Of Wicked Blood: A Slow Burn Romantic Urban Fantasy (The Quatrefoil Chronicles Book 1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “Could she have saved the file on the Cloud?” Bastian asks.

  Adrien shakes his head. “No. The information was too sensitive.”

  Alma blows into her palms. “Why would anyone steal translations anyway?”

  “Because something’s written on that scroll someone doesn’t want us to discover,” Slate mutters.

  Alma freezes, and her hands fall into her lap. “That would mean someone knows about the Quatrefoil outside of you four. Well, six with Rainier and Geoffrey.”

  “Nolwenn and Juda know about it.” I remember Papa telling us the night after the well. “He said they were scared of the curses.”

  Adrien stares steadily at me. I know what he’s thinking because I’m thinking the very same thing: one of them destroyed the papers, hoping to deter us from this wild hunt. But does Nolwenn have access to this room? It’s not impossible . . .

  “Does the keypad store the imprint of who goes in and out?” Bastian asks.

  “No.” I loop the tip of my ponytail around my slightly bobbing finger. “It’s just an electronic lock. Nothing more.”

  “Are there any cameras?”

  “There’s an alarm system.”

  Slate’s ribcage inflates with a sigh and his thumb stills. “Doesn’t matter. We have the original scroll. We need to move on. Move forward. You and Cadence speak Breton, right, Adrien?”

  I peer up at the boy holding me, at his dark eyes that seem black in the surrounding whiteness. “I know some, but hardly enough to translate the Kelouenn.”

  “I can do it,” Adrien says on a breath. “It’s going to take time, but I can do it.”

  Time isn’t the commodity we have the most of, but wasting it trying to figure out who did away with Camille’s hard work won’t help us.

  Adrien drums his fingers against his thigh. “There’s a printer upstairs, right?”

  I nod.

  “We need to blow up the picture Slate took, then print out a few sets. If it’s illegible, we head back to your house.” He holds out his palm that bobs like my own hand, both of us strung out on stress and adrenaline. “Your phone, Slate?”

  Slate unlocks the phone and hands it to Adrien, who streaks toward the door.

  “What about the history book?” Bastian asks. “Can it be taken out of here?”

  I bite my lip. “It’s better not to.”

  “Mind if I read it?” Bastian, who’s sitting on the stool beside Alma’s, rubs his palms on his thighs. “If you don’t trust me—”

  “I trust you.”

  “I’ll stay with him,” Alma suggests. “I’m an awesome note taker.”

  I shoot my friend a grateful smile, because I know she’s hanging down here to put my mind at ease while Adrien, Slate, and I are upstairs.

  Technically, Slate isn’t needed to transcribe the scroll since his knowledge of Breton is zilch, but I want to keep him at my side. I feel safer when he’s around. And since my piece still hasn’t shown up—

  “Don’t try to leave me behind.” He slots his fingers through mine.

  My heart fires off a fierce thump. “I wasn’t.”

  “Good.” He holds the door open for me. “Like I always say, little bro, don’t do anything I would do.” He winks at Bastian, who mutters something that makes Alma laugh.

  As the spring-loaded, mechanical arm closes the door, I shake my head at Slate. “You’re terrible.”

  “Unarguably so.” He sweeps his arm toward the stairs. “After you, milady.”

  I smile in spite of the crappy day it’s been, then begin to ascend, but stop midway to look at Slate. Really look at him. We wield no magic and yet this boy has managed to bewitch me with his charisma and humor . . . with his light. He could’ve let the darkness consume him. Consume me. Consume Brume. But he didn’t. He fights his battles and everyone else’s.

  I take a step down, then another, until our faces are aligned. And then I do something uncharacteristically-Cadence-like. I grip his shoulders and kiss him. He’s not expecting it. I can tell because his mouth is sealed shut, and the tendons running under his skin are stiff as steel beams. But soon, he snaps out of his daze and flips me sideways, backing me up into the rough stone wall, lips opening, tongue dancing against mine. His hand lands on the back of my skull, winds through my hair, ruining my ponytail.

  Not that I give a crap about my ponytail.

