“Antique dealer in the Quarter,” Sebastian answered as Violet returned with Pascal, passing the parlor to let him out back.
“You want in?” Dub asked me and Sebastian.
“No,” I said, “but I want some of that gumbo.”
“Help yourself.” Henri gestured to the pot. “Ms. Morgan brought it by, and petits bébés here went apeshit over the stuff.” Crank kicked him. “Ow, that hurt.”
“Then stop calling us babies. And you went nuts over it too. Just like always.”
“No,” Dub said, “Henri went nuts over Ms. Morgan. He’s in loooooove with her.”
Henri colored fiercely, picked up a molar with a gold filling, and pinged Dub in the forehead with it. “I don’t love her, you idiot.”
Dub and Crank erupted into giggles as Sebastian filled two bowls. I slid onto the couch cushion and arranged my gown, pulling my feet under me. “Ms. Morgan,” he said, handing me a bowl, “is like a traveling teacher, comes through the GD once a week and brings food.”
“Yeah, Violet was telling me about her.”
I was so hungry I ate way too fast. But damn, it was good. And filling. The poker game continued. It didn’t take long for Crank to win the pot, with enough gloating to make a pro wrestler proud.
After learning the truth from Sebastian earlier—that Crank wasn’t really his sister—I watched her more closely, feeling sorry for what she’d been through. Poor kid.
I thought I knew a lot about New 2, but after coming here and spending the last couple nights, I realized I’d never had a clue what this place was really like. Besides all the supernatural stuff, I never thought there might be kids left to survive on their own, living in abandoned houses, making do in whatever ways they could.
And they were an amazing bunch of kids. I was proud to be here with them.
One by one, they went upstairs to bed, leaving me, Sebastian, and Henri.
Henri rested his back against the chair opposite the couch. “So is one of you gonna tell me what really happened tonight?”
The small lamp on the end table flickered, making the long shadows on the wall sway back and forth. The light made Henri’s eyes glow—a preternatural glow that reminded me of the watchful gaze of a jungle predator.
With my nod, Sebastian told Henri everything that had happened at the ball, leaving out my dance with Gabriel and our conversation in the courtyard guest house.
“So Athena caused the hurricanes,” Henri said, shaking his head.
“Who knows? She might’ve just made them worse, or caused the final one. Still”—Sebastian shifted his gaze to me—“none of it explains what your mom had to do with it.”
“I think Athena wanted my mom like she wants me.”
“Yeah, wanted you alive. Otherwise, she would’ve just killed you at the ball.”
“And you have no idea why a goddess of freaking war and the Novem would fight over you?” Henri asked. I shrugged. “So what now? She’ll come back for you. Here. Eventually she’ll realize you’re not with the Novem, and she’ll come here.”
With Dub, Crank, and Violet at risk. Henri didn’t need to say it aloud. I knew my presence here was a danger to them all.
A lump thickened my throat. “I’ll leave.”
Sebastian’s face screwed into a frown. “Outside The Rim she has full power. You leave and she’ll know the minute you do. You’d never have a chance. At least here the Novem has their wards on the city. Not enough to keep her out, but their power weakens hers.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“She’s afraid of you.” He ignored my sarcasm. “I can feel it, sense it from her. It’s because of your curse . . . whatever she did to your family can hurt her somehow.”
I thought of Athena’s wrist, the way my hand on her skin had made it harden.
Henri got to his feet, stretched his arms over his head, and yawned. “Yeah, well, a lot of good that does us if we don’t even know what the curse is.”
I studied Henri for a long time. The grandfather clock ticked loud in the silence. “There is one way to find out,” I said, my attention shifting from Henri to Sebastian.
“Alice Cromley,” Sebastian said.
Henri froze, eyes going round. “Oh, hell no! I am not helping you with that freak of nature, Bastian. Not again.”
“You know where she is?” I straightened my posture, eyes on Sebastian. “That’s what Jean Solomon meant. You’ve used her bones before.”
“Years ago,” he acknowledged in a low voice. “We found her in Lafayette Cemetery.”
“Yeah, so he could learn the truth about—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Sebastian interrupted, becoming more certain with each word he spoke. “We know where she is. I know how to perform the ritual. Ari will see the truth, and then maybe we’ll have a fighting chance.”
Against a goddess of war? I almost laughed.
