“You’re both vestiges?”
“I’m pretty sure we aren’t,” Rose said. “We’re both more vulnerable to possession, but that’s not the point. The bigger part gets to be real, the smaller part is the vestige. But the way it’s done, there’s always conflict. Which is the point. The Barber makes his victim destroy themselves. Fight tooth and nail for everything. If one side survives, well, there’s nothing saying the Barber can’t cut away more of them. Do it again, until all you’ve got is a ruined, mad, pathetic husk.”
“But Blake wasn’t-“
“The hostility was raw,” Rose said. “It’s supposed to be subtle, but… coming from where he did, I’m betting the subtleties have been ground away. The way this works, one of us is destined to destroy the other. Believe me, I definitely want to get rid of him, especially now that I know. If he finds out about this…”
“He’ll want to destroy you.”
“He was telling the truth, when he said you were his friends. If he finds out,” Rose said, speaking very carefully, “that he could get you back, get all of his old life back, simply by defeating me, that he could make headway by diminishing me, even, that we’re in a tug of war for every aspect of the existence, that we’re being driven to the point where one kills the other…”
She was rambling, and had lost the thread of her own statement.
“Rose-” Alexis said. “What he said, it matches up with this.”
“He’s not real,” Rose said, “The diary says as much. When a man is cut in twain by the shears, the part that retains the heart and soul is female. He’s… I’m going to need your help. I’m going to need promises, because we can’t fly blind here.”
“But I like him,” Evan said. “He’s got birds on him, and birds are awesome.”
“Then- fuck it,” Rose said, “Like him all you want. But I’m going to have to ask that you stay quiet. I’m genuinely frightened. The stories that go with the Barber… it’s usually a build-up, regular interactions with someone who overlaps too much with you. Then conflict comes up, and the damage is… as bad as it gets. Life-destroying. And neither of us are complete people. It’s pretty easy to do damage to each other.”
“It’s different here, though,” Ty said.
“But the pattern is still holding. Grandmother used it, but it’s still the same thing.”
“Why?” Alexis interjected.
“Because she wanted a tailor-made heir. Cut away all the bits she doesn’t like… like my having friends and ties to another city, or interests. Retain the parts she does. Then, when all’s said and done, if I can’t beat my reflection, maybe I don’t deserve to be her heir.”
“You want to lie?“
“We have to,” Rose said
She injected a bit of Conquest into her voice.
Continuing, she said, “We can’t afford to be weak right now, or to have to watch my back for an attack from a fragment of my reflection. I’m not denying it’s going to be messy, but we need to stand together.”
The others accepted. Influenced, but not forced. They made the call of their own accord.
It was only after the others had fallen that Evan finally relented to the pressure and promised to stay silent.
■
I felt the birdlike flutter in my chest jerk, twitch, then splinter, as if it were multiplying.
My entire body shuddered with the ensuing vibrations, as if I had a flock of birds within me.
“Blake,” Roxanne said. She was slipping.
It took me long seconds to go still again. I caught her wrist and pulled her up.
My chest heaved.
I’d stopped climbing.
But only just. I’d been moving while the Tenements showed me a glimpse of the past. We were nearly at the place the others had gone inside. Ellie was looking out the window.
I looked back, and saw Kathryn making slow progress behind me, hugging the wall, oblivious to the damage she was doing to her one good hand, fingertips, cheek, and knees bloody where they’d been scraped raw.
I climbed up enough to hand Roxanne over, then headed down, giving Kathryn some support. She wound up needing it, climbing up to the window.
I was last to ascend.
Ty was already opening the way. A gate to the foot of the hill, outside Hillsglade House, near the trees.
Alexis glanced back and smiled.
I couldn’t smile back in return.