CHAPTER 1
Monday 5 December
Melbourne, Australia
Eight nineteen on a Monday evening, and the last place on the planet Kyla would have expected to find herself was her sister Pippa’s driveway, anticipating a visit with some who—last she knew—hated her and who—last she knew—hadn’t wanted to speak to her ever again.
She had no idea what in the world could have happened to change that, if not the one thing that—somehow—had happened: Kyla and Pippa’s father had gotten suddenly ill, had been hospitalised, had his hold on life made suddenly even more precarious than the usual day-to-day existence of your average human being.
Pippa was a paramedic, so when she’d told Kyla that despite the hospital’s more optimistic prognosis, she thought it best that Kyla come see their father while she still could, Kyla took her at her word.
Only now, that meant that here she was, at eight—well, eight twenty, now, on a hot Monday evening in early December just before sunset, sweat trickling down the back of her neck thanks to the brief walk from the bus stop, contemplating how this visit might go.
She tucked her gloved hands under the straps of her backpack and squeezed. Her hands were clammy despite the ’sports performance’ fabric of her gloves, but it was a mild distraction compared to the fact that here she was right now, at number 138, stopping in front of the chunk of unaesthetic brick that passed for a mailbox and staring up at the house.
Pippa had moved since Kyla had seen her last.
That made sense, Kyla supposed, since the last place had been a tiny studio apartment Pippa had been renting while finishing university, but still: the horribly bland, horribly beige single-storey with attached double garage that Kyla was staring at in the fading light was… uninspiring. She’d always accused her sister of lacking an imagination; she hadn’t known it was this bad.
The plain concrete drive led to two beige roller doors. Garage and house alike squatted under a terracotta tile roof that did nothing to offset the awful, unappealing beigeness of brick that, presumably, a builder somewhere had chosen to use solely because no one else wanted it.
Kyla couldn’t think of any other rational reason to create a house so ugly. She supposed—grudgingly—that it must have been cheap, too, or else even Pippa wouldn’t have stooped so low in the taste stakes.
Kyla shifted her weight, hitching up the black-and-silver hiking backpack that held the entirety of her possessions for this trip. She used one shoulder to wipe ineffectually at the sweat dripping down from her hairline; nearly sunset, but the early summer sun was still determined to fry her right into the pavement. The back of her tank top was probably soaked right through.
The air felt warm in her nose, tasted of hot brick and concrete and salty sweat from her upper lip, felt like it was wrapping around her and suffocating her.
Or was that just the fact that she was about to more or less voluntarily go speak to her sister?
Urgh.
Kyla sighed heavily, reminded herself of how much she loved her dad—the entire reason she’d run away from home at age fourteen—and started up the path to the front door.
The shadow of the lone silver birch that constituted Pippa’s front garden was a welcome, if short-lived, temperature shift. Kyla glanced up at it and did a brief double take at the beautiful crystal chimes hanging from the lowest bough, motionless in the cloying, breathless evening air. A little more whimsical than she’d have expected from Pippa.
In contrast to the brief shade, which was very welcome, the shuddering screech from behind as the family across the street opened their also-beige roller door made Kyla wince—and wince again when two young kids squeaked and shouted, the sound echoing across the busy street. Hastily, Kyla shoved down memories of similar moments from her childhood, before… Well, before a lot of things.
Before she’d developed her Touch and realised that for her, self-control was going to be both a lot harder, and have a lot higher stakes.
Before she’d learned what kind of person her mother really was.
Before she’d done what she’d needed to do and seen her mother sent to prison to save her father’s life.
At twelve, Kyla had desperately wanted to be attractive. Her mother had wanted that for her too. And she’d become very attractive indeed, once her Touch developed: the unconscious, unavoidable need to discharge energy from her fingertips every few days, which for most people with Touches (few enough back then, but becoming more and more common with every passing year) meant a jolt of extra good luck, or a sudden insight about the future, or the ability to briefly know what other people were thinking or influence their thoughts.
For Kyla, however, it meant death. Not hers, of course, but of someone—whoever was nearest by, usually, until she’d run away from home and her mother’s pathological need to shape and direct and control this ‘talent’ for her own gain…
Until Kyla had spent a year out in the outback, mostly alone—mostly hungry for the first few months, too—with the space she needed to figure out the depth and extent of her Touch without worrying that someone would die while she slept—or even worse, while she didn’t: the memories of her first attempt at a boyfriend still burned hot enough to give her the occasional nightmare.
Kyla sighed heavily. Slouched. Took a deep, steeling breath—stop being ridiculous, it’s not like Pippa can do anything to you—Pippa loathed all Touches on principle, after seeing how their mother had treated Kyla, after seeing how Kyla was forced to treat the world—and strode to the house’s front door.
