“Harriet?” Kasper asked, hands gently touching her sides, testing to see if she was really there.
“I’m here,” she gasped.
“Your power!” He belatedly realized what was happening, and tried to kiss her. He missed, smashing his lips into her invisible cheekbone. “Wow, Harriet! Congratulations!”
“Thanks.”
He let out a chuckle. “I feel like I’m getting to know the real you, at last,” he said blissfully.
Harriet nodded, unnecessarily hiding a wince. She wasn’t even sure who the real her was, it was so far buried beneath fabrications and stolen personality traits.
She felt numb. This wasn’t what she wanted. What use was invisibility? She was going to have to try again, with another Shell. Immediately.
The energy in her veins insisted that she keep trying. She had to grow stronger. Right now, everything was spinning out of control.
Chapter 10
RIMA
The first thing Rima did when she woke was slide out from underneath a snoring Leah, who had fallen asleep with her head on Rima’s stomach. Then she went to find Harriet. While she searched for her, Rima carefully ran over exactly what she wanted to say – for the third time. She’d been planning this conversation ever since Felix had started crying in her arms.
Rima hated telling people off. She really, truly hated it. But the look on Felix’s face when Harriet had kissed Kasper had destroyed Rima. He’d grimaced as if his heart had crumbled into ash. Harriet had known how Felix felt, and she’d done it anyway.
Harriet wasn’t in Kasper’s room, or in the corridor. She wasn’t in the foyer, where her corpse was starting to smell. Rima was walking back up to the fourth floor, wondering if she’d somehow missed Harriet dozing somewhere, when she ran into her on the stairs.
“Harriet!”
Harriet looked up, startled. Her face cleared when she saw Rima. “Oh. Hey.”
Rima was about to launch straight into gently berating her, but Harriet was barely recognizable.
“Your hair has gone white! What…?”
“It has?” Harriet touched her head.
“It looks like—” Rima cut herself off. “You look like the Tricksters,” she said dully.
She’d thought the Tricksters had white hair because they were ancient ghosts, losing their colour as they slowly drifted further away from their humanity. But Harriet had only been dead for a few days. Why was her hair so unnaturally white?
“Huh.” Harriet brushed it back over her shoulders. “Weird. Maybe I’m their long-lost sister!” she joked.
Rima tilted her head. “I did hear a rumour that they used to have a brother, actually. He was apparently the worst of them all.” Leah had said that he used to poison people, but Rima didn’t know whether she had just been teasing her for believing idle gossip.
“Oh?” Harriet said, but she clearly wasn’t interested. She was inspecting a strand of her snow-white hair.
“Are you OK?” Rima asked, concerned. Harriet was glowing almost golden with excess energy, pupils blown wide with the buzz. “You’re all – blurry. Energy is pouring off you.”
Harriet looked down at herself, brushing her hands over her thighs like she was trying to wipe the energy away. “I found a dead rat in the hallway. No one had got to the spirit yet. No big deal.”
“No, it’s something else…” Rima squinted at her. Her arm kept slipping in and out of vision. “Harriet! You found your power!”
A look of surprise crossed Harriet’s face. When she saw that Rima was pointing at her arm, the excitement changed into something like disappointment. “Oh. Yeah.”
Rima wanted to dance. It had been heartbreaking to watch Harriet’s panicked attempts to work out her power. “I’m so glad!”
She grabbed Harriet’s arm, amazed that it was totally firm and yet completely invisible. “Can you do your whole body? Can you make other people invisible too? Do you still have a shadow? Do—”
Harriet was looking past Rima, like she had somewhere important to be and couldn’t wait any longer. Rima cut herself off. Was Harriet only listening to her to be polite? “Are you…? Do you need to…?”
Harriet’s eyes flicked back to hers. “No, sorry. I’m listening.”
“Right. Anyway…” Rima swallowed. It was probably time. “I wanted to talk to you about something important.” She cleared her throat. Her mind had gone completely blank as a wave of heat washed over her. “About last night. It wasn’t fair to kiss Kasper in front of Felix like that.”
Harriet’s forehead furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You knew that he liked him,” she said, annoyed at how small her voice came out. She rubbed her fingers over the ends of her sleeves, pulling them down over her knuckles. “Felix was really upset when you two went off together. He cried, Harriet.”
Instead of apologizing, Harriet rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I’m stealing Kasper away from him. Hasn’t he ever heard of a one-night stand?”
“One-night…?” Rima repeated, slightly squeakily. “You mean you don’t even like Kasper? And you did it in front of Felix? Harriet, that’s not how you treat your friends! That’s—”
“Oh, bugger off, Rima. I literally could not care less about this petty playground gossip stuff. I’ve got more important things to worry about than some weirdo’s hurt feelings.”
Rima flinched as if she’d been slapped, ice spreading through her stomach. She’d thought that Harriet liked them. But all this time she thought they were weirdos?
“Right.” Rima looked down at the concrete steps. Her vision was blurry, and she blinked rapidly. She couldn’t cry, not in front of Harriet. “I should, er…”
She was turning away, wiping her eyes, when she registered the sirens. There was an insistent electronic horn outside, getting louder and louder.
Behind her, Harriet gasped. “They’ve found me.” The scorn had disappeared from her voice, replaced with pure, unfiltered excitement. “They’ve come for me!”
Rima let out an exclamation of surprise, but Harriet was already running, crashing her way down three flights of stairs to the foyer.
Rima swallowed down her hurt. There would be time for Harriet to apologize later. For now, her corpse was more important than
