Page 6

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T he rushing sound in her ears came back, and Evelyn steadied herself with one hand on the back of the nearby kitchen chair. Valen had resumed petting the sisters who were happily rubbing their furry little bodies all over him.

“What?” Playing dumb wasn’t really her style, but what else could she say?

He got up from the floor, his movements surprisingly graceful for a man of his size, and came to stand in front of her. His eyes bore straight into her soul, the very same soul she’d tried to scrub clean of dark shine the night before.

“I know it’s here, Evelyn.” Her name was a growl in his throat, and she shivered. “I need you to tell me why. Why did you keep it?”

Her throat felt dry when she swallowed, fear curling around her like her cats had curled around Valen just moments before. She was at a crossroads. Should she tell him her reasons? Would he understand or would he run straight back to Denmark and turn her in?

“Does Denmark know?”

“No. But he’ll figure it out eventually. You had to know that.”

“Yes,” she whispered. She returned his searching gaze, still undecided. She really didn’t want to let him in on the missing half of her plan the same way she hadn’t wanted to let him into her home, only the stakes were higher here. If she told him, he’d know. If he knew, he would either betray her or become a target himself. Both options were tremendously undesirable.

“Tell me. Please.” He took another step closer to her, not touching but near enough that she became hyper aware of the air sweeping between their bodies. His scent washed over her—he smelled like soap and skin and something else she couldn’t quite place but that was warm and comforting. The weight of the last twenty-four hours sank heavily into her body. Her grip on the chair tightened. She wasn’t in good shape. She was running on almost no sleep, less food, and the second half of her plan remained nonexistent. If she was going to survive this, she was going to need help. And if Valen was good at anything, it was keeping people, places, things… safe.

“I had to,” she said. His expression darkened, and she pulled the chair out to sit down. He sat across from her, his eyes never leaving her face. “It’s dangerous, Valen. It’s the darkest object I’ve ever come across. I couldn’t… I can’t… I won’t turn that over to Denmark or anyone else who might wield it for personal gain.”

“That’s a huge risk?—”

“I know. Trust me. But what else could I do? I have no idea what this book is or who made it—not yet—but it’s bad. No one should have this book. It shouldn’t exist. It’s not safe.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

Evelyn drained the last of her coffee. “Well, I hadn’t quite made it that far.”

Valen set his arms on the table, his hands flexing in contained frustration. “You don’t have a plan?”

“I had half a plan, and that half went really well, thanks. It’s just the other half that I’m having difficulty with.”

“Fuck.” He looked like he meant it.

Evelyn offered him a wry smile. “Tell me about it.”

“Shit.” He took her mug and got up to pour her a fresh cup.

“Yeah.” She nodded her thanks when he set it back in front of her, fighting back tears at the kind gesture. She really was only holding on by a thread. She pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. Now was not the time to lose her composure. She could fall apart later when the book was safely away from… well, everyone. “I have to get it out of the city.”

She raised her eyebrows at Valen, surprised at her own statement. The revelation had caught her off guard, but it made sense. It was the only logical next step. If the people who most desperately wanted the book were here in New Orleans, then the safest place for both her and the book would be anywhere not here.

“Where will you go?”

“I’m working on that…” She wrapped her hands around the mug, focusing on the warm ceramic against her palms. “I might have a place. When I was a little girl, my great-grandmother told me stories about a convent deep in the hill country of Tennessee. All the locals stayed away because they thought it was a Catholic enclave, and the Protestant roots run deep out there. Only it wasn’t Catholic nuns at all.”

Valen leaned back in his chair. “It was witches.”

“That’s what she said. A closed coven, secluded so they could guard the old secrets. She described them like the witch equivalent of nuns—sacrificing their own worldly desires for the greater good.”

“That sounds promising,” Valen said, running a hand over his jaw, “but it’s not a lot to go on. Are you sure you can even find the place?”

She wasn’t. Her memory was as faded as an old photograph, but she knew where she might be able to find out more information. When her great-grandmother died, all of her belongings had passed to her daughter, Evelyn’s grandmother. Later, when her grandmother also passed away, Evelyn had cleaned out her house and moved everything into a storage unit, telling herself she’d go through it someday. The memory of finding her great-grandmother’s journals and tucking them away in an old train chest was much newer than the Tennessee nuns stories and far more trustworthy. She could stop by the storage unit on her way through Mississippi to Tennessee. “I’m not sure, no, but it’s better than nothing,” she said. “It’s at least half a plan.”

