Nan lowered herself into a stiff bow, then promptly made herself scarce. Ree sighed, rubbing a hand along her pounding temple. She shouldn’t have been so coarse with the girl, but she didn’t need obvious reminders of how dire their situation was. Nonetheless, Nan spoke the truth, one she hadn’t ever let herself consider. The Quarter could not be without a queen. Not for long. The Voodoos needed a leader; without one, the city would gladly take control, and what would be left of them then?
Ree turned her eyes back to her mother. If not for the slow rise and fall of her chest, Ree might have already mistaken her for dead. She remembered grasping her mother’s hand, her mind suddenly flooded with an image of Jon. Was it possible she was seeing what her mother had seen—what she hadwantedher to? Perhaps Mariehad been trying to tell her something; perhaps she was still trying to now.
Ree went to the side of the bed and took her mother’s hand in hers. She felt the pull of Marie Laveau’s magic drawing her in, taking root inside of her thoughts. Dozens of images flickered inside her mind’s eye, flashes from another time, another place, a scattering of sounds, bits of words and phrases she could hardly catch.Her mother at a younger Mayor Corbin’s bedside, holding a vial. A brown-skinned woman named Claudette beside her with eyes of deep emerald. Her mother gowned in white, like one of the mourning widows. Marie kneeling, staring up at a golden-eyed man who gazed down at her in hushed wonder. A bloody handprint across her cheek. Cold white eyes glowing out from the dark.
Ree opened her eyes, the images and sounds vanishing. None of it made sense. But it would. It must. There was one image she recognized. The woman with the emerald eyes. She had seen those same eyes staring at her that day in Congo Square, when she’d stopped Anabelle from killing Corbin. The eyes had been glowing then, full of old magic.
Claudette Duvalier.
Ree had heard her name traded among the Voodoos, but never had she met the woman.L’Enchanteresse,some called her. She was proudly Haitian, as many were in New Orleans, and had brought older magic across the ocean with her. Although she was no friend to the Laveaus, she was the only person from her mother’s past who was left in the city. Which meant she might be the only person in all of New Orleans who could help her. Ree turned to Aram, who was perched on the golden brass knob of the bedpost, fluttering his feathers at her expectantly, as if to say,I can help you.
Ree held out an arm, and he flew to land on her wrist. She showed him with her mind’s eye the same image of Claudette she’d received from Marie, and at once the little blackbird cawed.
“Show me,” murmured Ree.
With a ruffle of his black feathers, Aram took flight back through the open window and out into the bayou. She followed him for some time, and it was after sundown when Ree finally turned ontoCanal Street. It was less a common street, Ree supposed, and more a crossroads of sorts, one that separated the rest of New Orleans from the inner cloisters of the French Quarter. Ree could feel the boundary of Marie Laveau’s magic, the invisible tug of her wards, as she walked along the road. The Quarter Queen’s magic ran stronger, truer, in the heart of the Quarter. Less so outside ofit.
The street itself ran in a long spine down to the riverside, but not narrow and twisting like the rest of the Quarter. It was enormously wide, each side swaddled in stately retail: Countless regal emporiums and dressmakers advertised their wares in big, glittering letters. Hotels shot up from the ground like weeds, flanked by charming coffeehouses and banks with gilded doors guarded by men in caps and gloves. Horse-drawn streetcars raced down the middle, as did grand carriages and noisy marching parades that went on at all times of the day, folks waving their handkerchiefs and dancing in step. Here the signposts changed every few minutes from French to English, alchemically transforming, all the better to accommodate those uptown folks who didn’t speak a lick of “bayou talk.”
Ree followed Aram, stopping only when he suddenly swooped over her head and landed on top of a creaking wooden sign; its placard readThe Pint & Pea.
It was a small cherry-pink alehouse with green shutters crouched low beneath a sagging gallery, bordered on one side by the Aurelia and on the other by a hatmaker whose shop had long since closed for the evening. Ree stared at Aram.Really?She could not see a woman like Claudette Duvalier taking up in an establishment like the Pint & Pea. But Aram only fluttered his wings, his yellow eyes seeming to say,Go on, now.
