Page 19 of White Little Lies (Four Ways to Fate #3)

19

Elena and Crispin must have spoken beforehand, because the princess slid easily into her role of distracting Dawn while Crispin and I retreated to my bedroom. Ringo was curled up on my bookshelf, and near him stood Gabriel, perusing the few titles. Most of them were from my teenage years, and they weren’t exactly fine literature. I was ashamed to admit I had fallen out of the habit of reading once I reached adulthood.

Crispin shut the door behind us, then whirled on me. “What in the hells were you doing in the wee hours of the morning?”

I wrinkled my brow, glancing at Gabriel, then back at Crispin. “Didn’t you want to speak alone?”

“Oh he can stay.” He waved a dismissive hand toward Gabriel. “I have a feeling he had something to do with it. ”

“Wait a minute—” The pieces of what he was saying clicked together in my mind. “Early this morning. You mean you felt—” I wasn’t quite sure how to finish the sentence.

“I felt a surge of magic,” he said. “And something else.” His eyes flicked toward Gabriel. “Please just tell me what you were doing so I can make sense of it.”

My face was already burning just at the thought of explaining it to him. “I’d really rather not.”

Gabriel stepped away from the bookshelf toward Crispin. “You feel the connection too, don’t you.” He didn’t say it like it was a question. “You weren’t just checking the apartment to see if Eva was home. You knew she would be here.”

Oh boy, this was not good. Or was it? I couldn’t tell. I was entirely out of my depth. “Crispin, what exactly did you feel?”

He pushed his blond hair out of his face, and I found myself watching the muscles of his forearm, bare beneath the rolled up sleeve of his shirt. He gripped his hair for a moment as he shook his head, then lowered his hand. “I felt a surge of completely wild magic, and when I opened my eyes, there were tiny stars floating around me.”

My shoulders slumped with relief. “Oh thank the gods, for a moment I was wondering if you had felt—” I bit my lip, glancing at Gabriel.

Realization widened Crispin's blue eyes. “Oh, good goddess, you two were— ”

I shifted my feet and cleared my throat, glancing at Gabriel again. “ Three , actually.”

His brows lifted. “Sebastian?”

“No!” we said in unison.

“No,” I said again more calmly. “Mistral.”

He pursed his lips, thinking. “Well that explains the surge of wild magic, I suppose. His connection to the Bogs would naturally bring that out, though I’m not sure how it was sent down the connection between you and I.”

“Okay about this connection,” I looked back and forth between the two of them. “Where did it even come from?”

“Oh, I don’t fully understand what it is,” Crispin laughed, making Gabriel frown. “It’s fascinating though, isn’t it?”

“Something like that,” I grumbled. My next thought made me wince. “So if you felt… everything, does that mean Sebastian felt it too?”

“I’d say it’s likely.” He glanced around the room like the devil in question might be hiding in the closet or behind my curtains. “Where is he, anyway? It’s rare for him to not be by your side nowadays.”

“I actually don’t know.” I pulled Sebastian’s card out of my back pocket, then stepped toward Crispin. “I expected to see him already. He was supposed to let us know what he found out about the other devil.”

I rubbed my thumb across the surface of the card, focusing my thoughts on Sebastian. I wasn’t exactly eager to see him, especially not knowing that he had probably sensed what I’d done with Mistral and Gabriel, but I did want to find out what he’d learned.

Crispin leaned toward me, observing the card. “Is something supposed to be happening?”

“Yeah,” I flipped the card over, perplexed. “That’s usually all I need to do to summon him.”

Gabriel had moved closer, his attention also on the card.

I rubbed it again, and nothing happened.

“Well,” Crispin muttered. “This certainly does not bode well.”

Given all that had occurred, it was a vast understatement.

Dawn left with a promise from Elena to set up her tea date with Rian.

As soon as she was gone, Braxton had come back out of his room. He sat on the sofa, a slice of leftover cold pizza in his hand. He had changed into a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants, comfortable on his night off from any mercenary work “Are you sure you want to find him? You could just, you know, let him be gone.”

I swiped a palm across my face, shaking my head as I leaned back against the sofa cushions. “He was finding information on the devil who delivered my mother’s message. Or maybe it wasn’t my mother’s message. Either way, it was the devil who called in a favor from Lucas.”

“And we learned all this from gargoyles…” Braxton trailed off, clearly skeptical.

“I think Dawn’s information is good. It lines up with everything.”

Crispin perched on the arm of the sofa beyond Braxton. “But we do not know for sure that this is the same devil involved with Fiorus.”

“There aren’t a lot of devils in the city,” I argued. “Let alone female ones.”

Elena’s eyes followed each of us as we spoke. “Isn’t it weird though that Sebastian didn’t already know about her?”

“Unless he was lying.” Gabriel leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

I reached for the open box of cold pizza on the coffee table. “He didn’t even have to lie. We didn’t question him directly. When he said nothing, I assumed he didn’t know her.”

“Then we shouldn’t worry about him being gone.”

I looked up at him. “Like it or not, he’s a part of this. I would have never gotten this far without him.”

He glowered, unable to argue.

“Perhaps Fiorus would have further insight,” Crispin suggested.

Elena sat up a little straighter. “Oh, are we going to the nymph realm? Can I come this time?”

“No,” we all said in unison, including Braxton .

She hunched her shoulders and pouted. “Fine. But I did get your boss a date. I should get to have at least a little fun.”

I rolled my eyes. “None of this is fun, but fine. You can come with, but not to the nymph realm.”

“Then where?”

I looked at each of them. “Dawn said Lucas was on a war path because he thought he had been betrayed. And if this female devil was the one who brought my mom’s alleged message, she’ll be the one he’s after.”

“Eva, no—” Gabriel pushed away from the wall.

I stayed seated, cold pizza in hand. “You know it’s our best option.”

“What’s our best option?” Elena was practically bouncing with excitement.

“To go to the Silver Quarter and find Lucas. If he thinks he was betrayed, he’s no longer going to care about me. And if he wants to find the female devil,” I shrugged, “he probably has a much better idea of where she is than any of us do.”

“He tried to kill you,” Gabriel grumbled.

I shrugged again. “Who hasn’t?”

Gabriel gave me a dark look, obviously not seeing the humor.

Only Braxton smirked. When my humor was too dark, he always still laughed.

Because what were best friends for?