by Chloe Neill
“I saw one,” Gavin called out.
Liam shook his head, rolled his eyes. “That was a deer.”
“They’re both ungulates.”
We both looked back at him, and he lifted a shoulder. “I found a book of crosswords. Been working on my vocab.”
“Suspicious,” I murmured, and looked back at Liam, searched his eyes. “What did you actually see?”
Liam was a bounty hunter, had worked after the war to track Paranormals who hadn’t been captured by Containment and bring them into Devil’s Isle. But he knew the truth about Court and Consularis, and he’d been very particular about his bounties—and helping Consularis Paras stay hidden. Now he was using his skills to scout New Orleans and its surroundings, watch for Court movements into the area.
“There’s a new encampment,” he said. “North side of Lake Pontchartrain. About forty of them. All Seelies.”
My stomach sank. Although they seemed pale and delicate, Seelies were among the fiercest of Court fighters. They’d been part of the first guard unit that had fought us when the Veil was ripped open—with their furious eyes and golden weapons—and we’d barely survived the attack. One of us hadn’t. Erida, a Consularis Para and, I later learned, my father’s secret paramour, had taken a fatal wound for me.
We hadn’t seen any Seelies since that battle; that they were amassing outside New Orleans didn’t bode well.
“Forty Seelies,” I said, trying to imagine the havoc they could wreak. “How did a group that large get past Containment?” The Veil’s gap at Belle Chasse—while plenty wide to cause trouble—was the only existing void, and Containment had an outpost right there. And we’d have heard about a battle against forty Seelies. Gunnar, one of my best friends and a Containment higher-up, would have had many thoughts.
“Probably a few at a time,” Liam said. “I’m going to talk to Gunnar.”
“They’re preparing for something?”
“I don’t know. It’s certainly possible, but they also don’t like to mingle with other Paras. Royalty among peasants.”
I put a hand on his cheek. “I’m glad you made it back.”
“I made it back, too,” Gavin called out.
“I’m not talking to you,” I said.
“I said I was sorry.”
“You did say that. But it doesn’t excuse what you did.”
“I didn’t put the possum in the truck.”
“You left the windows open. In a wildlife refuge. Overnight.”
He didn’t have a response to that.
Liam’s lips were at my ear. “Please try not to kill my brother. We’ve just returned to our homeland, and that’s a little too Greek tragedy for me.”
“I’ll do what I can,” I said, but narrowed my gaze at Gavin.
He almost managed not to smile.
“Come on, frère,” Liam said. “We have a debrief to get to. You two can snipe at each other later.”
Gavin muttered something in Cajun, and Liam flipped him off. That was their chemistry.
“I’ll see you tonight,” I said, and tugged Liam down for one last kiss. “And don’t forget about the party.”
“What party?” Gavin asked. “And will there be sexy ladies?”
“Tadji’s birthday party.”
“Oh, right. I forgot about that.” He ran a hand through his hair, which he was letting grow out. It nearly reached his shoulders now. “Do I need a present? And does she like hot sauce?”
“Stop scavenging for that mess,” Liam said. “It’s at least eight years old.”
“Like diamonds, pepper sauce is forever,” Gavin said with a grin.
There wasn’t a praline to be found in the entire city of New Orleans, but not even war had decimated our supply of souvenir hot sauce.
“Does Tadji know about the surprise guest?” Liam asked.
“She does not,” I said. And I hoped that didn’t come back to bite me. Neither of us was big on surprises; we’d seen plenty of drama in our lives. I was making one very large exception tonight.
“It’s going to be spectacular,” I said. And hoped I was right.
CHAPTER TWO
Liam, Gavin, Moses, and I stood in the makeshift community hall, the empty shell of the former Marigny Market, where food and souvenirs had once been sold, and the place where we’d prepared for an attack on Devil’s Isle by an antimagic cult.
It now held long folding tables and a few dozen humans and Paras, and someone had stuffed an old zydeco cassette into an even older tape player. The bright sounds of accordion, drums, and horns moved through the hall like a musical second line, and we’d pieced together a HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner from old magazine pages.
My closest friends came in together. Gunnar was tall and tan, his dark hair swooped over his forehead, the sides trimmed short. He was handsome in a best-friend kind of way, with big hazel eyes and a killer smile.
He was the second-in-command of Devil’s Isle, the Commandant’s lead strategist, and he wore the dark Containment fatigues that officers preferred, with sleeves rolled up and patches on the arms and chest.
Tadji was only a little shorter, with brown skin and an abundance of dark curls around a lovely face marked by gorgeous cheekbones. She paired shorts with a floaty sleeveless top and sling-style sandals, and she wore her key to the front door of Royal Mercantile—my family’s store, which she now managed—on a chain around her neck.
“Happy birthday!” I said as I gave her a hug.
“Thanks.” She pulled back, gave Liam an appraising look beneath arched brows. “You appear to be in one piece.”
“We made it through.”
“Where’s your feckless brother?”
“I’m not feckless, cher,” Gavin said, stepping around her. “I just like to conserve my energy.”
“He just went along for the ride,” Liam said.