Still huffing from the long walk, Ree went inside and was met with the usual evening crowd—sailors and dockworkers looking for a quick meal, regulars sharing the day’s gossip. The Pint & Pea had none of the fuss of the other refined pubs along Royal Street, nor the loud charm of the alehouses that lined Bourbon, like the Saddle Saloon (which Ree much preferred). It was a place of mismatched odds and ends—patrons lounged on quilted chairs stuffed with tattered cushions, the floor a patchwork of secondhand rugsarranged in a riot of color, the air mingled with the garlicky bite of simmering red beans and trapped humidity.
An old creole trumpet player sat by the door, a toothpick lodged into the side of his mouth. The song he played made Ree’s eyes prickle with tears. Because it had been one of Marcel’s favorites. Ree flipped a coin at the musician. He caught it, tipped his hat, sputtered out a “Thank you, kindly,” then promptly changed the tune.
Ree made her way through the slew of splintered tables pushed ungraciously into the middle of the room, where folks drank coffees stirred with dark spoonfuls of chicory and chocolate. A fire danced merrily in a crooked stone hearth at the back; a large shaggy gray dog dozed loudly in its warmth.
Miss Hattie-Jean ran the bar, same as she did every night, a flowered apron tied around her front, a rag on her shoulder. A tiny teacup of a woman, she hummed along to the music, her molasses-brown pin curls bobbing up and down as she worked the counter. Every word she spoke was dipped in honey—overly saccharine and thick. “Got the best gumbo in town. A sight better than Labelle’s,” she was telling a man who clutched his clouded pint, teetering woozily in his chair.
It wasn’t—but that was beside the point. There was no arguing with a woman like Hattie-Jean.
“I got the best pig feet in the whole Quarter,” Hattie-Jean went on as she served another round.
She didn’t. But what the Pint & Pea lacked in taste, it made up for in portions: bowls of spiced greens as big as wagon wheels, and pints of lager and moonshine poured as deep as trenches.
“Aw hell!” she exclaimed when Ree dropped into a seat at the edge of the bar. “I don’t like y’all Laveaus up in here. Not one bit.” She flicked her eyes at Ree disdainfully. “ ’Specially you. At least your momma follows the rules when it suits her.”
Ree couldn’t blame her—she’d caused enough trouble to last Hattie-Jean through the year. But Hattie-Jean didn’t bother to ask Ree for her order, just went to pouring her a dark red lager into an oversized murky pint glass until it sloshed. “Get on with your drink and get the hell out.”
She plopped the drink down on the counter in front of Ree, whopicked it up, turning it over in the dust mote–ridden air. The pint’s glass was as cloudy as sea mist.
“Not before I get what I came for. I need to meet with Claudette Duvalier.” Ree felt the pull of the older witch’s magic, now that she knew what to look for. “The one they callL’Enchanteresse.”
Miss Hattie-Jean kept her eyes on the wooden counter, shining circles into it with her rag. “No can do.”
“And why the hell not?”
“Because don’t no enchantresses live up in here. Only witch here isyou.And I want you gone. You hear me?”
It was a lie. For whatever reason, Claudette was not like Marie Laveau. Whatever power she wielded she much preferred to do from the dark of the shadows.
“Get me Claudette Duvaliernow,or I will make a scene.” Ree leaned in, eyes flashing. She found her gaze in the mirror along the back of the bar. Eyes as white as bone. “I promise you I’ll make enough trouble they’ll have this place shuttered for a week. You want that, Hattie-Jean?”
Miss Hattie-Jean recoiled at the sight of Ree’s eyes, the mark of her mother’s magic. Ree was only posturing. Just a few days ago, she might have thrown a similar tantrum to get her way. Now such a bargain brought her no pleasure. But she was running out of options.
Ree went to take a sip of her lager, silently calculating how far she would have to take this whole ordeal. Suddenly, a jeweled hand shot out and snatched the drink from Ree’s hand.
