Page 35 of Chaos and Crowns

“Thad,” she spoke up, “What happened at the Whitehall’s after we jumped out the window?”

“I saw some Shadows follow you,” Thad admitted, “but I was a little preoccupied with another group of them. I dealt with them as quickly as I could, and then tried to follow, but it didn’t do much good with you in a car and me on foot. Assuming you’d tried to escape to the Sanctuary, I went there, but you were gone. I started to worry when I found this on the ground.” Thad picked up the crown that Odelle hadn’t noticed on the bedside table. For a second, her heart fluttered in relief that it had been recovered, but Thad shook his head.

“It’s just the replica,” he explained.

“What about Mrs. Whitehall?” Odelle asked.

“She fled as soon as you and Antony left,” Thad said with a shake of his head. “I decided to follow you two instead, since you had the crown and seemed to be in trouble. When I doubled back to the Whitehall’s house to see if you had gone there, she wasn’t there either. I don’t know where she might have gone.”

“I do,” Odelle murmured looking down at her hands. “She’s dead.”

Thad let out a string of what sounded like curses in Greek.

“Wh—Who— How?” Thad attempted to ask too many questions at once.

“I just reported it on the news. She was found dead right next to her husband, cause of death unknown. They are investigating it as a double homicide but…” Odelle trailed off with a shake of her head. The weight of another death associated with their failed plan made her shoulders sag. A hand landed on her arm, and she looked up to find Thad looking sympathetic.

“You know, she was already dead by the time we got there,” Thad pointed out.

Odelle’s brow furrowed. The woman who had leaped at her with clawed hands had seemed very much alive.

“If the Shadow had that much control over her, Mrs. Whitehall wasn’t really in there anymore. The Shadow was just using her body. Who knows how long she had been that way? The Shadow must have decided it had no use for that human form anymore and cast it aside,” Thad continued. “It’s a shame. It would have been easier to track down the crown if we could look for Mrs. Whitehall, knowing it wouldn’t be far behind.”

“Probably why the Shadow ditched her,” Odelle observed.

“I guess we’re stuck with just waiting for the Shadow to give some hint of where it will strike next.”

Odelle nodded in agreement, staring at Antony’s lifeless face. She hoped his eyes were open by the next time the Shadow struck.

* * *

That day at work, Odelle scoured the news for anything unusual. She was the first to snatch up any incoming story pouring over it for even the slightest indication that the Shadow might have had a hand in it. The city, however, seemed to be quieter than usual. There was even a lull in gun violence and car accidents. It set Odelle’s teeth on edge.

As she looked for news of the Shadow, Odelle also kept an eye out for any information on the Whitehall’s murder investigation, with similar results. It was so quiet that it was as if the entire city was holding its breath, or maybe that was just her.

After she finished her broadcast for the day, she walked into the lobby to find Drew waiting for her, as Nora told her he would be. Somebody had to take Odelle to pick up her car that had been towed after her legendary sidewalk parking job during the mad dash from the Shadows. Drew, dependable as ever, had volunteered.

“Do you really hate yourself?” Odelle asked as she slid into his car. “Because I can’t seem to think of any other reason you’d volunteer to go to the impound lot.”

Drew let out a gruff chuckle. “No, I just know Nora and Adam are busy doing what they can to track down the Shadow, and this is a way I can be helpful, considering I’m not much assistance with the Shadow side of things.”

“I get that feeling,” Odelle agreed, glancing pensively at Drew as he pulled out onto the street. He was the only other person who knew about the Eteria without being a member, at least by the logic of reincarnation. If anybody would understand what she was going through, it was him.

“Drew,” she started, “Does thinking about all the Eteria does—all they are capable of—ever make you feel kind of… inadequate?”

He shot a sideways glance at her. “Do I need to mark this day down in history as the day Odelle Zvezda wasn’t completely confident in something?”

She slapped him on the arm, and he waved her off.

“I know, I know, it’s a serious question,” he said. “But you’re normally very sure of your worth. A lot of people could learn from it, actually.”

“I still know I’m a good reporter, and I obviously got the sense of style for the family,” Odelle admitted. “It’s just that I’m not a sorcerer or a Warrior, and I don’t know where I fit in to all of this.”

Drew sighed heavily. “I do understand that. The first time Nora almost died from the Shadow’s poison, and I didn’t know how to save her, I lost my mind. I was so angry that Thad had to step in and save her using his Healing abilities.”

“And what about now?” Odelle prodded, thinking of how eager Drew had been to help when she had been kidnapped and how he continued to go out of his way to assist with Eteria business.

“Well, I thought about how ridiculous it would be to be angry at another physician I had to work with to save somebody’s life. I’m an emergency medicine doctor, and just because I have to call in a neurosurgeon or a cardiologist to help with a patient doesn’t mean I’m a bad doctor. None of us can do it alone, but that doesn’t make the things we can do any less important.”