Page 32

Lach

I should have been happy. I was happy.

But dread crept up my neck as I caught up with other matters at my desk, sneaking past the joy I’d allowed myself to feel for all of five minutes. The murderer had been caught and punished. There hadn’t been a single complaint from any of the covens today. Cate had actually said yes. And a new bit of good news had arrived in the form of a text from Fiona. I’d missed it while I was seeing Cate and Ciara off.

I think we found something. Might be a long shot, but we ’ ll call you in the morning.

Things were going too well. That usually meant that shit was about to hit the fan.

But despite the uneasiness lingering in the back of my mind, I stopped myself. There were half a dozen bills scattered in front of me that needed to be paid. I had plenty to do. Whatever Fiona had discovered could wait.

I found myself reaching for my phone anyway. I wouldn’t be able to get in touch with anyone in Prague directly. They would have returned to court for the night, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. I had half a mind to send Roark there to get their asses out of bed. Now I understood why Shaw had been annoyed by my late-night message to everyone.

As if summoned by the thought alone, Roark popped his head into my office, delivering me from my dilemma.

“I was just going to call you,” I said, dropping the invoice in my hand. “Let’s get a drink.” I could be patient. Besides, Fiona had said it was probably nothing, and no doubt there would be a crisis to deal with soon enough. Maybe I should take a break while I could and live like Cate had demanded.

But he was biting back a smile. “Um, there’s a tiny, angry witch here to see you.”

“I heard that.” Willow pushed past him, her arms full of large, rolled-up papers. She scowled at Roark, completely unintimidated that he was practically twice her size. “And I’m not angry. It’s just my resting witch face.”

He stared down at her with bemused surprise before cocking his head in my direction, waiting for instructions on what to do with her.

“Cate is out shopping with my sister,” I told Willow, shuffling the bills into a stack before sticking them in a drawer. “She’d probably welcome a reason to get out of it if you want to call her.”

I was trying not to take it personally that Cate had looked like she was going on a death march when she left, rather than wedding dress shopping.

Willow continued inside and dropped everything onto my desk. “I’m not here to see her. I’m here to see you.”

I shifted in my chair, curiosity getting the better of me as she opened a map. Just what I needed: a presentation. But I pinned a bland smile on my face and gestured for her to continue as Roark stepped into the doorway, leaning against it to hear what she had to say.

“I’ve been looking into the murders.”

She might as well have turned a firehose on me. Roark straightened up and crossed his arms, tattoos starting to swirl. “You…what?”

It took me a second to process what she had said. I shook off my surprise and slid the map toward her. “I appreciate your concern, but the culprit has been dealt with.”

Willow smashed her mouth into an unimpressed line as she smoothed out the map. It looked like it was a hundred years old—at least. “That’s the bad news. I don’t think that’s true.”

So much for a day without the covens. I wasn’t sure what sounded worse: fielding complaints or hearing conspiracy theories.

I swallowed back a sigh of frustration. Willow had tried to help Cate. The least I could do was hear her out. “Show me what you have.”

“Am I annoying you?” Her eyes narrowed to frustrated slashes. “Because if you want me to leave, I can. I just thought maybe you’d want to stop murder number five, but if I’m annoying you, I’ll leave.”

“Like I said, a vampire has confessed—” I stopped myself as my brain finally processed her words. “ Five? There were only three murders.”

I shook my head, doing the mental math. I looked to Roark for confirmation, and he nodded like he’d come up with the same number. “Are you trying to tell me there are going to be two more?”

“ No.” She tapped the map on the desk with her fuchsia-painted fingernail. “I’m trying to tell you that there have been four murders. You missed one.”

The concern I’d felt a few moments ago returned, burrowing deeper under my skin. Maybe it would never really vanish at all. I straightened, craning to see the map’s faded lines. Willow stabbed her index finger at an inked star in Third Parish. “A rougarou was killed right around the time that the bona fides spell was created.”

Dread sank into my bones. I didn’t bother trying to dismiss it this time.

“I remember that,” I muttered, searching my brain for details and coming up blank.

“His name was Haines,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. “Sounds like he was a nice guy. I asked a friend in the pack. Apparently, not a single wolf confessed to biting him.”

I looked at Roark. That was unusual. Alphas didn’t have as much control over their packs as they once did. Now they mostly operated out of respect. Something I understood, but if that respect was compromised… “Who did we hear about this from?”

“It came in through the usual channels. No one thought much about it. A coven is within their rights to put a rougarou down,” he said. But the frown he wore told me that he would be following up with the local leaders to see how this had slipped through the cracks.

