“I’ll need your feet to be bare,” Vicereine said, all business now.
Charlie reached down to take off her boots. They were already untied, the laces loose from kicking them off in the tower.
Vince appeared to be belatedly wondering if he could break free of the onyx chains and escape. She saw him pull against the shining loop over his wrist. It must have held, because his expression set into grim lines. “You don’t know what I’ll be like, after. No one does,” he said under his breath.
“You’ll still be you,” Charlie whispered back.
Bellamy said something to Malik and both of them looked amused. Charlie didn’t think it was directed at her, but it ramped up her nerves. She reminded herself that she’d been through this before, cutting loose her own shadow as she sewed it to her sister’s feet. Posey had to finish the sewing, and neither of them was a great seamstress. Still, it seemed to be attached. And Posey seemed fine.
She reminded herself that she was stealing Vince right out from under their noses.
Vicereine directed Charlie to stand in front of him, which she did.
“Winnie wanted me to tell you hello,” she whispered. “Your boss is furious, but probably you don’t want your old job back anyway. Oh, and believe it or not, Posey might actually apologize.”
Vince looked down at her and sighed. But when she reached for his hand, he let her take it.
She squeezed once before he returned to shadow.
* * *
The front door of the watchtower closed heavily behind Charlie as she crossed the lawn, frost-rimed leaves crunching beneath her boots.
“Vince?” she said under her breath. “See, I told you we were going to leave together, and now we’re out of there.”
He didn’t reply, but when she glanced down, the shape of the shadow that followed her was his. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her coat. Listened to the wind whistle through the trees.
“I know you’re mad,” she said.
In the van, she pulled out the tactical knife attached to her keys. Pressed the point against the pad of her ring finger until a drop of blood welled up. “Vicereine said I was supposed to do this right away, so here we go.”
That seemed to get his attention. The shadow swirled around her in a dark cloud. She felt something against her skin that might have been a tongue, except that it wasn’t wet. The sensation made her shiver.
“Vince?” she said again, starting to get nervous. “Stop messing with me. Say something.”
A whisper came in her mind, making her sit up straight. “You’re not Remy.”
“I’m your girlfriend,” she said, voice unsteady. “And this joke isn’t even a little bit funny.”
Charlie stared at the shadow that spilled across the passenger seat, at the hectic light filtering through the trees. Watched as his shadow took shape without her control. A figure of darkness with same burning eyes and no recognition in them.
Triumph turned sour in her mouth.
His voice was soft with menace. “If that were true, I would know you. And I don’t.”
She thought of the story that Vince had told her, about running away from Salt’s, about waking up beneath that underpass without memory of how he got there. She’d taken that to mean he hadn’t remembered the time between Remy’s death and waking up. But maybe he’d lost more than that, and for longer.
Or maybe this was different. Maybe he’d never recall sitting with her under the stars. Never remember bringing ice to Barb’s party. Never remember eating buttered toast and drinking coffee in bed. She felt the burn of tears. Blinked them back. Tasted salt in the back of her throat.
Outside, night was coming on. A few single flakes of snow fell.
She slammed her fist against the steering wheel.
He watched her, smoke curling from the sockets of his eyes.
There’d always been something wrong with Charlie Hall. Crooked from the day she was born. Never met a bad decision she wasn’t willing to double down on.
“I’m a good enough thief to steal a shadow from a tower,” she told him. “I can steal back your heart.”
He said nothing in return. And a few moments later, the shadow had melted away, leaving her alone.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
All of my novels have left me with vast gratitude for many people, but none more than this one.
Firstly, thanks to everyone who was on a writing retreat with me in Greece and endured my bazillion false starts. You are to be pitied as well as acknowledged.
I owe a huge debt to Steve Berman for helping me with the magic system, several times, including once drawing all over a paper pulled from a roll, which eventually covered my entire kitchen floor in arcane rules.
I so appreciate Marie Rutkoski, for helping me articulate what I was trying to capture.
Thank you, Chris Cotter, Emily Lauer, and Eric Churchill, for talking to me about all the ways people would interact and abuse that magic during the depths of the pandemic.
Thank you, Roshani Chokshi, for pushing me to get the love on the page.
Thank you, Paolo Bacigalupi, for getting me to rethink the beginning (again).
Thank you to Sarah Rees Brennan, Robin Wasserman, and Leigh Bardugo for reading a very messy draft, convening a Zoom workshop, and making me feel as though I might fix the thing I had made.
Thank you, Joshua Lewis, for making me care about that dead guy.
And a thousand gratitudes to Cassandra Clare and Kelly Link for not murdering me when I changed everything and then changed it again, and then changed it AGAIN. You read so many drafts. You listened to so much complaining. Truly, your patience is endless.
All praise to my fantabulous editor, Miriam Weinberg, who got me to slow down and add all the texture. I so appreciate her, and the enthusiasm and expertise of everyone at Tor Books—particularly Devi Pillai, Lucille Rettino, Renata Sweeney, Eileen Lawrence, Sarah Reidy, Lauren Hougen, Molly McGhee, and Michelle Foytek. Thank you to Sam Bradbury, Roisin O’Shea, and all of Del Rey UK. Twenty years ago, I meant to write a book for adults, and thanks to all y’all I seem to have finally done it.
Thank you to my agent, Joanna Volpe, who believed I could write this book, put it in the plan, and then made sure I stuck to the plan. I am grateful to her and everyone at New Leaf—particularly the terrifying organizing of Jordan Hill, and the strategery of Pouya Shahbazian.
And thank you to my partner, Theo, and our kiddo, Sebastian. Without you both, I would have clawed my own face off long ago.
Lastly, thank you to “the Valley” of Western Massachusetts, where I’ve lived for almost two decades, and yet am still discovering. I apologize for all the places I completely made up, and for cutting some corners with geography. Please consider this the alternate Western Massachusetts, full of lightning farms, bars with absinthe on tap, and shadow magic.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
HOLLY BLACK is the #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of speculative and fantasy novels, short stories, and comics. She has sold more than twenty-six million books worldwide and her work has been translated into more than thirty languages and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library. Book of Night is her adult fiction debut.
You can read more about her on BlackHolly.com, or sign up for email updates here.