‘A gadje and a Romany.’
Hugo answered before I could. ‘A diddikoi and Sebastian’s charge.’
‘So you’ve informed me,’ Zindelo replied, keeping his eyes on me. ‘Greetings, Nicolas’ daughter. We have been made aware of all that has passed between you and the gargoyle we entrusted to Hugo’s care.’
Katie made a weird sound in the back of her throat.
‘Sebastian is my guardian,’ I said, keeping my voice steady. ‘I’m here to assist the Corsis in getting him back.’
Zindelo frowned. ‘And the gadje?’
‘I’m her friend,’ Katie blurted out. ‘And Sebastian’s. And if he’s in trouble—’
‘You’ve said enough,’ Zindelo said, cutting her off.
Katie huffed and opened her mouth, but I yanked on the back of her shirt. Diddikoi or not, Katie’s involvement in all this was fragile. At any moment, the Corsis could kick her out of the meeting.
‘Pardon my interruption, Rom Baro,’ said James, using the term of respect. ‘But how did you arrive so quickly from Europe? We only learned about the trial yesterday evening.’
Zindelo scratched his chin, his eyes narrowing. Then he returned to the couch. I breathed an inward sigh of relief and gently nudged Katie over to two parlor chairs near the stairs.
‘Nadya and I came to the States three weeks ago,’ he said.
Hugo, who’d been closing the curtains of the bay window, turned suddenly at this. His face took on an expression I couldn’t totally read.
Zindelo continued. ‘We’d heard rumors regarding the disappearances and deaths of head family members across our kumpania. We decided to first visit several clans to see if these rumors were true. Our last visit took us to the Boswell clan in North Carolina. While we were there, Peter Boswell returned from Sixes with a Romany Marksmen escort.’
I jolted in my seat. Peter Boswell, the crazed man who’d arrived at the Circe, claiming he was being hunted down by shadowen and who my father sent back with Quentin to investigate the claim. Everything had happened so fast after Karl’s murder that there was no time to question either Quentin or my father about the events.
‘We know the rumors,’ said Kris.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Vincent, snatching a cake from Paizi’s tray. ‘It’s no secret Peter wanted the bandoleer position after his father Fennix died, but it went to some black sheep half-brother instead. Some people think there was foul play involved. There’s been dissension and back-stabbing going on in that clan for years.’
I jumped into the conversation. ‘Peter came to our camp looking for protection. He said his brother was killed by shadowen and the creatures were after him, too.’
‘Indeed.’ Zindelo flicked his narrowed gaze to his son. ‘Had you heard this?’
Hugo turned back to the window. ‘No.’
‘Why would we?’ said James. It’s not our business.’
‘Clans prefer to leave other clans alone,’ said Zindelo. His gaze moved like a steady searchlight over the members of the Corsis. ‘So it isn’t surprising that some things might go unnoticed.’
‘Like what?’ questioned Vincent.
‘Peter never had a brother,’ said Zindelo. ‘The unknown man who Fennix named as his successor shortly before his death wasn’t a Boswell.’ Zindelo fixed his stern gaze on me. ‘There was an attack by shadowen a few weeks ago. Three of the head family were found dead, but we don’t believe the bandoleer was one of the victims.’
I gripped my chair, fighting off the sense of foreboding that swirled in my stomach. ‘But Peter was scared out of his mind. He told us he’d seen the whole thing, that he’d watched his brother die and barely escaped with his own life. And a shadow creature did follow him into our camp. Our Marksmen killed it.’
Zindelo nodded. ‘Peter told us the same thing, and I have no reason to believe he’s lying. The imposter fooled him as well.’
‘How do you know the bandoleer wasn’t murdered?’ I asked.
‘Because the man posing as Peter’s brother was Augustine.’
Hugo spun from the window, fire in his eyes. ‘What?’
Zindelo gestured for more coffee, and Ferka hastily poured. I noticed the dark circles under his eyes and the exhaustion written in the lines of his face. He rose with a stiff movement from the couch and joined his son at the window.
