by Chloe Neill
“We take pleasure in what we can,” Liam said. “In the little things. Like this.” He lay back, crossed his ankles, and pointed upward. “Like that.”
I looked up.
The sky was dark and clear, the stars bright. One of the planets—maybe Venus?—was a gleaming dot close enough to the crescent moon that it seemed to be nestled within the shadow.
“Come here,” Liam said, and opened his arm. I put the chocolate and wine aside, and stretched out beside him, watched the stars spin overhead.
New Orleans was never entirely silent, even at night. Night birds cawed; animals rustled through grass and leaves. But there were no guns or blasts, at least for the moment.
In the quiet, Liam began to sing. His voice was soft, the words in Cajun French, a lullaby Eleanor had sung to him and Gavin as children. He broke it out occasionally in times like this, when it was easy to imagine he was home again on the bayou, with glassy black water and soaring pelicans.
“Fais do do,” he sang quietly, and in the darkness, I began to drift to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I wouldn’t say I was feeling more optimistic as we drove to the French Quarter the next morning, but a good night’s sleep and a reliable partner didn’t hurt. Yes, we were in a crisis, but we’d handled crises before and lived through them. We’d figure out a way to live through this one.
Not that we had another choice.
We rode in silence, and our destination wasn’t the store but the brand-new—at least by New Orleans standards—headquarters of Delta. Me, Burke, Liam, Malachi, Darby, and Gavin were members.
Darby had picked the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, a salmon pink three-story building that had once housed a nineteenth-century apothecary shop. She’d left the slightly creepy interior—wood and stone and thousands of glass bottles containing powders and concoctions—intact, and did her work at the former soda fountain and mixing table.
It had rained overnight, and the Quarter’s streets were wet and dotted with puddles. The thick and unmistakable smell of post-rain New Orleans hung heavily in the damp air.
The museum was on Chartres and only a couple of blocks from the store. We pulled up in front, found Malachi in the middle of the street, wings extended. As we hopped out of the truck, he lifted them and, with a rush of air, pushed them down again. The force blew back our hair and sent a fine spray of water in our direction.
“Um,” Liam said, wiping a hand across his face.
Malachi looked back, and his expression went unusually sheepish. “I’m sorry,” he said, wings folding and disappearing again. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“I’m sure there’s a joke in here somewhere,” I said, and wiped a hand across my face, “but I’ll leave it to Gavin to make it.”
There was chuckling behind us. We glanced back, found Gavin leaning against the hood of the truck. “How did you not know he was going to do that?”
“Because Consularis grooming techniques aren’t our area of expertise?” I said.
“More’s the pity,” he said, and walked to the museum, pulled open the door. “Let’s go see what our friendly scientist is up to today.”
“Do me a favor,” Liam said to Malachi, hands on his hips and gaze narrowed as Gavin walked inside.
“What’s that?”
Liam slid his gaze to Gavin. “Next time, aim for him.”
* * *
• • •
I’d been to the museum only a couple of times. Darby had been working directly with Containment, and I’d been teaching, working on the garden, and helping Tadji in the store (and that was role reversal enough).
Added to that, the place was just creepy. It had been a functioning apothecary shop and it still looked it. As if the pharmacist had simply up and walked away from his job. There were plenty of houses in New Orleans in the same condition—everything left behind when humans evacuated. I found them equally unsettling, maybe because they reminded me of how isolated we’d become.
The inventory, on the other hand, I was into. The antique jars, the marble soda fountain, the wooden display cases, would have brought a pretty penny in a place with an actual market for antiques, which New Orleans wasn’t anymore.
Darby wasn’t in sight, so I knocked against one of the countertops that still held a display of concoctions and scales. “Knock, knock. Anybody home?”
The floor began to shake, and I first thought we were under a Seelie attack.
But the man who stepped into the room was no Seelie. He was enormous. At least six and a half feet, with the build of a man who spent a lot of time lifting weights. His bulging arms strained the seams of a yellow T-shirt bearing a purple triangle, and the shirt ended just above the hem of a dun Utilikilt. His skin was golden tan, his head bald, and his features were broad.
And in the middle of his forehead was a single, blinking eye, the iris a swirl of glimmering gold.
I wasn’t sure if he identified as a Cyclops, but that was the best word I had to describe him.
“Who’s asking?” the man said, his voice like boots on gravel.
“Claire and company,” I said, not entirely sure where I was supposed to look. At the eye? Definitely not at the eye? He worked the fingers of his meaty hands, pulling each one in turn to stretch or pop knuckles. I didn’t want to trigger him to use them on me.
He squinted suspiciously as he looked us over. “What do you want?”
“Darby asked us to come.”
“I’m Lowes.”
“Hi, Lowes,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s Lowes.”
He said the name more slowly, obviously trying to correct me, but I had no idea what he was saying differently, or what I’d missed.
“Lowes?” I offered hesitantly, and noticed that Liam, Gavin, and Malachi had gone suspiciously silent behind me.
