Black Heart by Holly Black Page A

habit or in case of an emergency—but I’m not an idiot. That warehouse wasn’t unguarded. I’m sure someone had to be made to “remember” paperwork that let Barron load up a car with whatever he wanted and drive it out of a government building. And then that same person had to be made to forget.
    When I come back to the living room, Barron is mixing a concoction of duck sauce and hot mustard on his plate. “So what’s up?” he asks.
    I explain about Mom and her failed attempt to sell Zacharov back his own diamond, and the long-standing affair she appears to have had with him. Then I realize I have to explain how she stole it in the first place.
    Barron looks at me like he’s considering accusing me of lying. “Mom and Zacharov?”
    I shrug. “I know. It’s weird, right? I’m trying really hard not to think about it.”
    “You mean about the part that if Zacharov and Mom got married, that would make you and Lila brother and sister?” He starts laughing, falling back on the cushions.
    I chuck a handful of white rice at him. A few of the grains stick to his shirt. More stick to my glove.
    He keeps on laughing.
    “I’m going to go talk to the forger tomorrow. Some guy up in Paterson.”
    “Sure, we could do that,” he says, still giggling a little.
    “You want to come?”
    “Of course.” He opens the chicken with black bean sauce and dumps it over his mustard and duck sauce concoction. “She’s my mother too.”
    “There’s something else I should tell you,” I say.
    He pauses with his hand on a packet of soy.
    “Yulikova asked me if I would be willing to do something. A job.”
    He goes back to pouring out the sauce and taking a first bite. “I thought you couldn’t get put to work, since you haven’t officially joined up.”
    “She wants me to take out Patton.”
    Barron’s brows draw together. “ Take out? As in transform him?”
    “No,” I say. “As in take out to dinner . She thinks we’d make a good couple.”
    “So you’re going to kill him?” He regards me carefully. Then he mimes a gun with his fingers. “Boom?”
    “She didn’t tell me much about the plan, but—,” I start.
    He throws back his head and laughs. “You should have joined the Brennans if you were just going to become an assassin anyway. We could have made a lot of money.”
    “This is different,” I say.
    Barron laughs and laughs. Now that he’s off again, there’s no stopping him.
    I stab at the lo mein with my plastic fork. “Shut up. It is different.”
    “Please at least tell me that you’re going to get paid,” he says when he manages to catch a breath.
    “They said they’d get the charges against Mom dropped.”
    “Good.” He nods. “Any cold hard cash going along with that?”
    I hesitate, then have to admit, “I didn’t ask.”
    “You have a skill. You can do something no one else can,” Barron says. “Seriously. You know what’s good about that? It’s valuable . As in you can trade it for goods or services. Or money . Remember when I said it was wasted on you? I was so right.”
    I groan and shove rice into my mouth so that I don’t decide to dump the whole carton over his head.
     
    After we finish eating Barron calls Grandad. He tells a long and complicated series of lies about the questions the federal agents asked and how we weaseled out of answering all of them through our inherent charm and wit. Grandad cackles down the line.
    When I get on, Grandad asks me if any of what Barron said was true.
    “Some,” I tell him.
    He stays quiet.
    “Okay, very little,” I finally admit. “But everything’s okay.”
    “Remember what I said. This is your mother’s trouble, not yours. Not Barron’s, either. Both of you need to stay out of it.”
    “Yeah,” I say. “Is Sam still there? Can I talk to him?”
    Grandad gives the phone to Sam, who still sounds groggy but not all that upset to be abandoned for most of the day and the rest of tonight.
    “It’s okay,” he informs me.