:No, but I could. Her stare won’t have any effect on my dragon, the same as her venom.:The dragon dipped his head, his neck snaking along the ground, his green eyes slitted with malicious intent.:Let me go kill her, my queen.:
Delaying the decision a moment, I turned back to Undina. “Do you know if she has any rational thought or control over herself when she’s shifted into the hydra?”
“She doesn’t speak of it often, I assume because it embarrassed her. But when she shifts, her magic is in flux, causing unprecedented storms and earthquakes. So I’m surprised she would risk staying in this form.”
I nodded, letting the ideas spark and flow in my mind. Even if there was no hope of saving her, I didn’t want to go in guns blazing and simply kill her without understanding how she was imprisoned. There were likely traps waiting for us to do just that. The people who lived in her house every single day had already tried to free her and died. Sekh couldn’t See anything inside the nest—there wasn’t anyone left alive to trace.
Leviathan could show me how she was trapped. Maybe even rationalize with her, if that was possible, or at least confirm for me if she was completely insane. If he could get her to shift out of her hydra, then I could talk to her.
Maybe the blood circle around the nest could fill in some of the gaps and give me clues to how she’d been overpowered.
I walked closer to the edge of the blood circle, braced for the buzz of magic against my skin. We’d gone directly into Leonie’s nest in New Orleans using the portal, so I wasn’t one-hundredpercent sure what the Dauphine’s altered blood circle would even feel like.
At the edge, I lifted my hand, palm out to the pulse of magic and vibration in the air.
It felt like my circle at home.
Because it wasmycircle. I controlled it, without a single drop of my blood, through the Dauphine’s blood she’d laid beneath Basilia’s. I tasted the ophidian musk of a reptile in her Gorgon blood. Similar to mine when I was the cobra queen, though Basilia’s blood evidently always smelled and tasted like this.
:Fucking Gorgons,:Mehen said.:We have a very unique taste and scent, especially the queens.:
Here and now, Basilia’s blood was mine to command. The circle responded to me, her magic acknowledging me because of the Dauphine’s sick, tormented way of claiming her siblings. For all intents and purposes, Basilia was my sibling right now, even though I had never tasted her blood.
Out loud, I whispered, “Show me how Basilia fell to Jeanne Viennois.”
An image filled my mind of a night sky, here in this very spot. The natural place Aima visitors would approach the nest. I saw Basilia walking down the graveled path, stopping a foot or two away. I slipped into her image, allowing the magic to show me what she looked at.
Esetta. My mother.
I must have cried out involuntarily, because Rik immediately grabbed me, lifting me off my feet, whirling as if to take the blow into his own body.
“I’m okay. Wait. I need to see.”
Pausing his quick retreat, he slowly turned back so I could feel the rippling magic of the blood circle flowing over my fingers, though he kept me in his arms, my feet off the ground in case he needed to retreat.
I felt Basilia’s emotions as my own. Something didn’t feel right to her. She was suspicious, but also desperate.
Even to my eyes, the image of Esetta was very good. It would have fooled me—until she spoke. The tone and rhythm of her words were completely wrong. If anything, she sounded more like Leonie than my mother.
:She never wore her hair loose like that unless it was a formal event,:Lew said.:Otherwise, I agree, it’s a very good simulation.:
In the darkness behind her, a vague shadow stepped out into the open. He looked like Lew but he didn’t speak. Esetta turned to walk away, and Basilia called out to her. I’d been so stunned by the image of my mother that I hadn’t noticed the item in her hand, until she stretched it out toward Basilia.
“Oh no.” My heart broke, feeling the surge of hope in Basilia as she reached for the disk. “The Gorgoneion. That’s why Esetta wants me to give it to her.”
“What is it?” Rik asked.
“A disk with a typically gruesome image of Medusa’s severed head,” Guillaume said. “In Ancient Greece, it became a common symbol to ward against evil. Some soldiers even wore it like a badge on their armor or shield, and it was displayed on buildings.”
“Basilia wanted it. So badly that she was willing to risk everything to have it.”
Undina nodded, her face lined with grief and rage. “Because of Athena. Her queens all had a golden Gorgoneion in their legacy. The Gorgon queens had gotten them all back except for one, and it was Basilia’s life goal to retrieve it, even though it had been lost.”
“Who was the last Athenian queen?” I asked.
Guillaume sighed softly. “Queen Thea of House Ageleia, Triskeles Triune queen.”
Goddess, what a tangled web of deceit and deception and death. Guillaume had killed Triskeles at Desideria’s order, so theGorgoneion had been in her legacy when Esetta killed her. She knew Basilia wanted it—but couldn’t give it to her without announcing exactly who had killed Desideria and risking exposure of hundreds of years ofherstrategy.
