Illuminate: A Gilded Wings Novel, Book One Read online

  “This is really an amazing dress; thank you for letting me wear it.” My hands smoothed it out, hoping the motion might elongate the fabric somehow. I tugged at the hem, not realizing it, and then caught a look from her—icy, like a lake freezing over—and stopped, straightening my back and standing tall.

  She didn’t speak; she just brushed past me into the closet to a narrow wooden armoire I’d seen there. She opened the double doors at the top and velvet racks of necklaces gleamed, gems of every hue so magnificent they looked like they should’ve been at the Field Museum. She opened another drawer and took out a ring, canary-colored and nearly the size of a golf ball, and slid it onto her finger, and then two matching drop earrings, lemon stones on a string of diamonds.

  “I want it to be clear to our guests that you’re one of us,” she said as she closed up the case. “You do have pierced ears, I hope?”

  “Yes, I do,” I said, relieved to be able to answer that question correctly. Joan had made a big deal of taking me on my thirteenth birthday to get my ears pierced, but now I hardly ever bothered with earrings at all.

  She fastened them onto my ears and then slipped the ring off her finger and onto mine. I looked in the mirror and sparkled back at myself. I couldn’t see anything but the jewels. The earrings hung just below my hair, peeking out and swaying whenever I moved. I touched them with my ring-adorned hand. Now I definitely didn’t recognize myself. Not in the slightest. It felt like I was playing a character—someone so much more interesting than the real me.

  Aurelia looked less convinced though. She tilted her head, deliberating. “I think . . . no necklace,” she said, delivering a verdict.

  I looked down at my small, glinting angel wing, which seemed so insignificant beside the canary diamond earrings and ring. But I couldn’t take it off. For whatever reason, according to the book, I was supposed to wear this always.

  “I kind of like it. I think it all, um, works.” I tried to sound fashion savvy, but didn’t quite have the forthrightness to pull it off.

  “No necklace,” she said again, more firmly. I took it off and tucked it into the evening bag. “But I will make a trade: perhaps a bracelet, a quiet accent?” I stood still as she rummaged through that jewelry box again, returning with a thin gold bangle. “Now, this is very special and has been with me for years and years.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed the narrow bangle on. It fit snug around my wrist and had the faintest heart-shaped etchings. “It’s modeled after that famous, very expensive bracelet that you need a special screwdriver to get on and off, do you know the one?”

  I shook my head. How would I know these things?

  “Well, I desperately wanted one and so someone had this one made for me.” She spoke so easily now, directly addressing this bracelet on my wrist, that it seemed she forgot she was talking and not just thinking this. I didn’t want to break her trance so I remained quiet, hoping she would go on, and she did. “It was always my favorite. He was a nice man. I probably should have given it back to him when . . .” She trailed off. “But I just couldn’t. It’s not like he would have given it to anyone else, but still.” She shook herself out of it. “He still has the screwdriver, unfortunately, so it’s a good thing your hands are small like mine or we’d never get it on or off.”

  “Were you in love with him then?” I couldn’t help asking. There was so much I wanted to know about her. But the window had closed.

  “Of course. At that age you’re in love all the time.” She brushed it off, typically harsh, back to normal. I didn’t understand what she meant. What age? This couldn’t have been so long ago. “You probably fall in love a million times every day.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to this; she sounded unsettled now, like she had been woken up in the middle of a strange dream.

  “You’re ready,” she said without looking at me, straightening up the compacts open on the vanity. “I’ll meet you in the lobby, beneath the chandelier.”

  As soon as I left her room, I took the necklace out again and looped it around my wrist beside the other bracelet. I could get it around three times and it didn’t look half bad. Through the skylight the stars twinkled and the lights of the chandelier cast a heavenly glow on the lobby below, where ’20s costumed guests mingled, sipping drinks. In the center, a jazz band roused passersby with the pep and spring of an old standard, something you could picture people doing the Charleston to. As I waited for the elevator, I turned the bangle around my wrist. When I did, I felt some etchings on the inside of it. I wiggled it off, too curious not to. Inside it was engraved “All my love, N.” I jammed it back onto my wrist, feeling like I’d trespassed in some way, as the elevator opened.

