The Dark Glamour (11 page)

They know I’m a witch
. The elevator doors slid open, and André propelled her out to the street, his face a mask of fury.
He knows I’m a witch.

It’s over.

Chapter Seventeen

J
ane opened her eyes and glanced over toward the front door of her suite. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that her barricade was still in place: a taupe couch stood on its end behind a walnut hutch, two armchairs, and a rolltop writing desk. The pileup had been a compromise of sorts: her initial instinct had been to flee the hotel, the Dorans, and her assumed identity, and never look back. But although the cab ride back to the hotel with André had been strained, to say the least, he had spent most of it trying to pretend that things were normal.

“Those parties are
so
dull,” he had declared in a lousy imitation of a casual tone.

Jane had nodded along, her mind racing. He knew she was a witch, and the information had clearly rattled him. But he seemed determined not to show it. He had even kissed her good-night in the elevator—a long, slow, deep kiss that sent two completely different sets of shivers down her spine and into her legs. She had ridden the last two floors alone, breathing as hard as if she had just sprinted a mile. By the time she had stumbled into her suite, she had decided to wait and see . . . behind a well-reinforced door.

A soft tapping came from the other side, and Jane realized that it was the sound that had woken her up. “Housekeeping,” a tentative voice warbled from the hallway.

Jane popped out of bed, on the alert and ready to read the mind outside the door.
Although it’s not like I could let her in, anyway,
she realized quickly, and rolled her eyes at herself. The barricade might realistically gain her a moment or two if angry witches were at the door, but for anyone else it was just an inconvenience. “Come back in an hour, please,” she called through the door, and heard a shifting noise as the woman moved along down the hall.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jane saw movement in the bathroom, and she flattened herself against the wall beside the door. It had been a person, she was sure: tall, with shoulder-length dark hair.
Like me,
her brain supplied.
Now, anyway.
She sighed heavily; she had gotten so used to the sight of her new face in the mirror that it didn’t usually startle her anymore.
Will I jump at first when I see the old Jane again?
she wondered sadly, peering around the doorframe into the bathroom just to be completely sure there was no one there. Ella’s dark, almond-shaped eyes blinked back at her, and she straightened and returned her attention to her makeshift barricade.

“All right,” she murmured to herself, eyeing the taupe couch resentfully. “You first.”

It took much longer to put her sitting room back in order than it had to demolish it. Jane felt sweaty and disheveled by the time she had finished, but with the door unblocked, she felt perversely unwilling to turn her back on it long enough to take a shower.
I’m losing it,
she decided, but after the previous night’s drama it was hard to get her thoughts in order.
But if that’s what it takes to relax long enough to brush my teeth . . .

Something rustled just on the other side of the door, and Jane jumped in the air, stifling a scream. But instead of the wood splintering to reveal a horde of angry witches, a thick ivory card slid anticlimactically under the door of her suite. She clenched her hands into fists, focusing on her breath until her heart stopped racing. Finally, she crouched and scooped up the card, fumbling until it was out of its envelope and right side up. It was unmistakably Lynne Doran’s stationery, but it took Jane a moment to make sense of its contents. Instead of the handwritten notes she had grown used to at the mansion, this was a printed invitation.
I guess that’s a message all on its own,
she thought, tracing the slightly raised lettering. Lynne had invited Ella to a cocktail party the following Friday . . . at 665 Park Avenue.

“I’m in,” she whispered. “How the hell am I in?”

She paced the hall, her bare feet padding on the plush runner. André had clearly intended to bring Ella to the party as titled and tabloided arm candy to impress the Dorans—a tactic Lynne had apparently seen through. Once Jane arrived, though, someone on André’s side—maybe the “battle-ax” sister that Laura Helding complained about—had pegged Jane as a witch. The Dalcascus couldn’t have known at first whether Ella was a Doran spy or a free agent with an agenda, but they had obviously realized quickly that it had been a mistake to allow her anywhere near the pending “merger.” But it had gotten completely out of their control, Jane realized thoughtfully, right around the time that she had obliquely mentioned Malcolm to Lynne. Lynne’s interest made Ella too valuable to attack or even just cut off. André would have to keep her close now . . . and his family would be waiting for any chance to turn the tables on her. This wasn’t the time to give up on her disguise; it was the time to work it for all she was worth.