  All I care about is deepening our connection.

  Maybe it’s the adrenaline, or days of pent-up anger, or fear for what is to come, or just lust, but I want this boy so badly it hurts. My pulse drills my veins, muscles I didn’t even know I possessed clench, and the bruises and soreness from last night’s battle awaken, turning my sensitive skin into a minefield of tiny explosions.

  But that doesn’t slow me down, because what I feel more deeply than any aches and pains is this welling affection for this lost boy who’s found his way home.

  43

  Slate

  “Slate, we should go—”

  “Fuck that.” I nuzzle her neck which is soft as silk and smells so sweet I find myself suckling it. “We’ve defeated three curses without any fucking translations.”

  “Fuck’s your favorite word, isn’t it?”

  I comb away a lock of her hair stuck to her swollen lips. “I apologize for being crass, Cadence. Never did make it into finishing school.”

  “Don’t apologize for how you talk. Or think. I don’t care what comes out of your mouth as long as it isn’t a lie.” She presses a kiss to the edge of my jaw. “I like you just the way you are. Foul tongue and all. But we really need to go upstairs and help Adrien.”

  I really don’t feel like deciphering a worm-eaten scroll. “I’m sure he’s loving it.” I splay my palm on the small of her back and drag her tight body into my groin. “Besides, my brain’s been deprived of blood for so long that I’d be useless up there.”

  On a huff of laughter, she levers her body off mine. “Perhaps, but now’s really not a good time to do away with my virginity, Slate Ardoin.”

  Wait . . . what? My fingers don’t spring off her back, but they definitely turn flaccid. Unlike another part of my anatomy. I don’t think there’s any chance of that happening as long as I’m pressed up against Cadence de Morel.

  “You’ve never . . .?”

  “No.” She swallows, and then her cheek dimples as though she’s biting the inside of it.

  I sweep my thumb over her intensifying blush, trying to smooth away her nerves, but thumbs aren’t magical, and since I still haven’t said anything, she’s growing more antsy. “And here I thought librarians were supposed to be a promiscuous bunch.”

  She bestows a smile upon me, one of her most radiant ones yet, and damn if it doesn’t make the entire staircase shine. “You’re not scared of me now are you?”

  “Scared. Pfff. I faced down a busty incarnation of Jaws in a pitch-black tunnel. Trust me, your wholesomeness does not scare me.” I slide my thumb over her lips. “I just hope you’re not too attached to it.”

  “Not attached to it at all.” Her breathing has sped up considerably.

  I put a hand against the wall and pry my body off hers. However badly I want her, I’m not going to corrupt her in a stairwell with my brother and her best friend sitting a couple feet away and Adrien Mercier upstairs. No. I’m going to corrupt her nice and slow, in a bedroom, with not another soul around.

  “Go. I need to cool down. Don’t want to make Prof feel underwhelming.”

  Her eyebrows scrunch and then jerk up, and she swats my bicep.

  I tsk. “So violent, Mademoiselle de Morel.”

  “So arrogant, Monsieur Ardoin.”

  I grin at her, which makes her respond in kind with another one of her glorious smiles.

  “Okay.” She steps away from me, her smile falling, the glitter in her eyes dimming. As she climbs the stairs, she tugs the elastic out of her hair, finger-combs it, then reties it. Is it me or are her hands shaking?

  I don’
t think I imagined her edginess, and it chills my pounding blood. When I start picturing her piece showing up and me not being there, I climb the stairs two at a time. I find her sitting at a big square table with Adrien, head bent over a copy of the Kelouenn, pencil already poised and scratching at her paper. I watch them discuss possible meanings of a Breton word.

  I try not to feel jealous that they share something. Remind myself of all we shared downstairs. I square my shoulders and head over.

  I can be useful.

  I’ll find a way to be useful.

  I end up being useful by getting food and making photocopies. Cadence and Adrien squint at the damn scroll all day, and even when Alma and Bastian join them, things don’t speed up. We hit the sheets late and are back at the library again in the morning. Early afternoon, I grab the food Adrien ordered at the tavern and bring it back to the squad. Bastian and Alma sit with Adrien and Cadence, trying to consolidate their notes from the history book with the words from the translated scroll.

