Chapter 11
Nerves churned in her belly. Jessamine knew they were going to find Fortuna here. After all, the woman rarely left the Pleasure District. But she hadn’t thought the mere anticipation of finding her cousin would be quite so terrifying.
They’d spent the last few days preparing for what to do and how to get to Fortuna.
Elissa had some information on the woman, but not a lot.
Which meant they’d needed to wander through the streets, asking people questions while avoiding bringing any sort of suspicion to themselves. Such was a task easier said than done.
Still, she’d found the address for Fortuna’s house and eventually gotten too tired to wait. Elric felt the same, even if Sybil claimed the two of them were so impatient that they were likely to ruin the entire plan.
Night had fallen on the streets. As dark as it was, no one would see them.
She wore all black, as did Elric. No one could even see her unless she lifted her face high enough to reveal her pale skin beneath the hood of her cloak.
And even then, the moonlight turned her skin into such an unnatural color that perhaps someone would think they’d seen a ghost.
A soft chuckle escaped her at the thought as they rounded the last corner street they needed to traverse around.
“Care to share what is so entertaining?” Elric asked, his dark eyes constantly searching the streets for some unseen foe.
“I just had the thought that if someone saw me, they would think I was a ghost.” Another giggle escaped her before she could catch it. “And wouldn’t they be right?”
He cast her an annoyed glance. “You aren’t a ghost.”
“I’m dead, though.”
“You have a body. Ghosts don’t.”
That stuck in her mind a little. He was right, and how odd it was to even think about that. “I suppose that is correct. What would that make me, then? A zombie?”
“Zombies don’t have minds. They’re more like your infected.” Elric waited at the end of the street for her and then gestured with his arm for her to go ahead. “I would simply call you undead, princess.”
“I don’t think I like that term.”
He caught her around the waist as she strode by him, tugging her against his chest so she had to plant her hands over his heart.
She could feel it thundering against her palms as he leaned down and rasped in her ear, “Call yourself what you wish, gravesinger. Just know that the only thing you have to call yourself is mine.”
She hummed low under her throat. “What a romantic you are for a man who made a gruesome spectacle in the middle of the town square.”
“They needed to be reminded that I am here.”
“You made a statue bleed.”
“And I would do it again.” He pressed a kiss to her throat before letting her go. “Come, we are close to your Fortuna’s home.”
The banter and joking was the only way she was keeping herself together. The closer she got to Fortuna, the less she wanted to be here. Jessamine knew this was the only way to get back to her throne, because Fortuna was the only person in Callum’s memory who she knew could be useful, and yet…
“You hesitate,” Elric said as they walked the meager few steps left.
“Fortuna and I have never had a good relationship. She was always the pretty cousin, but that didn’t mean she had an easier life than I did. I was still the crown princess. She was always the woman who would never have the throne. It was difficult for her, to say the least.”
“So you hesitate, why?”
“I don’t want to make her life any harder than it already has been. We don’t have very good memories of each other, but that doesn’t mean I want to waste my time with revenge on someone who deserves it less than others.”
“You are not the child you once were,” Elric murmured quietly. “I thought you had learned that lesson after seeing Callum.”
“I did,” she replied. “I am a monster that none of them will recognize. For that, I am ever so grateful. But it will feel strange to see someone who once knew you and to know they no longer have any power over you.”
“We’re here,” Elric said quietly.
They crouched on the opposite side of the street, tucked against the edge of a stone staircase that led up to an equally grand house.
Fortuna’s was the largest on the street, surrounded by a golden fence that was easily twice the height of a normal person.
There were guards every ten feet or so, each of them in Leon’s signature dark blue.
The house beyond was made entirely of white marble.
It stood as a monolith of money, four stories tall, with pillars that made it look like a small castle.
Glass windows revealed every single room to passersby, sparkling with so much light she could only imagine how much whale oil the house consumed.
Even from here, she could see the riches inside.
