“Serafina deserves closure.” Lucian adjusted his already perfect tie. “And you require information.”
“I’m perfectly content with the ‘shoot first, questions never’ approach.” The basement key’s teeth felt like they were chewing through my pants pocket. “Besides, wouldn’t that break your truce with the house of Harrow?”
“I believe you’re quite aware that truce isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” He rolled one shoulder in an elegant shrug.
Kaori cleared her throat, her nail polish glinting garnet-red as she set down her orange juice glass.
“I think I’ll spend some time in the library.”
“Help yourself,” I invited as Ko gave her a brief nod. Once she left, I looked at Lucian. “Fine, you can help, but don’t kill her before I get to monologue. It’s my favorite part of the show.”
“I would have thought your favorite part was turning someone’s mind inside out.” Lucian stood with a predator’s grace, all coiled lethality in a Tom Ford suit. “Shall we?”
The stairs groaned like condemned souls as we descended, Ko walking point. For some reason, Lucian’s cologne triggered phantom pains where his switch had split my knuckles when I was nine.
Shaking it off, I jammed the key into the lock on Witch Containment Unit Numero Uno, and the hinges screamed. Koa’s hand latched onto my forearm as we crossed the threshold, one quick squeeze that meantalive and alert. Always watching. Always guarding. Just like Pops taught us.
How’s that for fucking irony?
#
Amabel Harrow looked up from her Hexenfänger-induced scoliosis posture and smirked like we’d caught her shoplifting.
“The little dhampirs brought a real vampire to play? How predictable.”
Red rivulets ran down her throat from the witchcatcher’s cold iron spikes. Unintentional art from Ko’s overzealous tightening. Her left pinky bent at 45 degrees, a souvenir from their little tussle. I opened my mouth to quip about her makeup game being stronger than her survival instincts when Lucian removed his jacket and draped it over the back of the second chair.
“Secure her head.”
No please, no preamble, but Ko moved like automated machinery, pure muscle memory, a dog trained to attack on command. I was no better, leaping to palm Amabel’s skull and hold it in place as my brother snapped four chains into the exterior loops of the Hexenfänger. They were already anchored into the wall, immobilizing her like a bug under glass.
Lucian rolled up his shirt sleeves, then sat down in the chair across from her.
“Now, Miss Harrow, let’s discuss your mother’s delusions of grandeur, shall we?”
“You think I’d betray—”
“I ran into an old acquaintance the other day.” With a casual calm, Lucian reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a photo. “As we talked, she reminisced about the summer you spent with her. You would have been, what? Seven, I believe?”
He held up the photo and turned it to face us: Child Amabel curled in filth, eyes hollow. Behind her stood an old woman with a long, hooked nose, her smile displaying iron teeth.
Amabel went rigid.
“Baba Yaga,” she breathed, her eyes wide.
“I see you remember her, too.” Lucian nodded once, his silver eyes never leaving Amabel’s face. “She spoke of how Arabesque paid her to train the wild out of you that summer.”
“Baba kidnapped me!” The girl’s bravado cracked.
“Is that what your mother told you?” Lucian traced the photo’s ragged edge. “Well, whether she was paid or took you, Baba said Arabesque considered letting her keep you.”
“Liar!” Amabel spat onto his mirror-shine oxfords.
“Oh, girl! You done did it now!” I sneered.
For a moment that felt like a year, Lucian simply stared at Amabel. Unblinking. Silver eyes molten.
Finally, he put the photo away, held up one hand, and made sure the dim light glinted off the silver signet ring stamped with House Rosu’s coiled serpent crest.
