Once We Were

before. Suffocating, like a padded room meant to keep us safe against our will.

Josie came early in the morning, so soon after Emalia left for work that I wondered if she’d been watching and waiting. Kitty, who was still eating breakfast, could barely take her eyes off her. Josie flashed her a smile before joining Addie and me on the couch.

It was a relief to see her again, to hear more about what was happening in the outside world. After two weeks, the matter appeared mostly forgotten by the media. In Lupside, information about the museum flooding had circulated on the news for weeks.

Josie smiled wryly when I mentioned this. “Lupside’s a small town, isn’t it? Cities are different. And in the Bessimir case, they probably knew exactly who they were going to frame. They could afford to make a big deal about it—drag it on so the punch line comes so much stronger. Here, the government doesn’t want to kick up too much of a fuss yet. Means they don’t have any idea who did it.”

<What if they just frame somebody?> Addie said, and I repeated her question aloud.

“They won’t,” Josie assured us. As she spoke, she took a pen from her pocket and began writing something on her palm. “If you frame somebody, and the real people responsible just do something else, it makes you look stupid.”

“Well, that’s good.” I said. Our chest tightened. I’d known that Lankster Square was only step one of a larger plan. But not seeing Josie for so long had made me doubt a little, made me wonder if she’d been frightened off.

Apparently not.

Kitty was listening to everything we said, so we had to be careful how we phrased things. Talking about the incident at Lankster Square was perfectly normal—expected, even. But we couldn’t say anything to suggest we’d been there, let alone involved in any way.

Josie tilted her palm toward us. I stared at the small, neat black letters.

Meeting on Thursday. 5PM.

She smiled, waiting for my answer. I swallowed. I remembered the crush and squeeze of the crowd, the shouting lancing through our brain, the poster of Jaime taped to the shop window.

I thought about the last two weeks, cooped up in Emalia’s apartment again, like little kids in a playpen, expected to be oblivious.

I thought about what Peter had said, how he wanted to send us away. He would try to do it, sooner or later. Sooner, if Powatt was allowed to open. And then what? Addie and I would be stuck with strangers in the middle of God knows where. Going to school. Doing homework. Pretending to be normal. To be like everyone else. Helpless to change anything.

It had taken Sabine and Josie five years to get to this point, to actually try to make a difference. I couldn’t stand waiting another five years. I wanted things to change. Now.

I met Josie’s eyes.

I didn’t ask Addie for her opinion.

I just nodded.

SIXTEEN

Hally paced back and forth around her room, her gaze never leaving us. “You want to go back?”

I’d told her and Devon about Josie’s visit. Devon, as usual, took the news without much reaction. I’d expected Hally to be resistant—she’d made it clear over the past couple weeks that she hadn’t signed up for what had happened at Lankster Square. And I understood. I did. But her level of incredulity stung me.

Addie was no help. She’d stayed silent since I nodded at Josie, told her we would be at the attic for the next meeting. I couldn’t read her.

I bit back the explanation I’d planned—about how maybe we’d gone about Lankster Square all wrong, but that didn’t mean we should give up entirely. I still believed in Sabine’s plans. And the fact remained that the Powatt institution couldn’t be allowed to open.

“I need to go to see Cordelia,” I said instead. It wasn’t entirely a lie, but it tasted like a lie, felt slippery like a lie. “I was there when—I was there when she got hurt. It was my fault. I’ve got to go see her again.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Hally said immediately, but she didn’t say anything else, just frowned and pressed her fist against her mouth. She looked toward Devon. Devon shrugged.

“Fine,” she said finally. Her arms were crossed low over her body, not like she was angry, but like she was trying to protect herself. Lissa and Hally dressed differently now. I remembered the clothes that hung in their closet back home, the wild patterns and bright colors. Today, she wore a white blouse and black skirt, her long hair loosely braided back, her ears bare. It made her look stark. Severe.

“Will you come with us?” I said.

Hally’s eyes stayed locked with ours. She shook her head.

I bit our lip. “Okay.”

“I will,” Devon said.

Addie and I were tense the entire walk to the photography store, recoiling when someone came too close, flinching when people shouted behind us. A passing police car, though nothing out of the ordinary, made our legs stiffen. I didn’t know where to direct our eyes.

To my surprise, the sign on the storefront said Open when we arrived, and Cordelia was behind the counter. She flipped the Open sign to Closed after letting us in.

I found myself searching her for signs of injury. There was a small, mostly healed cut near her temple, but that was all I could see. Any other cuts or bruises had already healed or were hidden by her clothes. She’d tamed her pale-yellow hair into a short ponytail at the nape of her neck.

I tried to smile. “Sabine said you were feeling better, but I didn’t realize you were working again.”

Cordelia shrugged. She wasn’t meeting our eyes, didn’t reach for us or touch our arm like she usually did. Cordelia always seemed to crave human contact, but she kept her distance, now. “Got to keep the clients we have. Sadly enough, haven’t found someone to pay me for lying around in bed yet.”

<We should apologize> I said quietly. But I wasn’t sure which words to use, how to phrase it.

I’m sorry I freaked out and you couldn’t leave me behind? I’m sorry I should have warned you I hate crowds?

I’m sorry you could have been caught, or even died, and it was my fault.

“Don’t worry about it,” Cordelia said, as if she could read my mind. Now, finally, she met our gaze. “I’m feeling fine. Gone through worse.”

“I’m sorry—” I started to say, but she cut me off with a faint smile.

“Really, Eva, it’s fine. Had a nasty bruise for a while, and I think Sabine got some kind of sadistic pleasure out of drugging me out of my mind, but I’m right as rain now.”

I almost thought we might be talking with Katy, who was usually less effusive. But Katy had a way of walking and talking like her head was just brushing against the clouds, and the girl who led Devon and us to the storage room was very much present and focused—just focused on something that wasn’t us.

“There you are,” Sabine said as we climbed up into the attic. She, at least, didn’t look or act any differently than usual. Her steadiness was comforting. Vince and Christoph were already there, reclined on the sofas.

Devon’s eyes were strangely unfocused. He caught me watching him and shook from his trance. Not for the first time, I wondered what he and Ryan were talking about.

“What did you call us here for?” Devon’s voice wasn’t loud, but it silenced all the others. Eyes roamed the room, moving from one person to another. Eventually, we all turned to Sabine.

“Your sister didn’t come,” she said. The sentence seemed more observation than question, and Devon didn’t