27
Slate
Istare down at the text ordering me to meet the Quatrefoil crew.There’s a quick explanation about the ghost of Gaëlle’s ex-husband being the Air piece, along with the instructions to go to his resting place. But what gets me are the wordsatthe Roland family home.
Why the hell is Gaëlle’s ex buried at my family’s home?
And also, what the actual fuck: I have a family home? Another thing the Great and Terrible Rainier de Morel failed to mention. Okay. Maybe, just maybe, I could give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the house was sold right after my parents’ deaths and a new family’s living there. Maybe Gaëlle’s ex was part of that new family. Maybe when De Morel saysthe Roland family homehe really means theoldRoland family home.
After no luck detecting a piece in the Beaux-Arts building or in town—I walked around Brume holding my middle finger out as an antenna, which didn’t make me any new friends . . . I got lots oftsks and shocked looks from people misinterpreting the gesture—I headed back to the dorms to grab a clean shirt, fresh bandages, and a double dose of painkillers.
The address is not in the center of town but on the edge of First Kelc’h, near the forest. It takes a good twenty minutes to walk there from the university dorms.
At the end of a long path, a stone house with a steeply pitched roof and red shutters materializes through the mist. It’s nowhere near as large and pretentious as theManoir de Morel, bigger than a cottage but no castle. Something straight out of a fairytale with its jumbled ivy crawling up the walls and lace curtains peeking from behind nine-paned windows. All that’s missing are the seven dwarves.
It’s charming, that’s what it is. Not my style at all. I like clean, modern lines, bay windows, and city-life right outside my door, so I don’t know why seeing the damn place makes my chest hurt and my throat feel raw. Like this pile of gray stones is some piece of me that I lost and have now found. Complete and utter bullshit. I was too young when my parents died to have a connection to this place.
Bastian would love it, though. It’s perfect for a romantic like him. Yeah, he’d go full hog with a wife and 2.5 kids, abichon frisé, and rows of tulips planted on either side of the front door. Even Spike might like it. It faces south, so if I put him in the front window, he’d get to sun his prickly ass all day.
If the mist ever clears up, that is.
There’s really something wrong with me. There’s no way I’d move to Dismalville. Why am I even entertaining the thought?
A miniature version of the house sits at the end of the drive. Voices drift from beyond it, so I go around and find my crew standing—for the most part—in a loose circle amidst a wide expanse of unsullied snow. A mass of evergreens stretches far and wide, corralling the backyard like a fortified wall.
Rainier eyes me from atop his souped-up snowmobile. “Slate’s here.” He doesn’t utter the wordfinally, but it’s there. On his mind.
Asshat.
“Let the games begin,” I bellow with great solemnity as I stroll over to the huge X of sticks laid out between my crew.
“It’s not a game.” Adrien’s firmly aligned lips barely shift around his answer.
No shit, Prof.
Cadence’s eyebrows knit together, her hands cupped over her mouth like she’s either holding in a scream or trying to warm them up. Although Gaëlle’s back is to me, I notice she’s shaking, the frizzy ends of her long curls wobbling against the back of her coat. A length of rope is coiled at her feet.
I crunch through the snow to stand between Cadence and Adrien.
Cadence lowers her hands from her mouth, which looks redder than usual. Maybe it’s in contrast to how white her skin is at the present moment.
“Hey.” She doesn’t look at me as she greets me. She’s wholly focused on pulling something out of her coat pocket—a saltshaker filled with soot-colored grains. “I brought you this. We’re hoping it’ll trap the ghost.”
When she hands it over, our fingers bump, and a zing goes up my arm. She yanks her hand back, then stuffs it into her pocket and shifts away from me, adding a good three feet of distance between us.
“I’ve heard of seasoning stuff to trap in the juices but wasn’t aware it also worked on ghosts,” I say to lighten up the grim mood of the assembled folks.
Especially Cadence’s.
When she showed me her mother’s statue this morning, I thought everything was good between us once again. That she either wasn’t so worried about me being an infatuated deviant or that she actually hadn’t figured that bit out after all. But then she got all weird about Jocelyn or Julia or Jeannine, and now she’s blatantly ignoring me.
I don’t know what’s up. As per usual.
I shoot my gaze toward Gaëlle. “If the ghost’s your ex, why are wechez moi? Why not in the cemetery?”
“We were just establishing that,” Adrien mutters between clenched teeth.
“No, we weren’t. We were establishing a plan.” Rainier stares pointedly at the giant X. “Why his bones are here isn’t important to getting the piece—”
