Chapter Twenty-One Ree #2
It was a masquerade ball, after all, so she should have expected nothing less than pure transfiguration.
Corbin ran his annual bal masqué without fail, sparing no expense.
Still, her breath hitched. Shut away from the raucous music and mannerless behavior that had overtaken most of the Quarter’s main streets, the theater seemed a city all its own.
The floor was a sea of twirling gowns and tinkling laughter.
Dignified dandies and refined women with pale-beaded gloves and piles of pearls at their necks, wigs tiered like white-frosted cakes, gowns that moved like La Sirene’s water in the candlelight, opulent masks woven with delicate lace and gemstones.
Ree spied endless casks of champagne and honeyed mead.
Tables laden with towering king cakes iced in yellow and purple and green as big as her head, their multicolored insides filled with raspberry jam and cream.
Steaming pots of spiced coffee that smelled of chicory.
Mountains of glistening oysters, scarlet-bellied crabs that had been stewed in butter and garlic, braided sweetbread, little golden dishes of sugared sauces and jams. An old black woman in an apron ladled scalding cupfuls of red jambalaya onto dishes of rice and cornbread.
She spotted Corbin at one end of the chamber, lounging on a long golden settee.
She was reminded of the man on the steamboat who’d sanctioned the torture of runaways for his own pleasure and sport.
Now here he was, pretending he was the picture of diplomatic grandeur, the Carnival King before his court.
Another mask. Another illusion. Ree squared her shoulders, plucked a glass of champagne from a tray beside her, and went to him.
“Marie Laveau the Second,” Corbin said as she neared.
He stood, brandishing his cup. The scarred half of his face was hidden beneath a shiny copper disguise, the other half left bare.
That half was smiling at her. “I don’t believe we’ve ever had the chance to be properly acquainted.
” They hadn’t until now. “I don’t think I ever got the chance to thank you for saving my life, sweet girl. ”
He could hold his praises. It hadn’t been to save him, not really, and he knew that. It had been to spare the Voodoos of the consequences Anabelle’s killing of the mayor would bring. “You could start by lifting this newest curfew on the Voodoos,” said Ree.
“Let us not be hasty. Certain precautions were needed after that day in Congo Square. But your magic was magnificent, I must say. I’ve seen your mother at work, in glimpses and flashes at her little moonlit rituals in Bayou St. John or the square.
But she is so controlled.” Corbin waved a gloved hand.
“You, on the other hand…you showed me pure instinct. Wild power.”
“Is that truly what you want in a witch in your city, Mayor?” She’d meant to goad him, but his eyes flashed, and she instantly regretted it.
He’d transformed before her eyes. The man they called the Collector stared back at her, the monster who plucked and preened his careful crop of slaves like treasured dolls, trinkets he could admire and polish then stow away into his war chest. The man who owned Marcel.
“If they are under my control,” he murmured. He reached out, stroked a piece of dark hair along her shoulder. “You would be surprised what manner of pleasures and freedoms I allow in my house, Mademoiselle.”
“Hmph. I suppose my great-grandmother simply made up her terrible time.”
“You are a sassy one.” He pursed his lips, thinking on it. “The Vatican has made their intentions known through High Inquisitor Broussard. If a second Inquisition were to come to New Orleans, you would need protection, would you not? Your mother cannot protect you, not from that.”
“She has managed well enough,” replied Ree stiffly.
“And where is your mother, young child?” He looked about the chamber. “Where is Marie Laveau?”
Did he know? Could he know? It was possible that it had slipped somehow, that talk of Marie’s condition had spread from among the Voodoo ranks into the city.
And Silas knew, but for whatever reason he hadn’t come to collect on her weakness, and she supposed she should give thanks to the loa for that.
“I could protect you from the Vatican,” the Collector said. “You would remain unscathed from their Inquisitors. I would see no harm come to a witch who bears my seal.”
“Chains,” Ree said with a sip of her champagne. “You mean chains.”
“Certain precautions, always.”
Ree let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, I do believe you are taking precautions, sir. I believe you are scared. There are rumblings, talk of other rebellions in other states. What of Alabama? Georgia? Mississippi? They will hear what that great rule-abiding city of New Orleans has done with their magical-blooded, free or not. And they will be frightened. There are inklings of a civil war on the wind, Mayor.”
After what happened with Anabelle, and then her escape, folks might feel bold.
