by Chloe Neill
Then, because he was Gavin, he stole my corn bread, putting a crescent-shaped bite in the clean edge before dropping it to my plate.
“Now we’re even for the possum.”
“You are really bad at this,” I said, but he was already walking away.
CHAPTER THREE
I slept better than I had in a week, heavy as a log and equally as unaware of the world.
“Let’s have a lazy day.”
I blinked at Liam through a curtain of red hair. He lay beside me in the bed that was just barely large enough for the two of us, wearing boxers patterned with Tabasco bottles, one hand behind his head, gaze on the tin ceiling.
With Tadji manning Royal Mercantile, I’d moved from the store’s third-floor apartment into the modified gas station that held my father’s collection of supernatural objects, where I could keep an eye on them. While I’d donated most of the weapons to Malachi, our winged Consularis friend, we’d moved the rest of the objects from the display tables my father had created to the building’s fortified basement—with Malachi’s blessing. Now the gas station was less museum and more urban loft. A postapocalyptic apartment.
The building had been renovated by someone with a taste for chrome, leather, and primary colors. We’d filled the living area with furniture we’d found in the neighborhood—mostly leather and wood, since they had held up in the heat better than fabric. Gavin, Tadji, and Malachi had helped us redecorate. But only Malachi knew about the building’s purpose as a magical archive, or that my father had assembled the collection. That kept the rest of the artifacts safer, or so we hoped.
Liam spent most nights here with me in the small bedroom loft—at least when he wasn’t on patrol with Gavin. I worked late on nights like that, helping Tadji at the store, Gunnar with some Containment task, or Lizzie at the clinic in Devil’s Isle. If I stayed busy, I worried less about the danger Liam faced.
He hadn’t officially moved in. We were exclusive, but despite Gavin’s plea for optimism, I wasn’t ready to build expectations about forever and happy ever after. Not when those hopes could be dashed apart so easily.
But I was smart enough to take joy and happiness when I could find them.
“A lazy day?” I asked, pushed my hair aside, then glanced at the clock. Not quite seven in the morning. Too early to be awake, although it was the latest I’d slept in a while.
“Chicory coffee,” Liam said. “Beignets and the paper, watching the tourists. Then a nap, some crawfish étouffée, maybe an afternoon on a balcony with a breeze and a Sazerac. And when the sun goes down, a brass band and machine full of frozen strawberry daiquiris.”
“There’s a daiquiri machine in your fantasy New Orleans?”
“I’m being historically accurate.” He turned his head to look at me. “Isn’t there in yours?”
“I haven’t really thought about it. Mostly I imagine finding an enormous cache of Empire-style furniture and meeting the interior designer who wants to buy the entire lot from me at once.”
The thought gave me warm fuzzies.
“You’re a capitalist to the bone.”
“Especially during lean times.” I sat up, stretched. “I don’t have chicory coffee, beignets, a paper, crawfish, Sazeracs, a jazz band, or a daiquiri machine.” I considered our inventory. “But I can get you some instant coffee, year-old Pop-Tarts, Gavin’s very bad moonshine, and Dr. John on vinyl.”
“And the daiquiri machine?” he asked.
I paused. “Gavin can fan you while you drink his moonshine?”
He laughed deeply, then rolled and captured me beneath him. “Let’s just try this and worry about the extras later.”
“Oh, I forgot,” I said, slipping out of his arms. “We might actually have some extras!” I pulled on a robe and belted the waist.
Liam sat up, muscles bunching from the movement. “Have I been gone so long that you’ve forgotten how this works? We at least need to be in the same room.”
“A box came from Eleanor!” I called out, already moving down the narrow spiral staircase to the first floor. Eleanor’s spirit was strong, but her hidden magic had put her at risk, and the Quinn boys had moved her out of New Orleans. She was now in Charleston, outside the Zone.
I heard Liam coming down the stairs behind me, metal treads creaking with use, as I grabbed the box I’d put on the table that had formerly held my father’s banned magical-artifact collection. The box had been carefully wrapped in brown paper, the address neatly written in old-fashioned cursive.
“Presents,” I said, offering it to him.
He pulled a folded knife from the pocket of jeans he hadn’t yet managed to button. “Presents indeed. I wondered when this was going to get here.”
He slit a seam and put the knife away, each move careful and precise. I had to bite back a growl of impatience. She was his grandmother, and it was his box to open, but she always included a treat for me.
“I can feel you vibrating.”
“Anticipation,” I said, drawing the word out.
He opened the flaps, the contents hidden by a sheet of white tissue paper, and just looked at me.
“You’re cruel.”
Liam lifted an eyebrow. “You left me naked and wanting for the mere possibility of candy.”
“It’s more than a mere possibility,” I said with a grin. Not the strongest defense, but an honest one.
He rolled his eyes, folded the white paper away, and began pulling out the gifts.
“For you,” he said, and offered me the bar of chocolate snugged between two chilly gel packs.
“Yes,” I hissed, and took the bundle to the kitchen. The gel packs went into the freezer to be used again, the chocolate into the fridge.