“I kept your ass from getting nailed by Seelies when you climbed out of that canal.” He pulled a silver flask from his pocket, unscrewed the top, took a swig, then offered it to me.
I waved the drink away, since Gavin’s taste in liquor ran to “anything available.” But the possibility of Liam in danger made my heart thump hard against my chest. “You nearly got nailed by Seelies?”
“He’s exaggerating,” Liam said, sniffing at the flask and screwing up his features in distaste. “What the hell is this?”
“Homemade,” Gavin said with a grin, taking it back and shoving it into a pocket.
Liam rolled his eyes, glanced at me. “Swimming’s the only way to get up by Bayou St. John. The line’s thin over there,” he added, with a glance at Gunnar.
“We’re working on it,” he said. “President and Congress are fighting about military spending again.”
“Abandon hope, all ye who enter New Orleans,” Gavin said.
“Seelies?” I prompted.
“They weren’t near us,” Liam said, running a hand down my arm, which managed to excite and soothe at the same time. “He was hurrying me to get out of the canal because he found a blackberry bramble. And then we found evidence of a scout about a quarter mile down the road.”
“How were the blackberries?” Tadji asked with a smile.
“Luscious.”
She rolled her eyes and looked at me. “And how was practice?”
“Pretty good, actually.”
“In that nobody is a wraith.”
My smile was wry. “Sometimes, you have to look on the bright side.”
“You do what you can,” Tadji said, squeezing my arm. “The rest is up to them. Now,” she said, narrowing her gaze, “would someone like to tell me why I had to arrive at precisely six thirty when it looks like everyone else has been milling around this place for a while?”
“We actually have a surprise for you,” I said.
Tadj
i’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like surprises.”
“Well aware,” Gunnar said, holding up a hand. “And I did not approve of this little venture, but I was outvoted. So blame Claire.”
“Coward,” I muttered.
“Oh, absolutely.”
Understandable, given that the look Tadji aimed at me was not exactly comforting. Or even a little bit friendly.
“I love you,” I said lightly, and her eyes narrowed even more.
“Claire.”
I opened my mouth to respond, to say something appropriate, something that would mark the moment. But I was saved the trouble.
There was a soft thud behind us, the sound of full canvas against tile. Of someone’s duffel bag hitting the ground, packed with clothes and gear he’d taken with him to DC . . . and brought back to New Orleans.
“Tadji.” Burke was tall, with dark skin and eyes, generous eyes. And there was no denying the affection in his deep, warm voice when he said her name.
Tadji hadn’t yet turned around, but there was a change in her posture. Shoulders lifting, as if her heart had swelled. Fingers suddenly fidgeting with the thin gold rings she wore on her right hand.
She turned so slowly she might have been moving through honey. And I wasn’t sure if she was afraid—or wanted to prolong the moment. Or whether she’d want to slap me when all was said and done.
But then I saw it in her eyes. The recognition, the excitement, the relief. And I knew her wrath would be worth it. Even if Containment called him away again, she’d have this memory to return to.
“Burke.”
“Hey, Tadj,” he said, and strode toward her and wrapped her into his arms so that she nearly disappeared in the muscular mountain of his body. And it didn’t look like she minded at all.
I gave myself a mental fist bump. God, I loved reunions. And two in one night? That was pretty spectacular.
The room erupted into applause. They knew a good thing when they saw it; they knew happiness when they saw it.
Liam reached out and squeezed my hand, and I gave myself a moment to enjoy it, to bask in love and happiness and excitement. Because we were still in the middle of a war.
“This is why you wanted the surprise,” Gavin said, sidling beside us. “You wanted to witness this.”
“We take our joy where we can find it,” I said, and leaned into Liam.
Moses knew where to find his joy. “Let’s eat!” he said, and clapped his hands together. People started moving toward the tables, and I skimmed past Tadji.
“You better take tomorrow off,” I murmured, and gave her a wink.
* * *
• • •
Moments later, I was staring down at the slimy mass of boiled pods some creative soul had paired with orange gelatin.
Creative adventures in okra.
Food scarcity was an issue. The city’s population had dropped, but getting food into the Zone, the southern part of the U.S. touched by war, wasn’t easy. We’d planted three more community gardens in New Orleans and started tending a dozen abandoned pecan and fruit trees. We gathered, hunted, and fished what we could. Late summer was a time of plenty in New Orleans, and there were lots more shrimp in the water without humans for nearly eight years.
But this particular travesty wasn’t about necessity. This was about Moses and his very weird sense of taste.
“Whaddya think?” he asked, nodding in approval at the dish.
“I mean—that is something.” Something that I would avoid. I’d seen what Moses ate—very old crawfish and canned food bursting with botulism.
Thankfully, the table held plenty of more traditionally NOLA fare, at least what we could pull off with the food available. There was corn, shrimp gumbo, fried squash, bread pudding, pickled mirliton, slices of Creole tomatoes, blackberries that looked ready to burst.
“I’m not sure how I feel about a joint human-Para potluck,” Liam said, sidling beside me as he added slices of tomato to his plate and sprinkled them with the waiting salt.
“Good about the diplomacy,” I said. “Bad about the food.”
