Page 107 of Fall into Place

“You, babe.” Flora grinned. “The cards told you to rescue yourself. I guess they thought you did a pretty good job.”

“Shit.” Tess shook her head with wonder. “Now I just need to rescue two vampires from their ancient all-powerful sire—and I don’t even know where they are, let alone how to help them. Unless—can you find Konstantin with a spell or something?”

“Not without a possession of his to cast it.” Flora took a sip of wine. “You want a drink? Closed bottle, I know—I can open something for you.”

“Oh,” Tess started. She realized that just hours ago, she’d had a glass of champagne at Felix’s ball and hadn’t thought twice about it. “That’s okay—I don’t want a drink. I kind of just want to get out of this dress, and then figure out what to do next?”

“That makes sense.” Flora nodded. “Let’s go to your place.”

“Oh! Great, you’re coming too.” Tess hadn’t expected Flora to come along, but she wasn’t going to turn down any sort of help.

Flora cast a portal, and a few seconds later, they were back inside Tess’s tiny apartment. Tess suddenly felt ridiculous in her golden gown—as if she were a character in the wrong story, a person without a place. She wasn’t some wily heroine; she was just a grad-school dropout in an unkempt studio with a bed in a closet who may well have lost her job since she disappeared for two weeks. Never mind rescuing her vampire lover and his glamorous sister—she wasn’t even sure how she was going to make rent.

She started unzipping her gown when something knocked against her leg. Right—her phone. She took it out and stuck it on its charger as a matter of habit. She wasn’t expecting many messages from her time away, maybe just a few from people at the hotel asking where she’d been. She threw on some joggers and a cropped hoodie—it was strange wearing regular clothes again rather than some gorgeous bespoke garment made by Sylvie. She went to remove the emerald necklace Callum had given her, then decided to keep it on instead. It made her feel close to him, like there was a chance they could still get out of this okay.

Tess’s phone was buzzing nonstop, so she glanced at the screen. She was shocked to see that she had dozens of messages from Joni, maybe even hundreds. She picked them up and started reading as fast as she could—

Joni met Octavia at Tess’s hotel?!

The two of them had started hooking up?!?!

She was on her way to Gramercy Park to meet August Lirio—whose agent’s assistant was named Fern?!

“Flora!!” Tess shouted. “I think I found something!”

Flora rushed into the bedroom. “What is it!?”

Tess shoved her phone into Flora’s hands. “My friend Joni met up with Octavia. They’ve been working together. Joni was in Gramercy Park yesterday, supposedly to meet August Lirio.”

“But—that’s where the meeting of the witches’ council was.” Flora’s jaw dropped as she scanned Joni’s texts. “Fern?! Fern doesn’t work for a literary agency, she works for the fucking coven!”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Tess said eagerly. “It can’t be a coincidence, right? If Joni was meeting Fern yesterday, and Konstantin had Octavia tonight—”

“Fern was working with Konstantin—and probably Felix too—to trap her.” Flora gave Tess a dark look.

“Do you think Fern is with them now?” Tess’s heart was pounding. “Is there any way to find her?”

“Oh, I can absolutely find Fern.” Flora whipped out her own phone.

“With magic?” Tess asked.

“No.” Flora held up her phone, which was open to the Find My Friends app. “Fern shared her location so I can always make her a portal.”

Damn, Tess thought. It’s good to be home.

Joni had no idea how she’d ended up trapped in a creepy-ass attic with Dorian Gray vibes, but she did not care for it one bit. She’d had a spectacularly crappy twenty-four hours: showing up to meet Fern at a fabulous townhouse where Fern insisted that Joni just had to come and see the view from the top floor. At first, Joni thought maybe Fern really was flirting with her, but that went out the window pretty quickly when Fern locked Joni in the attic instead. Joni banged on the doors and yelled and screamed, but no one heard—except for two big men who showed up hours later and tied Joni to a chair, which is where she’d been ever since—meaning she missed her job interview, she was really fucking hungry, and she was, if she was honest, pretty worried about her imminent death.

And what about Octavia? Was she here? Was she even alive? And what was this place, exactly? Who were the people holding Joni? Fern had to be involved, but there were those men around too. Joni had no idea who they were or how Fern was connected to them—nor did she know why they’d kept her alive or how long they planned to continue to do so. She figured they must want some kind of information out of her, maybe about Octavia? But no one had asked her anything yet; in fact, no one had spoken to her at all.

Joni could sometimes hear movement and voices from the floor below her, but it was too muffled to make out anything useful. So she spent hours trying to undo the knots binding her to the chair—she hadn’t made major progress, but maybe if they left her alone long enough…what? She could try to squeeze herself out of the small attic window? Maybe find a fire escape, or somehow get to the roof of a neighboring building? It wasn’t a solid plan per se, but it was all she had. She kept working at the knots, little by little, wondering if they were really getting slightly looser or if that was just wishful thinking.

But she was pretty sure she was actually losing her mind when a circle of icy blue light appeared in the attic and Tess and some goth woman walked through it.

“Tess?!” Joni whispered. “What are you—how did you—what the fuck?!”

“Are you okay? Did anyone hurt you?” Tess knelt beside Joni and started furiously untying the ropes. There was something different about Tess—she seemed more self-assured than Joni ever remembered her being. She always thought of Tess as quiet, a person you were lucky if she let you get to know her. But this person seemed decisive and confident. Had she been like this in all the time since she’d left Joni? Or was the development more recent?

“I’m okay,” Joni answered. “Just scared out of my mind. And deeply confused about how the fuck you just walked into this room from a mysterious floating circle?”