  It stopped at a few floors, picking up guests on the way down. A dolled-up couple got in on the seventh floor, hitting the button for the mezzanine—the woman, in a floor-length black evening gown, pawed through her bag in search of something, not giving me so much as a passing glance. But the tuxedoed man, in his mid- or maybe late forties, but handsome and distinguished, looked me up and down and gave me the slightest smile.

  I looked away, but still, I followed them out on the mezzanine level, deciding a detour wouldn’t hurt. I just had to see the ballroom. The pair peeled off, collecting their place card from a long flower-adorned table. I weaved through the crowd and poked my head into the room: round tables with towering black and white centerpieces had been set surrounding a dance floor with yet another band. The black tie dinner-dance was just getting under way. The lights were dim and the crowd already raucous, laughing and drinking. A few people were already dancing, while many of the others sat patiently as waiters flew out from a back door bearing trays with plates full of leafy salads. This room would house the most famous and well-heeled guests—the ones who weren’t required to dress in period costume like the partygoers in the Parlor, Capone, the gallery, and the Vault. I could already recognize several faces from the newspapers and evening news. I had never been in such close proximity to so many prominent people. I couldn’t resist feeling at least a tiny bit important by association.

  True to her word, Aurelia introduced me to everyone: presidents of the city’s best universities; Chicago’s football, baseball, and basketball stars; local artists and fashion designers and musicians; journalists and news anchors; endless city council members; the mayor. She referred to me as her “star assistant and greatest asset.” I didn’t quite know what I’d done to deserve the attention, but I soaked it in, letting it wash over me, feeling this power of hers by proxy. Everyone smiled at me because they smiled at her. They wanted to know me because I was squired around by her. It made my head spin. The night seemed orchestrated to make me feel at the center of the universe.

  She had even dressed me to look like a darker-haired, shorter version of herself. Her dress was just a step up in degree of dazzle from mine: more low-cut and gold beads woven in with the black. Her heels were a bit strappier and higher, and she completed the look with a headband and a black feather poking up into the air, the plume making it easy to tell at all times where she was. I did my best not to ruin the effect of my look by tugging at the top of my dress too much, but I couldn’t help it—I felt so conscious of its movement as I walked, so sure it would shift and these unsightly horrors would peek out for all of Chicago to see. It did, at least, have the effect of making me hold my posture and walk more slowly, looking directly in front of me, not at the ground as I often did.

  We had met, it seemed, nearly every guest when we stepped into the gallery. It was filled with ’20s attired revelers, all perusing at the work and chattering with one another about symbolism and style, heady conversations that I could have eavesdropped on all night. A silent thrill shot through me as I watched them all taking in the mural Lance and I had finished and studying my photos with such attention that suggested there was depth and value there.

  Just inside the gallery, a man stood perched not far from the bar, sipping an amber drink and taking in the scene unfolding
before him. Dashing in a way that made him seem like part of the artwork itself, he wore a tuxedo and did so exceedingly well. He seemed a bit like an older, taller version of Lucian. He had that same slicked-back hair and those sharply drawn features, but a stronger presence—he looked at the place like he owned it and had simply allowed everyone else to be there. You could feel his strength even in how he gripped his glass or the unwavering way he watched everyone move about him.

  Aurelia’s eyes met his instantly and she floated over to him, me trailing behind.

  “So you made it after all,” she said as he pulled her in, kissing her on the lips. I looked away for just a moment, but not before seeing enough to try to read into it: the kiss seemed familiar, in the way of a European greeting for him, but the tilt of her head suggested it might mean something deeper for her. I couldn’t imagine ever greeting anyone who was anything less than a confirmed significant other with a kiss on the lips. I would love to be the kind of girl who could do this as if it was no big deal, because there was something so powerful about it, but I wasn’t sure that would ever really be me.

  “I promised. You know how I am when I give my word.” His voice was impossibly deep and yet so soft, almost a whisper.

