“Poppy,” growls an urgent voice. “Reviens vers moi, ma reine.”
A hand cups my cheek and tilts my chin up to twin hazel firestorms within an angel’s face. He repeats his plea, leaning his brow against mine like I can absorb the phrase entirely spoken in…French?
I blink once, twice. “Brontë?”
“Merci les anges,” he breathes, leaning back as Jezebel nudges my leg lovingly. “What the hell was that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t remember?” I shake my head, and he thumbs tears from my lashes that I don’t recall shedding. “You kept saying ‘your fault’ like a broken record.”
I gulp, trying not to let this scare the shit out of me, too. If anything, though, this is my chance to tell him how debilitating my stress really is. “I have a confession.” He waits for me to continue, ever patient. “Since I was little, I’ve struggled with anxiety. I never told my parents, though I’m sure they saw it plenty before I moved out. When I met Bax, he suggested the vape. His batches for me are already at maximum strength, but ever since this Leviathan shit started, I’ve been having panic attacks. Bad ones. Worse than I even thought possible.”
Brontë nods as if this is of no surprise to him. “There have been a few instances where I noticed something was off. But you never said anything, so I figured you had it handled.”
“Well”—I laugh bitterly—“I don’t.”
“What happens when they come on? What do you feel, think,and see?”
“It’s hard to explain. Sometimes, I don’t remember. Other times, I do. Like the time we were going back to Beelzebub’s after dealing with Kai. I was numb. I didn’t have any thoughts. My tattoo wastalkingto me.” I drag both palms down my face. “Fuck, you probably think I’m insane.”
“No, I don’t think that at all. In fact, your episodes sound like mine: mental displacement, repetitious speech, hallucinations.”
“You get panic attacks, too?”
“Oui.For the most part, I have mine under control. It took years of learning my triggers and honing my coping mechanisms to tame them. They still happen, though, like the night you gave me this.” He skims a thumb over his scarred cheek and offers a small smile. “You’re not alone, Poppy.”
Relief soothes the worst of my fear. But the problem remains that these attacks are only getting worse the deeper into this mystery we delve.
“As comforting as that is, I don’t need yet another sword hanging over my head.”
“I know someone who specializes in our type of stress, if you’d be willing to see her.”
Hope blooms in my chest, beating back the gloom. “Who?”
“My half-sister, Virgil. She’s a therapist for people like us. She practices with discretion. You can trust her.”
I don’t hesitate. “How soon can I see her?”
TOLL
Brontë
“What’s the verdict, V?” I ask my half-sister as she refills a pot of black for our debrief of her evaluation with Poppy.
“You already know my answer, B.” Virgil swings a melancholy smile over the shoulder of her black lace pantsuit. Her sepia cheeks plump beneath her hazel eyes crowded by her long mane of ivory waves. “Doctor-patient confidentiality. My lips are sealed.”
It takes Herculean restraint to not roll my eyes at the bullshit non-answer.
After dropping Poppy off at Virgil’s home on Essex Street this morning, I tended to a few errands, then wasted the rest of the afternoon driving around the city. I couldn’t sit still, not while Poppy was being evaluated by the only person I trust.
When we settled in Salem, Virgil pursued her PhD in psychotherapy and opened her own private practice to help people caught in the underworld’s clutches. People like Poppy, who is supposedly unwinding from the session in V’s enclosed greenhouse attached to the small cottage. Which I can’t see from this oversized leather armchair in the living room on the opposite end of the fucking house.
“Keep your impatient ass seated, B.” V wears a steely lour as she walks a steaming cauldron mug over to me, jabbing in my face an accusatory finger topped with a black nail that looks more like a claw. “Let her come out on her own.”
I sink back down with a hissing sigh. “She doesn’t even know I’m here.”
“Trust me, she knows. In fact, I’m betting you woke up Deaf Delilah next door from her afternoon nap with how hard you pushed that V-eight up the street.”
