Page 49 of Whispers of Wisteria (The Garden of Eternal Flowers #5)

Titus POV

There was a dull pounding in my head, pulling me out of my quiet thoughts. The air was still, my senses dulled. But only a second before everything hit at once.

Maria. Albert. Those stupid nets.

The burning that I’d never expected to feel in this lifetime.

I couldn’t move.

My eyes flew open.

I’d been taken to a mostly empty silver-walled room. A magic circle had been drawn on the floor around me. I was on my knees and my arms were bound above my head by a chain hanging from the ceiling. My hands were numb—I must have been out for a while.

“You’re finally awake.”

The icy voice made my insides coil. I was barely able to keep my expression straight as Jameson Duff’s scent hit me an instant before he stepped into my vision.

And suddenly it all made sense. Albert’s ‘co-conspirator.’ The sudden competence.

Did this mean I was actually taken? It couldn’t be.

Miles would never let me live this down. He’d never agreed on principle.

Jameson watched me, furious and silent. There was also an expression I couldn’t place, which made him more imposing than ever before. My skin crawled.

I couldn’t let him see.

Why was he with the Guild?

“What are you doing?” I asked, pulling against my restraints, but I really was trapped. I breathed in, pushing down my emotions.

I couldn’t defeat Jameson even on my best day. If this were real…

“I’ve warned you, and so did Pearson,” Jameson said, beginning to pace, “that your childish game would backfire one day. But you didn’t want to listen.”

It was true, they’d never approved of Taken.

“It’s effective,” I responded.

He shrugged. “It certainly was. It set the stage for you to be picked up by one of the biggest fools I’ve ever met. He believes he did that on his own. Maybe one day, you’ll learn. If you can escape, that is, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

I clenched my jaw, but couldn’t argue.

He was right.

But… it still didn’t make sense.

Chains wouldn’t normally hold me. There was something different, dark, thick in the air. A black-glassed mirror had been placed in a corner, and the ground hummed under my feet.

It reminded me, almost, of the Demon King.

I wasn’t just imprisoned—I couldn’t feel my dragon at all.

What was Albert’s ridiculous monologue? Something about secret magic and the Underworld…

And now this.

“You made a deal with one of the Overseers.” I frowned. “Who?”

“‘Who’ doesn’t matter,” Jameson snapped. “What’s incredible is your sheer irresponsibility.”

“What are you—” I leaned back. What was he complaining about now? It was always something.

But then the sluggishness faded away as the last of the tranquilizing magic disappeared. My senses sharpened, and the one scent that I’d never wanted to smell—not here, not in this situation—stood out from all the rest.

My thoughts snapped, and my body tensed. “Where is she?”

How the hell was she here?

“Who?” Jameson asked, studying his nails.

“Bianca!” I replied, urgency racing through my blood. I looked past him to the door. If only I could break free.

But the fire held me back. My limbs were shaking with the restrained effort.

“Oh,” Jameson said mildly. “That’s her name, then. They didn’t say. Only that she was… insignificant.”

“She’s supposed to be with Damen!” I couldn’t think. Besides, there was no use denying it. Not with him. “She can’t be here.”

“I see,” Jameson replied. “So this isn’t just an accidental oversight, but rather it was something that was deliberately kept from me.”

I breathed it in again—the scent of her, but tainted. Blood.

“Why do I smell her magic on you?” My thoughts and voice quieted.

Again, Albert’s words and Jameson’s confirmation repeated in my mind.

Striking a deal with an Overseer always came at a cost, and the force pressing down on me—this oppressive weight that silenced my dragon—was too much even for Jameson.

There were only two ways he’d be strong enough: working with another onmyoji—and Albert barely qualified except in desperation—or…

The wrongness was mixed in Bianca’s scent.

“You took her energy,” I said, disbelief boiling in my chest.

Jameson straightened, and his voice was terse when he answered, “I had no reason not to.”

Horror shot through my blood. “That’s not meant for you.”

Bianca’s energy—Mu’s essence—had always been only for Huo. But because of Bianca’s condition and the fact that one wrong move could hurt her, Damen had decided not to even ask.

She was too important to him.

And now Jameson had taken from her.

Even more than the fae—who built a whole culture around protecting their women—and more than me, Julian, and Miles, who would kill for her…

Damen was going to lose his mind.

“Well, it’s mine now,” Jameson replied. He began to pace. “We must move on.”

I could hardly hear past the roaring in my head. “Is she alive?”