Certainly, there was a feeling of anger in the air for the injustices that had gone unanswered for so long.
Marcel’s hanging had been tinder in the flame, and his resurrection brought notions of Haiti’s revolution that New Orleans was not in a position to ignore.
Corbin’s face darkened, nostrils flaring. “Be very, very careful, little girl, of what you say next.”
“I say you’re afraid. You wanted my mother, didn’t you? But you couldn’t have her. She was stronger than you.” His eyes flattened, and Ree smirked. “And now you want another weapon to add to your collection. Well, it will never be me.”
“I can make it so. Just like that”—he snapped his fingers—“you insolent little cunt.”
“I don’t think you will, Mayor. You see, maybe we let the Inquisition come.
And maybe I will be taken, arrested. Tortured even.
But you? What would our sweet enterprising governor think of you, Felix?
You would be the man who allowed all of the city’s magic to die on a stake.
That would be very, very bad for business.
” It was she who leaned in now, her voice a silken whisper at his ear.
“Press me again, Felix, and I’ll turn myself in to Inquisitor Broussard.
And if I go, I can promise you, the rest will follow. ”
There was a faint crick as the glass of wine in his hand splintered up the side.
But Ree held her ground. It was a cruel bluff, she knew. A terrible, terrible gambit to make. But it was the only language men like Corbin knew, the only one they feared. If she went down, he would go with her.
Corbin stared dumbfounded, eyes narrowing into his face as he considered the violent possibility she painted in no uncertain terms. “You play a dangerous hand, little girl. But you forget yourself. This entire city is my game. And only I make the cards,” he said at last.
Beneath the drawl and bravado, it was clear—she’d just scared the most powerful man in New Orleans. She only hoped it might be enough to buy her the time she desperately needed to save her mother.
Ree turned, heart racing as she snatched another flute of champagne, downed it in one go, then disappeared into the crowd. No sooner had she escaped Corbin than a dark-gloved hand caught hers.
A tall man in a colorful lacquered jester mask cocked his head to the side, long white-blond hair spilling over his shoulders.
“Silas,” she hissed.
“Hello, little witch.”
Ree made to move past him, to rid herself of him once and for all, but he pulled her firmly into a dance. “Get off of me!”
“Careful, now, people are watching. I don’t think you want an audience, my sweet.” He leaned in close to her ear. “We wouldn’t want them looking too closely, now, would we? Asking too many questions? Where is the beautiful Marie Laveau, I wonder?”
Ree froze. He took the opportunity to swiftly pull her into a twirl, and she begrudgingly fell into step with him.
She glanced around. No one was watching, everyone was watching.
That was the beauty of a masquerade. They could be anyone.
Not a Voodoo witch and a Brotherhood alchemist. She was the High Priestess, all-knowing, and he the mad-eyed jester.
“Let me go,” she growled.
As if sensing her fear, Silas leaned in. “Do you remember my offer of friendship? Now would be the time I would highly encourage you to reconsider.”
But Ree wasn’t listening. In the very back of the room, a tall figure in a hooded red robe watched her from behind a black lacquered mask that shone with an eerie stillness under the fall of torchlight. But she knew it was him. Henryk.
Ree said nothing, her mind turning to their last encounter in Antoine’s quarters, the fear she’d felt coming face-to-face with the man behind that mask, watching her with such sterile emptiness. Silas silently tracked her gaze. “He’s been watching you this entire time.”
“He hates me.” She didn’t know why she said it, only that she did. The champagne had made her dizzy, wild in a way she hadn’t allowed herself to feel since before the interrogation.
“The boy does not know hate. Not really.” Silas’s voice darkened. “I have seen hate, little witch. Seen its true face. And I can tell you that is not the face the Inquisitor wears.”
“Are you defending the Inquisition?”
“Listen to me, Marie Laveau the Second, and listen close: You’d do well to form an alliance with the Brotherhood before time runs out.
We shall need one another to survive what comes next.
Do you think your gods can protect you? Did they?
The first time? The First Inquisition peeled the skin from your ancestors’ bones. They bleed like the rest of us.”
The jester spun her around, the room tilting in a vision of silk and laughter.
“And that’s what’s coming again to this city. But this time, you must know they will scorch earth. I promise you, sweet, the Brotherhood will not be burned. I trust you to stand on our side.”