  “This is true,” she said.

  “And who is this?” he asked, fixing his eyes—piercing, such a clear blue, it was like I could see straight through them—on me.

  “This is the future of the Lexington Hotel, Haven Terra,” she introduced me, so grandly I was unsure if she was kidding. The man’s stare, like Lucian’s, heated me to a boil. I felt myself flush. I held my hand out to shake his, so firm and smooth—so very hot.

  “Hello, Haven.”

  “So nice to meet you,” I managed.

  “You look lovely.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Are you enjoying yourself?”

  “Yes, very much. It’s a beautiful night and a beautiful hotel. I’ve been learning so much here.”

  “I’m sure you have.”

  Aurelia looked at me now. “She’s met everyone, so now I think I can set her free for the evening. She’s still got to get to the Vault to take some photos.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “Go on, enjoy. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  “Thank you,” I said to her, almost bowing for some reason. “Nice to meet you,” I said to the man again. Only after I drifted away did it occur to me that I hadn’t gotten his name—I had been a little too overwhelmed to think of asking. He certainly looked like he might be some actor in from Hollywood to film something in town, but he wasn’t anyone I completely recognized; he only seemed like someone I—or everyone—ought to know of.

  I caught sight of a uniform-clad Lance through the crowd, standing off near the case shielding Capone’s old fedora. He held a tray bearing two shot glasses of a flaming liquid: miniature versions of whatever I’d had on my birthday.

  “Pretty good party, huh?” I said as I neared him.

  “If you and I both take one of these,” he said toward me while still looking at incoming traffic, hoping to give away his drinks, “I can be done for the night.”

  I picked both up. “Done and done. Go get rid of that thing.”

  “Thanks. Right back,” he said scurrying off with his empty tray.

  We meet again, I thought holding up one of the small glasses for a closer look. I stood there quietly pretending to look at the fedora, but really watching these two little flames burn. In no time Lance returned, pulling one of the shot glasses from my hands.

  “Thanks,” he said. He glanced at the drink. “Do we dare?”

  “I don’t know. I had a lot of trouble with this thing’s big brother. Fool me once, shame on you but . . .”

  “Ohhh, yeah.” He remembered all too well. “So how’d you get outta wearing the uniform? No fair.”

  “Don’t blame me, Aurelia did this.”

  “You look nice,” he mumbled, eyes darting away.

  “Thanks.” I tugged at the top of my dress again, then caught myself and stopped. “You too.”

  “Right.”

  “No, really.” It was true.

  We watched as the well-dressed partygoers circulated around us, tossing back their drinks and admiring the art and macabre artifacts. To my right, a glass cube on a pedestal displayed a blood-splattered shirt supposedly from the night of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre.

  “Oh, wishing you a heartfelt happy massacre day,” he said, holding up his shot glass.

  “To you too,” I said, lifting my glass.

  “It truly is a holiday of horrors, Valentine’s Day, isn’t it?”

  “Cheers.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Seriously, its history is riddled with martyrs and deaths in equal measure.”

  “Bah humbug.”

  “I mean, dating back to, like, the fourth century.”

  “The third—but you’ve gotta let it go. So a priest was stoned to death for marrying people when it was outlawed. Get over it,” I joked. This is what happens when you pay too much attention in AP Euro.

  We wandered over to the photography exhibit, which, in addition to a host of old black and whites of the original Lexington, included the wall of my shots of the Outfit.

  “I could go on: a holiday with a history of torture and injustices.”

  “And chocolate.”

  “And commercialism.”

  “Okay, okay, I got it.”

  We were silent for a moment, studying all the photos. So many perfect faces staring back at us. I thought if I looked close enough I might be able to see the reflection of my camera lens in Lucian’s eye.

  “What was I saying about injustice?”

  “Hmm?” I was lost in the photos, trying to dissect them. Beauty is genius, beauty is power. I had never quite thought of it that way.

  “You could’ve just told me if you didn’t want to fix my picture.” Lance’s tone had dropped into the realm of muted, seething anger. It snapped me out of my reverie. I turned to him.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t need to lie about it.” His voice was flat as hurt stormed in his eyes, clouding them.