‘I don’t have definitive proof,’ said Zindelo. ‘But I am of the conviction that it was Augustine, using this infiltration of the Boswell family, who is second in influence and power only to the Romany family, to stir up distrust among the northern clans these last months.’
Vincent sat his mug down with a bang. ‘So, you think Augustine’s using the Boswell clan to start an internal conflict?’
‘For what reason?’ asked James. ‘What does that get him?’
‘A distraction,’ answered Zindelo. ‘To hide his true purpose.’
Hugo stared hard at his father. ‘And what purpose is that?’
‘The shadowen attacks,’ Zindelo replied. ‘It’s no coincidence that Augustine has resurfaced amidst them. Which brings us back to why we are here now. The gargoyle.’
‘Sebastian,’ I answered automatically.
‘Yes,’ said Zindelo in a strange voice. ‘Sebastian.’
Unlike the Marksmen around the Circe, he didn’t appear to resent or dismiss my correction. If anything, he looked pained.
‘We expected to find him in your care, so you can imagine our distress when we found out all that has transpired since we left you in charge.’ On the last word of his statement, he turned to his son.
The muscles bulged in Hugo’s neck. ‘You have no idea wha—’
‘I do,’ snapped Zindelo, cutting him off crisply.
Silence hit the parlor hard. Katie squirmed in her seat. My fingers found their way to my dandelion pendant. The warmth seeped into my fingers, bringing images of Sebastian to the forefront of my thoughts.
Zindelo walked with slow, deliberate steps, making his way behind the couch, where Ezzie stood, unmoving. ‘I’m not here to blame anyone,’ said the Corsi bandoleer. ‘Esmeralda made it perfectly clear to us not only what had happened with Sebastian, but why. There were too many circumstances out of your control.’
‘Esmeralda?’ asked Hugo.
‘Yes. We’ve been in contact with her since we returned.’
If it had been silent before, it was nothing compared to the blanket of quiet that now smothered the room. I glanced over at Ezzie, carefully poised with her hands behind her back and her face solidly blank. Hugo openly gaped at her, but she stared ahead at a fixed place on the wall.
‘We asked her to keep our communications private,’ said Zindelo. ‘There were too many eyes on our clan, Hugo. More than you could possibly know. We couldn’t risk someone finding out where we were, not after our failed quest in Europe. We had larger secrets than even that to guard.’
Hugo’s jaw clenched. Devotion to clan often meant putting personal feelings aside, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Hugo. He wasn’t looking at his father. Instead, his gaze rested on Ezzie. ‘I’m sorry you had to shoulder that responsibility alone.’
Esmeralda’s eyes met his, and her arched brows lifted just enough to reveal her surprise. Her lip then turned upward at one corner, showing her gratitude. She dipped her head. ‘Your clan will always have my loyalty.’
Hugo’s gaze lingered on her a few seconds longer, and his dark look was gone. When he turned back to Zindelo, whatever emotions he been wrestling with had been checked, and he was all business.
‘The last letter I received from you said you’d had no luck in finding the urn of Keveco, but you never bothered telling me why you were so desperate to find it, or even exactly what this thing was. All I know is it has something to do with Sebastian.’
‘It does,’ said Zindelo. ‘But I’m afraid it’s going to be a very long story.’
Ferka stepped into the center of the room, the tray of coffee s
till in her hands. ‘Then I must insist you tell it in the kitchen, Rom Baro. You look half dead on your feet, pardon my saying so. You need something more than coffee.’
The Corsi leader nodded. ‘Very well.’
The two ladies led us through into the kitchen. The wooden farm table had already been set for us, minus our two new guests, but Paizi was quick to remedy that. We found places and settled in. Zindelo pulled out a chair for his wife.
Though she hadn’t said a word in the parlor, Nadya Corsi’s presence radiated through the room. She sat with her back so straight it made me hurt to look. Sensing my attention, she glanced down her nose at me in a way that wasn’t condescending, but not really friendly either.
Paizi ladled out bowls of stew. We ate without speaking, a weird kind of quiet before a storm. The sisters fussed over us, keeping glasses full and adding cornbread to plates. I ate impatiently, and nothing sat well in my stomach.
