Page 115 of Gilded Wicked Mirrors
“Oh, yes.” Periwinkle rolled her eyes. “You’re about as much fun as Blood. But I like your friend, Giselle Catalina Reyes-Vega, daughter of—”
“Yes, I like you too.” Giselle cut off the girl before she would give away any of her personal information.
“You could give me some of your hair,” Periwinkle told Giselle. “Or maybe a toenail.”
Before Giselle could offer to rip her toenail off—somethingshe would definitely do—Quinn said, “I think I'll be paying the cost.”
The one controlling the situation.
“Oh, fine.” Periwinkle loosed an exasperated breath. “Maybe I could give you something as a cost, Quinnevere. How about acne? Your face is way too pretty. Or maybe I could give you bad luck for the day. Or I could break your leg. That would be a nice present.”
“I think you need to redefine your concept of presents.” Giselle laughed, enjoying this far too much.
You must be very lonely.Blood’s words rang in her ears.Lonely.It was a hint. Quinn’s gaze caught on the brunette, who nodded and smiled softly as if she knew precisely Quinn’s thoughts. She was beginning to realize that Blood didn’t speak unless it was useful.
But why?
Something about the way the mirror looked at her made Quinn’s unease melt away. It was love—pure love.
An uncomfortable emotion. Quinn gulped. “What if we stayed with you and kept you company for the day?”
The violet pools in Periwinkle’s eyes shifted from amusement to sorrow at the words. Vulnerability was painted across her face. It was the expression of a lonely little girl, trapped and desperate for friends.
Periwinkle visibly swallowed. “I'll accept this cost if you also promise to come back to visit me again!”
Quinn felt for the mirror. Her heart was fragile glass, moments away from shattering. Quinn hated seeing others in pain. “The day is to be taken immediately and only the normal twenty-four human hours of our day.”
It was a gamble. Quinn needed all the time she could get to solve the case, but if she had her memories back, she might be able to find the killer before they struck again. A lost day would put them just before the Illusion Ceremony and the day before the ball.
It would work.
“Yes, I agree,” Periwinkle said.
A day later.
Shock shackled Quinn’s brain as she fell out of the mirror and hit the ground hard on her uncalloused hands and feet. She let out a groan and leaned back on her knees. Her breaths came in waves of tension. Her memories suffocated her and processing them seemed impossible.
Emrys gracefully stepped out of the mirror and crouched beside her, watching.
She leaned back on her feet, her mind a splattered painting. Splotches upon splotches of information danced and pulsed at her brain and gave her a piercing headache. Quinn rolled her knees into her chest and hugged them close.
You were never supposed to be involved.The words hit like wildfire. Consuming and inescapable.
It’s what the vampire said in the alley. The truth hit with the force of a nightmare. Everything from the ally rushed back in with the weight of a cable car. And the vampire’s slender face formed and burned into her mind.
Constance.
Thirty-Eight
Constance was the murderer.
Betrayal’s talons scraped down the back of Quinn’s skull. Constance was one of her closest friends. Someone who had always been there for her, so this was utterly unfathomable and deeply hurtful. Did Constance kill Jane?
Quinn felt like vomiting.
The betrayal tasted awful, like shattered hearts, poisoned tears, and melting pearls. Things that never should happen. Things like this.
And as much as Quinn didn’t want to believe it, she scoured over the evidence in her mind, and all the pieces aligned. The glitter, the silver sequins from the dress she wore the night of Jane’s murder, and the fang markings on all the victims. The feathers found on Jane’s body probably came from Constance’s Viridian costume. In Giselle’s pictures, Constance was watching Jane on the night she died. The reporter died minutes before they arrived on the scene. Constance had both time and opportunity to use her vampiric speed to kill him before everyone else made it up to the room.
