“I killed him for you, Cari,” Scarlet said.
“Well, surprise!” Cari’s cheer came out pissed. “You can’t kill him this way.”
Movement brought Cari’s attention to the door, where Stacia and Zel peeked, their faces white. Accomplices.
Cari drew them inside the office with a glare. “Did you know she was going to do this?”
Stacia looked like she was going to bawl. Grow up. Zel looked back and forth from her mother to Mason and back to her mother’s bloody hand—yeah, that’s blood all right—while shaking her head no.
Seemed that they hadn’t known. It was something, but not enough. They’d tricked her, the head of their House, on purpose.
“Dolan House cannot fall to Mason Stray,” Scarlet said. “Not while I draw breath. I swore to your father—”
But her father was dead. It was time everyone accepted that fact.
“Mason—” Cari slid her gaze his way. “My stepmother and stepsisters have colluded to deceive me.” Scarlet had been pushing the boundaries from the moment Cari’s father was in ashes. But Cari wasn’t six anymore. She was twenty-six, the head of the household by blood, the Dolan. This stopped now. “As you’re the injured party, you can say whether this House will continue to shelter them.”
At least there wasn’t a plague outside the wards anymore, thanks to Mason. Not that her family would ever thank him.
“You can’t mean it.” Scarlet’s voice had dropped an octave.
“Cari!” Stacia gasped, as if she’d been hurt.
Cari stood and faced Scarlet again. “You’ve gone too far this time.” They could’ve killed Mason. “And the world is just going to get worse. A mob on our freaking doorstep and you stab the man I love, the man I bring home to help me keep this House strong. No.” Cari glanced back at Mason, who looked sad and in pain and miserable. Poor man, having to deal with this crap. He’d bolt if he were smart. Why would he ever bring his son here?
Too late. She was keeping him.
“Cari—” he began.
No. He had to understand, too. They could not doubt the people inside their House. “Do they stay or do they go?”
“You’re not serious,” Zel said. “The plague will—”
“Plague’s been resolved.” Just fear left over. “But who knows when the next one will hit?” If Maeve doesn’t tear apart the world first.
“They stay.” Mason tried to pull up a smile. “I’m fine. Scarlet missed all the important parts anyway.”
Cari had known he’d say that. But they couldn’t let Scarlet just go wash off her hands. She’d just. Stabbed. Mason.
“But they shouldn’t go to Brand’s party,” he added.
Silence from her stepfamily. Parties were their playground, so their punishment would hurt. They would not see Dolan get its honors, and that was something, too. The celebration didn’t belong to them after this.
Cari took a deep breath. “Look, you should know that Mason and I are a done deal. I’m going to claim him, and someday soon I hope he’ll propose.” He just had to make that ring first. “If you can’t live in the same House, then you can pack up and go. But if you stay, you will not plot against him or me ever again.”
“I won’t abandon you,” Scarlet said.
The aforementioned promises to Father.
“Easy. Then don’t.” Cari looked over at her sisters. “Think about it.”
Then she turned her back on them and knelt again at Mason’s knee. “Can you move yet? Can I help you upstairs?” Weak smile. “Can you wear a tuxedo tomorrow?”
Oh, how wonderful! Gifts, large ones, all lined up in a row.
Maeve commanded Shadow to raise her up. She peeled off the lid of the first offering and delighted in the screams that erupted from inside. Surprises always delighted her. Inside was a cluster of little souls, quivering together, candies all of similar flavor. She debated which to eat first and made up a song to help her decide:
Pebble, twig, dirt, and leaf . . .
This or that one? Which to eat?
With each soul, she would grow. Already her sight grew long, her strength deep.
A lash of Shadow flicked down out of the sky toward a morsel with purple streaks in her hair. Maeve wondered what the girl’s soul would tell her about the world.
A hammering sound brought her attention down to the wide, gray path out in front of the house. The world of this time had so many toys. Shiny boxes rushed by; others with flashing lights circled as if to entrap. The houses nearby were emptying—her candies rushing to save themselves. But really, where could they go to hide from her?
Maeve raised the little human as she tilted her head back and opened wide. With a squish grip, the soul slipped out of its ruby-wet casing and fell down her gullet. As it began its burn in her breast, she tossed the empty shell aside, flicking bone salt from her fingertips.
This bite was just mature enough to have tasted her first passions.
Breathless anticipation with a slight scent of fear. The tremor of the first touch. A delicious invasion that ripped innocence away.
The girl still had the before and after in her mind. Ah, that’s how Time works, Maeve remembered. She’d forgotten how it strung out in this world, because it didn’t exist in the Other. Time. It was important, always changing, moving, and impossible to catch.
She peered back into her gift box, wanting to know more.
“You should have told us.”
Alarm throbbed through Mason, slugging into the ache at his gut and rousing him from a slightly feverish doze. The Order knew about Maeve. It had only been a matter of time. Where was Cari? They couldn’t have her.
“Mason,” Jack said, starting toward where he sat. He had to have been let through the wards by Brand’s Lakatos. “The fae queen has killed twenty-three people in the space of a day. You should’ve told Laurence immediately that she’d crossed.”
A body count already?
“How many mage lives did Xavier take?” Mason returned as he struggled to stand. He was better than he’d been a couple of hours before, but still felt like shit. Cold, stinking shit.
“What’s the matter?” Jack’s attention dropped to the blood speckles bleeding through Mason’s shirt.
“You can’t have her.” Mason tilted his head at a strange sound—oh, right—the mob had grown. Now their cries were a constant fuzz of TV static.
“I’m not after Cari,” Jack said, swatting the idea out of the air. “I’m after information. Starting with what happened to you. I heard you’d had your throat cut. What is—?”
“Throat was yesterday. Scarlet tried to kill me today.”
Jack was shocked silent for a moment. Good. Mason needed to catch his breath in case he had to punch the angel’s face in.
A pathetic kind of pity washed across Jack’s features. “Kaye told me you and Cari were something together. Good for you. But for the love of God, sit back down. You don’t have to fight me.”
Mason kept standing. “How many human lives are you willing to sacrifice for Cari’s?”
They had to be thinking it: End Cari, end Maeve.
Jack shook his head. “A direct assault on Cari wouldn’t work now that the queen has crossed. Laurence would’ve told you that if you’d been forthright with him.”
“Cari says she’s still connected.”
“Yes, certainly. But if she’s anything like the last Dolan who permitted the fae queen to pass over two thousand years ago, then Cari is near immortal right now. Nothing can kill her.”
“You can’t harm Cari?”