“Not that this little moment isn’t heartwarming, but I have fifteen days left to live, so if you could both focus on me for a second and explain what the fuck I’m looking for, it’d be real appreciated.”
I narrow my watery gaze on Slate. He’s so hateful that I don’t even feel bad that he might die.Okay. . . I feel a teeny bit bad.
“Slate’s right. We need to get to work.” Papa fishes his cellphone from the wheelchair pocket and scrolls through his contacts.
When I see the name he selects, I bite my lip. “Adrien said he was flying to London today.”
“Then he’ll have to fly straight back,” Papa says.
My heart pumps so much blood that it sounds like the lake is rushing through my skull. Still, I manage to catch bits of what Papa is saying, and it doesn’t sound like he’s leaving a message.
After he hangs up, he scrolls through his list again until his thumb stills on Gaëlle’s number. “Adrien’s on his way.”
His way back or his way here? I suppose they’re one and the same. Relief pokes through the haze of dread. I don’t know whether Slate is smart or a team player, but I know Adrien is both.
Slate’s head is bowed in contemplation of the Bloodstone, probably ruing its power andhisstupidity.
Once Papa hangs up, he says, “They’re both on their way. Cadence, can you go down to the cellar and grab a bottle of wine?”
“Make that two,” Slate says.
I dip my chin into my neck and glower at him. “Planning on sharing one with Mamanagain?”
Slate’s dark eyes go pitch-black. He doesn’t say a word. I’m almost surprised he doesn’t have a clever comeback since he has clever comebacks foreverything.
“Cadence,chérie.” Papa prods my ribs and nods to the door. “And grab five glasses.”
“Five?”
“Yes. Five.”
Not that he’s ever prohibited me from drinking, but he’s also never encouraged me to do so. I suppose he thinks I’m going to need a little buzz, but is that to stomach what he’s just confessed or to endure all that he’s about to?
I cross the room in a few short strides. I don’t bother closing the doors since no one else is home. Jacqueline is long gone—I passed her on my way in—and our housekeeper only comes in the morning. I head into the kitchen, a state-of-the-art space filled with Corian and stainless steel, then through a door that leads to the basement which contains a giant jacuzzi and a walk-in wine cellar. I enter the dank room, free a dusty magnum from its cradle, then shut the door and traipse back upstairs. After I’ve pulled out the cork, I hook five long-stemmed glasses through my fingers and grip the bottle’s neck as though it were Slate’s.
A ring killed my mother.
The same ring Slate is wearing.
Slate will die if we—Adrien, Gaëlle, Slate, and I—fail to find four magical leaves.
If we succeed, Slate lives, and magic . . . magic will reappear.
Maybe I should’ve grabbed vodka from the freezer instead of wine, because this is all just so crazy.
When I burst back into the living room, Papa and Slate hush up.
“Don’t stop chatting on my account,” I say, wondering why they’re wearing matching guilty looks.
Both watch me set my loot down on the coffee table, the soft clink of glass on glass rivaling the whir of the convector heaters, which have been working full-time since the blush of autumn swept over Brume.
“Papa, if I’m part of this, I want to knoweverything.”
As I start to pour, he says, “I was just explaining to Slate how Amandine”—he pauses—“how your mother . . .” Again he stops talking.
“How my mother what?”
“What the end will be like for him in case we aren’t successful,” he says in a single breath.