“Lowes,” he said again, loudly enough that glass jars rattled around us. Since I was obviously still missing something, and half-afraid the next bellow would shatter every bit of glass in the place like a sour note, I glanced back at Liam.
“Fix this.”
He bit back a smile, stepped forward. “I’m Liam,” he said. “You’re Lowes?”
The man nodded. “Lowes.”
I’d have sworn on a stack of antique family Bibles that Liam had said the exact same thing I had, but no matter.
“I’m her new assistant,” Lowes said. “I help with the science.”
“I’m glad to hear she’s gotten some help,” Liam said. “Could you tell her Delta is here?”
That was apparently the pass code, as Lowes immediately straightened. “I’ll find her. Tell her.”
“That would be great. We’ll just wait in the courtyard,” I said.
The wooden floors creaked angrily as we moved toward the door. Liam held it open, smiled as I walked through.
“What?” I asked suspiciously.
“You have to be sure to pronounce the ‘L.’”
“It’s the first letter of his name, so I was obviously pronouncing it.”
He grinned at me. “I’m sure you’ll get it with practice.”
I just managed not to growl at him.
* * *
• • •
I liked the courtyard a lot more than the building’s interior. Courtyards were to the French Quarter what backyards were to Metairie. Pretty much everybody had one. They were usually behind the buildings, or nestled between facing buildings, with lots of brick and plenty of greenery. There were probably fountains and wrought-iron bistro tables or benches, and with the shade and water, they were usually the coolest places on the block.
This one was a long and narrow rectangle with troughs of plants along the sides, including angel’s trumpet that had grown large enough to buckle the brick and tower over the space, and an oval
fountain at the far end. There was a trellis of bougainvillea and a long and well-worn table in the middle, surrounded by mismatched chairs.
Burke already sat at one of them, hands folded in his lap as he leaned over to study a notebook. He looked up, expression grim. “Darby thinks she’s found something?”
“That’s what she said,” Liam said with a nod, and we sat down to wait in the shade.
“Sorry,” Darby said, squeezing through the door a minute later, wearing a lab coat over flats, leggings, and a flowy red shirt. Her dark hair was shiny, her eyes framed by red glasses.
“I hear you met Lowes,” she said.
“You’re pronouncing it wrong,” Liam said.
“Oh, I know.” Darby grinned. “He tells me constantly.”
“I still don’t hear it,” I said.
“You have to really hit the ‘L.’” This time, Liam and Burke said it together.
I just ignored them.
“Moses recommended him,” Darby said. “Apparently they were close in DI.” She glanced at me. “How’s your head? Gunnar said you were banged up?”
“Much better.” I pointed to the bandage. “Just this at the moment.”
“And Liam has one to match,” she said, noting the bandage at his jaw.
“You said you had an idea,” Liam said. “Something to help us with the Seelies.”
She looked at me, frowning with concern, and I knew I wasn’t going to like it.
“I do,” she said. “But it’s from Laura Blackwell’s notes.”
The woman who’d used her brains, tools, and power to try to destroy Paranormals—Court or Consularis. The woman we’d stopped seconds before she’d injected poison into the Veil. The human currently in prison in Devil’s Isle.
My mother.
This week just kept getting better.
* * *
• • •
Emotion thrummed through my body like a plucked string. I wasn’t sure if it was anger or sadness or betrayal that Darby was bringing Blackwell into play again, making her part of this. I didn’t want her to be part of anything.
I’d spent enough time in the last few months worrying about how much of her I carried. Was she the reason I loved to fix things? Because she was a scientist? Was she the reason I’d been alone for so long? Because, like her, I’d pushed others away.
Talking about her—learning more about her—meant the possibility I’d also find out we had similarities. I didn’t want to be like her any more than I wanted to think about the fact that she’d left me and my father because she hadn’t cared enough to stay.
“I got the notes, her research, all the documents collected when she was arrested,” Darby was saying. “A lot of it’s useless. Ego-filled pap, theories about humans and Paras that edge a little too close to eugenics for my comfort. Numbers that don’t mean anything.”
She looked at me. “I didn’t want to tell you that I had them, or that I was looking at them, until I knew if the search was going to lead to something. Her being your mom is bad enough. I didn’t want to bring her up unless I had to.”
My irritation at her faded away. “I appreciate the consideration. You think you found something?”
“I did. A device intended to nullify magic.” Darby moved around some of the notebooks, pulled up a black one, opened it to a ribbon-marked page.
There was a pencil sketch across the page, the lines of some kind of sculpture or other object, thin and crisp. There were three pieces: a carved piece in the shape of a doughnut; a round jewel that sat in the “hole” of the doughnut and was cracked down the middle; and a crescent-shaped holder.
“Cake or glazed?” Gavin asked.
“Not a doughnut,” Darby said. “Although I had the same thought. A weapon.”