Valen got up from the table. “We should leave as soon as possible. How long do you need to be ready?”

“We?”

He crossed his thick arms over his even thicker chest. “I can help you get out of the city. With something this powerful, sniffers are likely to find you even during the day. And if not sniffers, then the others.” He meant the Lybbestre, and she was grateful he didn’t speak their name in her house. “How soon can you be ready?”

“An hour.”

“Okay, I’ll be back by then. Don’t cross Leveaux’s property line until I get back.”

Evelyn mobilized as soon as he was gone. She could only take what she could comfortably carry on her bike, which wasn’t much. She threw a couple changes of clothes and a few toiletries into a small duffel bag, then filled the rest of the space with things she would need more: black obsidian powder, a few books that might contain information that would help her stay cloaked enough to make it all the way to Tennessee without getting caught, and a small cannister of tea. She strung several amulets around her neck, filled her pockets with iron nails, and wrapped the ritual knife in a kitchen towel in lieu of a sheath. She would leave the book in the shielded box until the very last minute.

Once she was packed, she crossed the lawn to Madame Leveaux’s back door and knocked. Mandie Lynn, her favorite of Madame’s girls, opened the door.

“Well, hi,” she said, her Southern drawl slow and catching. “How are you, Evelyn?”

“I’m okay, but I need to leave town unexpectedly, and I wondered if I could ask you look after the sisters for me?”

Mandie Lynn tilted her head to one side, her blonde curls bouncing with the movement. “Everything okay?”

“Not really, but hopefully it will be soon.” Evelyn forced a smile. “I might be gone a week or two, so if that’s too long, I’ll see what else I can figure out.”

“Oh, no need for all that. Of course, I’ll look after your girls. I’m happy to do it. I just wanted to be sure you were alright, is all. Is there anything else I can do to help?”

“Not a thing but thank you. Really, thank you. I’ll feel so much better knowing they’re taken care of.” Evelyn started to back away, then remembered one more thing. She cleared her throat. She might be a thief, but she wasn’t much of a liar. “I almost forgot—if anyone comes looking for me, you can tell them I’ve gone to visit my dad out in California. He’s getting married—again—and this one’s an even bigger gold digger than the last one.”

Mandie Lynn laughed lightly. “Family drama, huh? Why didn’t you say so? You can pay me back for cat sitting by sharing all the juicy details when you get back. Deal?”

“Deal.” Evelyn shook on it, Mandie Lynn’s hand soft in hers. “And thank you again. I owe you one—on top of the drama dump.”

By the time she made it back over to her apartment, Valen was there. She found him in her library pulling the iron box out of the closet.

“Sure, come right on in,” she said.

“The time for niceties has passed, Evelyn.”

“If you say so. What are you doing with that?”

“The book is in here, right?” He looked up long enough to see her nod, then returned his focus to the box. “It’s the safest place for it, but it’s too big to fit on the back of your little bike. I brought this.” He showed her a large canvas rucksack. “I can put the whole box in here until you’re safely out of the city. Once we’ve got some distance between you and whoever might want to get their hands on this thing, then you can transfer the book to your bag and go.”

Evelyn didn’t like the plan. It made sense—Valen was bigger than she was and so was his motorcycle. He could carry the box much more easily than she could. It was heavy, and she’d be worried about being pulled off balance while riding. But she really, really didn’t like the idea of the book being in anyone’s possession except her own. She briefly wondered whether that was due to an abundance of caution, a lack of trust, or the deep pull of the dark shine in the book itself.

“You’re sure you want to do this? You get caught with that thing and you’re just as deep in this shit as I am.”

“I’m sure.” His grin caught her off guard, and she almost smiled (fake ones didn’t count) for the first time in several days. “I like a little trouble.”

She was sure he did, but there was nothing little about the trouble she was in. She watched as he slid the iron box into the canvas bag and secured it, then she whispered a few extra protections over it before helping him hike it up onto his back.

They both paused to say goodbye to the girls. Morta mewed pitifully as though she knew Evelyn wouldn’t be back for a while. Evelyn scratched the base of her tail and kissed the top of her head.

“I’ll be back soon, my loves. Mandie Lynn will take good care of you. Don’t answer the door for strangers, and if anyone you don’t know comes in here, hide until they’re gone. Okay?” They mewed in what she chose to take as agreement. They would be okay, she assured herself. They had to be. They were all the family she had left.