  “What are you talking about?”

  He knocked a knuckle against the wall near his picture and walked to the opposite end of the display, back near a picture of Raphaella. There, below his eye, the scar cut across his face, a puffy line underscoring a deep brown eye. It shot through my heart, draining it.

  “I fixed this!” I called over to him, louder than I intended. He looked at me stone-faced, betrayed. “I swear, I saw this today—I saw it this morning. It was perfect.” I shook my head. “This is a different photo, it’s got to be. I don’t know what—” I stopped myself. A few quick steps down the line, I stood before my own, focusing.

  No!

  There they were, the tops of my own scars, peeking out above the neckline of that dreaded white top, like thin, gnarled pink fingers reaching out. My stomach dropped. Every single person who had come through here all night had seen this. Those unmistakably ugly marks on me that I had so carefully erased, that I tugged at my dress even now to try to shield.

  “Hey,” I said to him again. He glared back at me, fuming under the surface but trying to hold his ire, I could tell. “Come ’ere.”

  He walked over—his face set in an expression that said, You’re lucky if I listen to a single word you say.

  “Look at this,” I ordered. It came out terse, edging toward hostile. I slapped the spot below my picture. “And tell me if you think I wanted this one up there?”

  He leaned in toward my picture and didn’t see it at first—he didn’t know what he was looking for—but then his face loosened, his eyes fastened on that strange burned-claw marking. He looked at me: the bottomless wells of his eyes behind those frames softened now, sympathy and confusion creeping in.

  I glanced around us. Everyone seemed to be lost in their own witty banter and borderline inebriation, engrossed in different parts
of the gallery. We were the only ones near this sweep of photos. So I moved closer to Lance, looked up at him, and, summoning my nerve, pulled aside the neckline of my dress an inch or so, showing just that spot, a hint of those disfigured marks. He looked down very quick, his eyes widening involuntarily, and then darting away just as fast as I patted my dress back in place. We both faced the photos again. We didn’t say anything. But I needed him to know that I understood. And that I knew exactly how he felt, because that’s how I felt too.

  And I was scared.

  14. You Might Have a Dark Side

  I tried to retrace the past day: everyone who had been in the gallery since this morning, everyone who had access to my computer. Who would do something like this? Those pictures did not look that way earlier. What had happened in the space of those several hours? I had looked at each shot so closely and so proudly.

  Lance and I stood facing the display, not a word for such a long time. I was still sorting through my loose, disjointed thoughts when he said into the space before him, softly, wounded: “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too—I don’t know what—”

  “I know you don’t. It’s okay.” He looked at me, nodding once. “Let’s maybe just not look at these anymore right now. I think that’s the best thing.”

  I nodded back in agreement, even though I wasn’t so patient. Lance started to walk away. I took a deep breath, shifted my dress into place, and took a few steps until I saw him get waylaid by Raphaella’s tall, blond luminousness. I halted, frozen in my tracks. She swooped right in, sidling up to him looking like that uniform was made for her. Her hair coated her shoulders in flaxen sheets, and as she swung that silky mane, she seemed to hang on his every word. But he was doing a fine job playing hard to get—he almost didn’t look interested at all. He wasn’t fumbling or fidgeting in that way of his. He just looked like he could take it or leave it; take her or leave her. Well done, Lance. I supposed I could learn a thing or two from him.

  Just as I thought this, he appeared: Lucian. Standing just off in the space behind Lance and Raphaella, back near that endless mural, with a drink in his hand. I looked away and my gaze flitted quickly to where I had last spotted Aurelia and that man. Both were gone. I could feel Lucian watching me. I waited as long as I could—mere seconds—and my eyes, unable to stay away, went to him again. The dim light glinted off his creamy skin and his slicked-back locks; he had on a tuxedo that he wore with perfect ease. He took a few steps forward. I slid into the dark corner near the Outfit photos, an internal alarm sounding in my quietly heaving chest as he got nearer.