Page 68 of Better in Black
Ari whirled on Anna, who was still smiling, her eyes alight. Taking the steps swiftly, she closed the distance between her and Anna, put the tip of the blade to Anna’s chest.
“Now who,” Ari demanded, enunciating each word carefully, “are you?”
Anna looked baffled. “Pardon?”
“Who are you?” Ari said again. “You’re not my Anna. So who are you and why are you impersonating her?”
Anna leaned forward, her eyes sparkling. She began slowly raising her hand toward Ari’s cheek, tenderly. “I’ll whisper it to you.”
It was only a fraction of a second that Ari hesitated, but it was enough. Anna, or whoever it was, knocked the blade off-balance with the flat of her raised hand, so hard that Ari stumbled. In the moment it took for her to right herself, Anna had raced past her down the steps.
Before Ari could give chase, she heard the front door swing open with a bang, and Anna, the real Anna, burst from it withher whip in her hand. She and Ari stared at one another; when Ari looked back down the street, the false Anna had disappeared.
—
“We have to leave London,” Ari said. She was pacing in front of the couch. Anna was waiting for the kettle to boil, tapping her foot impatiently. “We should clear out for a week or two and let all this die down.”
“Clear out?” Anna said doubtfully. The kettle whistled, and Ari almost leapt in the air at the piercing sound, but managed to keep herself on the ground.
“Someone or maybe someones,” Ari said, “are clearly upset about your announcement last week, and weren’t satisfied with dead flowers and weepy letters. So they’re sowing chaos.”
Anna filled the teapot. “Maybe,” she said thoughtfully.
“Maybe?” repeated Ari. “You’re remarkably calm, considering someone is going around pretending to be you.”
Anna put down the teapot and came to block Ari’s pacing. Ari held up her hands to protest and Anna took them in hers.
“I know you want to find out what’s going on and make it right,” she said, her voice gentle. “I do too. But we are Shadowhunters. We do not ‘clear out’ when there is a problem. We are the ones who find and fix the problem.”
“Surely,” Ari said, “we are excused from doing that when we are the intended targets of the problem.”
Anna smiled at Ari fondly. “You’d think so,” she said, “but haven’t you noticed that the Nephilim of London have a peculiar tendency to run headlong at danger? Especially if they are the target?”
“Well,” said Ari, calming down a bit. “Yes.”
“It’s not only that,” said Anna. She sat down on the couchand, after a second, Ari sat down next to her. She reached over and took Ari’s clasped hands in her own. “Perhaps this is about us, and about the Hell Ruelle and all this silliness this past week. But it might be something bigger.”
“You’re thinking very clearly on this,” Ari said. “More clearly than I would be if I encountered my doppelgänger.”
“I was thinking,” Anna said, “while the kettle boiled. And I didn’t actually encounter this doppelgänger, except as a figure receding into the distance. I only came because I heard you shouting.”
Ari thought for a bit while Anna fussed with the tea things. “All right. But we can at least start with some obvious suspects. Like our warlock friend Emerald.”
“She’s first,” Anna said grimly, “and second are all the ladies who have left tributes at our doorstep for the past week. Only a few of whose identities I could even guess.”
“To be able to create a false you would require real magic. It would have to be a warlock, or a powerful faerie.”
“Mm,” conceded Anna. “Well, all right, let’s try from another direction. Who or what is this false me?”
“She, or it, was really a very good imitation in terms of appearance. It had your face, your movements, your voice, your expressions. Though not at all your personality—it was like someone doing a cheap parody of you.”
“Some possibilities,” Anna said. “Eidolon demon.”
“It’s the middle of the afternoon.”
“Good point. Shapeshifter.”
“The only shapeshifter with that kind of power I’ve ever heard of,” Ari said, “is Tessa Herondale.”