“We’ll leave before dawn,” he said, his gaze daring Henri to say otherwise.
For a moment, I thought the tall redhead would argue, but he finally nodded and walked out of the room, mumbling about getting some sleep since dawn was only a few hours away.
Once he was gone, I asked, “Why dawn?”
“Because rituals always work better at the transitions between day and night, night and day.”
“Oh.”
The electricity flickered again. I scanned the corners of the large parlor, feeling as though we were on a tiny island in a sea of dark indoor space, totally isolated from the rest of the world.
Sebastian broke the quiet. “You should get some sleep.”
My thoughts went back to Gabonna’s, where I’d slept against him, where I’d woken to a warm, safe place. Heat crept up my neck. “Don’t think I can sleep right now.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
The silence should’ve been awkward, but it wasn’t. I drew in a deep breath and snuggled deeper into the couch cushions, resting my head against my arm, which lay draped along the armrest. No need for words. Neither one of us wanted to go upstairs, to separate, to try and sleep. A nap was all we could afford right now, if I could even manage that.
Sebastian shifted, getting comfortable, lifting his legs to rest them on the coffee table and leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes closing. I watched him for a while, trying to relax, trying to stop the whirlwind of thoughts coursing through my mind, jumping from event to event, repeating the last few days over and over, all the things I should’ve done, all the things I wished would’ve happened.
The τερας hunter, the one I’d left behind in the prison, kept coming back so vividly that I could smell the stench and the mud. And his voice. The bitterness. The brief moment of kindness when he told me the quickest path to freedom. But why? Why would he care? And why was he in there to begin with, besides obviously pissing off Athena?
The fact that we’d left him behind burned sour in my gut. A mistake, no matter what Michel and the others thought.
Alice Cromley’s bones held the key to everything. If I understood the power I held over the goddess, the reason she wanted me so badly, maybe it would be enough to guarantee my safety and keep Athena out of New 2 for good. And maybe, once all was said and done, I’d be able to return to the plantation house and set the hunter free.
Sebastian’s breathing deepened.
Funny how he could fall asleep so fast despite the situation. Bruce was the same way. He could fall asleep anywhere, in any position, and usually within five minutes.
Sebastian’s hair gleamed black in the light. A strand fell over his forehead, making him seem boyish and vulnerable. A burst of confetti shot through my stomach as I studied his profile. His face was relaxed, removing the near-constant frown he wore. The corner of his mouth twitched. God, how I loved the dark red color that flushed his lips. It was so unique, so captivating.
A laugh echoed in my head. Oh, Ari, you’ve got it bad.
It was so much more than that, though. There was a connection, made by similarities. Even here in the craziness that was New 2, he was different, born of two very different families.
I watched his chest rise and fall. He even breathes attractively. I snorted softly at that. Not a thought Ari Selkirk had ever had before, and one she’d die before admitting out loud.
Still smiling, I closed my eyes. Yeah, New 2 was affecting me in all kinds of bizarre ways.
I woke to darkness, my head on Sebastian’s chest, his arms wrapped around me. A peek at the windows told me that dawn had yet to break over the city. My eyes closed again, ignoring the part of my mind that said, Get up!, too comfortable with the warmth of Sebastian’s body and the smell of skin, like the scent of water from a crystal-clear lake in the Tennessee mountains.
His hand twitched on my arm, sending a chill racing down my skin. He was waking. Damn. He cleared his throat softly. I lifted my head and sat back as he scooted to a more upright position. I yawned and stretched my arms, avoiding his gray eyes and feeling a little self-conscious at having gravitated toward him in sleep.
The creaks overhead meant that Henri was up.
Sebastian peered closely at his watch, his eyes not yet adjusted to waking, his hair rumpled and cute. I smiled.
“Shit. We need to go,” he muttered, shoving the gown’s skirt from his legs, removing his feet from the table, and then leaning forward, elbows on his knees, black hair falling into his eyes.
Footsteps banged on the stairs, way too many to be from one person. Henri entered the room with Dub, Crank, and Violet on his heels. “I already told them they couldn’t come with us.”
Dub snorted. “I don’t know what you’ve been smoking, Henri, or what world you’re living in, but no one tells us what to do.”
Violet and Crank both nodded in agreement. Pascal was tucked under Violet’s arm, and she was back in her usual black dress, a Mardi Gras mask propped atop her head.