“Sometimes, we must choose immediately unpleasant things in order to prevent greater unpleasantness,” he said flatly. Joy bristled. Ink barely noticed. “It is nothing personal,” he added. It sounded as if he regretted the situation far more than Joy.
“See?” Inq said, smiling. “One big happy. We can work together, right?”
Joy dropped her eyes, massaging her palm with her thumb. Pretend to be a pseudo–sex slave for a supernatural freak or end up either blind or dead. Was this a choice? Her maimed eye split the light—Flash! Flash! She sighed.
“So what do I have to do?”
Inq patted her arm. Joy tried not to shrink from her touch. “We’re not certain yet,” Inq said. “While we figure it out, Ink will bring you along with him sometimes so that you can be seen in his company. Try to appear...together.” Joy couldn’t help glancing at Ink. He stared pointedly at the fridge. “It’s just for a little while,” Inq soothed. “Keep quiet, act natural and, after a time, the novelty will fade and no one will question why you are no longer with us.”
An unsettling chill crept up Joy’s spine. She didn’t like the way Inq said that last part. Was that a threat? And, if it was, what could she do about it?
A parental voice whispered in the back of her mind, If you can’t be a yes-man, be indispensable!
“I’m sure I could do something useful,” Joy said quickly. “I could help. I could learn.”
“You cannot even take a message,” Ink muttered.
“That’s unfair,” Inq said, stepping closer to Joy. “She had no idea what the messages were, nor for whom. She was frightened, poor girl.” Inq petted Joy’s hair. Joy stood very, very still. Inq played with a curl. “Something unfortunate might have happened,” she cooed.
“Is that what happened to the policeman?” Joy asked, sliding from under Inq’s hand.
Ink sighed. “Who?”
“Officer Castrodad,” Joy said. “Gabriel Castrodad? He went to Grandview Park after the glowing girls left.”
Ink glanced at Inq. “‘Glowing girls’?”
His sister coughed, attempting to smother giggles, but soon erupted in rich belly laughter. “The guilderdamen!” she crowed. “Glowing girls—hahaha!” Inq clapped her hands together, delighted. “Oh, this will be fun! I’m tempted to steal you away from my brother just for that!” Inq laughed harder. Joy cringed. Ink grinned without humor.
“Ah, the witness,” Ink said. “There was a man who was meant to see the Rising. I was supposed to mark him as theirs, a witness to their majesty.” He cocked his head, a gesture similar to Inq’s. “But since I was not present to mark him at the manifestation of the guilderdamen, I suspect he went mad.” Ink spoke with a hint of accusation. “They are an awesome and fearsome thing to behold, naked in their glory.”
Joy shook her head, guilt and fear constricting her throat. “But...he wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t told him where it was happening!” she insisted. “They couldn’t have chosen him before he even knew about it. That doesn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps so, perhaps not,” Inq said. “Fate’s a fickle thing.”
“It wasn’t fate,” Joy said hotly. “It was you!”
Inq pouted. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
Joy shuddered very slightly, containing her temper. “None of this makes any sense,” she whispered. She shook her head and tried to think. “Look, there was a note in my locker, an envelope from some guy and two texts,” she said to Ink. “They were for you.”
“Do you still have them?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted. “But...there may be more on my computer. I can go check. In my room.” The idea of getting to her bedroom held the promise of shutting and locking the door and never coming out.
“Do you remember what the notes said?” Ink asked, sounding exasperated.
“Some of it,” Joy said while inching her way past the counter. “Hang on.”
Snippets of an escape plan flashed through her head. Joy eased her way between Ink and Inq, glancing at the foyer and considering sprinting for the door. If she could turn the knob fast enough, open the door and scream...
The alarm beeped. The locks unlocked. And the doorknob twisted with a familiar rattle of keys.
Joy whipped around. The microwave clock glowed 9:51. The kitchen was empty. Ink and Inq had disappeared.
Her father wandered in looking ragged and worn.
“Hey,” he said, sighing.
Joy slammed into his arms.
“Dad,” she breathed gratefully into his coat.
He chuckled, caught off guard. “Well, hello to you, too.” Her dad gave her a quick squeeze and patted her arm. “Mind telling me why our broom is in the hall?”
CHAPTER FIVE
JOY COULDN’T TELL Dad or Stefan or Monica. She didn’t want any of them thinking that she was crazy, and she really didn’t want any of them ending up like Officer Gabriel Castrodad. She had to keep quiet. Act natural. Keep everyone safe. She was almost grateful that everyone else was too preoccupied with their own lives to notice anything wrong with hers.
Almost.
She felt eyes on her during the bus ride to school—kids turning to look at her just as she was looking at them. She glanced away quickly. Joy wondered if people always did that? She’d never noticed it before. Then again, it hadn’t creeped her out before.
Could they see that her world had changed? Could they read it in her eyes?
Flash! Flash!
Joy hunched down in her seat and willed herself smaller.
Ink’s people, whoever they were, knew where she went to school, where she lived, her locker, her phone number... What else? She was grateful that she’d listened to Monica and been extra careful with her online profile, but who knew where or when the next note would appear? She’d buried her phone in the bottom of her book bag and stuffed it beneath her seat. Pushing her hands in her pockets, she kept her back to the window and concentrated on the floor.
Joy tried thinking about ways that she could make herself indispensable and yet stay as far away from the Scribes as possible. She figured any information she got she would hand over to Ink and then walk away, job done. Stay silent. Not one word. If they could keep things just business for a little while, then, Inq had said, the scrutiny would eventually go away. It grated on her that she had become some sort of secretary for the weird, but she could do that if it kept her family and friends safe. Be indispensable from a distance. She could do that.
But she walked into school with a head full of worry about Stef and Dad and news blurbs and glowing girls and inky, all-black eyes.
“Hey.”
Joy jumped. Her shoulder bounced off her locker door. Monica frowned.
“Try decaf,” Monica suggested as Joy dug inside her locker. “What happened to your neck?”
Joy touched the redness at her throat and gave the same answer she’d given Dad: “Fashion accident.” She shut the metal door.
“Touchy,” her friend said.
“Sorry,” Joy apologized. “Really bad night.”
“It’s more than that,” Monica said.
Joy nodded, having a preplanned explanation handy. “Dad started dating somebody,” she said as they began walking. At