The danger does not live in this house. It lives in the rules, Marie. The rules you don’t dare work to change.
How can I? I am not the Quarter Queen, and—
Not yet. But Sanite will be gone one day, and just like that—he snapped his fingers, illustrating his point—you will have her crown.Tell me, Marie Laveau.What kind of queen will you be then?Jacques sighed, turned those green eyes up to the ceiling as he ran a hand over his brow.You have all the magic in the world, Marie. And look at you…so tame. So afraid. So disgustingly content with being less than you are.
And maybe you’ve never been enough.Marie bit back the words she did not dare say. So instead, she said,What do you want me to do? Break the rules? They will kill me! Kill us both!She was breathing heavy now, cheeks red with shame and anger. But she saw in his face the look of absolute resolve. He was ready for that. He would die if he had to. If it came down to it.Tell me what you want me to do with my magic!
Use it.Those green eyes held hers, defeated. She didn’t know this would be the last time.For something more than yourself.
Her husband turned and left, leaving Marie in the doorway, watching as he disappeared down the dark of the road.
Marie’s eyes prickled. She reached out, into the darkness, into anything, for something to hold on to. But the dream wobbled, the memory finished. Just what was Jon trying to get her to see?
But for all his magic, Marie had learned his ways. He would not pry inside of her head without costs. Her magic bucked against his, twisting the shape of the memory until the picture changed. That warm dream took on a new life.
She was now in a crowd, drowning in a swell of bodies, the air thick with screams and the crack of gunfire. She was standing in the middle of a riot. This was not the cloistered heat of New Orleans. A man streaked by her, a rifle strung over his shoulder, green eyes barely registering her presence.
She stilled. For it was her husband.
It played as if time had slowed itself to a crawl: Jacques taking aim…the glint of a baton in an officer’s hands…the spray of blood that choked the air, splattering all those faces who watched as it struck his skull…the crack of the baton as it came down again…and again…and again…Jacques reaching out blindly to someone she could not see, blood thick and gurgling on his lips…
Marie screamed, but it was no use. She was a passenger here. An empty vessel.
The world spun, as if in reverse.
Marie was now staring with Jacques’s eyes. At a man in a tall hat who watched impassively from the crowd. Still as stone. The stench of death heavy on him.
It was Jon.
A hand on her shoulder. Marie looked up, saw the familiar withered face before hers. Sanite Dede. She looked older than Marie remembered, but her skin was glowing faintly, the deep brown flecked with sunlight. Her eyes were completely white, filled with the force of her magic.Take control,Marie,she commanded.Take back what is yours. Get on your feet.
The memory shattered into a thousand glowing pieces that swirled in the air. Sanite was standing over her, magic pouring from her in waves that pulsed in the air, as if it were breathing.
“Get on your feet, Marie,” the real Sanite commanded. Those filmy eyes were still looking ahead, her teeth clenched, her long dark braids writhing slowly around her glowing face like coiled snakes.
Marie’s vision slowly cleared. She was on her knees in the cathedral’s sanctuary, rasping for air. She reminded herself that the pain of losing her loved ones couldn’t hurt her anymore. She’d already lost them once. And somehow, in her unending grief, she’d lost herself too.
She didn’t know how, she didn’t know why, but she knew Jon was responsible for Jacques’s death. How could it be that one man was the source of her joy and the architect of her greatest misery?
Marie cast her eyes at Sanite, the woman she’d rejected, who wanted her to get rid of her pregnancy. But Sanite was here. She’d come back. She’d come back forher.It was more than her own mother had done for her. “Sanite, I’m—”
“Silence!” Sanite’s nails dug into Marie’s shoulder, and in one heave, she wrenched her up by the collar of her dress to her feet. “I said on your feet, Marie. Prepare yourself.” She hissed toward the darkness, “Get out of her head, Jon.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Someone was walking toward them from the shadows.
A flock of crows took flight, a swarm of black drifting high above into the cathedral’s rafters. Jon stood in their place, top hat in his hands. “Now, why would I do that?”
The air quivered, shuddering, the illusion shriveling around him into little glowing particles. Once she’d seen him for what he truly was, she couldn’t stop seeing through him, his games, those terrible, terrible lessons.
“Jon.”
“Hello, Marie.” His eyes slid to the old woman in front of her. “And Sanite, my dear, dear Quarter Queen.” His lips drew into a sneer, that old history between them conjured again. He took a sobering look around the sanctuary, lips pressed into a thin, displeased line. “The ever-devout Marie Laveau. I’ve always thought you served too many gods.”
His gaze flickered up to the crucifix that hung before them—Christ’s head weary and bent, tilting his crown of thorns. Beside it, the statue of the holy Madonna cradled her swaddled baby. But Marie saw only a frightened mother, scared for her child, of whatmight become of him if he were to fulfill his destiny, what the others might do to him if he did, or worse yet, if he did not.
“Tell me, does this one care for you?” Jon taunted. “Will he lend his power now if you ask him so?”
