crystal clear. Somehow, some way, the body I had been wearing wasn’t just an alchemical illusion created by someone with a thing for redheads. It was an actual person, and I had unwittingly been feeding it … her, for weeks, until “Jade” had pushed her way to the surface.

And boy, had she been busy, if what she had done to my apartment had been any indication. I grabbed my phone and texted Ty, but when she didn’t respond after 15 minutes, I spent the rest of the morning tearing over every inch of my apartment, looking for clues as to what Jade had been up to. But whatever or whoever Jade was, she was no dummy. Other than the expanded wardrobe she had purchased, there were no clues, no evidence, not even a hint of what she had been up to.

I gave up my search around 1 p.m., my stomach growling and my anxiety from being Tyler Durden-ed for two weeks waning enough to venture a trip outside. It was then that my phone sprang to life as the name “Ty Anzio” splashed across the screen. I frantically hit the answer button and was greeted by the face of someone who looked like they had walked into a bramble bush.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Ty answered.

“What do you mean? I told you this stupid glamour you gave me wouldn’t turn off. And now-”

“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for weeks. But every time I called, I got a weird buzzing sound and then the line went dead.”

“Oh, right. It’s a long and short story. The short version is that I’ve been unconscious for two weeks, and the long version is something I’m still trying to puzzle out, because the glamour stone you gave me took control of my body, and I have no clue what she or it did.”

“I see,” said Ty. “Well, I did warn you not to overdo it.”

“Yes, you did. But you could have mentioned the consequences. I thought I would just, you know, start believing I was someone else. I didn’t think there was an actual ‘someone else’ inside the stone!”

“Would you have believed me?”

“Well, no,” I said. “Maybe I would have been a little more cautious, though. Used this thing sparingly until the Guild tracker gave up and then given it back to you. And not let it literally consume my body and mind!”

“Calm your ass down, Jade. It’s not as bad as you-”

“My name isn’t even Jade!”

“That’s news to me, but fine. Who are you then?”

“I’m Jen,” I said. “Jen Jacobs.”

“All right, then, Jen. First thing you’re going to do is stop freaking out. It’s not helping and will only send you right back to the metaphorical pit where the glamour stuck you while she ran the show. And then the next thing you’re going to do is—shit, I need to go.”

“What? No. No, no, no. You’re not pulling one of those. Are you fucking serious?” I screamed at the bloodied face of the teenager in the phone, whose eyes suddenly had a look of fear in them.

“Just keep out of trouble. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

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And with that, she was gone.

I resisted the urge to throw the phone into the wall, and instead took ten deep breaths, then made my way into the bathroom. The face that greeted me in the mirror was familiar in a way that I hadn’t felt before. It was as if my mind had reoriented itself to truly believe that the glamour’s body was my own. And could I blame my brain for thinking that? It had been so long since I had been myself that I was beginning to forget the way my cheeks dimpled when I smiled, or where the precise position of the oddly shaped birthmark on my forearm.

I looked at the redhead with green eyes and freckles in the reflection. Had she really been alive? How was it that her body had been forced inside the stone? What about her mind? I was becoming increasingly convinced that whatever or whoever had created the stone had not intended for this woman’s consciousness to come along for the ride. But somehow, it had, and it had been feeding on me, growing stronger until finally it had displaced my own mind.

My fist suddenly connected with the wood paneling next to the mirror, and I winced as I drew it back, blood trickling down my knuckles. I looked at the wall to assess the damage only to find that the panel had been dislodged completely and had fallen to the floor. Cursing my impulsiveness and the landlord’s cheapness, I bent down to retrieve the piece and then to reattach it in its place. Except when I did, my eyes finally registered what had been hiding underneath, and I dropped the panel in shock.

Because where the drywall should have been, someone had neatly carved out a hollow compartment and inside was rack after rack of Beatrice’s vitality serum.

* * *

It was mid-afternoon by the time I reached 6th Street and I had to wait about half an hour for a clear window to approach Beatrice’s mailbox stash without attracting attention.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to find the relay mailbox completely empty, but the sight of everything gone made me want to eat the last strength buff and tear it out of the ground. So, once again, I found myself powerless swimming in a current beset by hostile forces on all sides, with only the invisibility cloak to steady myself.

Great, I thought. Who needed to be invisible when only a handful of people alive even knew what I looked like?

After quadruple-checking that neither Beatrice nor Jade had stashed a hidden envelope or message or clue inside, I locked the door of the mailbox and retreated to a nearby coffee shop. The barista gave me a half-knowing grin as I ordered a cortado, and I froze.

“This is going to sound a little crazy,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, “but, umm, have I been here before?”