He paused mid-step, his reflection catching in the nearest mirror. “Do you think I’m that careless? Rarely has anyone died from this. She’ll live.”

“You didn’t even check beforehand, did you?” I snapped, baring my teeth. “You just took.”

“Check what?” he barked, his expression hardening.

I stared him down. “Aren’t you a doctor?” My voice dropped. “How could you not see it?”

He couldn’t be that stupid. Not Jameson.

Jameson didn’t respond, only glowered in a certain way that we were all familiar with, before he turned and left the room.

Bianca POV

It was quiet here, safe in this place where pain and feeling no longer existed.

But then something reached out to me through the dark, pulling at my arms and clothes while a sticky wetness pressed against my cheek.

It proved that I was still alive, even though my thoughts lingered on the fringe of awareness.

Something was burning in the distance—the smell of metal—and my nose twitched as the last of the comforting numbness faded. A door slammed closed, and the vibrations pounded in my throbbing head.

I must have been hallucinating, though, because a familiar sound spoke what might have been my name loudly through the space.

Then, with a burst of clarity, the words broke through the haze as Maria’s voice cut angrily through the air.

“What is she doing here?”

I opened my eyes, but the darkness still clouded my vision. My limbs felt heavy, and my body was weak. I rolled onto my side, finally spotting her.

She stood, face against the bars, in the cell across from me where Ada had also been locked up. The hyena had backed away from the door, but Maria ignored her cellmate and stared at me.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked.

Slowly, I moved to my knees. My body was sluggish, and my skin felt raw despite everything seeming intact.

And, for some reason, I couldn’t get past the feeling of being exposed.

I scooched backwards, only stopping when my back was against the hard wall. I couldn’t answer her, and I ignored Gloria, as I curled inwards, making myself as small as possible.

Jameson was gone, but I still had no idea what had just happened.

Why was I feeling so vulnerable?

“Bianca?” Maria repeated my name, more harshly this time. I turned my gaze to her. She watched me with large, reassuring brown eyes that urged me to respond. And I wanted to…

The last thing I wanted to do was to disappoint her. To cause her to worry.

I had to say something.

The chains dragged across the floor as I pressed my hands to my mouth. Mostly, it was an attempt to gather the courage to speak—to coax a single sound—but my tongue was still stiff with silence.

I watched them from behind the loosened strands of my hair. Maria’s eyes glittered in furious gold. Her jaw clenched, and her teeth bared as she rounded on the other Officers.

“What happened?” She was speaking to them both, but her focus was on Ada. “Why does she look like that?” But before Ada could reply, she moved her glare to Gloria. “How could you have allowed her to be taken? I thought you were looking for Cécile?”

“It’s Jameson.” Gloria was watching the ceiling, unperturbed by the lioness’s anger. “He’s working with the Guild.”

“Jameson?” Maria’s posture stiffened. “But…” An air of nervousness moved in the space between the three of them, but I couldn’t place why. My thoughts were too frazzled to make sense of anything anymore.

“What are we going to do?” Maria asked no one in particular. “We need him.”

Ada glared at the floor, while Gloria, still in chains against the wall, stiffened.

“We can’t let Jameson’s betrayal set us back,” she said, shaking her head. “These things happen. We need to improvise and regroup once we escape.”

Her attention moved back to me. “Does he know who she is?”

“Yes,” Gloria replied. Her attention flickered to me. “But he hasn’t done anything further. He’s planning something.”

“What are you talking about?” Ada cut in, looking between them.

But Maria ignored her. “We need to escape before that happens,” she told Gloria. “Losing him is a devastating blow.” She looked at me and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Don’t worry, Bianca, Titus is here too. He’ll break us out once he realizes you’ve been taken.”

“Titus really is captured, then?” Ada asked

“We didn’t plan for it to work out this way,” Maria said, biting her lip. “We went to meet Albert Yates with a question we had about the Richards case. But it was a setup.”

Gloria’s head snapped up. “What would Albert know? He isn’t one of Richards’s known associates. You had no right to move without my input.”

Maria hesitated. Her gaze flickered to me. “It’s not Richards himself we’re investigating,” she admitted. “We’ve found recent evidence of Patterson’s movements.”

A tremor passed through me, and my skin chilled. Titus and Maria had been caught while trying to help me. I had to pull myself together.

“That falls under my team’s jurisdiction now,” Gloria said, frowning.

Maria squared her shoulders. “Titus doesn’t think so. He was working this case before you stepped in. He’s not willing to risk delays—not with what’s at stake.”