“And truly, we’ve none with you, Marie Laveau. You are but a means to a very profitable end. Come now, and make this easy. For the both of you.”
Fuck that. She would not go quietly. She would not go at all. And she had no intention of making anything remotely easy for a man like Gailon.
At his signal, the alchemists advanced on her.
So be it,Marie thought. She was ready. She had tobe.
Two she killed immediately. The fire leapt from her fingers, snaking around their throats like a blazing lasso. And she pulled with all her might until she saw their heads singed from their necks. Gailon swung his staff in a low arc, and weeds shot up from the earth, snatching Marie’s ankles. But she was quicker, singeing them with her fire, then casting a spell upon the wind. It came sailing through the dark, her little brace of wind, and struck Gailon in the side. He went flying back and then hit the ground. Marie heaved, panting from the strain. She was still not yet healed, the exhaustion of her labor only a few hours previous. It was no matter. In that moment, her hatred for the Brotherhood burned hotter than any flame she could cast, and through its fury she would gather her strength.Gailon rose, stalking intently toward her. He made a motion with his hand to his alchemists.No,his eyes seemed to say,this one is mine.
Because her eyes were trained so closely on Gailon, she did not hear the telltale swing of chains until it was too late.Snap.Something heavy closed around Marie’s neck. A scream tore its way from her throat and out into the wild of the bayou.
And just like that, her magic vanished. Marie clawed at her neck, but she knew it was useless.Aurum.It burned her fingers, but still she pried until her flesh smoked and sizzled.
“Silas,” she hissed.
Silas stepped out from behind her, his face smooth as stone. “Hello, Marie.”
Marie did not pretend to know a man like Silas Favreau, whose eyes held secrets, his impish smile a book without words. She hadn’t known him still when she’d found him that fateful night with Father Antoine, his face marred by some worry. But she had thought she’d glimpsed the face of a man who held remorse, who was capable of change. She was wrong. Now that same face stared coldly down at her, unblinking. Silas crouched beside Marie, and then he was reaching over her, to her baby bundled at her back.
“No!” Marie clawed and struck out at him, but he swatted her away, as if she were nothing more than a swamp mosquito. “Silas, no!” She reached for him, but Gailon lifted a hand and spoke a word, and her muscles locked, still as stone.
Silas passed her baby into Gailon’s waiting arms. Wild panic and rage made the world spin. He held her a little out from him, as if she were a wondrous novelty, a delightful curiosity he had never seen before. Those harrowing sights she’d glimpsed aboardLa Lunecame flooding back to Marie—those runaway slaves transmuted into beasts, the men in cages made to heel like wild dogs, the experiments all in the name of arcane advancement and craft.
Gailon cradled her daughter in his arms. Marie could no longer talk, but she was screaming on the inside. Her daughter stirred awake with a cry. The tincture had worn off, Marie thought helplessly. Her baby was crying. Marie was crying too, breasts aching with milk, the tears streaking down her face like silver streams tonowhere. She had thought she had known heartbreak before. But that had been only a small, bitter taste.
The Grand Wizard took one last look at Marie, then turned and swept away into the dark. His alchemists followed after him until only Silas remained.
He crouched beside her, staring at her with those impassive eyes. “I told you, didn’t I, Marie? I warned you.Turn your heart to stone.” He reached out, moving aside a rebellious curl that had tumbled free across her cheek. “And you did not listen.”
He put a hand to Marie’s furrowed brow, murmuring a spell beneath his breath. And then Marie fell away into the darkness of sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ree
Ree woke, aching beyond belief, tears streaming down her face from the latest vision of her mother.
The sound of Marie’s anguish was unbearable—first the cries of her labor, then her guttural, soul-shaking cries at their separation. She felt every emotion as if it were her own, could still feel the wrenching sob rising in her from her belly, the way it lodged in her throat, a boulder that would not be moved.
She felt like such a fool. Not so long ago, she’d tried to run from this city. Both times, she’d said it was for love. And maybe she was right. For love ofherself.But not Marie. She’d tried to run too, had tried in vain to escape the beast for them both. But this was a city that had teeth, whose rules were determined to swallow women like them whole at every turn.
She sat up, and a breath of relief coursed through her body. She was in the Laveau hairdressing parlor, lying on the floral violet rug beside the hearth where Marie liked to brew her potions. Although there was a fire burning in the grate, she felt strangely cold, the lingering effects of the demon’s presence. Pale light flashed against the shaded windows, the mark of a light show in the sky. Darkened silhouettes drifted by the glass as revelers enjoyed their share of sin,the faint swell of music and laughter drifting in from the streets as the festivities moved along the French Quarter.
“You’re awake,” a rough voice said.
Henryk leaned against one of the shelves where Marie stocked her infamous butter balm and tins of rouge, his face covered in that wretched black mask. Memories flooded back to her: The demon’s voice in her head, its rattling tongue flicking as it spoke of her demise. Henryk’s lips against hers. The taste, the feel of his magic intertwining with her own.
“You have magic,” Ree said with a gasp. “You’re Les Magiques.” She remembered at Corbin’s ball the way Silas’s eyes had gone toward Henryk, briefly, but she had seen. And now she knew. “You’reSilas’s piece on the board.”
“I suppose you could say that.” Slowly, he slid his Inquisitor mask from his face. His eyes stayed on hers, and she saw in them a flicker of shame. There was a moment of strangled silence between them before he finally said, “I’m a spy, Ree.”
“You would work with the Brotherhood?”
He looked tired, his face a pale moon staring back at her in the dark. “Do you think Marie Laveauhasn’t?” Ree was silent. “They are a necessary means to an end.”
“And Antoine? Do you have the good priest’s blessing to be a spy?”
“Who do you think molded me, Ree? After the bloodshed of the first Inquisition, he devised a way to prevent that horror from ever reaching New Orleans again, even if it meant he had to break the rules to do so, even if it meant working with someone as awful as the Grand Wizard of the Brotherhood of the White Hand.”
