Indelible. Dawn Metcalf

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СКАЧАТЬ most of it.”

      Joy slammed the phone onto the counter and quit considering the steak knives as potential weapons. It sounded like the sister could be reasoned with. And, besides, now the odds were two to one.

      “Will one of you tell me what the hell is going on?” Joy asked as she ticked off her fingers. “Who are you? What are you doing here? And what do you want with me?”

      “It isn’t really about you,” Inq started to say.

      “Oh, but it is!” her brother interrupted. He turned his accusation to Joy. “You saw us at the Carousel.”

      “I didn’t see anything—”

      “He means you saw us,” Inq explained.

      Joy frowned. “What? I’m not allowed to look at you?”

      “Wrong question.” Inq scooped Joy’s phone off the kitchen counter and flipped it playfully. Before Joy could protest, Inq held it up and gave Joy an impish grin.

      “If it makes you feel any better...” Inq flashed a huge smile and snapped a picture of herself. Glancing at the phone, she handed it back to Joy. “Here. See for yourself.” Joy did. There was nothing on the screen but the auto-flash bouncing off the wall, catching the corner of a picture frame directly behind where Inq stood.

      “Is this some sort of trick?” Joy asked. “And that somehow gives you permission to cut out my eye?”

      “Technically, yes and no,” Inq admitted, leaning against the breakfast bar. She had the same spiky hair and liquid eyes as her twin, but she wore a corset of gunmetal gray and layers and layers of black, lacy clothes. She looked like an upscale street kid or somebody terribly, tragically hip. “There’s no trick. Simply put, very few people like you can see people like us, and there’s an old rule that says if someone like us ever comes across someone like you, we should remove your Sight, one way or another.” Inq shrugged. “True Sight is rare, but often runs in families, sometimes skipping a generation or two. Sound familiar?” Joy’s stomach lurched. Great-Grandma Caroline might have actually seen things that were all too real. And she’d been locked away for life. “My brother might have gone to extremes, but he’s right—you might have thanked him in the long run.”

      “Thanked him?” Joy shouted. “Screw him! And screw you!” Terror had a taste in the back of her throat. “Get out of my house!”

      “You cannot banish us,” Ink said softly. “The fact that you are even able to see us puts all of us, including you, at risk. Removing the Sight might have let you live a normal life.”

      “Minus eyes!” Joy spat.

      Ink tilted his head. “A more normal life,” he amended. “More normal than the one you will have now.”

      “That’s all in the past,” Inq said. “No mas. Capice? Ink didn’t blind you—he missed. Instead of taking your eyes, he accidentally marked you.” She lifted her small hand up to one midnight eye. Her hands were perfect and perfectly smooth. No knuckles. No fingernails. Like a doll’s. She gazed at Joy through the space between her fingers. “You wear it on your face.”

      Joy touched her cheek. A trick of light caught her eye. Flash! Flash! Was that what she’d seen in the mirror?

      “You’ve been touched by a Scribe,” Inq continued, “and since no one ordered that you be marked, you’ve been imprinted as his. As belonging to Ink.” She turned and regarded her brother sitting at the kitchen table. “He’s had to claim it was on purpose, that he chose you as his own, so that no one learned of the mistake.” Her voice grew quiet. “We are not permitted mistakes.” Inq switched her infinite eyes to Joy. “So we must find a way to work together. It would go poorly for everyone otherwise.”

      Joy didn’t understand half of what Inq was saying, and she didn’t like the sound of the other half. “Look, I’m sorry,” she said, not feeling very sorry, “but I think everybody has me confused with someone else.” She looked desperately from Inq to Ink. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen anything weird until last Friday night and—no offense—but I didn’t mean to see you and, frankly, don’t want to see either of you ever again. So, if you don’t mind, can we just forget this ever happened and will you please leave?”

      She’d meant it as an order, but it came out more like a plea. She knew she should call the police or hit the red emergency button or simply scream for help, but Joy clung to the insane hope that these two might go away quietly if she said or did the right things. Besides, there was an unspoken threat that she couldn’t stop them if Ink and Inq decided to get ugly.

      Ink spread his hands on the table. They were smooth and unearthly against the polished wood.

      “Let me explain,” he said. “We are Scribes. Our job is to draw signaturae.”

      “Signaturae?” Joy echoed.

      “Special marks. Symbols worn upon the skin,” Inq explained.

      Joy frowned. “Why?”

      “To keep track of who is who,” Inq said archly, “and, more importantly, whose is whose.” She reached her arms over her head in a lazy stretch. “Once upon a time, our people and yours shared this world. We were tied to certain territories and a few chosen bloodlines, bound together to safeguard the world’s magic from corruption and decay. Nowadays, with so little unspoiled land left, we require far more people to anchor the magic and maintain the balance.” She drew something on the counter with her finger. “We use signaturae to mark those who are ours the way the land was once ours, those who share a little bit of magic, identifying who is connected, who can be claimed and who is strictly off-limits.”

      Ink held up a hand. “We take orders and place a signatura upon a person,” he said, choosing his next words carefully. “A human, according to ancient laws.” Joy shivered. They weren’t human—that much was obvious, but Ink saying it aloud put it out there for real. “But a signatura must be given willingly and only to those who qualify. Our work safeguards our people from corruption and signifies that the chosen human is protected, formally claimed by one of the Folk. It is a message to others—touch this human, and you risk offending their patron and upsetting the balance. A signatura gives fair warning of whom you might cross.”

      Joy turned his words over like a snow globe in her head, her thoughts scattered and shaken. “But no one asked you to mark me?”

      Ink looked away. “No.”

      “Anyone can order a mark.” Inq played with a bead of water. “At least, anyone who takes an interest and makes a legitimate claim and pays the fee,” she said. “But that’s not important. What is important is that there are very few who can place others’ signaturae onto living flesh. As Scribes, our job is to take orders from the Folk and make a mark in their stead. We are their instruments by proxy. Per procurationem. In absentia. In loco deus.” She flicked the bead of moisture, sending a spray over the laminate. “You understand now why we can never make mistakes.”

      Joy pointed to her eye. “But this was a mistake.”

      “Not if Ink claims that he has chosen you for himself,” Inq said. “It doesn’t happen often, but any of the Folk can claim a special little someone for themselves.”

      “By stabbing them in the eye?” Joy said. “How СКАЧАТЬ