The Gates of Guinee (The Casquette Girls #4) - Alys Arden Page 0,1
corner, but my attention didn’t waver. As I’d suspected, beneath the torn silk, the girl bore a circular Maleficium. The mark of an Aether.
“Annabelle Lee Drake. The witchling who sold her coven down the River Styx. What silver did Callisto offer you?”
“Uncuff me now,” she demanded, only hints of her Elemental persuasion tugging at me to follow her commands.
I smiled. “With my venom still coursing through your veins, you’re going to have to try much harder than that to use your magic.”
Her gaze drifted past me to Raúl’s body across the room. It lay crumpled, his head tossed lazily atop his chest. She tried to preserve her stern expression, but the fantasy—whatever game of house she’d thought she’d been playing with Callisto’s coven—eroded behind her eyes. “He’s going to come for me,” she whispered, gripping onto her increasingly slippery delusions. But then she tilted her chin up, mood shifting, or so she wanted it to appear, and looked at me with bitter virulence. “And you’re going to regret this when he does.”
I huffed a laugh. I could see how Callisto would have admired her spirit. It was unfair to call her naïve, to blame her youth; Carina and Josif had centuries of wisdom and were still taken in by Callisto’s posturing. “I hope he tries,” I said, standing.
And I truly meant it. Taking Callisto within the borders of the Vieux Carré would certainly be easier than infiltrating the plantation he’d turned into his magical fortress—I’d have the full strength of my family.
Thump-thump.
I was confident in my ability to kill Callisto, but I’d need every vampire with me if I was going to get Macalister LeMoyne back alive as well. My teeth gnashed. Surely Isaac would break the Trapping curse now that Mac’s life was at stake?
I needed a new plan. Magic. A coven.
I needed Adele.
I wanted her here with me.
Thump-thump.
My spine stiffened, realizing the pulse was not only mine. I strained, listening, but all I heard was the night’s maelstrom on the streets.
“What?” Annabelle sat up, suddenly interested. “See, I told you Callis was coming for me.”
Screams, shatters, cracks of magic, all muted by the walls of the old house, but beneath it all, there was a little thump. She’s here.
“Oh, that’s not his worried face,” Carina said. “That look means the witch is near.”
“What witch?”
“The one he ripped Raúl’s head off over—”
“Adeeeeeeele!” Annabelle screamed, thrashing.
I ripped off her sleeve, gagged her, and darted into the hallway. Lisette stood hidden in the shadows, staring back in at Annabelle with a mild indifference I didn’t quite believe. There was something else. Disappointment maybe. I closed the door and twisted the key.
The creak of the front gate echoed in my ears. I tore down the stairs, paused at the foyer mirror—just a quick check for blood on my face, my clothes, my hands—sucked back my fangs, and whipped to the door, opening it just as she raised her fist to knock.
She stood before me in the haze of magic under the Flower Moon, her pulse charging. She was damp and disheveled, and she still smelled of river water. It took all my strength not to pull her inside, away from the nightmare swirling the city.
“We’re going to get your father back, bella.” I knew it was the only thing she wanted to hear.
“And we’re going to avenge yours,” she said, her eyes dark with deadly determination. Something had changed.
Everything had changed.
She, too, had shed her skin.
I stepped aside so she could pass. Across the street, almost hidden by a fern on the balcony, Isaac’s wings fluttered. Our gazes locked. I swung the door closed and twisted the lock.
I had been wrong before. She was safest here with me.
CHAPTER 2
Bedlam
Observe. Adapt. Dominate.
I repeated the mantra as I soared down Royal Street, dodging people, cars, and spells, but it was like my synapses weren’t firing. Pink memory powder clouded the humid air, and a sparkle of cyan twinkled in the sky above thanks to the Daures’ protection spell.
My shoulders burned from flying, but I didn’t care. I didn’t feel anything other than the certainty of her last words: “If you follow me, I’ll scream for Nicco, and you better pray he doesn’t hear me.”
I didn’t want to observe or adapt. I wanted to turn back, swoop down to the Medici house, pound on the door, and beg Adele to come with me.
I’d only followed her to make sure she arrived safely.
Keeping her safe was all I’d ever been trying to do.