“You just don’t get it,” Moses muttered, and scooped wiggly okra-in-gelatin onto his plate.
“I’m okay not getting that,” Liam said, and offered him a scoop of bread pudding.
Moses wrinkled his nose. “I’m not eating that wet bread garbage.”
“Of course you aren’t,” Liam said, and added the food to his own plate. “Because it doesn’t smell like week-old roadkill.”
* * *
• • •
We took our seats, watched Sensitives, soldiers, and Paras shuffle plates of food to their seats. People still clumped together in the groups they recognized and felt part of, with Sensitives serving as a kind of bridge between the two worlds.
Some of the attendees were old friends, some new.
Mariah talked to Darby Craig, who loved retro clothes and had the perfect pinup figure for them, and was a fellow member of Delta, the formerly rogue group that had secretly defied Containment’s unilateral ban on magic. Darby had run her own underground lab until the war had begun again, when Containment had finally wised up and given back her official status. Now she spent her time researching ways to repair the Zone.
Solomon, Moses’s cousin and the former leader of the Devil’s Isle Para underground, talked with Malachi, an angel with blond curls that framed his chiseled face and golden eyes. His body was equally chiseled, and we haven’t even gotten to the enormous ivory wings. His figure was an interesting foil to Solomon’s small and stocky build.
Lizzie, a nurse at the Devil’s Isle clinic and a powerful fire Para in her own right, sat with Dave. They were using their fingers to trace movements on the tabletop, and I guessed it was soccer related. Both played in Containment’s recreational soccer league.
A year ago, this wouldn’t have been possible. Paras were imprisoned, Sensitives were illegal, and humans didn’t cross the treacherous line between mundane and magical. I wouldn’t have wished for tragedy to bring us together, but bring us together it did.
I looked over at Tadji and Burke. She still appeared to be in shock—thrilled to see Burke and utterly surprised that he was there. Proving that love could be nourished and grown, could outlast time and outpace distance. And allow us to be who we were without disguise or camouflage.
I glanced over at Liam, who sat in a folding chair beside Moses, his hand on Moses’s shoulder as they talked earnestly. I felt better just seeing him at the other end of the table. Knowing that he was safe, at least for now, and that I wouldn’t stand alone against an incursion.
And still . . . fear was a hard and bitter seed. I knew I couldn’t take anything for granted in the Zone, but something felt different. The air itself was tense, as if the molecules were poised and waiting. Something was coming. Maybe the Seelies, maybe some other monsters. But it felt like New Orleans was moving toward the inevitable . . .
Gavin sat down beside me, a dill pickle spear sticking out of his mouth like a cigar.
“Good spread,” he said, and crunched a bit before adding the remainder of the spear to a plate loaded with meat.
“It is,” I said, and glanced at him, wondering if he was prepared for a serious talk. Given he’d taken a seat that put his back against the wall—and gave him a view of all the doors and angles, and he was scanning those angles while he shoveled in food with a plastic fork—I figured he was prepared enough.
“How’s Liam?” I asked.
Gavin loved to tease, to comment, to snark. But he was also a loyal brother. That it took him a moment to answer tightened something in my belly.
“He’s okay,” he said, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin, which he balled in his fist. “Dealing. Didn’t talk about his magic, but not talking is the Quinn way.”
“Did he use it?”
“No.” He scooped some dirty rice, chewed. “He got closest, I think, when we found the Seelies. There were a lot of them, and they were powerful. I could tell that he was feeling it. That their magic had an appeal. He had a look in his eyes.”
“Lust,” I said, and didn’t mean it lightly. And Gavin’s expression said he knew what I’d meant.
“Yeah. But he didn’t say anything about it.”
I nodded, pushed food around my plate, my appetite suddenly gone.
“He’s happier now that he’s back with you.” Gavin turned his head to look at me, and there was something appreciative in his eyes. “You center him. Remind him the magic can be a feature, not a bug. You’re good for him, Red.”
I narrowed my gaze. “Did you just compliment me?”
“Don’t get used to it,” he said with a grin. “Reunions make me sappy.”
“Same,” I said.
I put down my plastic fork, crossed my arms. When Liam had first gotten his magic, he’d been so unnerved by the anger and hate he’d felt—derived from the magic of a very twisted Sensitive—that he’d left New Orleans and disappeared into the bayou for five weeks. He’d been afraid he was going to hurt me.
“He’s not going to leave you again.”
Not on purpose, I thought. Not because he’d want to. But maybe because of where we lived, how we lived, Tadji and Burke were proof enough that love could flourish and bloom; but that didn’t mean it couldn’t also be torn apart by war and magic.
“Maybe he won’t have a choice,” I said.
“Optimism,” Gavin said. “We’re going to hope for the best. He loves you, Claire. Believe me on that. He talked about you nonstop.”
“He . . . what?” My cheeks flushed even as I felt almost stupidly proud.
Gavin grinned again, chewed more pickle. “He loves you,” he said with a shrug. “And he’s proud of you. You survived the war. You stuck it out here. That impresses the hell out of him. And maybe most importantly, he trusts you. Magic is uncomfortable to him, and you understand magic, the cost of having it, more than most humans. So keep on doing what you’re doing.”