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“As you have in the past?The.Amethyst.Now.”He turned away to keep from saying more.The book bumped against Vori, and she flitted her fingers to wave it away.What was with this freaky shop?
Mitch didn’t stop talking.His father must be trying to fill all those wasted years with words now.“Why are you helping her?Why is she after the jewel?”
“Because it puts you in danger.”Maybe that wasn’t Vori’s motivation, but it was Perry’s.“I didn’t know, or I would’ve never accepted the thing from my former client.My now-dead client.”
“Is it cursed?”
It was worse than that.“A killer is taking out anyone connected to it.We’ll do what we can to protect you.You can’t tell anyone that you’ve seen us.Not with the killer after us and what’s left of both the Revelare and the Senate still out there.”
“So many enemies.”His father sounded grim.
“You always said I must be doing something right if I’ve pissed people off.”
“You would only remember the annoying unhelpful things I said, and even you would be shocked at the violence your supermodel threatened.She’s a creative liar.”
“Don’t doubt a woman’s word.”As a goblin, Vori could likely do whatever she’d threatened.
Mitch didn’t speak for a long moment, silence magnifying the void between them.“I have the amethyst here, locked in a safe in the back.There are wards I’d rather you not be exposed to.”
Or more secrets Daddy Dreadful didn’t want to reveal.“We’ll wait here.”Perry said.
Vori’s distinctive walk click-click-clicked closer, and her scent drew him in as it had last night on his pillow after she’d slept alone in his bed.The same book nudged her again.
With a gentle touch, she tapped the cover with a fingertip.It flew upward into her hand, twisting to reveal its cover.“L’histoire Des Gobelins.Really?”
His father rounded the corner.“The book likes you.The goblin history section has been rearranging itself lately.Some of the volumes are rewriting passages.”
“What?”Perry asked.“Words just appear on the page?”
“Yes.”His dad held a small familiar jewelry box—the amethyst.“According to that one’s latest chapter, the goblins’ mad king murdered almost every other royal.Most believe he killed the crown princess as well as the queen consort.”
“No.”Vori swayed, a slight wobble but enormous for a supermodel who seemed to have mastered every look, every movement.
Perry’s heart picked up into double-time pace, faster than the flipping pages of the books around them.The clues clicked together like razor-sharp puzzle pieces.“You’re the crown princess.The mad king—he was your father?”And he’d thought he had daddy issues.“The queen consort?Your mother.”Fuuuck.The queen consort who her father had killed according to the book she clutched to her chest as though shielding herself—she’d been Vori’s mom.
“I’m here.I survived.”She shook her head in a frantic jerk.“My mother could have too.”Her voice’s hollowness didn’t match the hope of her words.
His father stared at her.“Goblin?Princess?”For a genius, the man failed to grasp the reality for a horribly long awkward moment.“Oh.”The finality of his tone summed up the miserable situation, a pebble setting off a boulder-sized ripple in the tension.
“Yeah,oh.”Perry took the jewelry box and cracked it open.Having the man’s DNA didn’t mean he trusted him.The amethyst sparkled in the low light, and he felt like an idiot for not guessing the curse might be real earlier.But he could ask a million questions about the magic rock later.Right now, only Vori mattered.She’d gone from looking camera-ready for a superhero photoshoot to a shadow of herself—sad and pale and fragile.He needed to get her out of here.“We should go.”
“Wait.”His father sounded desperate for him to stay, something foreign and new to the son he’d abandoned.“You’ll have questions.I have answers.”
“Do you?”Perry didn’t hold back the acid in his voice.“You haven’t been helpful with sharing info so far.”
“What happened?”Vori’s whisper cracked and sliced at him.
“Can you give us a few minutes,Dad?”He wasn’t asking.Not really.If she wanted to know, he would stay.But he’d be damned if he let this strong woman come unraveled in front of anyone else.She’d protected him and his secrets.He could do the same.At least until they caught the killer.
Mitch nodded.“Maybe I remembered the book wrong.”Doubtful.His father might be a lot of things, but the man remembered everything he read.“I can check again while you talk.”He reached for the book, but the thing nuzzled against Vori, refusing to be parted.“Or I’ll brew you a cup of tea and check for other resources that might contradict this one.”He left them alone among the shelves lined with books that had gone still.
The heavy hush where there had been leather sliding against leather, pages flipping, and paper crinkling unnerved Perry.“Why don’t you sit?”He gestured toward a threadbare armchair next to a lamp.
“I don’t—” But the book in her arms vibrated with power, dragging her forward.She wouldn’t let go, and in the end, the magic won their silent tug-of-war.She sank into the chair, shoulders slumped, head bowed, and book cradled.“I tried to go back for my mother even though she told me not to, but the goblin glass had closed.And then, Baba…” She looked away.
“You sure you want to stay here?We can come back later.”
“Again?You fought me about seeing your father at all.”Her whisper didn’t carry the bite of their bickering he’d come to crave.