Gold-leafed walls, black-and-white marble floors, countless artifacts from artisans all around the word.
Marble busts. Oil paintings. Gemstones in every bedroom that made it almost impossible to guess which was Fortuna’s.
“She doesn’t want anyone to know where she rests her head,” Elric muttered, as though he had a similar thought to hers. “And the guards are certainly concerning.”
Indeed they were. It suggested Leon had placed more value upon Fortuna’s life than she’d originally guessed.
As they watched, the guards changed over.
They did it in such a way that no one would ever be able to elude them.
The guards were too vigilant, almost as though they knew someone was coming.
Even as they changed over, they were back to back, both of them looking everywhere until the person being relieved could leave knowing that no one would sneak in on their watch.
“He’s nervous,” she whispered.
“Your king has heard about you,” Elric said, his voice low and melodic. “I would say he’s afraid there is a witch back from the dead.”
“Whatever will he do when he hears I brought a god with me?”
They shared a look, but Jessamine knew this was the moment when everything changed.
She’d always planned for Leon to know that she was alive.
She wanted her almost-husband to be terrified as she crawled her way back to that throne.
She wanted him to lie awake at night, haunted by the ghost of what he had done.
“You can’t die,” Elric murmured, his eyes on hers. “You know he can’t kill you, because I will not let him.”
“I cannot die, but I can still feel pain.” The sensation of a knife sliding through her skin was a phantom memory that plagued her even now. Jessamine smoothed her hands down the shirt beneath her cloak.
Her fingers danced over the scar on her side where Callum’s thugs had cut her up and left her for dead just because they found out she was a witch.
Then she moved upward, feeling the mark on her ribs where a young man named Benji had thought to finish what his master had started.
And finally, the last touch that always made her feel the worst pain.
She wrapped her hand around her own neck where her betrothed, who should have been vowing to protect her with his life, had slit her throat.
“I want my revenge,” she whispered. “I want to know that everything he worked so hard to get, all that he desires, is ripped from his hands piece by bloody piece. I want to see him crawl and beg me for mercy.”
“Where do you wish to start?”
“With what he loves.” Her eyes moved to the stately home where Fortuna hid. And as if she had summoned the woman herself, Fortuna walked in front of one of the largest windows.
She was effortlessly beautiful in a way Jessamine never had been.
But if they stood next to each other, one could see a family resemblance.
Fortuna was lean and graceful, her skin moonlight-kissed and her lips a shade of dark red.
Big, dark eyes made people want to protect her.
The long waterfall of her dark hair never had a single strand out of place. She was stunning. Beyond beautiful.
But Jessamine could also see how steely Fortuna had become.
The way she gestured to the servant who followed her suggested she’d gotten even meaner—which meant she would be a formidable foe who knew how to push all of Jessamine’s buttons.
In a way, Fortuna was more dangerous than Callum had ever been.
“I don’t believe Leon can actually love anything,” Jessamine said quietly, her voice pitched low so no one would overhear them. “But I do believe he covets that which is beautiful. He wants what he cannot have, which is why he wanted my kingdom in the first place.”
“I still don’t believe all of this is about a kingdom,” Elric replied. “There is more going on here between these people than either you or I understand just yet. We need to know what they are doing, and whether they are going to continue doing it.”
She didn’t know if there was some grand plan that they needed to be terrified of. All she cared about was getting the usurper off her throne and making sure that her people were finally cared for in the way they deserved.
“Elric?” she asked.
“Yes, gravesinger?”
“There is only one way we’re going to get the answers that we need. We need to get inside that house.”
“You wish to walk into the belly of the beast?”
She grinned. “Is that going to be too difficult for you, Deathless One? I thought your magic was in shadows and souls?”
“It is.”
“And yet tricking a few humans into allowing us to walk right in that front door is beyond you?”
She could see the heat flash in his eyes at her challenge.
He liked her like this, when she was taking charge and ordering him around.