By the time I walked back, Liam had pulled out a box of fleur de sel, as sea salt had healing powers for Paras, and three boxes of shelf-stable chocolate milk. That was for Gavin.
He’d also pulled out an envelope in pale pink, an “E” in delicate gilding on the flap. He opened it, pulled out a letter on matching letterhead.
“‘Liam and Claire,’” he read, leaning back against the table. “‘I hope this finds you safe and sound. Life in Charleston is lovely, but hot. Foster loves going for walks and playing in the neighborhood sprinklers.’”
Foster was Eleanor’s Labrador retriever. He’d accompanied her out of the Zone.
“‘I’ve hired a lovely young woman to walk him, and they are the best of friends. I think it’s true love. I am also enjoying the food. Low Country and Creole have common elements, but they are very different.
“‘Please tell Gavin to be good and clean his apartment, and that I look forward to hearing he has settled down with a nice young woman.’” Liam looked up. “I am absolutely not going to tell him that.”
“Not it,” I said, raising a hand. “He’s your brother.”
“That’s exactly why you should tell him. He won’t still be related to you.”
I just gave him a look.
He frowned, but looked down at the letter. “Where was I?”
“Settling down.”
“Right. ‘As you asked, I do believe the magic is fading. The thingamajigs don’t have quite the same intensity that they did before I left. Their colors aren’t as vibrant, but I’m not certain if that’s because of my magic fading or theirs. And I’m still deciding how I feel about that. If that’s what life brings, so be it.’”
Liam paused. “‘I suppose I should wrap this up. All my love, Eleanor.’”
“Thingumajigs?” I asked.
“A couple of old remote controls,” Liam said with a smile. “Moses had them in his collection for years, and they became instilled with magic over that time. She could see their colors.”
I watched him for a minute, folding the letter carefully before tucking it into its envelope again.
“You wondered what would happen if you left New Orleans.”
He looked at me quietly for a moment, then put the letter back in the box. “I’m not ready to give up. But, yeah, I wanted to know what might happen. If we left.”
I was worried by the fact that he’d thought about leaving. And worried and comforted by the fact that he’d thought about our leaving together. Was that what he expected? That I’d walk away from New Orleans?
I’d lived here my entire life. I ran the store my great-grandfather had started, had buried my father here when war had taken him away. My memories of him were rooted in this place. Sometimes I could smell his cologne, hear his voice, feel his hugs. And even when war came again, I took the chaos and want and fear because as long as I stayed here, some part of him stayed with me.
Could I leave all that behind?
“My ties to the city aren’t as strong as yours are,” Liam said. Ironic, since his families—the Quinns and Arsenaults—had been in southern Louisiana for generations. “To the land, yeah. But not to the city. I’m comfortable carrying those memories with me.”
He crossed his arms and looked away, frowning as he stared into space, as if he was working something out. “And magic isn’t as comfortable for me as it is for you. For Eleanor. For Burke. So I wondered what would happen. If magic was something we’d have to leave behind, too.”
“It looks like you wouldn’t have a choice,” I said. “I mean, if Eleanor’s experience is typical, you lose the power, or the sensitivity to it, when you’re gone.”
And I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, either. Relieved that I wouldn’t have to carry the burden? Or sad that I’d no longer be a girl with a gift? I’d once hidden my magic, believing it was inherently bad. Then I’d used it in hiding because while my attitude had changed, it was still banned. Now it was part of who I was—the good and the bad. Who would I be without it?
“It’s complicated,” I said, and he put an arm around my shoulder, drew me in.
“Complicated,” he agreed, then tipped up my chin with a fingertip, blue gaze drilling into mine, flecks of gold at the edges of his irises like glimmers of a hidden jewel.
“Sometimes the answers are easier than the questions. Sometimes we have exactly as much as we need.”
He kissed me, and I wanted to stay in that place—in that moment—forever.
* * *
• • •
Since Tadji had the day off, we made our way to the Quarter to open Royal Mercantile.
Scarlet provided the transportation. We’d found her, a red and curvy Ford from the 1940s that someone had mostly rehabbed, before Belle Chasse, and she’d been serving us well since then. A streak of inky black now curved along the back passenger-side wheel well, a scar from a fire sprite. But she ran like a top, and I considered the scar a badge of honor.
It was still early morning, but the heat and humidity had already settled in. The city was hazy and quiet, the French Quarter equally so. Puddles lined the edges of the street where rain had fallen overnight. Two Containment officers patrolling on horses, hooves clip-clopping against brick and asphalt, waved as we passed.
Like many of the remaining buildings in the French Quarter, Royal Mercantile was a three-floor town house, with iron-railed balconies along the second and third floors in front of tall, narrow windows that reached from floor to ceiling. A purple flag marked with gold fleurs-de-lis, the standard of postwar New Orleans, hung limply from the second balcony.
My father had once sold fancy antiques to tourists and locals alike. There’d been German clocks, French secretaries, and English silver. Velvet and linen and gold and mahogany. Now we sold MREs and duct tape, bottled water and filtration kits, offered vegetables and herbs from the community gardens. The lending library had been Tadji’s idea, as had the Friday night open mic. Soldiers and citizens alike shared poetry, played guitar, and otherwise worked to stay sane in a city that rarely was.
