Blackfin Sky (22 page)

‘Go to bed, Skylar.’ He walked out, muttering under his breath in French. For once, Sky was glad he’d never taught her to speak his native language.

They did not speak of it in the morning. In fact, Gui did not speak at all, passing only silent looks of disapproval over their Saturday pancakes until Sky finally gave up trying to outlast his disappointment. Sky had grabbed the note from her nightstand on her way downstairs, thinking she would show it to her father. But with the sour mood still furrowing his brow, she knew it wasn’t the time to mention it. The note remained a crinkly secret in her pocket.

‘Nothing happened between me and Jared.’

Gui chewed a mouthful of pancakes slowly. Then he sipped his coffee – also slowly – before finally breaking his silence. ‘I know that,
coco
. That does not mean I can just shrug my shoulders and pat you on the head like a good little girl when I find you sneaking around with a half-clothed boy.’

‘Wait, you
know
nothing happened between me and Jared?’ Gui didn’t nod, but his eyes met hers in acknowledgement. ‘How?’

‘You are not like … some girls, Skylar. Girls who can like one boy and do things with another boy.’

Sky blushed at her father’s knowing look. At least one of her parents had noticed her feelings for Sean, and it was as well it was not her mother. Sky allowed herself a small smile.

‘Does this mean I’m not grounded, then?’

Gui laughed. ‘It does not.’

‘But Dad—’

Her father silenced her by holding up one meaty finger. ‘You are grounded for this weekend for giving your papa a heart attack.’ He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. ‘Oh, and you are
never
allowed to have a boy alone in your room. Not until I am dead and buried.’

18

Being grounded was oddly comforting – especially since Gui decided that being grounded meant taking Sky to watch a movie in Oakridge, then picking up a takeaway from the diner on their way home.

That had given her no opportunity to do anything about the note. She didn’t want to blacken Gui’s mood again by showing him what could only be interpreted as a threat. But maybe her friends could help her figure it out – when Gui
finally
ungrounded her.

After all, the note was
real,
something even Bo couldn’t roll her eyes at, and she desperately wanted their help unravelling the mysteries which seemed to be getting more and more tangled around her.

Her phone beeped, and she realised her father hadn’t remembered to confiscate it. She practically dived across the bed to retrieve it from the nightstand. The message was from Bo.

Party in the woods tonight. Pick you up at 10.

Sky groaned.

Can’t, grounded. The woods??

Yep. Still avoiding me?

WTH? I’m not avoiding you.

You’re so lame.

Sky could practically hear Bo’s sigh. But they were going to the woods, and might stumble across Madame Curio or the circus or Jared’s burned-out van. That couldn’t be a good thing.

Thirty seconds later her phone beeped again. This time it was Cam.
Bo says you’re not coming!!! WHY???

Grounded all weekend. Long story.

SNEAK OUT!!!

Sky’s eyes flitted to the french windows. She really should do something to try to keep her classmates out of the woods, but she didn’t want to go against her father’s wishes. Well, not
really.

As she watched, the latch on the french windows clicked open and the doors slowly and soundlessly swung inwards.

‘You think it’s a good idea, huh?’ Sky felt silly addressing the house, but she was quite willing to accept any advocate to the scheme. ‘I hope you’ve got my back when my parents catch me, then.’

She waited an eternity for her parents to go to bed, although their bedtime was only ten thirty. By ten forty-five, she could hear nothing from their room.

That was not a good sign. Unless her mother was snoring, that generally meant she was still awake. But Sky’s impatience to leave the house got the better of her, so she crept along the hallway towards her parents’ room. She had stayed in her clothes, slipping her coat on over them in preparation for a quick departure, the anonymous note tucked carefully in her pocket. But her boots stayed in her hand for the moment.

The Blood House silenced the floorboards for her, allowing her to sneak in her socked feet to listen at the door. She heard nothing at first, then the faint sound of her father’s breathing.

‘Leave him, we … she mustn’t know…’

Sky froze, but her mother’s voice had a muffled quality only achieved in sleep. She turned to creep back to her room when another sound stopped her.

‘NO, GAGE! DON’T!’

The gasping of her mother waking in fright was followed by her father’s baritone, shushing her to calm down, telling her that it had all been a nightmare. But Sky had heard her mother utter the word
Gage.
She didn’t know who or what that was, but that was what Madame Curio had said about Jared the second time Sky visited her in the woods – that Jared belonged to Gage.

Who IS he?

That nagging doubt that Sky had been trying to ignore about Jared solidified into an angry ball inside her chest. She was already heading back to her room when her stomach plummeted, and the walls of the hallway fell away in a shower of bright light, sparks turning to ribbons, until one burst open and consumed her.

She was inside one of the circus tents, surrounded by crates and equipment and the chirruping of the bells somewhere nearby. A mix of sawdust and grass blades prickled her feet through her socks, and Sky tightened her grip on the leather of her boots gratefully. She leaned against a crate and bent to tie them on.