A security screen cloaked it, and the doorbell had a strip of black electrical tape over it indicating, presumably, that it was out of use, so Kyla knocked smartly on the panel of yellowed, textured glass beside the door instead, though what the point of a security screen was if a would-be intruder could just smash the glass instead, Kyla had no idea.
She sniffed, shook her head.
Footsteps sounded inside the house.
Kyla tensed.
The door opened.
Pippa had aged.
Not dramatically so, but she was clearly now a woman just edging into her thirties instead of the still-gangly girl she’d been… well, twelve years ago when Kyla had seen her last.
Kyla’s chest fluttered.
Pippa’s blonde hair with its natural wave and thickness was always going to be a perfect camouflage for grey hair, but her face was now full and mature, with a softness around the edges that hadn’t been there before and fine lines tracing her forehead and the corners of her grey eyes.
Grey eyes that widened slightly before narrowing as Pippa realised who was at the door and stiffened in response. Though she didn’t, Kyla noted, wear a protective glass pendant anymore. Interesting. What had happened to make her less afraid of being Touched?
Kyla shrugged it aside: probably Pippa had exchanged the visible pendant for one of the less visible Touch-protective charms that were trendy these days.
Kyla twitched one side of her mouth in some sort of approximation of a smile. “Hi,” she said.
Pippa looked her up and down, pursed her lips, and stalked back into the house.
But she didn’t shut the front door, so Kyla took that as a sign to come on in and, opening the screen door with a screech, she did.
The screen smacked shut behind her and she took her time closing the front door after it, inhaling deeply of cool air that tasted faintly of lavender and the kinds of laundry powders that called themselves ‘original’ scented. Objectively, it was pleasant compared to the baked air outside, but subjectively…
Deep breath, she told herself, hitching her backpack. You can do this. You’ve done plenty of worse things than this.
At least no one’s going to die.
That last thought jolted her stomach as Kyla considered the entire reason she was here in Melbourne at all, let alone breaching the sanctity of an estrangement that had allowed the two sisters to survive the last decade-and-change: her father, their father, sick in hospital and apparently in a critical condition.
She hoped this wouldn’t end with anyone dying.
One more deep breath, squared shoulders, and Kyla dropped her backpack by the front door and set out through the house to track down Pippa.
The white-tiled hallway was breezier than she’d anticipated, wide for a house this size, with a formal lounge room to the right and to the left, the master bedroom—immaculately white in every conceivable texture, tone and variation.
Say what you would, Pippa was clearly a woman familiar with bleach.
Was it better than the bland beige of the house’s exterior? Kyla couldn’t decide.
The white theme was repeated in the bathroom, next on the left, and in the kitchen where the hall opened out at the end of the house. Directly ahead, a sizeable TV was playing the latest celebrity gossip show to two empty white couches (studded with grey velveteen cushions, of course, to match the carpet), while to the right…
Pippa stood at the counter in the kitchen, a Schnauzer-grey ship in a further sea of white broken only by the black door handles on the cupboards, aggressively making tea. Kyla watched as Pippa dropped a tea infuser into each mug—shockingly, one a pink stoneware and the other sky-blue ceramic—then drummed her fingers next to them on the counter, staring fixedly at the kettle (white). “I assume you still drink tea?”
Kyla realised she was holding her breath. “Yeah,” she said. “Black, no sugar.”
“I remember.”
The noise of the kettle rose steadily, a quiet rumble at first that barely out-voiced the TV chattering away about some upcoming charity gala at the Museum, growing louder as steam began to issue from the spout. The kettle tremoured. Louder, louder until the TV chatter was overwhelmed, louder…
Kyla rubbed at the back of her neck.
Click.
The kettle hit boiling and switched off.
Kyla forced her shoulders to relax as Pippa filled the mugs with steaming water and set the kettle back on its cradle, not quite slamming it, then snatched up one hot mug and strode to the couch.
Kyla maturely restrained herself from rolling her eyes and followed with the remaining mug, which actually smelled delicious, something sweet and rosy. Pippa had chosen the seat closest to the kitchen, and Kyla hesitated for a heartbeat, the heat of the mug radiating against her gloved fingers. Sitting on the same couch seemed a little too familiar; the far end of the other couch a little too distant, both physically and metaphorically.
Kyla took the Goldilocks option, the other couch but the end closest to Pippa. She cradled her tea, the warmth actually welcome in here as a shield against the aggressive air conditioning, the sweet scent drifting up to her on clouds of steam. “So,” she began.
Pippa swirled the tea infuser from her mug, let it drip for a moment, and reached over to discard it in a small white dish on the white-washed wooden lamp table that occupied the corner between the two couches.
“So,” Kyla tried again as she discarded her own tea infuser. “Tell me about Dad.”
