“So then, why do we need to get the pieces together by the new moon?”
“Because the new moon is for new beginnings.”
Or crap endings.
The sinuous street turns upon itself, and we suddenly find ourselves at the edge of the town square, which is lit up like an airport runway. Besides the strings of twinkling lights and glowing window panes, there’s a large spotlight focused on the well. Four tall guys in shiny helmets and navy coats with Sapeurs Pompiers emblazoned across the back are fencing off the area with yellow tape and shooing away curious bystanders.
It takes me a moment to understand why they’re here . . . the square has transformed into a skating rink. An inch-thick layer of ice coats the cobbles.
“The water overflowed.” Cadence points to the frozen cascade rimming the side of the well.
“Whoa.” I wonder if the water is frozen only on top. Maybe I’ll need to ice-fish for my piece. And how the hell am I going to get into the well with the fire department blocking the damn thing?
The low chatter of rubberneckers is the only sound in the square. Then, all of a sudden, a high-pitched keening fills the air. Like an animal in pain.
An angry animal in pain.
A giant, angry animal in pain.
Cadence and I both slap our hands against our ears, but the curious lurkers don’t even flinch. Did no one else hear what sounded like an orca being slaughtered while calving?
When one of the firemen lumbers toward the well, Cadence presses a fist to her mouth, eyes flaring with terror. “He’ll get cursed. Or killed.”
“He’s just looking.” My voice is calm, but Cadence’s worry makes my gut twist.
She shakes her head, staring wildly around the square. “We’ve got to do something. Where are Adrien and Gaëlle? I called them over twenty minutes ago. Adrien will know what to do.”
At the mention of Adrien’s name, I clench my hands into fists. I don’t check Cadence’s eyes for hearts and stars, but I bet they’re in there, popping right out of her pupils. She thinks her beloved professor is some sort of superman. Super Douche is more like it, or Professor Prickhead.
Professor Prickhead. The right side of my mouth tilts. I like that.
The keening intensifies as the firefighter reaches the well. I’m guessing he’s heard it.
Cadence bounces on the balls of her feet. When she says, “Oh, hell,” and takes a step onto the ice, I shoot my arm out to block her.
“Don’t,” I say.
“Slate, he’s going to . . .”
I don’t hear the end of her sentence over the rushing in my ears. I back up several feet to get a running start, then dive under the yellow tape, skidding across the square on my belly like a seal, whooping and hollering the whole time.
It’s not my finest moment, but it distracts the firefighter, who turns away from the well and swears, then swears some more as other idiots follow my lead and pull their own little skating stunts. There is no better distraction than mass stupidity and no better crowd for it than college students.
Now the square is like a spoof of Disney on Ice. One dude barrels into the firefighter clomping toward me, bowling him over. Two other firefighters are busy trying to push back a guy who’s spinning like a top and another who stands and falls, stands and falls.
Stomach numb with cold, I do the breast-stroke until I reach the base of the well—can’t fall when you’re already down. The frozen waterfall is a suspicious shade of urine that makes my nostrils flare. It smells cold and tinny, but ice cloaks smells. Even noxious ones. Hoping the rusty grate tinted the water, and it’s not sewer overflow, I grip one of the yellowish bulbous layers and pull myself up. The lug-soles of my boots slip like they’re buttered, and I land face down once again, whacking my forehead, right on my goose egg.
Putain de merde. I hate Brume.
More than I hated it last night, but probably not as much as I’m going to hate this fucking town when I go ice-pick-crazy on the enchanted well. It doesn’t help that every single atom in my body stings and burns, and a creepy tingling sensation slithers up my spine. I grit my teeth and do my best to ignore the pain.
At least the animal cries have stopped.
Silver linings.
Glancing back toward Cadence, I find Professor Prickhead and Gaëlle bracketing her. They’re deep in discussion, but all three have their eyes on me and my pathetic progress.
I tow my sore body upright and manage to stay vertical this time. Before I can slip again, I reach over and grab one of the wooden posts holding up the pointed gazebo-roof thing. The spotlight the fire department has set up is bright as shit and nearly blinds me as I shift position to look down into the well at the amber water.