Tea and cookies were brought out after the meal. Tension set in around the table. As I folded my napkin across my knee I felt Katie’s hand reach for mine under the table. She squeezed tightly. I wasn’t sure if it was for my benefit or hers.
‘Okay,’ said Hugo, who was in the chair directly across from me. His elbows rested on the white tablecloth, making his tattoos stand out in stark detail. ‘Let’s get this over with. I’m tired of waiting for answers.’
‘Agreed,’ said Zindelo. ‘But to do that, we have to start at the beginning of our story, for it’s the reason for everything that has happened since, and what we fear may happen soon.’ He leaned back in the chair and gestured to me. ‘Josephine, what do you know of your ancestor Keveco Romany and the monster La Gargouille?’
All eyes turned in my direction.
‘When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me stories before bed about the shadow world,’ I said. A cold, slithering sensation worked its way through me. ‘La Gargouille was a terrible creature that terrorized villages in France during the Dark Ages.’
Zindelo laced his fingers together. ‘Go on.’
I called on memories, grasping for my mother’s words. ‘It lived in a cave beside the river and no one could get near enough to kill it. But a brave priest decided to challenge the monster. He took with him a Roma convict named Keveco who had been wrongly accused of robbery. Together, they fought La Gargouille and defeated it. The priest granted Keveco his freedom in return for his help.’
‘Yes, but what of La Gargouille?’
‘The monster was taken back to the town. The villagers burned the body at the stake. But the priest took its head and mounted it on the roof of the village church as a reminder of the power of God.’
Katie balked. ‘That was your bedtime story?’
‘What you were told is not a story, but truth,’ said Zindelo. ‘But that is not the end of the tale. The priest was sympathetic to your ancestor’s plight and to the suffering all of our people have endured through the years. So he ground the body of La Gargouille into ash and presented it to Keveco as a gift.’
‘Prah,’ said Hugo from across the table.
Zindelo’s dark eyes met his son’s. ‘Prah is what remains of La Gargouille. Blessed by the priest and given power from God to form shadowen – protection, not only for those of the Romany line, but also for all Roma connected to the Arniko Natsia.
‘The Old Clans,’ I said, for Katie’s benefit.
‘The prah was kept in an urn,’ continued Zindelo, ‘and small portions were allotted to each clan. When feuding broke out among the natsia, this supply was quickly depleted as each clan sought to gain the upper hand. Vicious shadowen were created in large numbers. Our people lost control over them. It was at this point in our history that the Sobrasi were formed.’
The atmosphere of the room instantly changed. This was new territory for the Corsis, I realized, just as it had been for me the first time Ezzie had mentioned them to me.
Zindelo glanced around the table, carefully regarding each of us. ‘The Sobrasi were a group of powerful Roma. They were established by the High Council of the Old Clans to oversee the shadow world.’
Kris looked skeptical. ‘Why have we never heard of them?’
‘Their existence has always been shrouded in secrecy,’ Zindelo replied. ‘It was feared that if knowledge of shadowen lore became available to all clans, it could be detrimental to the entire Arniko Natsia.’
‘But that’s exactly what happened,’ said Kris.
‘Unfortunately, many Sobrasi became corrupted. They allowed themselves and their services to be bought by powerful bandoleers. But there were some that remained true. After the Sundering, when the Outcasts broke away and severed ties with the Old Clans, those Sobrasi took the remains of the prah, along with their books, and hid them to prevent anyone from finding the urn.’
Hugo grunted. ‘Not hidden anymore, I take it.’
‘Nadya and I have spent two decades searching for this urn. Four years ago, we had a breakthrough. We traveled throughout Eastern and Central Europe, and then finally to Paris, to the original sanctuary of the Sobrasi. There, we found a collection of books that gave us clues as to the urn’s location. Unfortunately, we also realized we were not the only ones on this quest.’
‘We tracked the urn to the ruins of an old church outside the city, but we were too late. By the time we arrived, not only was the urn gone, but also the books that were hidden with it.’
‘Augustine,’ growled James, pounding his fist on the table.