  “In the book downstairs, it says the dihuner had a heart of blood.” Alma bites the tip of her pencil. “Does the scroll mention it?”

  “I didn’t see anything about that in the text, but there’s still pieces Cadence and I haven’t been able to translate.”

  “I mean, there’s the Bloodstone.” Cadence gestures to my hand, which is presently pulling the lids off containers of charcuterie and cheese. “Could the stone have been on the clock?”

  Adrien joggles his head.

  I filch two cubes of Emmental cheese. “Have you figured out how the creepy-ass drawings factor into the text?”

  “They correlate to the text outside the quatrefoil shape,” Adrien says.

  Apparently, they made progress while I was being a good delivery boy.

  “They’re examples of curses,” he says, as I examine an unannotated copy.

  Between the ink smudges and words that look scrawled by an epileptic in the middle of a seizure, I’m surprised they managed to decipher a thing.

  Alma flips over the drawing of a splayed corpse. “Can’t eat with that in my face.”

  Bastian studies a fanged insect, or is it a body part? I’ve taken part in some twisted treasure hunts, but this one takes the cake for most insanity-inducing.

  He leans over and grabs one of Cadence’s papers, and then they’re exchanging notes. She claps excitedly, which makes Bastian grin and jot something down. Apparently, some people are enjoying the task.

  Freaks.

  My freaks.

  When I hear Adrien mumbling to himself, I glance his way. I’m glad to see him reading over his notes, because I was momentarily worried he’d lost his mind, and since he’s already lost all of his hair…

  “Anything, Prof?” I roll my neck from side to side.

  “I think I got something. I’m not sure exactly what it means, but—”

  “Lay it on us.”

  “Like I said, the passage outside the quatrefoil is a list of plagues and curses. Insects, the undead, something about stone and dust. I’m guessing it’s an explanation of the dark magic that went on before the Quatrefoil was broken apart. I’d need more time to figure it out.”

  “And the passage inside?” Cadence coils her ponytail into some sort of knot at the nape of her neck.

  Adrien sighs. “Well, there’s this big ink spot that covers part of the text.”

  “I noticed that earlier.” Cadence frowns. “It’s odd. I would swear it wasn’t always there.”

  I eye the print-out of the scroll. “Ink’s a different color. Closer to black, while the rest is dark brown, so it probably wasn’t.”

  Everyone gapes at me.

  “What? I’m not fucking colorblind.”

  Bastian’s eyebrows lift. “The difference is really subtle, but Slate’s right. It doesn’t look like an original spill.”

  Cadence turns to Adrien. “You think we can scrape it off, or use a light to see through it?”

  “Maybe, but we’d have to remove it from the frame, which could damage it.”

  The quiet patter of snow falling against the stained-glass cupola becomes the only sound apart from the constant ticking in the temple of knowledge.

  I approach Cadence’s chair and lean my head over her shoulder, grazing her cheek with my jaw. To anyone watching, I’m feigning interest in the scribbled text. But quickly, my interest is unfeigned. “What do you guys make of this: The new moon will abscond with the leaves unless cradled in Brume’s beating heart at eventide?”

  “Unfortunately, it’s nothing groundbreaking or new.” Adrien sighs. “If the Quatrefoil isn’t assembled, the leaves disappear with the new moon.”

  Alma nibbles on her pinkie nail. “What’s eventide again?”

  “An older word for twilight,” Adrien explains.

  Bastian’s eyes spark. “But twilight’s broken up into three phases, so I’m guessing, since the clock is astronomical, it would mean astronomical twilight: when it feels dark, but you can’t observe stars with the naked eye.”

  “Not sure how that helps, considering the fog.” Alma points to the cupola. “Not much star-gazing happening in Brume during winter.”

  “You don’t actually need to see the sky. All you have to do is calculate the solar depression angle . . .” Bastian lets his sentence slide away when he notices our collective bafflement. “I’ll just calculate it and get you the number.”

  Alma grins. “What did they feed you when you were a kid? Wikipedia bytes?”

