Chapter 26
C HAPTER 26
AUDEN
“Tell us about the Cerises,” Evander prompts, fork and knife sawing through the wagyu steak that had been on the menu last night. He’s washed away the blood, tossed the jersey, and has basically—appropriately?—gone full John McClane from Die Hard, wearing one of his favorite white undershirts, biceps and shoulders free to the night and from the constriction he abhors. Maybe this is dressing for the job he wants now more than the suit was before.
We’re seated around the round, marble-topped table in Ursula’s sitting room. Lavinia swallows her own bite under his gaze and presses a napkin to her lips. “We hiked toward the Field of Stars to join up with the Cerises, witnessed them separating, and then hiked toward our original locations as a group—the Pool and Horace’s Last Stand. We met up with Evander and Auden between the two.”
“What time did you see the Cerises split up?” I ask.
“Maybe an hour after we all left the driveway?” Kaysa responds. “Hey, can I get some chips?” She nods at the sideboard, which holds not only Ursula’s preferred scotch but also an assortment of junk food we picked up from the kitchen too, including Evander’s favorite salt-and-vinegar splurge.
“Protein first,” Evander barks in a way that makes me believe they aren’t totally off-limits to her. “And you made no contact with them?”
“No,” Lavinia answers. “We planned to, maybe to work together, but when we arrived Hector and I’m assuming Sanguine, though we didn’t see her, were in the SUV, and the twins were at the rolled- down, driver’s-side window. Hector was angrily telling Hex to do something, and enlisting Ada to make sure it would happen.”
Winter narrows her eyes. “What kind of something?”
Lavinia glances at Kaysa. “We’re not sure. Hector just told Hex, ‘You will, and that’s final, my son. End of discussion.’ Hex pushed back again, Hector raised a hand like he was going to slap him, and Hex immediately shut up. Then he turned to Ada and directed her to keep him on task. She agreed. Hector seemed satisfied and drove away, back down the access road. Then the twins grabbed a pack they were sharing and hiked into the woods on an unmarked trail.”
Unmarked? If only we’d been there—the offshoots from the Field of Stars were numerous.
“Did you follow them?” Evander asks.
“We took the marked trail that went toward Horace’s Last Stand because it looked like it might be parallel to the twins,” Kaysa explains. “But they must have gone another way, because we lost track of them pretty quickly and they weren’t at Horace’s Last Stand.”
“Okay, wait, hold on.” Winter massages her temples, food all but forgotten. “How do we know any of this is true? Can you prove that the Cerises separated? Did you take photos? Video?”
“No.”
“So all we know is this story about the Cerises and the fact that you weren’t with my cousins all day, and when you were with them, they were suddenly so viciously attacked that our patriarch nearly bled out and Auden spent so much of his life element to heal him that he could barely walk straight?”
Lavinia pales.
My mouth pops open to defend her—but then Evander pointedly sets down his fork, his steak already inhaled. “Look, Win, you know me. I would not agree to be barricaded in here with the Blackgates if I had any doubts. I trust them. They didn’t throw those knives at themselves today. No magic was involved. They didn’t trick us. I trust them—and I trust you if you trust Infinity.”
“Wait. If I trust Infinity? If you’re suggesting they had a hand in any of today’s violence, that’s preposterous. They’re the least violent person in the history of the Four Lines. Practically a Quaker.”
Evander doesn’t budge. “The Blackgates aren’t the only ones who weren’t with us all day.”
Winter narrows her eyes. “ Both of you are suspicious? Jesus Christ. Look, I saw Luna alive with them before we left to the grounds. We never separated on the grounds. Left together, returned together, discovered Luna together.” She wheels back to Evander. “And before you start asking me if I have any interest in being High Sorcerer, I don’t. I never wanted it, and now I’m not even sure I want any of this. Maybe I should be like Infinity and peace out.”
Evander cracks a smile, a throaty laugh escaping as his eyes dance. “You can’t ‘peace out’ as long as I’m patriarch. The Elemental Line will always be connected, whether we go from four lines to three in the next twenty-something hours or not.”
Winter’s nostrils flare in a way that mimics Evander, her jaw as tight as the fists balled atop the table. She glares at him. “I know. I know exactly what you want, Evander.” Winter whirls on the Blackgates. “What I don’t know is what you two want.”
Lavinia raises her hands, placating. “We just want to go home. We don’t want to be High Sorcerer; we don’t want anything except to survive and leave.”
