green design covered the man’s entire throat like a tattoo, except it seemed to glow slightly.
Gabriel sat back, panting, pine-green hair sticking to his unfamiliar face, narrow with high cheekbones and a wide, cruel mouth. His hand held aloft a ball of whorling frost, that seemed to do war with the green arcs twining from his fingers. His other hand reached into a pocket of his rotting, dated clothing and lifted up a bell, no larger than an acorn. The frost seeped into the little item, disappearing, and with a burst of green light it was gone. Then the bell was still, looking not the least bit out of the ordinary. “How fortunate that was still there,” Gabriel laughed, and it sounded strange with this unfamiliar form. “Thanks for hanging onto my stuff for me, pal-o’-mine. Though I can’t say I appreciate what you’ve done to my hair.” He plucked at the tangled mess that cascaded over his shoulders.
The man’s hand was over the seal at his throat. Hatred burned in his narrow, dark eyes, eyes that I had thought were Gabriel’s.
“Oh, fume all you want,” Gabriel grinned, pushing his unruly hair out of his face. “We both know you’re nearly useless unless you can speak. So welcome back to the world, Katsura. You still can’t lay a finger on me.” That twisted half-smile. Those glittering green eyes. It was the same face, the exact same expression I’d seen on the painting in the lab.
The Thief. Hemlock, the one who’d been missing for a century. The immortal who was counted among the greatest villains of history. Gabriel was Hemlock. What had I done?
He tucked the bell into an interior pocket. “I’m sure your voice will come in handy some time. It
Expression furious, the man dove at him; Hemlock caught his wrists and snapped,
“That should be familiar to you.” Hemlock said conversationally, nudging him in the side with his foot. The man was breathing, but he seemed too exhausted to move. Hemlock knelt and retrieved the hand mirror from the interior of the other man’s jacket, where he’d stowed it when he’d taken it from Dad. “I was worried I’d have trouble getting back into the swing of things, it having been so long.” He tucked the mirror into his belt, flexed his fingers, and cracked his knuckles. “Where we’re going, I’d rather you not follow. Come on, Juliet, love, we’ve wasted enough time here as it is.”
He reached out to me; I shrank back. “I don’t bite, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m here to help you, remember?”
“You’re the Thief!” I shouted, backing up toward the door. “You were the Thief the whole time!”
He sighed. “Not ‘til just now, love. I can’t very well be the Thief without my powers, can I? I needed to get my body back.” He smirked. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
My heart hammered in my chest. This was all my fault. I had done it. I had opened the door, given him everything he needed. If I’d only done what Bea had asked -
“We’re short on time, but I suppose I owe you a small explanation. My name is Hemlock, but you can go on calling me Gabriel if you like. This fellow here is Gohei Katsura. Gohei and I have had a bit of an ongoing misunderstanding for the last...how long, would you say, pal?” he asked the mute man, who was still struggling to sit up. “Let’s just say we’re into centuries now. It’s all very complicated and tedious.”
“You lied!” I insisted.
“I may have lied about my identity,” he said, “but I wasn’t lying about helping you. There are no limits to what you and I can do together. Simon is on his way, girl, and while I may not be the most upstanding citizen on either side of the mirror, you will fare far better with me than with him. He’ll use your powers to take over the world.”
“And what will you use them for?” I demanded.
His grin was unsettling. “To free it, of course.”
“I wasn’t aware that anything needed freeing.”
“You’re woefully misinformed.” He raised his head and called out, “Imp, to me.”
The spindly little monster materialized as if falling through the iron ceiling, to land atop the cage. It blinked its large, yellow eyes at us, clinging to the rim.
“All the hard work you’ve put in taming the thing and now it’s mine,” Hemlock smirked at Gohei. “Come here,” he beckoned the creature.
The imp’s head cocked, birdlike, a sort of trilling sound in the back of its throat.
“You know me,” Hemlock said smoothly. “You know this voice. Now come here and port me out.”
The imp fidgeted, lamp-like eyes wide. Gohei snorted something like a laugh on the floor, and the creature took notice of him. It dropped, landing on his shoulder, tail curling protectively around his neck.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Hemlock said, incredulous. “There’s no way it can tell the difference - ”
He took a step towards them, and the lanky little monster hissed at Hemlock, bat-like ears slicked back, showing a mouth full of slender, needle-sharp teeth.
Hemlock recoiled, expression sour. “Live this long and you can still learn something new every day,” he muttered to himself. He suddenly looked up, as if hearing something I couldn’t. “Oh that’s not good,” he said. He grabbed my hand and began to pull me towards the hallway. “We need to get to the sanctuary, now.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” I shouted. “I want to go home!”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Hemlock said, distracted, eyes on the ceiling.
The imp clinging to Gohei screamed at us as Hemlock pulled me up the stairwell. I struggled in his grip, reaching for the mirror’s opening and the forest beyond.
Hemlock gave me a yank up the stone stairwell instead. “I said the sanctuary. Control yourself, girl, because I can get you out of here just as easily if you’re unconscious,” he snapped.
I stilled, heart hammering. What had happened to the kind man who gave out hot chocolate and looked at Camille like she was the most important thing in the world?
We passed a silent, blank-faced Porter in the foyer. Throwing an anxious glance at the library curtain, Hemlock swept us through the opposite one to the sanctuary.
“All that remains,” Hemlock said, his green eyes glittering, “is the Hearthstone.” He knelt by the base of a pillar, pulling the edge of a tile free.
He was so much stronger than me - I couldn’t overpower him. But my power was to negate power, and almost everything inside this mirror was conjured of magic. I looked up. A row of Rhys’s glass lanterns hung overhead. I focused all my thoughts on them, willing the magic tying them to dissolve. After all, they weren’t real, right?
Hemlock’s fingers curled around something small, with a short laugh, just as a lantern crashed over him. He sat back hard, a trickle of blood running from his hairline.
“Juliet!” he roared.
I ran back through the curtain and nearly collided with Rhys coming out of the library.
“Jul!” he exclaimed. “What - ”
I had no time to feel relief to see him. My heart dropped into my stomach as I beheld the man I’d called father ascending the stairs, eyes on me and clutching the iron sword in a gloved hand. Where on earth had he gotten that?
Instinctively, Rhys and I backed onto the terrace, even as I knew there was no outlet. The high walls were insurmountable. Rhys’s hands were on my shoulders as Simon came through the arch, sword leveled at us.
“You’re too dangerous,” Simon said. “You’ll break everything. You’re just not worth the risk. I should have known when she left,” he said angrily, “that it was because of you.”
Vines curled out from the wall and Simon leapt aside, slashing them away. They withered where the sword sheared them. Hemlock stepped onto the terrace as well, a bright green ring now sparkling on his finger.
“This is becoming vastly overcrowded,” he said. “Goodness, Simon, you’ve seen better days.”
“Who are you?” Simon snapped.
“But then I suppose it’s been a rough night for many of us.” Hemlock went on, ignoring him. “Myself, I’m doing quite well, actually. Best I’ve felt in a hundred years.” With a wicked grin, his hand wearing the ring clenched, and the entire wall seemed to come alive, vines whipping to lash Simon against it, sword and all. He
