A voice erupted from Marcel’s throat, dark and guttural:What exists between the crowned sun and fallen moon? That which kisses both dark and light, the living star of eternal bright.
Her circle spoke in unison:
Though the land is ruled by the Church’s holy trinity,
We answer with our kin, our vessels of dark divinity.
And when the holy bring their war of fire,
Set the blood of witches on the burning pyre,
And bind their necks in rosary chain,
so our triad will banish their bloodied reign.
And this, my dear, dear Princess Ree
Is the long-foretold Song of Three.
The spirits faded, leaving behind her circle and a mountain of unanswered questions. Only one matter was clear to her. This was beyond her power.
This was a matter for the Quarter Queen.
Chapter Two
Ree
“You should be on your way, princess. Before your mother comes calling.”
Ree lay beside Anabelle in bed the next morning. The sun shone over the Quarter’s rooftops and through the heavy, petal-embroidered satin drapes that covered the House of Flowers’s rosy stained-glass windows. Church bells tolled in the distance, summoning the whole of New Orleans to its feet for the day.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of my mother too,” said Ree with a sigh, rolling over to face the fresco-painted ceiling. She studied the rounded backside of a pretty river-sprite bent over in a compromising position, blushing to the roots of her golden hair as some horned god had his way.
“Everyoneis afraid of your mother.” Anabelle pranced from the bed, nimble as a gazelle, her pink heart-shaped necklace rising and falling in between the swell of her breasts, a totem of her favored loa, Erzulie, the sweet-tongued goddess of beauty and love.
Ree swatted Anabelle’s bare backside as she passed, then poured herself more mulberry wine from the flagon on the nightstand. Anabelle’s bedchamber was on the House of Flowers’s third floor and was blessedly quiet, far removed from the sounds of pleasure anddebauchery that filled the first and second levels all through the night, even to now.
The fireplace snapped with dying flame. Ree had hardly slept, haunted by the spirits’ riddle. It seemed like a prophecy. But it was not like she could ask her friends what they thought—Anabelle, Marcel, and Fabrice had woken from their possession with no memory of the words spoken from their own lips, and Ree had kept the so-called Song of Three to herself. Not until she could talk about it with her mother would she speak of it to anyone else. Whenever Ree asked too many questions, Marie was fond of reciting an expression owed to her mentor, Sanite Dede, the prior Quarter Queen:There is safety in your secrets.The tongue casts more than spells.The truth can be a more terrible curse than a lie.
“So, princess. If you spend another night here, what might the good people of New Orleans begin to think of Marie Laveau’s noble heir?”
Anabelle meant the question as a harmless tease, but Ree noticed the sourness to her voice, like the first signs of curdling in a cold cup of milk. “Since when have I ever cared what the good people of New Orleans think of me? My reputation is long past sullied.”
“It’s notyourreputation that you’re truly protecting, now, is it?” Anabelle countered.
Ree pressed her lips into a thin line and said nothing. It was true that lately she’d made herself more at home in the Maison des Fleurs’s vine-covered walls than in her own home on St. Ann Street that she shared with her mother. She’d always felt content in the arms of pretty girls and boys, even if it meant running up a tab that she never had the intention of fully paying off. But most recently, that home had started to look like one pretty face—Anabelle. She found the young woman irresistible to a frustrating degree. Anabelle shared Ree’s same penchant for mischief, but there was something hidden within its fringes. A lingering sadness that compelled Ree closer.
Ree changed course. “Did you like our little game last night? We could always play again.”
Anabelle twirled a dark braid. “You always cheat. You Laveaus have a way of doing that.”
“I assure you I don’t need to cheat, ma chérie, to make you love me for one night.” Ree hesitated, then said, “And is that what you think of my family? Of me? That we cheat?”
Anabelle glanced away. “What else is it? You walk about this city as gens de couleur libre…” A hint of bitterness tinged those last words: free people of color. “You Laveau women flitting as you like across the Quarter as free and golden as butterflies. And not because you’ve bought your freedom from the chains. No, simply becausetheycan’t even put you in them.”
Quiet, Ree considered this. Had Henryk Broussard thought the same of her? Was that why he’d offered to take her away from New Orleans, from her mother, all those years ago, to see who she might be without her status and her magic?But you didn’t go,a small voice reminded her.Because you are your mother’s daughter.A flash of regret flickered in her chest, there and gone, a quick sleight of hand.
Ree took a deep swig from her goblet, then another, though she knew she should be spending the morning at least attempting to sober up from the night before. As Anabelle dressed, Ree couldn’t help but allow her gaze to linger over her naked backside, on the deep lash marks that trailed her flesh like roads emptied and long forgotten.
