“Monsieur, I don’t know what to say. All of this is beyond my comprehension,” Mama replied.
“You are not alone, madame, I am sure.” Constantine released Mama’s hand and shifted his gaze to Hans and Hathaway, who stood to her left. “I am not as ecstatic about your return to my home, gentlemen. However, I believe I know why you have come.”
He turned slightly to indicate Hugh, who was still sipping his tea on the sofa. His short legs were crossed and about six inches or so from the floor. Gabby also noticed the familiar weapon flat on the sofa cushion at Hugh’s side.
“There it is,” Benjamin said. “The weapon Miss Waverly described.”
“That is the net?” Hans asked. His brusque manner was unable to ruffle Hugh’s composure. He set his cup and saucer on his lap without a tremor.
“It is a crossbow, actually,” he said. “The net is the bow’s projectile.”
“Don’t get smart with me, halfling,” Hans retorted.
“Would you prefer me to be stupid? Perhaps then we might have more in common.”
Hans took a step toward the sofa, a move that finally caused a reaction. Hugh slid forward, tea splashing onto the china saucer as he got to his feet.
Rory shouldered his way in front of Hans and barred him from taking another step. “Easy.”
The word was a warning, not counsel. Hans looked too stunned by Rory’s intrusion to do more than blink and part his lips.
Hugh cleared his throat. “This is one of our original diffuser crossbows, not the latest one we’ve crafted using angelic blood,” he said quickly in an obvious attempt to draw attention away from Rory and Hans. It wasn’t working. “Would you like to see it?”
“I do not hold much confidence in this net of yours,” Hathaway said, moving around Rory and Hans as if the two men were not even there. “However, I have given my word to Miss Waverly that I shall assist her in her attempt to use it against Axia. Immediately following, whether the attempt succeeds or fails, the remainder of the angelic blood will come into my possession.”
Hugh looked to Gabby, who nodded. Ingrid latched on to Gabby’s arm. “You promised him the blood?”
Gabby and Ingrid had tried to catch up on the ride from the rectory to Clos du Vie, exchanging all that had happened to each of them over the past few days. Gabby, however, hadn’t admitted what the cost for the Alliance’s help would be.
Nolan leaned forward until his mouth was near Gabby’s ear. “Bargaining skills,” he sang in a whisper.
She huffed and started toward Hugh’s birdcage, set upon the portmanteau, behind the sofa. Nolan shadowed her.
“Vander wants Axia to know he’s using his mersian blood as a sort of cure against her,” she said, reaching the cage and tugging off the black cloth draped over the sleeping corvite. It startled, ruffling its slick feathers and letting out a growl.
“We need to use your bird,” she said to Hugh.
He sighed. “It is a demon, not a bird.”
“But it can carry a message to Axia, correct?” Gabby persisted. “You said the corvite can only answer yes-or-no questions for you, but to Axia, the bird can relay more?”
Hugh approached the cage, and the corvite hopped closer to the bars near where he stood. He stuck his fingers through a gap and stroked the corvite’s long black beak.
“It can,” he said.
“What is it?” Rory asked, reacting to the unspoken caveat weighing down Hugh’s words.
Hugh retracted his hand. “It may also deliver the message that we are attempting to lure her out for capture.”
There was a commotion near the entrance to the library. The Roman Alliance parted their meticulous line of troops along the wall to allow two more guests. Luc and Constantine’s gargoyle, Gaston, both in human form and clothed, entered. Marco, who had been standing quiet and disinterested in the far corner of the room, gravitated toward them.
Gabby noticed Ingrid’s cheeks betraying her embarrassment over the earlier unfortunate incident in her bedroom; however, her sister remained focused.
“Axia might be confident enough to allow us to try,” Ingrid said. “She told me she cannot be ensnared, and she might be telling the truth. She moved so quickly it was almost as if my eyes couldn’t keep up with her. I kept seeing a sort of mist dissolving in the spot where she’d last been.”
This seemed to pique the interest of both Constantine and Hugh.
“A mist, you say?” Hugh repeated. At Ingrid’s nod, Constantine rubbed the dart of a beard he wore on his chin.
“And in the Underneath, you say she had fangs? She drank from you with her mouth?”
“Like a serpent,” Ingrid said. “A crypsis demon.”
“No crypsis moves as fast as that,” Luc interjected from the back of the library, which only inspired daggered glares from both Mama and Vander. Luc at least had the decency to appear slightly uncomfortable.
“Luc is correct,” Constantine said. “This mist you speak of, Lady Ingrid, and the forked tongue and fangs … it sounds as if Axia has taken the blood of a severix demon.”