Reading her surprise, Silas said, “It needed to look convincing. To get past his defenses.Killhim, Ree. And then there will only be one enemy left.”
The Inquisition.If only it were that simple. The Grand Wizard had no idea that the last enemy would not be the Church. It would be the Brotherhood of the White Hand. But not today.
Ree turned furious eyes on Corbin, who was cowering before her, inching along like a worm seeking soil. She would kill him, yes. But first? First, she would save her mother.
Ree slammed her hand into the ground, allowing the spell of the Veil to leak from her and into the earth, just the way her mother’s vision had shown her. Pulsing violet light spread from her fingertips, weaving across the dirt and into the sacred veve of opening.
“Open,” she commanded.
From the silence came a dull creaking sound, the groan of an old gate swinging open…
The whole of the sugarcane fields filled with a blinding white light. Ree was forced to shield her eyes with the back of her hand until the light receded and in its place stood a towering black door that was covered in a long white curtain. The Veil.
Despite the sticky heat of the night, Ree felt the air chill. It was the hand of death, reaching out from beyond the grave, sowing a bone-deep cold as its shadow passed over them all.
Ree glanced around her. The wind had frozen through the stalks, the people around her rigid where they stood, mannequins propped into position. Time itself held its breath, and she was sure, somewhere in the very heart of the French Quarter, that the hands turning upon the face of St. Louis Cathedral’s great clock had stilled into place. The bells would not toll. Only Ree moved and breathed, untouched by the presence of the divine. He was here.
The Veil stirred gently as if someone were moving behind it, their shadow slowly drawing closer. The black shadow was too tall, too narrow to be human. A withered brown hand reached to part thecurtain. In her sudden fright, Ree half expected some kind of dark creature to step through, a horrendous monster. But it was only an old man who hobbled out from behind the Veil and into the mortal realm.
He leaned on a cane with one gnarled hand, a pair of copper scales in the other. The only sign of vitality he held was in the eyes: They glowed like red rubies out from the dark, smoldering furnace of his face, betraying his true divine nature.
“Marie Laveau,” the Lord of the Crossroads said. And with a smile he added, “The Second.”
“Hello, Papa.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Marie
When Marie emerged from the Dreadwood, Papa Legba was waiting for her. He leaned on his cane with one hand, drumming his fingers along the head, his shining copper scales in the other. She might have mistaken him for one of those old fellows on the corners in the Quarter, heckling passersby for a bit of coin and drink. But he was no old man—he was an old god, an immortal capable of untold magic. She would not allow herself to so easily be deceived by another man wearing a mask.
“You are too late, Marie. Fate has been set in motion.”
Too late?Marie drew in a breath. Flickering shadows danced behind Papa, shapeless against the gray mist. All those wandering souls. Marie suppressed a shiver—she wanted out of this strange realm.
“I told you, Marie Laveau, that you would complete my Trial of Spirit. But I never said you’d be theonlyone.” He paused, testing the silence. “There is another, is there not?”
Marie went very still, terror flooding her belly like cold water. “What have you done to my daughter?”
“No, what haveyoudone, Marie?” he said. “Did you think that it is the will of the loa to see their people subjugated? Suffering endlessly? You intervened where you shouldn’t have. You stopped Jon’s rebellion. So now there will simply have to be another.”
A wave of panic seized Marie. She put a hand to her stomach, steadying the painful lurches. Saints, she was going to be sick. “He was going to sacrifice our child. I couldn’t just—”
“Did you ever think that request of sacrifice might have been a test? That the consequences of your actions and the Conjurer’s might have fortified you both in ways you can’t yet comprehend?” Papa’s eyes flashed, molten red in the dark. Marie fell silent, that familiar aching heat crawling over her skin. He could snatch her soul from her body with only a thought. What hope did she have to stand against his divinity? “There will be a war, Marie Laveau. A reckoning. And the gods need their vessels to make it so. But you are far too righteous, Marie. The sun eclipsed by its own light. Jon is far too blinded by his own darkness.” Papa Legba turned red eyes to the sickle moon above. “Eventually, even the moon is consumed by the night. But the star? The star hangs between the two in perfect symmetry.”
“No.” Marie froze, a look of horror slowly dawning on her face. It was as Jon had promised. The foretold Song of Three.
Papa Legba’s smile stretched as he looked down at the swaying scales in his hand. It was then that Marie noticed a sun and a moon on each side of the scales, and a little golden star hanging in the middle. The scales stopped moving, perfectly balanced at last.
“The gods have chosen you three as our intended trinity. And war you will bring us.”
Marie fell to her knees. She allowed the tears she’d held back for years to finally, finally come. Her body was racked with the ache of guilt and shame for her part in this, for her sins, but also with the pain she’d endured in turn. She might serve these loa, she might even lay down her life for them. But she would not give her daughter’s. She would not.
“I will do anything. Anything. But spare my daughter. Please. I beg of you.”
“You beg for nothing, Marie Laveau. You, who have been given the gift of freedom.” Papa Legba shook his head, those red eyes dimmed. “And that freedom will cost you.”
Papa Legba vanished, leaving Marie utterly alone in this world of darkness and smoke and spirit. Marie did not know how long shewaited like that, kneeling and alone, hot tears in her eyes. She could scream, and still nothing might sate the hopelessness she felt.
