“I don’t know,” I mused, thinking my words over carefully. “I think there's still something real there.”
“There isn’t,” she said. “They’re out.”
So they already knew about the swords, knew theirs weren’t among this lot, and had already refused to help retrieve them. It pissed me off that no one had thought to call and tell me anything, but I was going to have to keep trucking right on past that point. “Fine, I’ll skip a call, then.”
“Probably wise,” she said, without a hint of a lie. “Sera’s trying another treatment. I’ll see you soon.”
She hung up before we could set a time or location. Just as well—she could surprise me. The crafty little minx loved to sneak up on people, and I loved how much easier she was to get along with when she got her way. I stood up and walked into the living room, crossing my arms tightly around me as I watched the afternoon light change.
A storm was rolling in, and it was dark as twilight, clouds descending over the city as rain spattered the streets below. I watched the ads on all the digiscreens change, flashing garishlights that rivaled the neon that dared to peek through the gloom. In the distance, lightning flashed over the Erydanos River that cut through the city, lighting it up for the briefest of moments, thunder rolling across the city. My heart beat in a low, slow thump as the little information I had about what was going on spun round and round in my mind.
Rhiannon had never felt the need to make it clear to me why she took the Consulate job after we split up. But I’d known there was something she wasn’t saying. Something more than trying to get better help for Sera, though that was part of it, of course. And I was grateful as fuck for that.
Sera was years ahead in her recovery because of Rhi’s Consulate connections. But there had to have been another reason for Rhi to go so far into the belly of the beast. She hated the way the Consulate was run. Hated the Trinity and the way the Consulate had made puppets of us all.
Whatever she thought she could gain by going so deep in had to be pretty important. I wracked my brain through the weeks before Lara was taken. I couldn’t remember anything particularly special that was going on. The days after she’d gone to the Asylum had been hard, especially with the Necrolines setting fire to the house and Sera being so injured.
Anger lit a fire in my gut—same as the day Sera got hurt. The lingering shock of those events made it difficult to remember much about what had happened. Rain pelted the windows, blowing sideways now. I tilted my head to match the angle, squinting a little so that my view of Orphium turned to nothing more than a blur of gray clouds and neon lights. Ares Necroline had never bothered to explain to mewhyhis people burned our house down. Just thathehadn’t meant to hurt Sera.
All that had sounded hollow at the time. But it felt odd now. We hadn’t had issues with the Necrolines before that. As far as their dynasty went, Ares kept his house clean as a whistle—he was a breath of fresh air after his horror show of an uncle. Roman Necroline had been a piece of work, heavy-handed, butnoble in many ways. His younger brother was a monster. Rumor had it that Magnus killed Roman and Ares killed Magnus.
When Ares took over, it had been a relief. Until the fire, anyway. The more I turned the events over, the stranger they seemed. I’d held a grudge against Ares for the better part of two decades, but when Sera had been hurt, Ares left a trail of bodies and fear that had reminded Orphium not to fuck with him.
Magnus had been cruel, and for that, people had feared him, but showed him very little real respect. By contrast, Ares was more like Roman. Terrifyingly smug and violent with the kind of horrific precision that made people cross the street to avoid pissing him off.
The way he’d whispered that information in my ear at the ThunderBowl had sent shivers through me. When everything went down with the fire, he’d been angry that Sera had been hurt, not defensive. Which meant burning our house downhadn’tbeen some petty vendetta.
My heart raced at the thought. This was huge, and I’d missed it. If someone had betrayed Ares to fuck with us, did he know why?And why hadn’t I gotten more curious about this sooner?
Shame filled me as I blew out a long sigh. Because I’d been reeling for years after those few short months when everything fell apart. And when everyone scattered, I shut down. I stopped being me. I stopped caring about anything except keeping the bare minimum going. Having a shitty attitude covered up the disgraceful mess that I’d become. I let resentment get the better of me for far too long.
Eternal life was far, far too long, but I’d been in an especially deep rut. It was long past time to get out of it. I hunted down my phone and shot off a message to Ares Necroline. Might as well start now. If he wanted to pass tips along about the swords, then maybe he’d answer my questions about the fire as well.
CHAPTER 9
ARES
I saton the stoop of the girl’s apartment building, mulling over what the Rider had told me. The stepmother was resentful of her husband’s child. Feared he loved the girl more than he did her, her jealousy twisting a father’s love into something sick in her mind. She’d meant to kill him and have the girl tortured in the Asylum.
But the stepmother hadn’t been particular about the Rider she summoned. All she wanted was a vicious, murderous spirit. She hadn’t even bothered to ask what motivated the Rider. And it had turned out to be her undoing. The spirit she summoned was vengeful because her own children had been killed.
My husband’s mistress killed them, the Rider had whispered.She killed my babies to have him to herself.
I strongly suspected the mistress had killed the Rider as well, but it was rude to ask such things. Besides, I knew what I needed to. A long life of talking to the dead had taught me one thing for certain: you did not fuck with a spirit whose children had been murdered. If the girl’s stepmother had any sense, she would’ve created wards to prevent such a thing from happening. She ought to have anticipated just such a problem.
The inexperienced believed like called to like, but the truthof the matter was that evil often attracted its counterpart when it came to spirits. Riders were often vengeful creatures, and they looked for opportunities to exact revenge on just the types of people who wronged them in life. Unfortunately, the child’s father had been complicit in his wife’s abuse, though not so evil as his new wife had assumed.
The Rider had no issue killing him, and had fully planned to kill the stepmother as well. Before I let it go, I promised the girl would be taken care of, and the Rider promised to haunt my dreams if I didn’t. It was a fair enough trade. The spirit of the postal worker sat down next to me when the Rider had gone.
“This neighborhood’s not what it used to be, Necroline.” Her accent was from somewhere north, an outpost near Palladiere, probably.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, fiddling with the rings on my left hand. I didn’t mean Orphium and she knew it.
The spirit smiled. “I don’t know anymore. Sixty, seventy years maybe. This used to be a nice place to live. Now, people are afraid. The Trinity doesn’t help anymore and the Consulate’s been trash since the start.”
I nodded at the chastisement. “You’re right.”
The Consulate was supposed to help parapsychs, but more often it seemed like they were lining their own pockets. No better than the human mafia or other organized crime. Everyone knew it, but few said it so candidly.
