A panic attack.I glanced around the room, wondering what had set him off. He’d been quiet and jumpy ever since we got to London, and then after he ran away earlier…something about the city had made Rowan’s anxiety flare up.
Had I made things worse with my city tour? That’d be just like me.
“I’m…fine,” Rowan wheezed.
“Okay, big fella, let’s take you back.” Arthur looped his arm under Rowan’s shoulder and pulled him to his feet.
I slid my arm under the other shoulder. “Nice job, mate, faking a heart attack just to get out of listening to the rest of my tour. I’d be impressed by your acting skills if I wasn’t mortally offended.”
Rowan made a choking noise. Over his shoulder, Arthur glared at me like he wanted to throttle me. I gave him a huge grin, but that did nothing to ease his scowl.
We were helpless. If the painting didn’t give us any answers, and the other covens wouldn’t help support us, there was no fecking way we’d be able to stop the Slaugh. If we weren’t laughing, what the hell were we going to do?
CHAPTER TWENTY
MAEVE
There are so many things I wish to tell you, but there is so little time. I will die tonight, of that I am certain. I saw my own death many years ago. The power of premonition is an ugly gift, and I pray that you will not inherit this curse from me.
I read my mother’s letter over and over as the train clattered through the tunnels, until the words blurred together and became a blob of ink, like a Rorschach test that showed the inner workings of my mother’s mind. If only I could decode it and figure out what she was thinking.
Premonitions don’t exist. An effect can’t predate its cause. Things aren’t destined to happen – the very fact that the fae exist in the multiverse proves that. My mother didn’t know she was going to die. So was it selection bias and unconscious perception at play – as the High Priestess, she was the centre of a dangerous spell, and therefore the most likely to die…
…or did she know consciously because shechoseto die?
Did my mother choose to die rather than fight for me?
Would I have to make that choice, too?
Corbin’s hand settled on mine. “No matter how many times you read it, you’re not going to make more sense out of it.”
“I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much now,” I said. “I feel this insane need to resolve it in my head. I mean, why did she even write this? Why did she think it would be a comfort to me to know that she didn’t even fight for me?”
“Because she didn’t know that you’d beyou, and that you’d see this through the lens of your scientific knowledge,” Corbin said. “Maybe she thought that if you knew she could see her death you’d find it a comfort.”
“Do you believe that?”
“It’s not important what I believe.”
I folded the letter again and slipped it into my purse. “I just wish I could ask her myself.”
Corbin squeezed my hand. “You can’t. But maybe we’ll get some answers from our research. We’re about to meet one of the most powerful witches in England. She was there the night of the ritual. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll know where Robert Smithers is hiding.”
I nodded. The thought was so odd. After twenty-one years of not knowing my mother, I was about to meet a second person who hadn’t just met her, but had worked magic with her.
We got off at King’s Cross station and walked a couple of blocks through beautiful Victorian terraces with ornate iron fences and lavishly-tended gardens. The cars parked in the street were all luxury models. Audi. Ferrari. Tesla. Designer labels dazzled from shop windows. We crossed the street into a beautifully manicured public square, surrounded by theatres, restaurants, and more grand buildings.
“This is Soho, part of the West End,” Corbin explained in what Flynn described as his ‘history professor’ voice, gesturing to a beautiful old theatre on the corner of the square. The billboards out front advertised a season of Shakespearean plays. “All the big theatres and entertainment venues in the city reside here. It’s also been the heart of London’s sex trade since the late 1700s.”
He pointed up at one of the buildings across the square. “That’s 21 Soho Square, home of the White House – one of the most notorious historical brothels in the city. Photographers used to hide on the streets outside to try and snap pictures of famous people going inside so they could blackmail them.”
“How do youknowall this stuff?”
“My dad wrote a book about the history of prostitution in Britain. It came out about a year before he left Briarwood. He refused to let me read it, but a couple of years later I ordered it off Amazon.” Corbin gave me a tight-lipped smile.
“Sneaky. Was it any good?”
“Yeah. It was. I had no idea my dad was such a good writer. He knows how to talk about history in a way that’s interesting and humorous, without disrespecting the material.”