She had to be Ella—and only Ella—for a little over a week, and then she would be in the mansion and on to the next step in her search for Annette.

J
ane stepped into the dim, sticky-floored bar where she was supposed to be meeting Dee. Jane would be heading into the lion’s den tomorrow night, and Dee had agreed to collect the locator spell that Jane would need from Misty and then meet her at a bar near their apartment to explain it to Jane.
Just like the old days,
Jane told herself, recalling all the times the two of them had met secretly to work on Jane’s magic, although somehow she didn’t quite feel it.

She peered around the dark space doubtfully. The slim triangle of a familiar torso caught her eye almost immediately. “Harris,” she blurted out, trying to keep her face as cheerful as possible.
This is her version of being extra-discreet?

Harris turned and stood, smiling politely, and waited for Jane to sit before he returned to his own stool. “Hi there, Ella,” his cool voice rippled. “Hope you don’t mind me tagging along on girls’ night.” He smiled a little more broadly this time, and Jane felt the corners of her own mouth tugging their way up, but inside she was furious. Dee clearly hadn’t spilled her secret, but to Jane’s whirling mind that made it even worse that she had brought a date.

Hanging around with Ella Medieros right now is nearly as risky as being friends with Jane Boyle was,
she thought uncomfortably. Harris’s sister, Maeve, had been run down by a taxi for the heinous crime of trying to help Jane, and her recovery had been slow and painful. Yuri had tried to kill Dee in the alley behind her apartment, and Lynne had even brutally beaten her own son when she found out that he had changed sides. Jane had felt awful, even though all three of them had known about the danger . . . and Harris wasn’t able to make the same kind of informed decision at the moment.

“Hi,” Jane replied awkwardly. She tried to shoot a meaningful glare at Dee, but try as she might, she couldn’t seem to catch her friend’s eye. Instead, Dee, radiant in a red cowl-necked sweater that was more stylish than anything Jane had ever seen her wear, laughed at Harris’s jokes, invented completely unnecessary reasons to touch him, and flipped her tangle of black hair over her shoulder at every opportunity. She must not even know how dangerous it had been to bring him to their meeting, Jane realized sadly as she watched Dee gaze longingly after Harris when he shoved his way to the bar to get them a round of drinks.
That right there is the face of a serious crush, and crushes make people careless.

There was probably a message in there somewhere about her and André. She had been a little nervous about seeing him after their hasty exit from the rooftop party, but, if anything, the new tension between them improved their already sparkling chemistry. It was as if they had a shared secret now—one they were keeping from each other. It was an unconventional basis for a relationship, but since they spent most of their time in bed anyway, Jane didn’t much care about the basis of anything. The thought was interrupted when Dee suddenly leaned forward and pressed a crumpled baggie into Jane’s hand.

“The spell is really easy,” Dee rushed hoarsely, pushing back her thick hair in an entirely different manner from when Harris was still at the table. “Just mix all of these together, picture her while saying her name seven times—before or grown-up, it doesn’t matter—and then spread the powder on your lids like eye shadow. There’s enough here for an hour.”

“Eye shadow?” Jane asked blankly.

“It should wind up sort of gold,” Dee assured her. “Not great for you, but definitely plausible. Just keep it in mind when you pick your outfit.”

“Thanks,” Jane said numbly, leaning down precariously to shove the baggie into her purse.
Apparently, Dee isn’t so much “careless” as she is “a much ballsier undercover agent than me.”

An AC/DC song began to play a little too loudly on the jukebox. Harris returned with a Manhattan and two bottles of Brooklyn Brown Ale. “So, Ella. Dee says you’ve been working around the clock lately. Between that and the fact that trying to pry her away from her new job is like trying to shove a cat into a kitchen sink, I barely see either of you anymore. Tell me honestly: is it me?”