“I’ve heard crazier, don’t worry,” she said. “But no, was just looking at your top. It’s from that new boutique over on Carmine Street, right?”

“Yeah, exactly!” I said.

I stuffed a $5 bill into the tip cup and ran out the door. It wasn’t much, but I needed a distraction to take my mind off of the events in Boston and whatever was going to happen at the next Guild meeting, which was now only two days away. Well, maybe Jade had solved all my problems in the time she had been in control, and I would be welcomed like a conquering hero. Or, more likely, she had her own agenda that didn’t coincide with my own or the Guild’s.

On a whim, I dug out the Night Market card Nikki had given me in Boston and scanned the list of locations. Sure enough, the Carmine Street boutique was one of them.

The shop was in a small basement below a townhouse and filled to the brim with racks of lacy dresses and women holding champagne flutes who probably worked with or knew Lisa. I shoved my way to the back, where a petite elderly woman with uneven bushy hair was perched on a stool behind a wooden table, looking completely bored.

She eyed me as I approached and then shook her head.

“You’re back,” she said.

“Yes,” I replied. “And I-”

“Look, I already told you, I don’t know where to get any more. You bought the rest of my seller’s stock, and he won’t have a new shipment from VAC for at least three months, maybe longer.”

“Fine,” I said, quickly putting on an air of displeasure. “But there’s something else you can do for me.”

“Oh?” the woman replied. “Haven’t I already done enough to repay my father’s debt five times over? The Council has rules against this sort of usury and-”

“You really want to get the Council involved in all of this?” I said. “Go ahead. I’m sure they’ll be really interested to know that you’re operating in-”

“OK, OK,” said the woman. “Keep your voice down. What is it you want?”

“Information,” I answered. “I want to know everything you know about glamour stones.”

The woman scratched the side of her head, white flakes falling down onto her shoulder, and I grimaced.

“Is this a test?”

“What?”

“There’s the answer. You told me not to tell you anything about that.”

I stared at her, bewildered.

“What are you talking about?”

“You said, and I quote, ‘If I come back here asking about glamour stones, don’t tell me anything.’ And I said, ‘that makes no goddamn sense. If you want to know about them, I would tell you, for a price.’ And then you put a knife on my throat and repeated the command, and when I agreed, you so nicely trimmed off this patch of my hair.”

She tapped on the bald spot on the right side of her head and gave me a half-smile.

“So you won’t tell me, then?” I asked, wishing I had whatever knife my alter ego had used.

“Afraid not,” the woman replied. “I’m rather fond of my locks, and I can’t say the same thing about you, whichever version of you I’m speaking with.”

“Fine,” I said. “But you’d better hope that next time I come back here, I-”

“Excuse me, ma’am?” said someone behind me.

I stiffened as if I was a statue, recognizing the voice immediately, and turned to face Lisa.

“Umm, are you done paying? You’ve been standing there for a long time.”

I stared at my former best friend Lisa, who had no inkling of who I was. Even if the glamour had been off, she wouldn’t have recognized me either, thanks to that disastrous evening at the bar when I accidentally wiped all traces of myself from her memory and Stacy’s too.

“And now you’re just staring at me,” she continued. “Is she done?” Lisa said to the bushy haired woman behind me.

“Yes, yes, she was just leaving,” the woman replied.

I stepped awkwardly to the side and let Lisa drop the pile of garments onto the table, which the shop woman began sorting through and scanning. Lisa finally turned back to me and handed me her empty champagne flute, before heading back into the crowd to fetch more clothes.

“Friend of yours?” asked the shop woman, who was about halfway through the dozen dresses Lisa had dumped on her.

“Sort of,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

“I can see that,” said the woman, tapping her the rims of her glasses.

“You can see what?”

“Everything. Your alchemy leaves a trace. Well, everyone’s does, but yours is particularly sloppy. One of the reasons I was staunchly opposed to the Expansion. That girl, she was your friend?”

I nodded, and the woman squinted through her glasses at Lisa behind me.

“Hmmm. Yes, I see the vestiges of the … oh.”

“What now?”

“You thought to fix the first with the second. But really, you’ve just doomed her even sooner. That poor dear. ”

My heart was now pounding as I waited for the woman to reveal what else I had done, besides leading Emma to a fiery demise and Beatrice to her exile and Frankie to a forced death.

“What … what will happen to her?”

“Her mind is unwinding.”

“I don’t understand. What does that mean?”

“She’s slowly forgetting herself. Little by little. Day by day. A memory here, a memory there. It won’t be long now, I think, until the only thing she has left in her head is your betrayal.”