Behind me, it’s all laughter and shouting, the idiot college students still keeping the firefighters busy. But here at the well, it’s eerily quiet and still.
I lean further over the opening, the frozen cascade and glacial stones pressing into my ribs, and squint to see past the grate. A bubble forms under the ice and pops. Then suddenly, instead of my reflection, I see a woman’s face. A familiar face. Her eyes are closed, her lashes so long they caress her cheekbones. Her skin has a pearly shine to it, and her cherry lips look as moist and luscious as the fruit. A cloud of caramel-brown hair floats around her.
The pain in my limbs melts away, and I feel woozy and warm, like I’ve just swallowed a glass of cognac. Or three.
I twist my hand around the post, the spotlight catching on the Bloodstone. A ruby-red beam streaks over the well water.
The woman’s eyes open to reveal pale-blue irises. She blinks, and then her lashes hit her browbone, the blue now surrounded in white. Pale fingers slide through the grate and grip it. Her mouth opens in a terrible scream.
Cadence.
Fucking hell, it’s Cadence! She’s trapped. And she’s drowning.
But wait . . .
That’s impossible.
I whip my head to where Cadence stood only moments ago.
She’s no longer there.
I frantically search the crowd for her long hair. Her silver jacket. Her fuzzy pompom. But she’s fucking nowhere.
Oh, Jesus, no. No, no, no.
The warm feeling in my veins is replaced by a cold blade of fear and adrenaline.
This must be my test. Magic locked her inside to motivate me to dive in. I’ll get her out. I’ll rip this damn well apart stone by stone if I have to.
I punch at the ice with my right hand. Again and again. I smash through the frozen crust over the grate, the ring acting like a fucking hammer. The first layer becomes white dust. I brush it away. Find Cadence thrashing, knuckles white, lips parted around my name.
I shatter more ice until I reach the grate. The frozen metal is brittle and three of the rusty bars snap. I tug on them, bending them backward like the fingers on the last guy who tried to screw me over back in Marseille. There’s enough room to shove my arm through, but not my body, or hers.
Cadence’s pale fingers twine through mine but then slip.
16
Cadence
I gasp and almost fall, and not because of the ice. Thankfully, Adrien’s solid hold on the table we’re carting out of the tavern to stick atop the well doesn’t falter.
Slate’s just smacked Gaëlle, sending her flying backward, her yellow scarf streaming like a ribbon in the dawn-tinted air. She lands on the ice, missing one of the wooden beams that holds the pointed roof by a centimeter, maybe less.
“Merde,” Adrien mutters as Slate, whose coat sleeve is drenched, reaches into the well again.
When Adrien drops his end of the table, I almost go down, but my soles grip the ice.
“Slide the table, Cadence!” He takes off, half-skating half-flailing toward the well. When he reaches it, he hisses Slate’s name, but that doesn’t even break his concentration. Adrien reels his arm back and lets his fist fly into the inside of Slate’s elbow, forcing it to bend.
Slate’s entire body j
erks, including his gaze, which gleams ferociously in the firefighters’ bright beam. He snatches his hand out of the well and pulls his arm back so fast it blurs. His fist comes flying at Adrien’s jaw.
Shoving the table on the ice as though it’s a hockey puck, I scream Slate’s name.
He freezes and looks over at me. His eyes go wide, and he blinks. At me, then at the well, then back at me.
“Keep talking to him, Cadence,” Adrien yells.
“Want to grab breakfast with me at the tavern?” I shout, slowly sliding the table closer. Almost there.
Sloshing followed by a heartbreaking cry for help make both Slate and me turn to the well. Gaëlle, who’s back on her feet, pushes in front of Slate, and her face blanches. And then she’s reaching into the well, but Adrien seizes her wrist right before it can vanish over the stone lip.
“Look away, Gaëlle,” he hisses.
She shuts her eyes and winces when the cry for help echoes against the peaked wooden roof sheltering the well. The voice is deep and familiar. So familiar it raises goose bumps over my arms.
My hands slip off the legs of the table. “Papa?”
