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shadowed in the dimming evening light. There was already a large
bruise blooming on his cheekbone.
Minnie ignored him, looking to Arthur, pleading silently with
him to make it not true. He would produce Cora and Charles. He
would have already saved them.
Minnie saw the gun was now in Arthur’s hand, his eyes fixed
on a point to the left of her.
For a brief moment she wanted to sink to the ground in
despair, to give up, to be anyone but herself. This was not a story
she wanted to tell. It was not the story she wanted to be in. She had
dreamed so many times of danger and intrigue, weaving imagin-
ings around herself so tightly she could no longer see reality.
Had she created this horror, then? Had she wished it upon all
of them?
Steeling her shoulders, she pushed Thomas’s hands away. “If I
knew, I wouldn’t be here! They’ve been taken. We have to get
them back!”
“Why is there blood on your skirt?” Arthur said, a note of
unaccustomed panic in his voice.
“I’m not hurt.” She glared at him and then at Thomas, daring
either of them to question her further. They didn’t, just as she
didn’t question why Arthur held the gun.
“The teahouse,” Thomas said, twitching, already moving in
that direction. “They meet at the teahouse!”
“They won’t be there.” Minnie knew for certain. That had been
the trap, the lure. Whatever Alden and his friends had planned,
they were not deeds for teahouses and towns, certainly. “Arthur, I
need you to tell me everything you know about the Ladon Vitae.”
His voice came out a dead whisper. “No.”
“We don’t have time for secrets! They have my sister!”