  “You’d have to ask Slate. He was the provider.”

  “I made sure he got all the good stuff. I needed one of us to be smart enough to get us off the streets.”

  Cadence tips her head to the side to look at me and wraps her fingers around my wrist, squeezing it gently.

  I read the last part of the sentence out loud again: “Unless cradled in Brume’s beating heart at eventide. Seems to say there’s a way to lock in the leaves.”

  “Since eventide happens every day, does that mean you guys could somehow lock them at anytime?” Bastian asks, back on track.

  Cadence’s attention jerks back to the others. “You mean, individually?”

  Adrien sits up. “Which would mean that if we somehow failed to get the last leaf—”

  “—which we won’t.” I shoot him a glare.

  “Which we won’t,” he repeats slowly. “All wouldn’t be lost.”

  I tap the Bloodstone against the table. “You’ll be able to pry the ring from my cold, dead hand and finish the wicked hunt.”

  Adrien has the decency to blanch. “Slate, sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s fine, Prof.” I press away from the table and straighten.

  “Why dead?” Alma asks.

  “The ring can only come off once the four leaves are reunited, and this has to be done before the new moon,” Cadence explains.

  Alma cocks her head to the side, her long curls sliding over her shoulder. “Still don’t get why Slate would die.”

  “’Cause the Bloodstone will leak dark magic into my veins and cripple me, thus making me die a slow, excruciatingly painful death.”

  The minute the words leave my mouth, Cadence gasps, and I freeze. Shit. Rainier had sworn me to secrecy. He hadn’t wanted Cadence to know how much her mother had suffered on her way out of this wretched world.

  Silence settles over the library, silence interrupted by the steady tolling of the astronomical clock.

  Bastian shifts on his chair, tugs on his hoodie strings, shifts some more. “Slate’s going to be fine.”

  I want to believe this, but I’ve seen what the curses can do. Little Emilie’s tiny body rises into my mind. I shut my eyes but the image of her pink pajamas sharpens, so I pry my lids up and focus on the page Cadence is clutching.

  “Any guesses on that cradle?” I want to focus on something other than the limp body of the child whom I failed.

  Cadence tilts her head up, and I feel her clear blue gaze hunt my face. I don’
t meet her eyes; I don’t want to subject her to my anger and intensifying negativity.

  “The history book said the forest was the birthplace of the Quatrefoil. And since this hill used to be a part of it before it became a town, maybe that’s its beating heart? See, I listen in class, Professor M.” Alma winks at Adrien.

  “Or it’s inside the actual forest,” Cadence says.

  Bastian releases his hoodie strings. “It’s a big forest.”

  Adrien slides Cadence’s pad toward him. “The new moon will abscond with the leaves unless cradled in Brume’s beating heart at eventide.”

  “What about Merlin’s tomb?” Yes, I’m starting to believe Merlin was real. It’s worrying.

  “We don’t know where it is,” Adrien says. “If it even exists . . .”

  Bastian drums his fingers. “I saw it on the tourist map.”

  Adrien shakes his head. “That one’s just for lore-seekers.”

  My eyebrows knit together. “Cadence has a painting of it in her house.”

  “That’s true!” She lets out a startled gasp that flutters a lock of her hair. “The shape of the Quatrefoil’s imprinted on the stone.”

  “It could be allegorical,” Adrien says.

  “But it could also be real,” Cadence counters.

  “Except stones don’t beat,” Adrien, forever the spoilsport, declares.

  “Maybe magical ones do,” I say.

  “Look, I’ve canvased that forest and never come across his burial site or anything remotely resembling a quatrefoil-stamped burial stone, let alone a beating stone.”

  “You’re such a killjoy, Prof.”

  “I’m sorry, Slate, but the new moon’s in four days. I just don’t want us to go on a wild goose chase.” He shoves a hand through the air in exasperation. “A wilder goose chase.”

  Bastian pulls off his hoodie. His hair is flat in some places and sticking straight up in others. “The clock beats. Well, it ticks. But that’s pretty much the same thing.”

  Adrien blinks, then slams a hand on the table. We all jump.