She knew he wanted to press her up against the stone stairwell and kiss her breathless.
Some part of her wanted that, too. He could distract her like no one else.
But right now, neither of them could afford to be distracted when there was so much they still had to do.
“Jessamine,” he said, his voice so low it was little more than a guttural growl. “Do not test me.”
“I enjoy testing you.”
“We cannot walk in the front door. That spider of a woman would know my power is in shadows. Considering Leon’s guards are filling the city to the brim, I would suspect they are concerned with Callum’s disappearance.
They’re not so stupid that they will ignore the rumors that I have returned, along with the rumors that you yourself are somehow still alive.
I can get us to a window, but that is as far as I will risk.
There are hardly any shadows in her home at all. ”
Ah. So that was why they were burning so many lights. She wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
“Did they know we were coming?” she whispered, looking back at the house.
“Didn’t we already assume that? Leon must suspect you’re alive, considering all the wall writing you did in the Factory District. With the death of Callum Quen, I can only assume he will put more protection around his own people. Clearly, Fortuna is the easy guess.”
Humming low under her breath, she tried to think of a way around this. There had to be a window that would be useful, after all.
Snapping her fingers, she reached for Elric and shook him. “Nyx!”
“Bless you.”
“No, Nyx. The familiar you gave me. She can find a way in. Surely there’s an unlocked window or some kind of cellar we could sneak into. Then we just have to stay out of people’s way.”
“The windows, Jessamine? Anyone on the street could see us.”
“We’ll stay away from the windows, then. None of the guards are looking at the house, anyway! They’re trying to keep people out, not assuming that we’re already inside.”
He shook her hands off him, sighing before nodding. “It’s a start, I suppose. That familiar of yours is particularly good at squirreling herself into places she shouldn’t be.”
“Summon her for us.”
“You summon it.”
“You’re the one who created her! Nyx is back at the cottage, hopefully staying away from all those birds. Please, Elric?”
She tried her best to bat her eyelashes like she’d seen Fortuna do so many times in her life. All that managed was to make Elric scowl at her. “Don’t do that. I hate that expression.”
“Would you prefer I argue with you until we’re both blue in the face?”
“I’d prefer you to just stop speaking,” he snarled, but his hands were already rising. Muttering a long spell under his breath, the shadows in the alcove at the edge of the stairwell gathered together.
The tiny form of a cat appeared, her arms sinking to the ground in a big stretch before she trotted over to Jessamine.
She really refused to grow. Still no larger than a kitten, Nyx sat primly on the stairwell and waited to be petted. Her ears had grown huge, with long tufts of fur poking out of them. Her bright green eyes blinked up at Jessamine before glaring at Elric.
“Hello, little one,” she said, adding a few scratches at the back of her neck for good measure. “I know we’ve kept you locked up quite a bit, but we have a great need for you. Can you find us a way into that house?”
Nyx blinked at the glowing building, her pupils contracting before it seemed like the cat nodded and then trotted down the stairs.
A few of the guards reacted, but they were no match for a cat who weaved through their legs and purred so loudly that Jessamine swore she could hear Nyx’s rumble from where they were hiding.
“It’s just a cat,” one of the guard said. “Must be a stray.”
“Haven’t you seen the cats in that shop? Little spies, from what I’ve heard. Don’t let it in.”
But the first guard bent down and gave Nyx a good few pats as she wove through his legs again. “They wouldn’t make a black cat for one of those. People think they’re bad luck, you know. This is just a cat. Look at it! Scruffy and everything. Not a designer pet, this one.”
She almost had half a mind to argue with the man, but Elric clapped his hand around her mouth and drew her against his chest. “Let the familiar work,” he muttered in her ear.
She would, but she’d remember their faces. Scruffy cat. Nyx was better than both of them combined.
And then, with one more twitch of her tail, Nyx slipped between the bars of the fence and disappeared behind the house.