But I already knew how we’d missed it—how everyone had missed it.

It was the same thing that had kept the covens at one another’s throats for the last few weeks, or, if I was being honest, centuries. The tension that had always simmered in the city’s melting pot: prejudice. It was always easier to see the ways we were different rather than similar, and different scared a lot of people.

“I missed it at first, too,” she said, as if she might pat my head for being so adorably dense. “Just think about it. If you want to hide that you’re up to something, make people believe you’re doing them a favor.”

She raised a good point. A rougarou, cursed to change without control over their shifting, was the perfect victim. No one would ever look twice.

But connecting it to the other killings was thin reasoning at best. “Why do you think it was related to the other murders?”

“Because of the eclipse,” she said like this was obvious. “The other night, after étienne was killed, my flowers died. We asked your friend Sirius about them, and he mentioned a siphoning spell, and that got me thinking… There have been a lot of eclipses lately. That’s how I found out about Haines. Witches chart them, so I did some digging.”

And found a dead rougarou. Romy had mentioned the eclipse in New York. She’d heard about it from her sister.

“They found his body a few hours after the first one, but, like I said, no one worried too much about a dead rougarou.” She leaned down and looked directly in my eyes. “But those other eclipses? I might have put it together sooner if you hadn’t covered them up.”

“We know the bona fides spell is affecting the city’s magic,” Roark interjected.

“Only when there’s a murder?” She shot a look over her shoulder that would melt ice. “Give me a break.”

I clenched my jaw to keep myself from making an excuse. She was right.

But Roark wasn’t easily cowed. “There was no eclipse when the human was killed.” Still, he looked shaken. “How is her death connected?”

That earned him another glare. “Magic doesn’t react as strongly to the death of a human, does it?”

There was so little magic in human veins. It would barely register.

I leaned back in my seat, assessing the threat in front of us. Not the marks on the map but the woman who had pieced them together. “And why do you think there’s going to be another murder?”

“Pay attention because I’m not explaining this twice. Haines is murder number one. He was killed here.” She pointed to the spot on the map again. “Then a few days later, Thalia was killed here.” She moved her finger to a spot across town. “She died near the French Quarter, but she was actually in the Second Parish if you look at the territory lines that were drawn when the covens were first establishing boundaries. The only one that doesn’t make sense is the tourist. Her body was found in St. Roch.”

“Why does that matter?” I studied the map.

“You’ll see,” she said grimly. “étienne died here.” She pointed to Jackson Square, and I felt a stab of sorrow.

“Okay, but I don’t see why that predicts there’s going to be another murder.”

She muttered something under her breath, but all I caught was fae and hopeless . “If you trace a line, you have a big circle.”

“You’re going to have to give me more than a circle,” I said flatly.

“Too obvious, right?” She grinned, but her face fell quickly, like she had suddenly remembered we were talking about murders. “One more death, and you’ll have five points. Five points makes—”

“A pentacle,” I finished for her.

“One of the primary magical symbols used in binding spells.” She tapped one of the spots. “I thought they were targeting all three parishes—going after the heart of New Orleans. But the human tourist doesn’t match the pattern.”

“Cate examined that body,” Roark reminded me. “She thought the woman had been killed somewhere else and the body was moved to St. Roch.”

Not enough blood, clotting wounds, other little differences that didn’t fit the pattern—like the victim being human.

But Willow looked vindicated. “Then she could have been killed anywhere in the city, and I bet she was killed somewhere in this circle.”

“Why move the body all the way out there, though?” Roark asked.

“To keep us from realizing they were targeting the three parishes.” She rolled her eyes.

I remained silent as I considered what she said. If she was right, the murders were more than an attempt to intimidate us. They were trying to undo the spell. I’d known someone was betraying me, but this? Whoever it was had put my entire court and all of New Orleans at risk.

“There’s a lot more to the bona fides than some boundaries on a map,” Roark reminded me in a low voice, casting a meaningful glance at her. A signal to warn me that we might need to act.

“Like what?” she asked.

A smooth smile slid over his face. “That’s just what I’m told,” he lied. “The covens created the spell. Your guess is as good as mine as to how it works.”

Even I didn’t quite know how they’d done it. That had been part of the plan. The fewer people who knew how the spell worked, the harder it would be to destroy. And Willow already knew more than she should.

“Thank you for telling me.” I stood, offering her my hand, willing her to leave before I had no choice but to act. “We’ll reinforce the boundaries.”

Roark cast a wary look over her shoulder at my outstretched palm. I could almost hear his voice in my head—even without the signet.

