Page 26 of Enchantra (Wicked Games #2)

25

ASTUTE OBSERVATION

While Rowin went to change in the bathroom, Genevieve hid the tome she’d taken from the Silvers’ library at the bottom of one of her trunks next to her diary and the grimoire. For some reason admitting her interest in helping to save his mother and family was just a little too…intimate.

She scooped out her diary before covering the book with her clothes and went over to sit at the writing desk, opening the diary up to the fresh page she’d wedged her pen inside. She began a new entry, the ink in her pen flowing perfectly fine for nearly half the page before becoming spotty, leaving blank indentions instead of words. She shook the pen vigorously. It didn’t help.

Rowin must have some ink in here , she thought as she pulled open the desk’s wide drawer. She brushed aside a few bits and bobs as she reached all the way back to search with her fingertips for something that felt like a jar. There were wax sticks, stamps, pens, and then something she couldn’t quite identify at the very back corner. Like a slightly raised square in the wood. She pressed down and?—

—the front panel of wood that ran right beneath the open drawer popped open.

A hidden compartment.

When she pushed the top drawer closed and slid the bottom one out further, she found a thick stack of papers covered in handwriting she swore was familiar.

She plucked one of the papers out and saw that it was a letter, dated a few months ago and addressed to…Ellin.

Dearest Ellin, I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long to find the words to write to you after all this time. I’ve been sitting at this desk for the past five hours, unable to think of a single thing that would make it worth sending. I’ve made no progress with the cure, you see. Every time I find someone who might be able to help, they disappear shortly after or decide they’re too scared to be caught by Knox.

Genevieve returned the letter to the drawer and pulled out another. This one addressed to Remi and containing only a single line.

Remington, I don’t know how to repair this rift.

The final letter she pulled was addressed to Grave.

Grave. Please. I am begging you to consider that there is a possibility of truth to the rumors. Consider Mother’s feelings as well. You know she does not wish for this to continue either.

Genevieve felt her throat tighten with the threat of tears. He had been writing them letters for the last fifteen years.

The click of the lock on the bathroom door made her jump.

While she shuffled the papers around, trying to make it look like she had never touched anything, something caught the corner of her eye at the very bottom of the hidden drawer. An envelope with a bright-red wax seal embossed with a rose. The address in the corner one she knew intimately.

Grimm Manor

Esplanade Avenue

New Orleans, Louisiana

Her breath hitched.

I’ll come back to it later , she promised herself as she shoved the drawer closed.

When Rowin emerged, he made himself comfortable on his bed without a word. Stretching back against the headboard while Umbra nestled herself into his lap.

Genevieve decided she could write another time, making her way over to the dresser to exchange her diary for the grimoire she’d brought from Grimm Manor before settling into the armchair in the corner and leafing through it. Not that she could focus on any of the words inside, since the words of his letters were still burning at the forefront of her mind.

They stayed that way for a while, Rowin’s eyes closed as he seemingly napped along with Umbra, and she pretending to read about the magic of various paranormal beings. At some point both Sevin and Covin showed up at Rowin’s door, barging in before either Genevieve or Rowin could protest and settling in on the bed with a plate of hors d’oeuvres from the dining room and an entire bottle of whiskey.

The four of them spent the remaining time before midnight playing a lively game of Pit. And in the midst of screaming out numbers and fighting over hands of cards, Genevieve found that she had almost forgotten where she was entirely. Toward the end Sevin whipped his cards at Covin’s head and Rowin began tidying up while his brothers fought to convince Genevieve that the other had been cheating by stashing extra cards up their sleeves.

When midnight finally did call, however, everyone sobered in an instant.

Remi, Grave, and Ellin were already in the ballroom when the rest of them arrived, and as soon as the circle of siblings was complete, Knox blinked into the room with the Hunting Blade.

“Wellington sends his regards from Nocturnia,” the Devil announced.

Ellin’s face twisted with rage. “Nocturnia? What the fuck do you have him doing there, Knox?”

“Nothing he didn’t ask for by being the first eliminated.” Knox smiled, though his words were firm.

Ellin’s fists balled at her sides, but she didn’t say anything more, and Knox didn’t bother with further ceremony as he launched his enchanted dagger into the air just as he had at the end of the masquerade. Genevieve watched the silver weapon with bated breath as it hovered for a tense moment before spinning around the circle and zipping right into Remi’s grasp.

“Choice of game?” Knox prompted.

“Random starts,” Remi answered.

Rowin turned to Genevieve, opening his mouth to speak, but the sound of his voice was lost in the rush of them both being transported from the room.

Genevieve blinked her eyes open and found herself in an unfamiliar space. Her head was swimming from Knox’s magic, and it took her a moment to realize she was in some sort of butler’s pantry. The walls were lined with tiers of oak shelving stacked with serveware and utensils, and Genevieve wondered whether Enchantra had a full staff outside of the Hunt. Or if Rowin lived out his days in complete solitude.

