“I don’t know—” my mom begins.
“No. She isn’t here. I don’t even know if she’s coming,” I say dismissively. My tears have dried, but my voice is still stuffy and thick.
“Well, he’s eighteen, so he’s not a runaway. I wager he’s taken the cello—”
“Violin,” I hiss.
“I wager he’s taken the violin,” the officer says, looking weary. “To hock. Fast cash to hold him over till the will gets executed.”
“That’s not—”
“Honey,” the officer says. “I have been driving through the snow for days now. Tomorrow it’s supposed to let up. I get that this boy broke your heart and ran off with some blonde, but he’s a legal adult and can make his own decisions. Most of downtown’s without power. Water pipes are frozen over. A few streets over, we’ve got a girl your age, murdered. Ripped to shreds. You really think I should be tracking down some boy instead of finding the monster who did that to her?”
“The girl who took Kai, I think she’s done something to him,” I plea. “He didn’t just leave me. I think his grandmother—”
“He’s a bum, Ginny—you’ll meet someone else,” the officer says firmly, and gives me a pointed stare. We’re silent for a moment, still, him daring me to say another word.
“He’s not a bum,” I grumble, and spin around. I slip on the ice, a final indignity, before I stomp back inside. My bedroom is cold; I’m so tired of the cold. I turn the radiator on high, even though it fills my room with a sticky, plastic smell.
This is crazy. This is crazy, crazy, crazy. The magazine clippings are still assembled on my bed. I stare at them, trying to see someone other than Mora, but it’s so clearly her. Her, on the Snow Queen page. Her, in Atlanta during a blizzard. Her, here the day Grandma Dalia died.
Mind the beasts.
I have to leave tonight.
The first week after taking a new boy was always the worst. The boys had questions, they clung to who they were, and they got scared. Mora looked over at Kai as she pulled the car under the awning of the hotel drive. She knew what they were going through, almost exactly, and she also knew it would pass. And when it did? Things would get so, so much easier.
“Come on,” she called to Kai as the valets came to open their doors. Kai stepped out, looking dazed as Mora walked around the back of the car to meet him. She frowned—he’d need new clothes, and soon; he looked shabby next to the car, the hotel, and Mora’s silk dress. One of the doormen hurried to offer her his woolen coat—her shoulders were bare and exposed to the snow that was falling hard, clinging to the hotel windowsills like strips of icing. She waved the doorman off, pretending to shiver, and cursed herself again for leaving the white fur coat at Kai’s house. Another could be bought, of course, but it was the convenience of the thing. She nodded for Kai to follow her, and they pushed through the dark oak doors and into the lobby.
Mora stopped, her knees locking as the memory hit her. Memories were strange for her now—just as she thought she had them all gathered up, under control, a new one would appear like a ghost from her former life. This time it was brought on by the smell of this particular hotel—like wine and floor wax and years of perfumes and cigars passing through. Kai stopped obediently beside her, waiting for her direction. He’s coming along nicely, she thought.
“I stayed at this hotel when I was a teenager,” Mora told him as the memory took shape in her head. She looked across the lobby. It reminded her of vintage dresses, pearl jewelry—pale pinks and creams and golden accents. There were pillars every few yards along the wall, leading up to a coved ceiling with inlaid carvings and stained-glass skylights. Someone played a grand piano at the far end of the lobby, classic songs that cut over the hum of conversation, the people in suits shaking rocks glasses, women with dangly earrings laughing. “It was for a wedding, I think,” Mora continued, staring at a woman in a white cocktail dress. “Perhaps. Sometimes I can’t tell what I’ve imagined and what’s real.”
“Why can’t you remember?” Kai asked. His voice was hard, and if Mora were being entirely honest with herself, she’d admit she preferred the softer version, the one he used with Ginny. She rolled her eyes for thinking that, then answered.
“Because that life is long gone. It’s like trying to remember something that happened when you were a baby. I remember… I remember that they made me go to the wedding with one of my father’s friends. He was older than me, but he was rich. He was going to be a congressman, they said. I’m not sure if he became one or not—it was after I left. But oh, they wanted me to marry him so badly. I think my father would have paid him to give me a ring.”
“But he didn’t?” Kai asked. Mora shook her head, regretting saying the memory aloud.
“He knew I didn’t love him. There was another boy I wanted….” Mora’s eyes lingered on the piano player for a long time. “He played the piano.”
“A musician,” Kai said a little coyly, mistaking the seriousness in her voice for teasing. “I see why I’m here now.”
Mora laughed a little, the sound broken and cheap. “Yes. He was brilliant, though, better than this one.” She waved a dismissive hand at the pianist in the lobby as they passed him, moving toward the front desk. “But musicians aren’t stable. Musicians aren’t good choices. Musicians become poor drunks, whereas politicians become wealthy ones, according to my father. I loved him, though, loved him like he was air or water or the sun—”
Mora swallowed. It was easier, back when she didn’t remember him. She stopped, turned to Kai, and ran her fingers along his cheekbone for a moment, a tender gesture that made a few people at nearby tables giggle in amusement. Kai was like the other boy, the one she loved. Talented. Beautiful. But the difference, the biggest difference, was that Kai would never stop being hers. The thought helped dull the ache of what happened with the other boy.
The boy she loved. The boy who broke her heart.
Kai turned his head to kiss Mora’s fingers, a scandalous look in his eyes. She withdrew her hand just before his lips touched her skin; the act made Kai follower even closer behind her as she continued walking, hungry for her attention.
“My sister was here, too,” Mora said. The memories of her family were less paralyzing, easier to talk about. “We shared a room. She had her own date, with some other rich man. My sister liked it, honestly. She wanted a house and a baby and dinner parties and boats. Maybe that’s why she was the one who got killed. She hadn’t learned to fight like I had.” Mora shook her head and looked at Kai’s raised eyebrows. “That’s the way it works. Twins are two bodies with a shared soul. One of us had to die.”