I didn’t know what she meant, until a memory of roses came back to me. “The morning after the engagement party,” I realized. “You’rethe one who left those cut-up roses at my door.”
So it wasn’t some elaborate prank Alistair pulled off while he was drunk. Shit. We should’ve made sure.
“Of course it was me,” she snickered. “Don’t you recognize me?”
I tried to place her voice, but I couldn’t make the connection. Then I thought of the way she sneered the wordherwhen talking about my wife, and it clicked where I’d heard that tone before.
“You’re the servant girl from our engagement party,” I realized. She’d been trying to flirt with me that night when I approached the dessert table— and insulted my wife to do it. It’d made me uncomfortable then, and I was beyond uncomfortable now.
“Servant girl?!” she balked. “Charlie, how could you possibly reduce me tothat? It’s true I was at your party, but I was only there to keep an eye on you. I’ve been watching you for a very long time. You’re a very hard man to get alone. The prince is always surrounded by guards, and I can see why, because you deserve to command an army. It’s soyou.”
She gave another high-pitched giggle. “It’s funny, referring to you as the prince now. I remember when you were just another hunk in fight club. I used to come to your fights at the Institute. I always bet on you, of course. I watchedevery one.”
So she’d been an inmate. My mind raced with the possibilities of who this girl could be. She sounded like she was my age, but I couldn’t think of anyone from the Institute who’d go through all this trouble to kidnap me, apart from the Warden’s demigods. I could tell by her magic she wasn’t one of them, and she didn’t seem affected by inferichite, either.
Most of the inmates at the Institute had died, and if they hadn’t, they’d joined The Mission. My friends and I were the only inmates I knew who’d made it to Ilamanthe. I knew even fewer vampires from the Institute— and most of them were enemies. The only vampire I could think of was Scarlet, and I’d spent enough time with her in the fight club’s training area to know this girl wasn’t her. The voice wasn’t right.
She had to be from The Mission, because despite her friendly tone, she was certainly no friend of mine.
“I’m going to ask you one last time,” I growled. “Who. Are. You?”
She giggled, like she thought of me as nothing less than amusing. “I suppose it has been a while, hasn’t it? It’s me, silly! Danielle!”
I felt the blood drain from my face, and as a vampire, I was certain she sensed it. Danielle had barely been on my radar my whole time at the Institute, but I remembered she was on the bus that brought us to the Institute the day we arrived. She was buddies with Naya, and though Danielle had mostly kept her distance, she’d always been a littletoonice to me.
Ava had despised Danielle, and had insisted to me more than once that Danielle had a thing for me and I needed to take itseriously. I barely thought about it, because I didn’t think a little crush was a big deal. After all, I’d never considered her a threat.
Apparently that had turned out to be a big mistake.
“Finally, we’re alone, and we get to enjoy the proper date we always deserved over a candle-lit dinner,” she continued.
“I’m not interested. I’m an engaged-married man, Danielle,” I pointed out. I had a wedding coming up, but who knew if I was going to make it, now that I was in Crazy Town with a vampire who obviously had a sick obsession with me.
She cackled. “You’re so funny, Charlie— always making jokes. You can’t be engagedandmarried. Sit back and enjoy your meal. Isn’t it lovely? The Warden procured it himself.”
I figured a stupid crush should’ve died out by now, but Danielle seemed a little more than obsessed. She was delusional, really.
Unfortunately, I’d dealt with my fair share of crazy. If I wanted answers, I was going to have to play along. I forced my heart rate to slow.
“You don’t say,” I said smoothly. “That’s very kind of him to… set up this date. We must be in his home, then?”
“One of them,” Danielle confirmed. “A manor in Celestial City. He’s not here, though.”
Of course not. He’d sent Danielle to do his dirty work, though why he trusted her, I didn’t know. There had to be more to this plan than it appeared.
“I suppose the Warden sent you after me because you could get into Ilamanthe undetected,” I said.
“Yes. I’m a very valuable asset to The Mission,” Danielle said proudly. It was like she was repeating what the Warden had told her.
Danielle wasn’t a demigod like the others. She wouldn’t trip my grandfather’s wards like the Warden or Esther would. It wasclear the Warden wanted to get me out clean, without inciting a supernatural fight.
It seemed Danielle had been biding her time, waiting to get me alone so she could knock me out and portal me to Celestial City. Danielle couldn’t create a portal, but Esther sure as hell could. That had to be how we got here.
I wondered where Esther was now. Though I nearly vomited, I forced myself to push past the inferichite and expand my magic outward. My magic brushed up against demigod powers just outside the room— four of them, guarding the entrances. It was like they were waiting for something. If they came in here, they’d get sick from the inferichite, but they could’ve killed me while I’d been knocked out. I didn’t get it.
I had to let my magic fall, because I couldn’t hold it any longer without puking. That little bit of effort to resist the inferichite had drained me. I’d broken inferichite before using strong emotion, but these inferichite crystals were much bigger than the ones I’d previously shattered, and unless all four of my friends were here with me, I knew I didn’t have a chance of destroying them.
So I needed to keep Danielle talking. At least long enough to buy my friends some time to find me. Ancestors, I hoped they knew I was missing by now, because I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this ruse up… or what Danielle would make me do in the meantime.