A crawling sensation at the back of her neck told her she wasn’t alone.

Sky whirled around to face whoever it was and met the bared yellow fangs of an enormous wolf. With a screech, she jerked backward, knocking the air from her lungs as she jolted to a halt against the large wooden crate behind her.

There was a clash of teeth and claws against metal, and she saw that the wolves – for there were three in all, great white beasts with sallow fur and teeth as long as her fingers – were hurling themselves against the inside of their cage to try to reach her.

She forced in a shaky breath, rubbing her arm where she had jarred it against the crate.

Why on earth am I here now?

The sound of footsteps had Sky ducking down next to the crate. She edged around it, keeping out of view as footsteps entered the tent where she was hiding. The paper in her pocket crackled as she shifted her position, and she edged it out slowly so it wouldn’t give her away.

‘They’re your animals. How would I know what ails them?’

The lazy drawl was definitely Severin’s. She peeked around the corner of the crate to try and see who he was with, but the movement brought her nearer the wolves, and they leapt again.

Whoever Severin was with gave no audible reply.

‘Fine, I’ll see to them.’

Severin’s quick, light footsteps brought him right to where Sky crouched. Slowly, she looked up. But he didn’t appear to have noticed her, despite almost standing on her toe.

‘They must be hungry. Gui usually feeds them…’ At Sky’s sharp intake of breath, Severin glanced down, the shake of his head almost imperceptible.

The wolves calmed as Severin placed himself between Sky and their cage.

‘I’ll see that it’s done, Gage.’

The other made no sound whatsoever before his footsteps approached Sky’s hiding place. One look at Severin’s face told her she was about to be discovered.

Oh crud.

Her heart was already jack-hammering from seeing the wolves, but now she thought it might burst from her chest.

‘I said I’d see to it…’ His tone remained lazy, but the jab of his booted toe at her hip was not.

I need to get out of here!

The footsteps stopped inches away from where she crouched, just as the floating sensation flipped her stomach. Sparks filled her peripheral vision, the pathways becoming clear.

I’m fading out again. Thank God!

But not quickly enough. The wolves had begun whining and yelping inside the cage. The man leaned over them and Sky cringed back against the crate, trying to make herself invisible behind Severin’s legs.

And as the man snapped his gaze to her, she had a moment to recognise his dark, piercing eyes and chalk-white face before the note slipped from her fingers, and she vanished.

The comforting warmth of her bedclothes covered her, the dim light of the circus tent fading to black.

I’ve seen that man somewhere before.

Sky knew she should get out of bed and find out what, if anything, had happened during her friends’ party in the woods, but the warmth of her bed was too much to argue with.

Oh my God.

Sky’s heart hammered her brain back to wakefulness.

That was the scary face I saw the first time I was at the circus! And in the newspaper clipping in the attic. But who
is
he?

She’d heard Severin call him Gage, and knew it must have been the man her mother was dreaming about, but who
was
he? And what did Jared have to do with him?

I can’t believe I dropped the shizzing note, too. Now Bo will just look at me like a nut when I try to explain all this.

It felt like seconds had passed when she woke to find both her feet had gone numb inside her boots. She kicked them off and out from under the comforter, letting them fall to the floor with a dull thud. Except the thud was not as dull as it should have been, had they landed on her bedroom carpet.

Not my room.

As this realisation hit her, she became aware of someone else lying in the bed next to her and went rigid with panic.

‘Uh, Sky, did you take a wrong turn?’

Sky recognised the whispered voice, but that only made her heart race faster.

In the barest light filtering around the curtains in Sean’s room, she saw the outline of his head on the pillow next to her, his hair mussed from sleep and his eyes as round and wide as hers felt.

‘Uh, yeah.’

Sean shifted, the groan of bedsprings now sounding like exploding mortar shells in the silence of the house, where Officer Holly Vega was no doubt unholstering her taser to come downstairs and zap the intruder.

‘It’s two thirty in the morning.’

Sky’s mouth went dry. Almost four hours had passed, but she hadn’t been at the circus for more than five minutes.

‘Have I been here long?’ she whispered back, as though the length of time she’d been there was the strange factor in the situation, not that she was there at all.

‘I’m not sure. Something woke me a moment ago. Sounded like something fell onto the floor.’

Sky still didn’t move, now growing uncomfortably hot. She was in Sean’s bed, in the middle of the night – uninvited.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know how I ended up here. I’ll go—’

He caught her wrist just as she was about to throw back the duvet.

‘Go where? There’s no way you’ll be able to sneak out without Aunt Holly catching you.’

Sky paused. If the policewoman caught her, what possible excuse could she give that wouldn’t look suspicious? None.

‘But I can’t stay here.’

Sean hesitated for one beat before answering. ‘You can. I mean, if that’s all right with you. Stay.’