Pippa’s jaw twitched. She took a gulp of tea that had to be scalding and stared for a long moment at the TV.
Kyla spared it a glance: a blonde-haired European-looking woman with glamorous makeup, an ice-blue gown hugging her curves as she posed on a carpet that definitely wasn’t red, but gave off a similar sort of vibe.
“He is going to die.”
Kyla turned around. “How can you be so sure?”
Pippa gave a small shrug and sipped at her tea again. She swallowed. “The hospital don’t think he is. But he’s going to die. Well, at least if nothing changes.”
A slightly strange prognostication, perhaps, but hardly likely to be hyperbolic given Pippa’s paramedical experience.
Kyla’s chest constricted. “Why do you disagree with the hospital?”
Pippa let her gaze drift to the glass sliding door by the kitchen that led to a slowly darkening backyard, all concrete and the neighbour’s brick wall and neatly edged, unimaginative lawn. “Call it… intuition.”
“Intuition?” Kyla fought to keep her eyebrows from mirroring the scepticism in her voice.
“Yes,” Pippa said sharply. “Intuition.”
Despite her resolve, Kyla’s eyebrows gave a little jump. Fine. Intuition then. There was no point arguing with Pippa when she used that tone.
Kyla blew softly on her tea. So Dad might be dying. She ran her gloved thumb down the smoothly textured handle of her mug—the pink stoneware one. She hadn’t seen Dad in about eight years. What would he look like now? Had he aged much in the face? …Would she still recognise him?
That twisted her stomach, and it was her turn to raise her mug and gulp at still-too-hot liquid that scalded its way past the tip of her tongue to burn down her throat and settle in her stomach.
The black tea was rich and sweet, its soft, rosy notes a contrast to her harsh thoughts, and she took another scalding sip. “What is he dying of?” Her voice sounded fragile and polite, a stranger enquiring courteously about the health of someone else’s beloved.
Pippa hesitated.
End-of-show music rang out on the TV, jarringly loud.
Pippa dug the remote out of the couch’s cushions and muted it. “They’re not sure. It almost looks like a toxin of some sort, but a) that’s ridiculous and b) none of the tests for any sort of regular household poisons or anything else common have showed anything up.”
Kyla sipped again at tea that was slowly cooling to a drinkable temperature, her fingers curled tightly around the mug, gloves pinching at the base of her fingers, the hot liquid soothing in her throat. “How… How long do they—you—expect he has?” she asked. She’d visit the hospital tomorrow, find out for herself what the prognosis really was. She wasn’t going to hastily discount Pippa’s expertise… but she wasn’t going to take it as gospel, either.
Pippa shrugged, her fingertips blushing red and white around the blue mug. “Maybe a week.”
Adrenalin, hot and sharp, a brief lightning bolt through Kyla’s chest and stomach. She made a small, wounded noise.
It’s fine, it’ll be fine. She said herself the hospital don’t agree.
Pippa shot her a daggered glance. “I wouldn’t have called you for less.”
I wish you would.
Oh, there was a startling and unexpected thought.
Kyla breathed carefully, as though the very air of the room was as delicate as its faint traces of lavender and soap—and tea. “What… What do you need from me?”
“I just thought,” Pippa said, tone sharp, “that you might want to see him. I’m not a monster.”
Did Kyla imagine it, or was there a slight emphasis on the word ‘I’m’? Either way, she was spared from replying by her phone ringing.
She snatched it out of the back pocket of her shorts—unknown number—and pressed the green button, angling herself slightly away from Pippa as she did. Another round of celebrity images flashed across the TV screen, the woman in the ice-blue dress featuring prominently in an ad for the upcoming gala the talk show had been discussing.
“Hello?”
There was a breathy scratching against her ear, and as a thrill of adrenalin shot through her for no discernible reason, Kyla considered hanging up.
Before she could, however, an equally scratchy, gender-indeterminate voice began in a conversational tone. “How’s your father, Kyla?”
She froze, her grip on her phone turning vice-like. “Who is this?”
“Just a friend, Kyla, just a friend. A friend who happens to know exactly what is wrong with dear old Daddy, and who knows that in exactly five days from now, he’ll die, unless he’s given the antidote to the, uh, very special drink he took a few days ago.”
“Who is this?” she demanded, phone case biting through her gloves as she very carefully set her tea down on the lamp table. “What did you do?”
Glamorous women paraded past on the TV, posing, vaunting.
“Disappointing, Kyla. You’re asking the wrong question.”
A moment of prescience: Kyla whipped down the phone and hit speaker.
Pippa opened her mouth; Kyla shushed her urgently and nodded at the phone where the scratchy voice continued.
“The right question is, of course, what do you need to do to convince us to hand over the antidote.”
Kyla’s stomach knotted at once, a tight ball of nausea, fear—and fury.