Fingertips topped with buffed, blunt nails poke out from the well.
Oh my God.
Papa is in the well! I slip and slide toward it.
“It’s not real, Cadence.” Adrien’s heated whisper makes me skid to a stop. “And don’t look into the well.” He turns to the others. “All of you, look away!”
I snap my gaze to the frosted ground. Adrien pushes the table forward, then flips it right-side-up so that its legs straddle the round opening. Tapping begins and then scratching. Adrien flattens his palms against the tabletop to keep it in place.
One of the firefighters shoos a student off the ice and lumbers toward us. “Monsieur Mercier, you really think a bouchon en bois will prevent the well from overflowing?”
“Yes, I believe a wooden cork will do the job.” Adrien’s brow glistens with sweat. “For the time being, at least.”
“I realize you’re trying to help but—”
Adrien shifts to lean his right forearm on the table and fishes his phone from his pocket with his left. “Actually, it’s my father and Rainier de Morel who gave me instructions to cover the well. If you’d like to speak to either one of them directly, I’ll give them a call.”
“No need.” The fireman zips his lips shut.
“Would you have anything heavy to put on top?” Adrien asks.
Whatever’s in there scratches again and yelps a muffled help.
I expect the fireman to rip the table off, but instead, he says, “I’ll go find something to weigh it down.” His cleated boots grip the slippery ground as he trudges toward his squad.
Adrien must notice my surprise because he whispers, “The piece only calls to the four of us.”
I stare at his face and notice it’s streaked with blood, but I’m too perplexed by what he’s just said to comment on it. “The piece?”
“Yes. It’s the piece that’s trying to lure you in by sounding and looking like someone you’d do anything to save.”
Slate’s rough breathing becomes suspended.
“That’s why I heard Papa,” I murmur.
Adrien nods.
“And me, Romain.” Gaëlle rubs her cheek, still red from Slate’s slap.
Slate doesn’t volunteer who he saw. Not that it matters. His hands are locked into tight fists at his sides. His knuckles are cracked, and blood streams off his fingers and into the ice, staining it crimson.
I gasp. “You’re bleeding!” I grab onto his hand, but he tears it away and backs up, letting out a snarl that sounds a lot like the one we heard earlier. His black curls are matted with perspiration and cling to his slick forehead, and his chest is rising and falling quickly again.
“He’s probably still in shock, Cadence. Especially since he touched it,” Adrien adds in a whisper.
Juda emerges from the tavern and tromps over to us, his white hair flapping in the cool breeze, his skin flushed red from the weight of the giant soup pot cradled in his arms. “Heard you needed something heavy. If you fill this old thing with water, not even gale force wind will be able to shift it.”
Adrien asks a fireman to fetch a hose from his electric utility vehicle. The man hooks one end to a fire hydrant on the edge of the square and drags the nozzle all the way toward the well.
Once the pot overflows, Adrien turns to the tavern’s bearded owner. “Get back inside. You’re going to get sick, Juda.”
Juda casts a long look at the well before catching sight of his daughter-in-law. He sucks in a breath. “What happened to your cheek?”
Gaëlle shakes her head. “It’s nothing. Just slipped and bumped it on the post.”
He purses his lips but walks back toward Nolwenn, who’s standing by the entrance, bundled in a thick down jacket that reaches her slippered feet.
Profound worry bleeds into her maze of wrinkles. “Come inside, all of you. I’ll steep some tea and put on a pot of coffee.”
“In a second, Nolwenn.” Adrien’s dark-blond hair isn’t as neat as usual, which lends him a slightly rugged edge. A heroic one.
In fact, he is a hero. He’s just saved Slate, Gaëlle, and me from the dark magic of the Quatrefoil.
He turns to the fireman. “Can you make sure no one removes this?”
“Bien sûr. We’ll take shifts.”
Adrien pats the man’s arm. “You’re a good man, Francis. Merci.”
“Just doing my job, Monsieur Mercier.”
Adrien rubs his hands together, probably to drag warmth back into them, then tilts his head toward the tavern door. “We’re done here. Come on.”
