“Then I’ll just have to use you as a shield. Now,” he said, turning to me, “where did you say this crone’s lair was?”
While I gave Oliver directions, he tugged Leanne and me over to the pile of ash.
“Got it,” he said, after I finished. “M’kay hoes, On the count of three: one, twoooooooo—” His voice dragged out as we were torn from where we stood and shoved through the ley line.
As soon as my feet touched the ground, a wave of queasiness washed over me. I stumbled, forcing the nausea down.
“Dammit, that demon singed my shirt,” Oliver said, shaking it out. “I’m going smell like crispy-fried critters for the rest of the evening.” While Leanne and I couldn’t experience anything traveling along a ley line, Oliver clearly could.
“Told you,” Leanne said.
We stood in a small dank hallway, the air hazy with smoke. Some faded photos hung on the wall, along with fossilized jars of I-don’t-want-to-know. I could hear the mucous-y pop of boiling liquids coming from the room at the end of the hall.
Oliver had landed us right inside the sorceress’s den.
“What time is it?” I asked.
Leanne pulled out her phone. “A little after seven.”
I waved away some of the familiar-smoke. I’d like to leave this place sober for once. “Seven a.m.?” I said, moving down the hall. Strange that I wasn’t sleepy this close to dawn. I’d have to be quick about this—give the sorceress her rose then find Andre before the sun rose.
“Not seven a.m., Gabrielle,” Leanne said from behind me. “Seven at night.”
I rotated to face her. She stared at me with a mixture of horror and pity, and if I had to guess, I’d say my expression began to mirror her own.
“Seven p.m.?” I’d lost an entire day.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I wouldn’t think about what happened to me.
“Once you three mongrels are done socializing, I suggest you come join me,” Hestia’s voice drifted down from the room at the far end. “Preferably before the king of vampires tears my home to shreds.”
I could hear dull thumps from somewhere above us. They sounded as though they were muffled by a body of water, making me wonder just how far below the chapel we were and just how much enchantment had gone into this place if Andre was still up there, tearing into furniture, instead of down here, tearing into jugulars.
I strode into Hestia’s opium den. Just like yesterday, rose-colored smoke hung throughout the room, thickest in the corner where the sorceress lounged.
The smoke cleared enough for me to catch a glimpse of her. I could see she was no less high today than she was yesterday. Her eyes traveled over me. That unnerving third eye of hers also seemed to hone in on me. She tsked. “Well, that answers that.”
I took a step forward, noticing the glint in her eyes. She knew what happened to me. It made me clench the rose in my hand tighter. One of the thorns dug into my flesh, and I smelled the bead of blood it drew from me.
Hestia’s eyes flicked to Oliver and Leanne, the former who was staring at a jar of crushed fairy wings with obvious horror.
“You two may leave us. And please, when you find him, tell the vampire that his soulmate is safe—and that I expect him to reimburse me for any damage he’s caused.”
Oliver didn’t need anyone to tell him twice. Faster than you could say pixie dust, he was out of there.
Leanne hesitated, her mouth opening. She closed it and reluctantly left us.
Once we were alone, the sorceress turned her attention back to me. “You’ve surrounded yourself with very formidable people. Both the seer and the fairy are exceptionally powerful.” She sucked in a lungful of the holy smoke billowing around her head. “Come, consort,” she said, patting the seat next to her, we have much to discuss.
“Don’t call me that.”
She raised an eyebrow, her face shrewd. “If you seek to hide from the truth, then the truth will be your undoing.”
I stalked forward and slammed the rose down on a side table next to her, ignoring how the plant’s thorns pierced my skin. “Happy? I got you your fucking rose.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Sit.” Immediately my muscles drew me forward and down to the seat next to Hestia. “I have not risen to power to be at the whim of some dying teenager, no matter how important she might one day be.” Her words snapped like a whiplash.
“You sent me to meet the devil. The devil. And you knew it.” It was never about the rose.
I should’ve known. The ring of trees, the winter-blooming rose. Fairytales were made of more mundane descriptions than that.
“I sent you to claim your destiny, and destiny spoke.” Hestia’s words held power, and they reminded me of why the events last night had come to pass.
“So that’s it? I can’t retrieve a flower without getting accosted by the devil, and now what? I’m doomed?”
“No, you were always doomed, I just wanted to prove it to you. And I wanted my tainted rose.” She leaned forward and drew the flower to her.
I threw my hands up. “I already knew I was.”
Hestia rubbed the fingerprints singed onto the flower’s stem. “You lie to yourself. You’ve been running your entire life—from people, lovers, and now your fate. Perhaps if you owned it for once, you’d make a little more headway.”
I didn’t ask how she could know these intimate things about me.
Hestia stood. “The seer’s shroud is ready.” The pink smoke engulfed her as she moved to the other side of the room.
My head swayed as I stared at the smoke. Dang it, I wasn’t leaving this place sober.
Hestia came back to me with four stopped vials. When I made no move to get up and take them from her, she nodded to her hand. “They’re yours.”
“That’s the seer shroud?”
“What, you thought I’d give you some enchanted cape, so you could look like a superhero twat?”
I kept my mouth shut because, yeah, I kind of thought a seer’s shroud was, well, a shroud.