I stop what I’m doing and study their faces. Both stubborn. Both angry. Both guilty.
“What’s going on?” I ask. I can’t get more specific than that, because I’m not the one in the room with access to the specifics.
“Tell us what happened,” Elizabeth says to Millie, as if my question hadn’t applied to her.
Millie sighs. “It was twenty years ago. I had a modest spellseeking practice. Private clients. Nothing advertised—everything by referral. It wasn’t much, but it paid the bills. And I felt I was doing a service. Strictly diagnostic, but you’d be surprised how much that meant to people. To know it wasn’t their fault. To know they weren’t crazy.
“I’d had some encounters with cursecasters—in a city this big, that’s inevitable. If they don’t live here, they’re always passing through. But it was rare for me to encounter them face-to-face. Mostly, I knew them through their work.
“All of a sudden, these intricate curses began to appear. I didn’t know what to make of them. I had heard of Arbus’s curse patterns, but I’d never seen them myself.”
“Who’d told you about him?” I asked.
“Other spellseekers. Dead now.” Millie shakes her head. “There once was a network. Now there are only outposts. It used to be, if someone like Arbus showed up, there would be a dozen people to call. Now I don’t know what to do.”
“So what happened after you started to see people with his curses?” Elizabeth asks, trying to get Millie back on track.
“I did the best I could. I couldn’t make sense of some of them. And others scared me deeply. I started wandering the streets, looking for traces of him. I was so naive—not young anymore, but still naive. I didn’t realize that he was after us. He wanted to destroy all spellseekers, so cursecasters could reign unhindered.”
“But how did he know you were a spellseeker?”
“I imagine he used a lure. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. A caster curses someone, knowing he will run to the nearest spellseeker. Then once the cursed individual discovers that the spellseeker cannot in fact cure him of the curse, the cursecaster returns, offering to end the curse in return for information. Who could resist such an offer?”
“So someone ratted you out,” Elizabeth says.
“I have to imagine so. Or maybe Arbus sensed me—I have no way of knowing for sure. I often wondered what brought him to New York, but now I imagine he was looking for your mother, Stephen. I’d like to think that it wasn’t entirely random.”
“So what happened?” I ask. “Did he track you down?”
Tears start to form again in Millie’s eyes as she remembers.
“It was an ambush. I was just locking up for the night. It was late, and I wasn’t paying attention. So it was as if he just appeared there, out of the air. He didn’t say a word, but I knew who he was. I tried to shout for help, but his hand was too fast—he went right for my windpipe. I dropped my keys, kicked with all I had. And Saul—somehow Saul knew something was wrong. Just as I was about to black out, he came in and saved me, at a great cost to himself. It caused such a commotion that other people came running too. Arbus tried to curse them away, one by one, but he could only handle so many people at one time. So he fled. And I lived. But he’s not the kind of man to forget his unfinished business, is he? The only way to rid yourself of a spellseeker is to kill her. I’m sure Arbus knows that.”
* * *
I look at Elizabeth, to see if this registers. I look at Elizabeth, expecting her to crack, if only a hairline. I want her to feel the fear I am feeling.
But if Millie’s a wreck and I’m afraid, Elizabeth keeps a look of calm determination. She is taking everything in, but it is not disturbing her. It is only information. It is not a death threat, because she won’t let it be one.
I wish I knew why.
* * *
“Any luck with the door?” she asks.
I’ve forgotten completely about the door.
“Here,” she says, standing up. “My arms are thinner. Let me try.”
She presses against the door and reaches around.
“It looks like he put all the furniture in the room against it,” she reports. Then she takes out her phone. “I’m calling for backup.”
* * *
It takes Laurie about twenty minutes to get there, and another ten minutes for him to push away enough of the furniture to clear us out.
While we wait for this to be done, I try to get more out of Millie.
“Is there any way he can be stopped?” I ask her. “I mean, what is Saul trying to do right now?”
“I don’t know what Saul thinks he can do. He’s not a murderer. None of us are murderers. But that’s what it would take. Cursecasters are humans just like the rest of us. Stab them and they will bleed. You just have to get to them first. Catch them unaware. Which is an extremely hard thing to do.”
“But it can be done,” Elizabeth says. I hadn’t even realized she was listening to our conversation.
“Yes,” Millie says. “It can be done.”
This fact doesn’t seem very encouraging to her. She says the words, but her tone is laced with doubt.
* * *
“Almost there!” Laurie calls out.
I move close to Elizabeth, so Millie won’t hear.
“Let’s go home after this,” I say. “Or let’s go with Laurie to a movie. Something normal.”
Elizabeth pulls away from me. Not dramatically, but enough that I notice.
“Arbus is out there,” she says. “Saul is out there. I need to help Millie find them. I know you can’t, but I can. It’s what I have to do.”
There’s no discussion in her voice, no desire for my opinion.
This is bigger than the two of you, I remind myself.
But I don’t want it to be. I want to narrow the world back down to the two of us, just for a little while. I want her to be able to retreat into me, and I want to be able to retreat into her.
When Laurie breaks through, Elizabeth gives him a big hug, even though he’s a sweaty mess. I want to hug him as well, but I suspect that will only freak him out. People like to see the people they’re hugging.
“Why is it that old furniture always weighs more?” Laurie asks.
“Time makes everything heavier and slower,” Millie replies. “Believe me.”