You ’ re letting her go?

But Willow didn’t take the hint. “If there’s more to the spell—if we can figure out what’s binding it—we might be able to stop the killer. Will the covens tell you how they did it?”

“They’re protective of their magic,” I hedged.

She already knew too much.

Another look from Roark. Leaks had to be controlled before they did irreparable damage. What Willow knew had to be contained, even if she was Cate’s friend. There was only one way to be sure the witch wouldn’t speak to anyone else. I just wasn’t sure how I was going to explain that to my fiancée.

I had no choice.

“Have you told Cate about this?” I asked her softly. I needed to know how much harm had been done before she walked into my office.

“I didn’t tell Cate shit.” Her eyebrows rose as she held up her hands. “Like I said, I only just put this together, since you geniuses thought you should keep us all in the dark about the murders.”

No wonder Cate liked her. My lovely mate, who trusted people, who asked for their help, who let herself have friends.

But friends were a liability in our world. That’s why only family mattered. It was a painful lesson.

And one it was time for Cate to learn.

“So you believe me?” Willow asked. When I nodded, she sighed, the sound both relieved and exhausted. Roark took a step closer to her, shadows twisting around his knuckles. She didn’t seem to notice. “Good, because I rather like having my magic back, and since I have no clue what will happen if magic gets taken out by something this big, I figured I should warn you. Now go do something about it before someone else gets killed.”

Her finger whipped between us. Roark hesitated.

“Us?” I repeated, realizing she was being very specific. “They could attack anyone.”

“They won’t,” she said darkly. “Every choice has been purposeful. Choosing Haines was tactical. They didn’t want anyone to know what they were up to, and I’m guessing that they wanted to wait until you were back in the city before they moved forward after that.”

There would be no point in bringing down the ward if I wasn’t here for the Wild Hunt to collect.

“And étienne wasn’t just any vampire, and Thalia wasn’t just any witch. They both supported creating the spell. They convinced their covens to help with it.”

“The human was just a tourist,” Roark hedged.

“Better to cover tracks. Just like with Haines. If the victims don’t have too much in common, it’s harder to establish a pattern. But I’m guessing if they went after Thalia and étienne, they won’t choose a random victim to bring down the bona fides.” She held up her hand. “So like I said, one more murder. Five points on the map. It’s not just about the ward. They’re sending a message. To you .”

The Cabal. Goemon had tried to warn us. We weren’t just up against a killer. We were up against a fucking conspiracy.

One more murder, and the bona fides would fall, taking my court with it.

“Thank you.” I meant it, and that made what I had to do even harder. If the Cabal discovered that we knew, they would act. Surprise was our only advantage. If Willow was right, if they were trying to send a message, the first thing I had to do was keep my family safe. The Cabal couldn’t find out that we knew what they were up to, and that left me little choice in the matter.

I tilted my head at Roark.

He lunged for Willow, careful to pin her hands to her side with one arm.

“What the…” Roark’s other hand covered her mouth before she could start an incantation. Willow arched, her feet kicking wildly, but without magic, she didn’t stand a chance against him.

“Deal with her,” I ordered him. Willow’s eyes went wide, and she tried to shake her head.

“How…permanently?” he asked carefully.

Willow had helped us. She was Cate’s friend, so I found myself saying, “Take her to the Otherworld. Put her in the oubliette.”

Willow thrashed in his arms, but she was no match for Roark. She wouldn’t be able to access her magic there, and she knew it. Still, it wasn’t a death sentence. Not yet.

“Get everyone home,” he said, starting to turn. We needed to reinforce the spell through whatever means possible, but their safety had to come first.

“Wait.” Something else had occurred to me. “We’re going to need a witch we can trust to weave new threads into the spell.” I eyed Willow for a second. Maybe a deal could be struck. I waited for her to stop fighting him, waited for her to turn eager, pleading eyes in my direction.

Instead, they rolled back in her skull, only the whites visible. Her entire body went limp, and then she seized. A thin string of spit dripped from her mouth as her body spasmed.

“What the…” Roark lowered her to the ground and knelt beside her while she convulsed.

“Careful,” I warned him. “It could be a trick.” But something told me it wasn’t.

He knelt beside her, his eyes flashing up to mine as hers fluttered. Suddenly, she went still. Roark leaned over her, concern creasing his brows, and her hand shot up. She grabbed his collar, her eyes opening just long enough for her to deliver one final warning. It came out in spurts, each word rattling me to my core.

“Cate… My spell… I think she just undid it.”