His green eyes were mischievous, but his smile was cool and sweet, and Jane took it in like oxygen. “I can see why you’d be worried,” she told him playfully, “but Dee’s been completely ignoring me, too. I’ve been so neglected that it’s driven me to work overtime; can you imagine?” In the back of her mind, she wondered what Ella’s job was supposed to be—had Dee already made something up?
This is why you don’t bring plus-ones,
she decided. First André and now Dee had demonstrated vividly why it was a bad idea.

But Jane had been taking plenty of risks of her own, and her relief at being among her real friends again was so soothing that she had a hard time being too upset about Harris’s presence. She didn’t even really mind when Dee began rhapsodizing about the perfection that was Kate’s consommés.
Ella’s life may be fabulous, but Jane’s doesn’t suck, either,
she reminded herself wistfully. She felt an overwhelming longing to be herself again, but thought instead of the invitation on her rolltop hotel desk and the spell in her purse. It wouldn’t be long now.

“Dee said your sister was in some kind of accident last month,” Jane blurted out, ignoring Dee’s wide-eyed glare of protest. “I hope she’s feeling better now.”

Harris’s face warmed perceptibly. “That’s very thoughtful,” he told her, and Jane felt her body lean a few millimeters closer to his. “The physical therapist just signed off on less frequent sessions, which she’s thrilled about. But our parents are still freaked about the whole thing, so she’s been staying with Grandma and Aunt Charlotte upstate, and they’re driving her crazy. She can’t wait to get back to city life again.”

He smiled, and Jane smiled back. Belatedly, Harris turned to include Dee in the moment, and Jane looked quickly down at her drink. After a pause, Dee began chatting rapidly about vol-au-vents, and Jane risked looking back over to see if Harris was following along. He had been looking at her as well, and their eyes locked for a strange, happy moment before Jane looked quickly away again. “So, Ella,” Dee asked levelly, “how are things going with that handsome Romanian of yours?”

Jane blushed, but knew that between her walnut skin and the dim lighting, no one would be able to tell. She focused on keeping her voice level. “I wouldn’t exactly call him ‘mine,’ ” she demurred. But there was no point in denying what she had already manipulated the gossip columns into writing about. Harris’s family occasionally featured in the same ones.
He might well have heard about “us,” and if not, then at least he can help spread the rumor,
she argued to herself, but there was something about this particular lie that made her even more reluctant to tell it.
I don’t like using Harris,
she told herself, but that wasn’t quite it, or at least not quite all of it. “Things with André are going great,” she said firmly, watching her knuckles go white around the stem of her glass. She might not like it, but she only had one chance to get it right. “I’ve never met his sister, though, and apparently the Dalcascus are pretty close, so that might be a problem.”

She flicked her eyes nervously at Harris, and was surprised to see him rigid on his stool, his face even paler than usual under its light dusting of freckles.
He can’t be jealous,
Jane chided herself.
Can he?
“Dee didn’t tell me you were seeing
that
André,” he said finally, his voice quiet and strained.

“You know him?” Jane asked, nonplussed. He might, she guessed: all the surviving magical families seemed to at least know
of
one another. And he had certainly known (and disliked) Malcolm well before Jane had ever come into the picture. It seemed a bit too coincidental that he would have an ugly history with both of the two men that Jane had shown an interest in since they had met, but Jane reminded herself that she quite obviously had questionable taste in men.

“Only by reputation,” Harris answered, clipping off each word with a tensed jaw that Jane could see even in the low light. “It’s none of my business, but if you don’t mind some unsolicited advice . . .”

“Not at all,” Jane encouraged him. “I’d like for the relationship to go well,” she added, hating that keeping up her cover made Harris’s mouth set into such a cold, tight line.

He hesitated, and Dee looked around as if she were trying to find a way out of the conversation that she had started, but finally Harris found his voice again. “His family comes first,” he told Jane with conviction, “especially that sister, Katrin. She practically raised him, and according to my aunt, they almost seem to share a brain. He won’t ever, ever go against her wishes, so if she doesn’t approve of you—and she doesn’t like most people, by the way—you probably shouldn’t get too attached. He’ll let you down.”

“Sisters are important,” Dee offered softly.

Jane thought about Annette, Katrin, and Maeve, and the way Dee had become almost like a sister to her, even if their bond had gotten strange lately.