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“I guess you’ll find out.”
Chapter Nineteen
My phone was already buzzing the second I plugged it into the car charger. I was coated in sweat and dirt, and wanted nothing more than a long, hot shower and a night in my own bed, but the influx of missed alerts I was getting told me that wasn’t what tonight held for me.
Santiago had followed us back to the mainland, where we returned the two boats to Bess, who made a comment about Santiago finding his friends after all. “I was sure we’d be pulling his corpse out of there in a few months,” she said with a much too cheery smile. “Pleasant surprise. Looks like I made it to day fifteen hundred after all.”
His car was parked next to mine. It was an old Ford pickup that seemed both wrong for him, but also completely perfect. There was rust around the wheel wells, but for the most part it was in incredible shape considering how ancient it must have been.
I sat in the front seat of my Dart as the phone came back to life, and Wilder and Santiago were giving each other a wordless stare down. I just needed them to behave a little longer, then we could all go merrily in different directions.
Come to think of it, I wasn’t entirely sure why Santiago was still here.
Once my phone stopped its endless vibrating I was able to go through the missed texts. Wilder had kept his phone off while we were gone, and evidently had messages of his own because he wandered off a few steps, eyes transfixed to the screen.
Several of my messages were from Magnolia, and started with, I know you’re out of range, but call me when you get back and ending with You need to come home now.
Surprisingly there was one from Amelia, and the presence of Callum’s second-in-command in my text inbox was an unsettling one. It meant nothing good was in the body of the message.
Get to the compound immediately.
Yesterday.
Then there was one from Callum. Just one. Sent this morning.
We need you.
My hands were trembling as I read those three words. Callum never asked for help, he would never admit to not being in perfect control of the situation. For him to authorize Amelia to ask me to come back was a big deal already.
That he’d messaged me himself…
“Something’s wrong,” I told Wilder, drawing his attention back to me. I held the phone up so he could read the messages. He would understand the importance of the words without my needing to explain them, which was what I needed right then.
Santiago must have sensed this was a problem outside his scope, because he stayed quiet while I shared the details with Wilder. But he wasn’t silent for long.
“I should come with you,” he announced.
My head snapped to the side as if he’d just declared he was planning to run for President of the Moon. “Excuse me?”
“You’re in trouble, Genie, and I know Wilder doesn’t like me, and I know you have your whole pack, but whatever is going on with you and this spell, it’s magic, and it’s obviously beyond your control. You need me. I can help.”
“You didn’t even want to tell me what I’d done,” I spat. “Now all of a sudden you want to help? Now that you’ve gotten what you wanted and followed me out here to find La Sorciere. Now you want to help? You’re a real piece of work.”
“Just because I’m a selfish prick doesn’t mean I can’t help you,” he countered without missing a beat.
It was such an absurd statement I didn’t have a comeback for it.
Wilder sighed. “Let him come. He’ll just follow you anyway. At least if we bring him in Callum won’t have the guards eat him alive.”
Santiago blanched, but to his credit he didn’t have any sort of witty remark to add, which was probably the only reason I said, “Fine. Follow us. But stay the hell out of the way. Callum isn’t going to like me bringing a human into this situation.”
Whatever this situation was. None of the texts had given me any context clues that might help me figure out what on earth the big drama was. Which of course meant I was panicking and imagining a million different terrible scenarios, each more grisly than the last.
It seemed like a foregone conclusion Mercy had done something. Had she killed someone? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least, since she was clearly capable of it. And that was the sort of news you wouldn’t want to transmit over the phone.
And what about Timothy Deerling? Had he made his way to St. Francisville in his hunt for me? Or had he gone to my house in the city and that was why Magnolia’s messages had gotten so insistent?
What if something had happened to Magnolia?