“Which leaves the Cerises,” I rush in to say. Evander nods, Winter frowns, I continue. “But if they could kill someone as powerful as Luna and not invoke Ursula’s magic, they would do it again to anyone challenging Hector, wouldn’t they? Why even mess around with it? They could’ve magically murdered all of us in Infinity’s room an hour ago, cut off my hand to invoke the clues, and finished out the relic search alone. But they didn’t.”
Evander looks up, his green eyes locking with each of us. “What are we missing?”
“The threats,” Lavinia answers, immediately. “I’m sure you all have already addressed this on your own time because it’s obvi ous, but what do you make of Ursula mentioning threats when she greeted us? You don’t think it was…”
“That she expected someone in the High Families to be capable of murder?” I finish.
“Well, yeah.”
I shake my head. “To Ursula, threats were—are—things like invasive technology, modern distaste for social secrecy, environmental changes that affect each line of magic, and outside magical rebels. I don’t think she would’ve taken any hints at discord so casually.”
“I agree,” Evander says. “Though we must take into account the way she was acting. She made sure the two of you were here. She told us she had a plan for the evening but didn’t elaborate. Then she not only mentioned threats to set the night’s tone, but she stood to give her speech during the first course instead of when the meal was over.” His eyes rise to the Blackgate girls. “And the last time Ursula did that was the night of your father’s trial and punishment.”
He’s right.
That’s exactly how that night went.
It was the first meeting after our parents’ funeral. It was supposed to be a cathartic night of dinner and discussion and hearts bared raw. Those of us at the kiddie table coping in our own ways—Evander in overt mourning; Winter with a happy, put-on face; and myself, with a misguided attempt at distraction by leaving a dead skunk in the bushes for a certain brunette guest to stumble upon.
Then Ursula rose from her seat, an accusation on her lips. The night instantly became an interrogation and a punishment, ending with the death of Marcos Blackgate before all of us.
In the silence, Lavinia draws in a deep breath, lifts her dark eyes to mine, shiny with all she’s lost and perhaps the memory of it too, and asks, “But what if it wasn’t a threat on her life? What if it was a threat on the way things have been?”
“What do you mean?” I hear myself say as something frays within me.
“Perhaps that’s what the threat was—maybe Luna told Ursula she was cutting the Celestial Line loose.” Lavinia nods to herself, pieces locking into place as the words come. “Luna saw it as something necessary for the way her line was going, but Ursula saw it as a defection—a threat.”
That thought nearly stops my brain straight in the tracks.
“I—you know, yes,” I stumble, my brain whirring forward. “That’s possible.”
Winter snags my fumbling answer. “Those two were as close as sisters and if anyone would have had the balls to broach defection with Ursula, it was Luna.”
She’s right.
“But then why would she have come at all to the meeting?” Evander asks. “We know dropping a bombshell like that into Ursula’s lap wouldn’t have made business as usual plausible.”
Winter sighs. “Infinity could shed some light but I’m not about to barge in on them.”
After a long, silent moment, Lavinia begins to fiddle with her napkin. “I’m not saying it means anything, but Infinity went out of their way to tell me that she thought Ursula did this to herself. They could’ve been planting seeds to drive the investigation away from their grandmother if for some reason we figured out Marsyas was set up.”
“And then what? Someone murdered Luna rather than have her submit to interrogation? Or to the potential embarrassment it would cause their line?” Winter asks. “If you’re back to implying Infinity could’ve done that to their grandmother, I know you don’t know them, but no.”
Lavinia holds up her hands. “I didn’t say that.”
Winter stands, shoves her chair back, and gets a bar of chocolate we stole from the kitchen stash from where it’s piled between Evander’s chips and the scotch glasses. “This is just such bullshit. None of this is worth it—what happened to Ursula and Luna is not worth it. Not for any of these moldy relics or for the Four Lines.”
Kaysa clears her throat and enters the conversation with a much more serious tone than she’s used before.
“Perhaps we put a pin in that and look at the idea of threats in a more immediate sense,” Kaysa says in a way that’s stiff—almost like she’s reading from a script. Lavinia’s brows knit. For all their closed-circuit nonverbal understanding, it’s clear she’s not sure where her sister is headed with this. Maybe it’s not as rehearsed as I imagine, then. “A murder is a threat completed—we have two of those. The knife incident is a threat in itself.”
“Yeah, a threat that almost made it four murders.” Winter tosses the remaining chocolate bar onto the sideboard so hard it slides and skids off onto the rug. “Someone killed Luna, and it wasn’t Ursula’s fucking ghost. Evander and Auden, I swear to God, I’ll kill you a second time if either of you manages to get murdered over a meaningless title.”
