I run my thumbs over the backs of his hands, hoping to transfer some warmth from my skin to his. To give back some of the life that his grandfather just stole.
“None of this is your fault,” I say. “It never has been and it never will be.”
Stephen falls silent. I keep his hands in mine but look at Millie.
“Is it him? Is it Arbus?”
“Those curses,” she says slowly, sinking into a chair, “are a few of Maxwell’s signatures.”
“And was it—” I turn to Saul, not sure if I should ask the question I’m considering, but find that his hulking shape is already disappearing up the stairwell. Anger spent, he’d apparently had enough of us. Or perhaps the hexatorium had filled with too many painful memories for him to abide.
With Saul out of earshot, I finish my thought. “Maxwell Arbus is the reason Saul lost an eye?”
“Yes,” Millie answers stiffly. “But that was a long time ago. Saul has moved on. So have I.”
Whatever checks I’d held on my emotions shatter.
“Moved on?!” Whirling around, I storm at Millie, waving my arms like a maniacal marionette. “I don’t care if it was so long ago we could only get there with a TARDIS! There is no moving on because it’s happening right now!”
Millie scampers from her chair, putting more distance between us. I continue to advance on her.
“Don’t you see!” Grabbing a book off the shelf, I shake a cloud of dust from its pages. “These aren’t helping. I can’t be a student in your school when Central Park has become a war zone. I won’t keep hiding here with you. We have to do something!”
I’ve badgered the little woman across the room to the point where she’s quailing against the far wall.
“Elizabeth.” Stephen’s voice is quiet, but right behind me. The bubble of my outburst pops.
I look at Millie’s hunched body, her wide, fearful eyes, and I’m ashamed.
Taking several steps back, I don’t look at her when I say, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have . . .”
“We’re all afraid.” Stephen’s words fill the void. The truth in them makes me feel very small.
The soft shuffle of Millie’s house slippers on the wood floor alerts me that she’s approaching. I’m frozen in place, not knowing whether to cry, pretend I’m okay, or ask for a hug.
Millie clasps my elbow, her palm powdery against my skin. She’s recovered her dignity, and offers a wistful smile.
“I’ve only seen that kind of spitfire a few times in my life.” She points to her mouth. “And it was spewing from these lips.”
With a bit of disbelief, I try to smile back at her.
“While I don’t appreciate being screamed at by a banshee,” Millie continues, “it’s time for me to admit that you’re right. We can’t wait while Arbus spreads his disease through this city. To do so would be to fail in our duty as spellseekers.”
“To eradicate the malicious?” My smile grows bolder.
She beams and I can see a young woman beneath the layers of age. A woman full of force and fight.
I’m ready to grasp the branch of hope she’s offered when we both jump, startled by the rumbling and screeching one floor up. The sound moves, heavy groans marked by sharp whines, like something unwieldy is being dragged across the comic book shop.
Millie starts for the stairs, but without explanation Stephen begins to run. I hurry after him. He’s taking the steps three at a time. I’m halfway up and Millie’s at the bottom of the staircase when Stephen tries to open the door to the shop. He turns the knob, pushing the door, which opens out, and it moves less than an inch. He shoves the door again. It doesn’t open.
“Saul!” Stephen shouts. “Open the door! Saul!”
No answer.
I stare at Stephen and the unopenable door. “He trapped us here?”
Stephen clenches his jaw and throws his shoulder into the door.
“What the hell is he doing?” The door rattles in its frame as Stephen wrestles with it in vain. To Millie it probably looks like a restless spirit is banging around in the stairwell, desperate for attention from the living.
Millie is winded when she reaches the landing. She looks at the door, then closes her eyes.
“No,” she whispers, folding her hands before her face as if in prayer.
Exasperated, Stephen gives up on the door and turns to her. Even though she can’t see how insistent his blue eyes are when they fix on her, I’m sure she can feel their intensity.
“Why did he leave us here?” Stephen demands.
Tight-lipped, Millie shakes her head. Her hands tremble and stones fill my belly when I see tears brim in her eyes.
Stephen continues to glare at her, but I hold up a hand, warding off any further interrogation.
In a voice so gentle I barely recognize it as my own, I say, “Millie, where did Saul go?”
“He’s going after Arbus,” Millie whispered.
The anger in Stephen’s voice is replace by shock. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she answers. She tilts as if her legs are about to give out and I jump forward, catching her around the waist so she can lean on me.
“Why?” I ask her.
Millie begins to cry, but I can make out words through the tangle of grief. “Because Saul knows Maxwell Arbus won’t leave New York without trying to kill me. And this time he’ll succeed.”
Chapter 25
“I’ve been so foolish,” Millie says. “So very foolish.”
I’ve stopped pummeling the door and am now feeling through the small opening I’ve created, to figure out what’s preventing the door from opening farther. Meanwhile, Elizabeth has guided Millie to sit down next to her on the stairs.
“Why have you been foolish?” Elizabeth asks.
“Saul told me this would happen. The moment you left, that first day, he said to leave it alone. He knew you’d bring Arbus here, one way or the other.”
“But why would Arbus want to kill you?”
“Because I am a spellseeker. Because I am one of the last. Because many years ago, our paths crossed.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this up front?” Elizabeth is incensed. “You lied to us.”
Millie sits up straight. “I don’t think you should be the one teaching the lesson on lying, young lady.”