I unlocked the door, we walked inside, and I flipped the CLOSED sign to OPEN.
The floors were hardwood, the walls hung with the cuckoo clocks my father had collected. A creaking staircase tucked against the right wall led up to the second floor, where I’d stored excess inventory, and to the third floor, where I’d lived before moving into the garage. Since Tadji had declined my offer to move her in—she’d wanted to keep work and personal space separate—it now stored the antiques we’d moved out of the first floor to make room for the new meeting space. My telekinesis had come in very handy that day.
I walked straight to the air conditioner and flipped it on, then stood in front of the vent, eyes closed. It was my daily meditation on the joys of electricity.
“Quit hogging the bought air,” Liam said, sidling beside me.
“You could just ask me nicely to share,” I said, eyes closed as chilly air blew my hair back.
He put an arm around my waist, nipped my neck. “What would be the fun in that?”
“Rewards for good behavior.”
“You have a point.”
“I usually do.” As if in reward, he trailed kisses across my neck. “We have to open the store,” I reminded him, even as my toes curled inside my boots.
Figuring we had at least a couple of minutes, I tilted my neck, happened to shift my gaze back to the windows. And when I couldn’t see Royal Street through the glass, momentarily wondered if Liam had actually managed to fog it up.
But it wasn’t condensation on the glass; it was something in the air outside. Like fog, but fog wasn’t the color of sulfur, and it didn’t put a buzz of magic in the air that tingled like pins and needles across my fingertips.
“Liam. Outside.”
He must have heard something in my voice, because he went still, turned his gaze to the windows. “You feel the magic?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
It hadn’t set off the Containment magic alarms, because Containment had disabled the magic sensors months ago; they weren’t worth the resources, not when the good guys could use magic legally.
“What is it?” I asked. “Some type of gas? Poison?”
“I doubt it. If you have enough power to do whatever that is, it doesn’t seem you’d need to bother with poison. You could take people out with magic alone. So maybe this is a side effect of some bigger magic?”
“Or a literal smoke screen,” I said. We were well within the Containment line around New Orleans. Maybe this was the Seelies’ way to get inside.
“Maybe,” Liam said. And he sounded grimly confident that I’d guessed correctly.
We walked back to the front of the store, watched the substance roll through the street in wisps and puffs tall enough that I couldn’t see the shell of the buildings across from the store. But I could still see the buildings upriver, which meant the fog hadn’t gotten there yet. It was coming from somewhere downriver.
Somewhere in the direction of Devil’s Isle. A good thing I hadn’t had time to cast off yesterday; I was probably going to need that magic.
“So much for beignets and the paper,” I said.
“We may have to settle for companionable ass kicking.” He rolled his neck, then looked down at me, anticipation in his eyes. And not much trepidation.
I’d long ago given up the hope that he’d take cover, that there was any possibility I could keep him locked away and safe in the middle of a war. He’d run toward the sound of battle. And he’d given me the courage to do the same. Fighting together was much better than worrying alone.
We opened the door, stepped onto the sidewalk together. The door closed behind us, the bell ringing its good-bye as I linked my fingers with his.
The fog enrobed us both. I couldn’t see beyond my hand.
“It’s going to be hard to make it a mile without seeing,” he said.
“We’ll walk against the curb,” I said. “We take Royal and go slowly, jus
t in case.”
We stepped into the street, and I heard scuffing as he traced his foot against the granite blocks that edged it. One foot at a time, we began to move.
It was like walking through a yellow-tinged cloud—if clouds tingled with power and smelled oily and sharp. And it was unnerving to walk through a neighborhood I’d long ago memorized, buildings and ruins I could name forward and backward like cards in a deck. Now there was no up or down, no horizon to give me bearings. Everything felt unfamiliar. Alien and unwelcome. And it didn’t help that the fog was growing thicker—the magic growing stronger—with each step we took toward Devil’s Isle.
We walked in eerie silence to the edge of the French Quarter, when something clacked against asphalt, and I pulled Liam to a stop, strained my ears over the wild beating of my heart to hear what might be coming for us.
Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack.
The sound was hard and tinny, and bounced around the fog so much I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
The monster snorted, and I nearly jumped. Until I recognized the sound.
I reached out and up, fingers brushing against the slick coat. “It’s a Containment horse,” I said, feeling my way from saddled belly to neck. “It’s lost its rider.” The horse snuffled me, as if comforted by finding something familiar—a human—in the soup of magic.
“We need to tie her up,” I said, feeling for the leather reins. “At least until this clears.”
“Balcony railing,” Liam said, and guided us until we reached one. I pulled the reins through, made a knot that I hoped would stay snug.
“I’m not a good knotter,” I told Liam, giving the horse’s neck a final soothing rub before we started walking again.
“Fortunately, that’s not on my top ten list.”
“Redhead better be number one on that list.”
“Sass is number one. Redhead is number two. So you’re solid.” He took my hand again, squeezed it.