“It’s called the Devil’s Snare,” Malachi said.
I looked back at him, found his gaze on the paper. And I couldn’t read his expression. His tone was flat, his words measured and careful. Whatever he was feeling he was carefully holding back.
“You recognize it,” I said quietly, and he nodded.
“What is it?” Liam asked.
It took another moment for Malachi to speak, and the silence stretched uncomfortably. “There were some who wanted the rebellion to be over sooner rather than later. The Devil’s Snare was the weapon the Consularis designed for that purpose.”
“What does it do?” I asked.
“As Darby said, it was intended to nullify someone’s abilities. It was intended to strip the Court’s magic, and thus their power, in order to bring them into line.”
“That doesn’t sound especially democratic,” I said.
“The Beyond is not a democracy,” Malachi said. “And the Consularis desired peace over chaos. Unity over uniqueness.” He looked at me. “It would work like casting off magic. Except there isn’t a choice, and it was intended to make no distinction between the purpose of the magic, the use of magic, Court or Consularis. It would be . . . devastatingly effective.”
Gavin whistled. “A vacuum for magic would be a very effective weapon in a war against the Court. Whether in the Beyond or here.”
“It would be an effective weapon against any creatures of magic,” Malachi said, jaw tight. “But the weapon was only designed. Never created, never used. Who would have the moral and ethical right to wield it?”
“Who would have the ethical and moral right to ignore it?” Gavin asked. “When they make war against us through no fault of our own, don’t they invite the possibility?”
Anger flashed in Malachi’s eyes. “Of destroying who they are?”
“All due respect, man, they have destroyed lives, families, property. All because they didn’t think they’d gotten enough respect in their own world.”
“War is cruel,” Malachi said. “As is the weapon.” He looked down at the paper again. “I do not know how the idea found its way into human hands.”
“Did the Court know about the weapon?” Liam asked. “Or the concept?”
“I don’t know. The design was created shortly before the Veil was breached. It may have leaked, and the Consularis may have become nervous. The elements of the weapon exist.” He pointed at the doughnut. “The Abethyl.” He pointed at the center circle. “The Inclusion Stone. As far as I’m aware, they were never joined together to create the weapon.”
“And then the Court learned about it and came into our world,” Liam said. “And became someone else’s problem.”
“We could try to make one.”
The courtyard went silent at Darby’s words.
“I do not know if this weapon would work,” Malachi said after a moment. “And more importantly, I do not know if its effects could be targeted—limited—so it doesn’t strip away the magic of all of those within its reach. That could be deadly. The Devil’s Snare is intended to eliminate part of who they are.”
“The Consularis wouldn’t have developed a weapon that would take away their magic,” I said. “Surely they’d thought about that, factored it in.”
“They may have,” Malachi said, then gestured to the notes. “But these are sketches, ideas. They are not blueprints. There is nothing specific here about construction, about controls, about use. However far the Consularis got in conceptualizing this weapon, that detail is not here.”
Quiet fell again, so the only sound was the trickling of water in the fountain, the chirping of birds.
“I’m sorry,” Darby said, pulling back the notebook, rearranging the page marker, closing it again. “I thought this was something that would work. And now I’ve gotten everyone’s hopes up.”
“You haven’t,” Liam said. “You presented us with a concept the Consularis created. We don’t have the elements, but we now have the idea. Maybe there’s something in that we could work from.” He looked at Malachi. “Something we could a
dapt and use—and control—here.”
“I’ll keep looking,” she said.
“Not fast enough,” Gavin said, and shifted his gaze to Darby. “Even if you came up with some way to harness this idea—and I’m sure you could—it would take time. Then we’d have to figure out a way to build it. To test it. What do we do in the meantime?”
“That’s why we have Containment,” Liam said. “To handle Para issues when they crop up.”
“They have certainly cropped,” Gavin murmured. “Patrols and drones aren’t going to be enough for this.”
“It’s been twenty-four hours,” Liam said. “War isn’t won in a day.”
“Too many days,” Darby said, “and there won’t be anything left here to win.”
Liam looked at Malachi. “Then maybe we consider our other options.”
Before Malachi could respond, the sky flashed red. Once, then twice.
My heart thumped against my chest, already anticipating the next battle. We were up in an instant and running back through the pharmacy and to the windows. But the street was clear.
Liam was the first one out the door, and I was right behind him.
We stepped into the street, looked around, and saw nothing until we turned lakeside and could see in the sky the pair of crimson flares, like double comets, harbingers of something wicked.
Something had happened.
We’d have only a few minutes to find them before the flares faded. I pulled Scarlet’s keys from my pocket. “Let’s go.”
* * *
• • •
We left Darby at the museum to keep looking for ideas. Gavin in the bed, me and Liam in the cab, and Malachi overhead, we took Canal to Elysian Fields north toward the lake, following the flares like magi looking for a star. We went as far as Hayne, and followed two Containment trucks into a small parking lot near the railroad tracks.