Jon offered nothing else after this, working instead in silence. He ladled hot water into a tin canister. Marie’s nose was suddenly met with the soothing smell of fresh coffee. Her stomach turned. She was hungry too. Jon poured the coffee into cups and passed her one. Marie quickly downed it, not minding that she’d scorched her tongue and throat; channeling the fire god had already left her insides seared. Jon passed her a biscuit tin with crumbled ashcake inside. She ate it greedily, not stopping until she’d had the crumbs too. She looked up, suddenly embarrassed.
Jon laughed. “Go on, now. Don’t worry, there’s more.” He passed her another tin, this one filled with chocolate wafers and tea biscuits wrapped in wax paper. They were stale and tasteless, but she ate them anyway, ravenous. All the while she watched Jon. And he watched her.
Jon always seemed more myth than man to her. Even now. But in the warm glow of the firelight, he didn’t seem the threat the others made him out to be. She heard what they called him—High Jon, Dr. Jon, Jon the Conjurer. A healer, the slaves whispered down at Congo Square. A conjurer with dark power. But his power didn’t seem so dark to her now, did it?It brought you back to life.
Properly unmasked, he was what Sanite Dede liked to call “pleasing of the flesh,” handsome in a way that not many men in New Orleans were. His features were strong, fiercely chiseled like those of the heroes from the old legends Grand-mère had read to her by the light of the bayou’s moon. When he turned to smile at her, that little crescent moon piercing at his ear glinted wickedly.
When she felt full, Marie reached for more coffee. As she did, the blanket fell from her shoulders, revealing her cotton slip. When she’d been sleeping, he must have undressed her from her muslin gown, leaving her in only her undergarments. Marie stilled. Only Jacques had seen her like this. He’d been her husband, after all, the only man she’d ever lain with. Jon averted his gaze as Marie pulled the blankets tighter, flushed at her own modesty.
She’d caught him looking. Those golden eyes flickered unabashedly to her lips, then lifted to her eyes. She realized then that they were the soft brown of sweet tea now, that in his effort to save her she’d drained him of his powers. “You are curious, aren’t you? About my magic?” he asked softly.
So, she’d not been the only one trying to read faces and thoughts. Jon could take one look at her and know the secrets of her heart, even the darkest ones she’d kept hidden. A moment of panic seized her. Could he know the darkest of them all, the secret that she’d kept closer than any other? She watched his face. Yes, she decided. Yes, he might know that too.
“Yes. And you will teach me,” she said.
“Teach you what, Marie?”
“Veil magic.”
He did not recoil as Sanite did. He did not even move. Jon sat as still as stone, gazing upon her with calculating eyes. “Do you know what you are asking?”
“Yes.”
“And why do you need Veil magic, Marie Laveau?” A glimmer of teasing in his voice. He was testing her, testing the limits of their trust.
“Why else”—Marie held his eyes, forcing herself to speak the truth for once—“if not for love?”
“You should understand one thing: Death is but a doorway. And trouble comes to those who open it.”
She needed to open that door, to see Jacques returned to her at last. The costs did not matter to her. Only a fool who had never tasted grief should think there was more to lose. When she had lost Jacques, she had lost herself. And she’d already lost her mother,and then Grand-mère. What should she fear now? Not death. She sought only to bend it to her will.
“I understand,” said Marie quietly.
Jon’s eyes told her that she didn’t. That she might never completely grasp the costs. But he rose to his feet, offering his hand. “Good. Then your first lesson starts now.”
They stood barefoot in the bayou, the grass cool between their toes. The magic was better this way; the earth would reach from its roots toward their feet and speak its spells into their bones. Her grand-mère had taught her this kind of magic, wild and full of dirt and flowers and roots. The kind of magic free from Sanite’s careful rules and silly edicts.
A small black crow darted out from the brush and landed on his shoulder. “Hello, Aram,” he cooed to the bird. The crow watched Marie closely. She had the sense that it did not trust her one bit. “I will not coddle you as Sanite does,” Jon said when he turned back to her. “But I will not lie to you either. The only illusions you will find with me will be in spells, not in our words.”
Marie thought back to her marriage with Jacques. Hindsight had made their days seem rosier, easier than they’d really been. She was sure Jacques had loved her. But her magic? It was never enough. Jacques was Haitian by birth and had inherited its revolution in his blood. But his magic hadn’t come close to Marie’s. He’d always pestered her to think of how she might stretch herself for more, to be more than she already was.
“I will have the truth only, Jon.”
“And the truth you will have,” said Jon. “Now, let us begin.”
Jon began to walk in a circle, murmuring under his breath. As he did, veves scorched themselves into the grass, as if he’d taken a white-hot brand and seared them by hand into the earth’s face.
Marie had never seen such markings. They were exceptionally old, older than Voodoo itself. “What are you doing?”
“Wards,” Jon answered, still intently focused on his spellwork. “Allthe better to quiet the noise.” He looked up and grinned. “We wouldn’t want anyone to hear your screams, now, would we?”
Jon’s eyes darkened, the black of pitch. And before Marie could react, she was on the ground, doubling over in agony. A cry ripped out of her as pain shot across her skin, stabbing her all over. She looked up at Jon through watery eyes. “Make it stop.Please.”
He shook his head. “That was only an illusion, Marie.” In an instant the pain ceased. Marie remained on her knees, panting. She could breathe again. “Lesson one—never leave yourself unprotected. Even from those you love.”
Marie froze. Is that what she had done with Jacques? Left herself unprotected in his absence? The thought made her sick.
Jon’s eyes were steady on hers. “Sanite has taught you rituals, no? Let me tell you a secret, love.They take too long.In the coming days, you will need to defend yourself in the moment. There may be no time for such rituals. Your magic requires immediacy, Marie. You need to learn to conjure like this—” He snapped his fingers, releasing a crackling charge of cold green light.