Evander stands too now, his chair nearly tipping. “The title isn’t meaningless; it keeps thousands of witches safe in this country—”
“It didn’t keep Ursula safe!” Winter shouts. “It didn’t keep Luna safe! It didn’t keep our parents safe! In fact, it put them six feet under! Can you believe—”
A loud knock snuffs Winter’s anguished voice.
We all turn to the door. This isn’t a hotel, there’s no peephole.
Evander shouts, “Who is it?”
There’s a pause, whispering between the wall and us. Not Infinity then. Which leaves—
“We have information you need to know.”
Hex’s voice is as clear as a bell.
“Unless it’s the third master, it can wait until morning,” Evander answers.
Magic sparks at my fingertips. Magical defense is allowed, not offense—despite the evidence of Luna’s murder, I have no interest in testing Ursula’s rules about using magic against each other and spending twenty-four of our remaining hours frozen like a statue.
Rising, I grab the nearest blunt object—a massive decorative rose quartz bookend on the sideboard. It’s sized like a bowling ball and just as heavy. I cock it, prepared for a quick-release lob if the Cerises force their way in.
Finally, Hex’s voice comes again, quietly but plainly, “Our parents weren’t with us the whole day.”
We all go collectively still.
“Are you confirming they were unaccounted for?” Evander calls.
“Are you confirming you lied?” Winter yells too before they can address Evander.
“Yes and yes,” Hex answers without hesitation but wielding more of an edge than before.
“When did you separate and where?” Lavinia shouts. A good idea—a confirmation of what the Blackgates saw would prove both the Cerises’ intentions to tell the truth are real, and also back the sisters’ alibi.
“At the Field of Stars. They drove away, leaving us to hike,” Hex answers.
When he finishes, Ada crowds in with another plea. “Let us in, please.”
I put down my blunt object. “Evander, two truths. We need to hear what they have to say.”
“I don’t like it,” Evander growls.
“There are five of us and two of them. It’s a more dangerous situation for them,” I point out. “We should let them in, hear what they have to say, and go from there.”
Still, Evander hesitates. Winter, though, charges toward the door. “They sound terrified. Have a heart, patriarch. If you won’t open it, I will.”
“Fine,” Evander relents, sliding in front of Winter at the last second. He calls fire in his palm—basically the Elemental equivalent of raising a gun with the safety off and the chamber cocked—and unlocks the deadbolt, the regular lock, and cracks the door.
Though his broad back fills the frame, from where I’m standing, fingers wrapped around the bludgeon I’ve chosen, I can see the twins standing there together, Ada under Hex’s arm, cheeks shiny beneath crimson-tinged eyes. Her brother is sallow and rumpled, his hair an unmitigated mess, bruises beneath his eyes.
“Do your parents know you’re here?” Evander asks.
“Of course not,” Hex snaps, frustration surfacing. “And they’d ring our necks if they knew we were. And the longer we stand out here, the more chance we have of getting caught. Let us in.”
With a curse, Winter bodily shoves Evander aside, the flame in his palm shivering as she uses his own stumbling, surprised weight to crack the door open farther. Hex seizes the opportunity and slips through the gap, hauling Ada by her wrist.
Evander leans into the hall, and seeing nothing, seals the door with deadbolts in place and stands in front of it. The fire in his palm has dimmed, and he crosses his arms, staring down at our new guests like judge and executioner.
“It’s not enough to tell us your parents weren’t with you all day. I want to hear you say it.”
Hex and Ada drop onto the couch, putting space between themselves and the table I stand at with the Blackgate girls, and between where Evander guards the door. Winter hovers in the negative space between our three points of contact.
Hex scrapes a hand across his jaw. “I know you can put two and two together, Evander—”
“Say they killed Luna,” Winter prompts. “Hex, we need to hear it. There’s no room for misunderstanding why you’re here or what information you have.”
Hex’s head falls back, eyes scrunched closed. Beside him, Ada stares at the bejeweled familial ring on her own finger, chords of her neck straining beneath her drape of blond hair. Hex lifts his head, looks Evander straight in the eye, and when he speaks his words are sharp enough to draw blood. “Our parents weren’t with us, but they didn’t kill Luna.”
My jaw drops, Winter’s eyes narrow, and Evander pushes off the doorframe, emerald flames flickering dangerously in both hands. “I’m not interested in a spoon-fed alibi right now, so you can just—”
“Our parents didn’t kill Luna,” Hex cuts him off, voice climbing high and loud, “because she was already dead when they returned to the mansion to get the knives we used to attack you .”