Page 151 of Fallen Court

“Like old…can’t be tampered with…core-of-our-world-type shit. I have a few talismans that might help.” She screwed up her face, reaching for her bag again. “And I can call the coven.”

Something told me she liked that idea even less than I did.

“No.” I held up my hand. “We can’t involve anyone else. We have no idea who is behind this.”

And now more than ever, I was certain there was a snake in my garden. The Cabal wasn’t a group of strangers. They were close. Something told me I’d feel their fangs soon enough.

“Well, without something, I can’t help you.”

But there was one secret she didn’t know. A secret we had trusted only with those closest to us. “You said ancient.” I dropped the glamour I kept on my wrist, revealing the golden ribbons snaking over my flesh. “Would this work?”

Willow didn’t move. “Is this what I think it is?”

“We’re mates.” The magic sealing the mating bond wasn’t just old. It was pure. Magic that couldn’t be tricked or stolen or corrupted. Magic woven out of selfless love. Magic that tethered our very souls as one.

There could be nothing more powerful than that.

She finally blinked, bobbing her head. “Magic will see you as the same person.”

But she continued to stare.

“What?” It had to work.

But Willow screwed up her face. “I’ve been wondering what she sees in you.”

“You aren’t the first.” And she wouldn’t be the last, because we would reach Cate. We would save her, and I would never hide the mating bond again.

“Let’s see. Got a knife?” she asked.

Arming her seemed like a risky move, but what choice did I have? I opened the desk and pulled out a letter opener.

She swiped it from me. “That will do.”

“Why do you need—?”

She grabbed my hand and sliced open my fingertip, grinning broadly when I winced. “For this.” A bead of blood spilled onto the map and trembled.

“Come on,” she urged. “They’re mates.”

As she spoke, the drop split in two, each half gliding slowly across the paper in opposite directions. The first reached the Avalon and stopped.

“That’s you,” she whispered.

“I figured.” I couldn’t tear my eyes from the second drop.

It continued south toward the river, slowing as it reached the streets of the Quartier Enchanté. Willow shook her head. “It can’t be,” she breathed as it glided to a stop a few streets from the hidden magical district, right in the heart of the French Quarter itself. “That won’t form a pentacle. It’s too close to where Étienne was killed.” She looked up at me, relief wiping the worry from her face. “I guess I was wrong.”

But she wasn’t. I stared at the map, at what should have been obvious all along, at the spot where the drop of our shared blood had landed. How could I not have seen it sooner?

“It’s not about the location. You were on to something, though,” I said, recalling what Roark had said the day I returned. The memory was a touch foggy, given the condition I’d been in. “The only way a spell as powerful as a bona fides ward could work is by weaving multiple forms of magic through it.” And those threads formed the heart of the shield that emanated from the covens. The covens who were the magical, beating heart of the city. I lifted horrified eyes to hers. “It’s not a pentacle geographically.”

“A werewolf, a familiar, a human, and a vampire,” Willow said slowly, her relief vanishing. “Who else is keyed to the spell?”

“Fae,” I said quietly. “The strongest magical line in New Orleans.”

“It’s a pentacle of our blood, and Cate…” She clapped a hand over her mouth before she shook herself into composure. “What’s there? Do you recognize that street?”

I did.