There was an exit at each end of the room. Genevieve spotted a spider’s web that stretched from one of the doors all the way to the ceiling. She wondered if the fact that the web had remained intact through the last round meant that this might be a good place to hunker down. But a moment later she heard someone moving in the room on the other side of that door. She bolted for the opposite exit.

Pressing her ear to the cobweb-free door, she listened until she was certain there was no sound coming from its other side. She quietly turned the handle and slipped out into?—

—the dining room.

How have I never noticed this door? she wondered, concerned for her lack of observational skills, but when she glanced back at the exit, she realized the panels had been designed to blend in perfectly with the walls. The seams in the molding were so indiscernible that if she hadn’t just walked through the opening, she wouldn’t have believed there was one.

She crept out of the room into the grand hallway, her skirts swishing around her ankles with the speed of her stride as she made her way toward Rowin’s room. She hoped that maybe he would have the same idea, but if not, her backup plan was to grab the library book in her trunk and make haste for the secret room he’d shown her in the library.

As she grasped onto the doorknob, someone yanked the door open from within. A spike of adrenaline went through her, and she leaped backward, ready to bolt, until she saw their face.

“Good,” Rowin sighed as he beckoned her inside. “I was worried it was going to take forever to find you.”

“Should we hide somewhere else now?” she asked.

“Remi isn’t going to hunt us down like Grave did,” he told her, and as he spoke, she noticed a tiny drop of blood beading at the piercing in his lip.

She tapped at her own lip and said, “You’re bleeding.”

He swiped his thumb across his mouth. “I bit my lip when Knox transported us.”

“Making everyone start in a random room is quite clever,” she said begrudgingly.

“And it cuts out the hiding time we usually get,” he agreed. “Remi prefers a quick start. Really, he prefers anything that gets the whole game over with as soon as possible.”

“He seems to be rather apathetic about participating,” she noted. “What happened there?”

Rowin shrugged. “The rest of us are still hopeful in one way or another. He gave up wishing that this would end a long time ago.”

“Is that why the two of you aren’t close anymore?” she asked.

“I suppose you’d have to ask him why we aren’t close.”

A nonanswer.

“Want to play two truths and a lie again?” she prompted, and so many questions that had been burning inside her over the last two days bubbled up to the surface again.

He tilted his head and advanced a step toward her, leaning down just enough so their eyes were level, a few of the disheveled tendrils of his raven hair falling into his eyes.

“I have a better idea of how we can pass the time,” he murmured, his golden gaze flicking down to her mouth.

Despite the way her heart began to thunder in her chest at his suggestion, something was off. Notably the lack of heat he usually elicited from her whenever he was so close.

“You don’t think we should save some excitement for our audience?” she snorted, crossing her arms over her chest to stop him from pressing himself any closer.

“If you’d like,” he answered as he tried to tuck a wayward tendril of his hair behind his ear, but it was just a bit too short to stay put.

That’s when her blood turned to ice. And the ring on her finger turned to molten fire. Or maybe it had been burning this entire time and she hadn’t even realized because, well, he made her pulse erratic and a part of her had clearly begun to associate him with safety.

This is why he told me that I couldn’t trust my heart here.

Genevieve curled her lips into a sultry smile. The one that men couldn’t ever seem to resist. Farrow. Morello. Basile, on that awful night when she’d wanted to hurt Farrow.

And now Remington Silver.

Remi’s gaze heated as she blinked up at him, laying on her sweet Southern belle accent as she purred, “Why don’t you go decide on the perfect spot for our little show and then meet me back here?”

“Why don’t we practice in here first?” he suggested as he tilted his face down and brought his lips to hover just a breath away from hers.

It was bait and she knew it. She backed away from him.

“What gave it away?” Remi tilted his head, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips.

She was careful not to glance down at the ring. “Did you really stick something through your lip just to trick me?”

He shrugged as he finally unsheathed the Hunting Blade from the inside of his boot. “It wasn’t only to trick you , but it was convenient that I ran into you first.”

And then he lashed out.

Genevieve dove to the side, but it wasn’t quick enough, and she hissed at the pain as the blade sliced right through the side of her corset and into her skin. Before he could get in another jab, however, she reached out to grab the golden hoop in his lip and ripped it right through his flesh.

He yelled in pain, the blade clattering to the ground in his shock at her gruesome attack. She didn’t waste any time as she reached down to pluck the dagger up from the ground, but the moment her fingertips brushed its hilt, a searing pain went through her entire body. Fuck. So stealing the knife is against the rules. She snapped her hand back to her chest with a colorful curse, kicking out to send the blade flying across the floor instead. As Remi dashed for the weapon, she threw open the door and darted out of the room.