Gaëlle loops her slender arm through mine, and we begin to trek across the rink. When I hear Adrien call out to Slate, I glance over my shoulder. He’s as rigid as my mother’s bronze bonsai, but his eyes aren’t glassy, which reassures me that he’s alert and not lost in some nightmare.
“Allez-y. We’ll catch up,” Adrien says. When I don’t move, even though Gaëlle’s tugging on my arm, he adds, “I promise I won’t leave him out here alone.” A gentle smile buffets the apprehension crinkling his eyes and grooving his forehead.
Inhaling a long, icy breath that scorches my lungs, I turn around and pad cautiously across the ice. Gaëlle slips more than once in her shearling boots, and I hold her up. This morning is a preview of the support we’re all going to have to give each other.
17
Slate
Every breath was a blade slicing through my lungs. I couldn’t hear a thing over my pounding pulse, couldn’t see a thing either. My vision wobbled. The square, the crowd, the well—they all went in and out of focus like a bunch of strobe lights. But then I saw Cadence, her face a horrified shade of white, and everything stopped.
Cadence.
The real Cadence.
Not the twisted magical one that duped me as though I was some naïve kid.
With my eyes, I trail her treacherous hike into the tavern, arm in arm with Gaëlle. Gaëlle, who’s cradling a hand over her reddened cheek.
Shame burns me like hot oil.
I hit Gaëlle. I’ve never hit a woman. Ever.
I didn’t even realize what I was doing. I was trying to reach Cadence’s writhing fingers when I felt a yank on my shoulder and reacted on instinct. It was only after I hit Adrien, and after Cadence—the real Cadence—called out my name that I saw Gaëlle’s face and made the connection.
I’m a goddamned idiot. On all accounts.
Now, Adrien’s coming toward me, each step careful and slow on the ice, hands out and head tilted in a nonthreatening manner like I’m a rabid dog who needs calming. “Hey, Roland. You okay?”
I skate toward the other side of the square, trailing scarlet droplets. My knuckles look like they’ve been through a meat grinder. But the ring’s unscathed.
I reach the edge of the provisional rink and step into a narrow street. I have no idea where I
’m going. I don’t care.
I just need to walk and get my head together. Is that even a possibility anymore?
18
Cadence
I draw open the heavy velvet curtain protecting the tavern from the bone-cold chill of winter. The restaurant smells like early mornings—dark coffee, bergamot tea, sweet citrus, and browning bread.
The moment the curtain falls back in place, Nolwenn’s there, gasping and wrapping her arms around Gaëlle. “Your face!”
Gaëlle grimaces. “It’s nothing, Nolwenn.”
Nolwenn frowns like she doesn’t believe her daughter-in-law. “You two go sit. I’ll press some oranges. Then we can talk.” She tips her head toward the oval table by the window. A coffeepot, two baskets filled with pastries and toast, and a saucer of home-churned salted butter are laid out beside a stack of plates, gingham napkins, and scratched cutlery.
“Does she know about . . . the hunt?” I whisper to Gaëlle.
Her eyeballs move from left to right, and she raises a finger to her lips. I’m guessing that’s a no.
“Tell me about Slate,” she says, probably to change the subject.
I unzip my jacket and pull off my hat. “Not sure what to tell you. I only just met him.”
“I heard he was in foster care, but does he have friends? Did he come to Brume alone?”
I stuff my hat into the arm of my coat and drape it over the back of one of the chairs. “He’s not exactly the most open person.” Not that I’ve asked him about his life before Brume. I wasn’t feeling particularly friendly because of the whole crypt-desecration episode. “But I’m pretty sure he came alone.”
“So, no friends? No girlfriend?”
“I—” Does Slate have a girlfriend? He’s such a flirt that I don’t think so, but what do I know? He didn’t kiss me on New Year’s. What if it was because he didn’t want to cheat on someone instead of his make-your-own-luck excuse? “He must have some friends back home. Why do you ask?”
Of Wicked Blood: A Slow Burn Romantic Urban Fantasy (The Quatrefoil Chronicles Book 1) Page 14