“To what?” Pippa mouthed, expression more confused than concerned.
Kyla ignored her.
“And I’d say,” the voice continued, “the answer to that is very straightforward. We just want to engage your services, Kyla. One job for us, one antidote for dear old Daddy.”
Kyla’s free hand balled into a fist so tight the Velcro strap around the wrist of her glove tore loose. No. No no no. Never again. She’d sworn, never again… “I won’t be blackmailed,” she said, heart racing at her throat. Because there was only one thing they could be wanting from her, given her regular artefact-hunting services were freely advertised and available to anyone for a reasonable fee.
Murder, in exchange for her father’s life?
She’d sworn, never again.
“Won’t you?” the scratchy voice said, bemused. “I think it’s a bit late for that. Besides,” the voice continued. “I think you’ll find our terms aren’t so disagreeable. All we want is the Touchstone.”
Kyla nearly swallowed her tongue. The Touchstone? “But that’s… a fairy tale! It’s a myth! There’s no such thing as the Touchstone!”
Her father was going to die because some idiots decided they wanted her to find a non-existent artefact? She tucked her knotted fist tightly under her leg so she wouldn’t punch something.
“You want to risk your father’s life on that possibility? There is a Touchstone, Kyla, and rumour has it that it’s in town for a special event, and you’re going to find it and bring it to us before the end of the week so we can, uh, address your father’s little ailment, understood?”
Her heart hammered. “And if I don’t?”
“Oh, well,” said the voice, thick with an overly bright kind of resignation. “I hear your relationship with your father isn’t that close anyway. You haven’t seen him in what, nine, ten years? I’m sure his death on Saturday won’t crush you too terribly.”
Something cold shivered its way down Kyla’s back. They were out by a bit, but… how did they know how long it had been since she’d last seen Dad? “But I—”
The phone call disconnected.
“Wait, but—“ Kyla fumbled at the phone, hit redial—and again as the first call went to a blank voicemail—and again—and again.
“Get. Out.” The tightly controlled fury on Pippa’s face hit Kyla like a cloud of burning steam. Pippa’s grip looked like it would crack her mug at any moment.
“Pippa, I—“
“Get out. And you’d better find this stupid Touchstone, or they won’t be the only ones you have to deal with.”
Words boiled through Kyla’s head—don’t kick me out—you could help—can’t I see Dad first?—the Touchstone doesn’t even exist!—this isn’t my fault!—but the sentences leapt and tangled around each other, and she couldn’t find the beginning of one, and it didn’t matter, because none of them would help her anyhow.
She stood, tucked her phone into the pocket of her shorts, and nodded at Pippa. “I’ll find it,” she said. “If it’s here to find, I’ll find it.”
It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. An actual, real Touchstone?
It was like saying the moon had come to life and started granting wishes.
…Or like people had suddenly started waking up one day with slightly strange abilities—the Touched, they’d been nicknamed, for the way their power seemed to be channelled through the physical touch of their hands—and no one could figure out why.
Goosebumps rose on Kyla’s arms. The fierce air conditioning, no doubt.
She shook her head, a single tight, tense shake.
Pippa ignored her, staring steadfastly at the B-grade celebrities like Kyla had already left the room.
Kyla strode down the hall, snatched up her backpack, and let herself out, allowing the screen door to slam loudly behind her.
Air only slightly cooler than suffocating hit her face. Her stomach roiled.
Well. It wasn’t like she hadn’t expected the meeting to go terribly. She pressed a hand to her stomach and headed back down the drive. She’d just a) vastly underestimated exactly how terrible the meeting would be, and b) been wrong about why.
In the time she’d been in with Pippa, the shadow of the house next door had crossed the front garden and was even now climbing up Pippa’s garage. The shade was welcome, a dimmer on the fierce heat. Kyla ran a thumb over the protective glass pendant that hung on a black leather thong knotted around her neck, a slightly wonky glass square, the motion soothing and grounding.
The Touchstone.
Really, actually the Touchstone.
She ground her teeth. Really actually the Touchstone if the blackmailer’s info was good. Otherwise, her father’s life was in danger for no reason—multiple lives would be in danger, there was no way it was possible to believe that all the blackmailers wanted from her was a stone—although… Was it possible? Did she dare hope that maybe, just maybe, they’d contacted her solely because of her reputation as a finder, and they didn’t know the true nature of her Touch at all? After all, what lengths had she gone to to hide it from everyone around her? It was… possible.
Most people didn’t know she had a black Touch.
It was possible.
She inhaled firmly and set her shoulders, let her pendant fall back under the neckline of her tank top.
The Touchstone.
Well. There were two people in town other than herself who always had good information about magical artefacts: Alethea, and the Bloodhound. Looked like she had more visits to make in Melbourne than she’d planned.