Hugo pushed his chair from the table. ‘So not only does he have the urn, but you’re telling us that he’s now got the formula to create as many shadowen as he wants?’
‘It requires more than just the prah to create and awaken a shadow creature,’ said Zindelo. ‘But I believe he is well on his way, gleaning everything he can about the contents of the urn and how to use it.’
I looked from Hugo to Zindelo, and suddenly, a horrible feeling hit me. ‘Augustine turned his gargoyles into chimeras,’ I said. Zindelo gave me a surprised look. ‘A chimera attacked our camp, but Sebastian killed it.’ I paused. I knew Sebastian tortured himself over what happened, even though he’d only acted in order to protect us. ‘Sebastian said the chimera used to be Thaddeus, one of Augustine’s gargoyles, and that something had happened to him. His other gargoyles changed, too.’
I had tried to push those images out of my head – the pure and malicious evil in their faces, and the way Sebastian had seemed to go void of himself during the battle, like a container emptied of its contents.
Zindelo spread his hands over the table, his knuckles turning white. ‘Then it appears Augustine is much farther along with his learning than we first thought. If he has discovered how to manipulate the shadowen form, then it will not be long before he gains a control over the shadow world that has not been possible since the Sundering.’ Zindelo sighed heavily. ‘But that, I’m afraid, is not the worst of it.’
The Corsi bandoleer looked over to his wife, who’d been staring downcast throughout much of the conversation. Slowly, Nadya raised her eyes. An eerie calm aura surrounded her, combined with a quiet authority that now held every one of us in check.
‘No,’ she said, her tone deep and crisp. She blinked slowly, and her eyes glittered as they caught the light. ‘The worst of it is, Augustine has been allowed contact with Sebastian Grey.’
13. Sebastian
‘Josephine!’
I rolled into a crouch, frantic. Where was she? Where was I?
What was going on?
My heart banged out an irregular pattern in my chest. I sucked in several ragged breaths, feeling off-balanced, until I realized one of the metal binding bands had snapped across my chest, leaving my left wing trailing the ground. My vision faded from red to gray, and then snapped back to normal.
I was in the library. Books littered the floor, their pages loose and shredded. Shards from broken vases shone jutted out of the thick carpet. And claw marks – my claw marks – marred the thick wooden
door in deep, crisscrossed patterns.
I’d torn the room apart.
‘Hugo?’
My throat was drier than dead leaves, and I tasted blood on my lower lip. I shoved my hair out of my eyes. Hugo was gone. But how? They’d locked the door after he’d arrived. I studied the claw-marked door, half-expecting to find it torn off its hinges. But it remained intact. Which meant the Marksmen had let Hugo out.
My legs went limp with relief. If they hadn’t come before I totally lost it …
I shuddered. The dark thing and the wild rage had gutted me out. It had taken everything in my being to hold myself together as long as I did, but the prah eventually won – as the room clearly displayed.
Had Hugo gotten to Josephine in time?
I didn’t feel the threat of danger anymore, and my gargoyle radar had switched off completely. It was all I had to go on, but I was just going to have to trust in that, and in my brother.
I looked back to the door, expecting the Marksmen to appear, since my visitor was no longer here. However, it remained silent on the other side of the door. I rolled onto my side with a groan. The dark emotions inside me felt dormant once again, but Augustine’s voice echoed through my memory.
When the prah enters your veins, it runs through like poison, eating away the human blood you have within you. I’ve found a small amount produces a temporary reaction …
I slid my thumb under one cuff, gingerly touching the diamond spikes. Was it true, what Augustine claimed? It wasn’t like he’d ever given me reason to believe anything coming out of his mouth. Still, I couldn’t deny the effect the prah had on me. And if that much was true—
‘No,’ I snarled aloud.
My head wafted in and out of cloudy haze. Just a few feet away, the table lay on its side, the water glass shattered and the plate of steak overturned on the floor. I tentatively sniffed the air, expecting the pain of hunger to double me over. But nothing happened. I didn’t feel hungry at all, just cold. But Hugo’s revelation on my eventual fate shocked me back to my senses.
If you don’t eat, you’ll turn to stone.
Midnight Page 12