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“Please,” Armand says. “Call me Pico.”
It takes everything I have to muster my composure. “A pleasure. But if you’ll excuse me, I realize I left my parcels with the concierge and must check on them.”
The last thing I want to do is leave Cole in the clutches of those demons, but I must compose myself. My life depends on it.
I make it a few paces down the hallway before I hear footsteps behind me.
“Running off so soon?” Eisheth calls.
I whirl on her, disguising my panic as anger. “Eisheth,” I snap rudely. “Whatever brings you here?”
Her dress is yellow and red silk, and gold jewelry adorns her arms, ears, and neck. Her dark eyes are as shrewd as ever, cutting right through me.
“I thought it would be fun to bring the gang back together. We are inParis, after all.”
“But Armand? Whyhim?”
“Ashtaroth was one of our greatest collectors of souls before his untimely demise,” she says pointedly. “After he collected you, he sought the rest of your cohorts from your little caper with poor, sweet Antoinette.”
“I didn’t know they’d been turned.”
“Of course, you didn’t. Ashtaroth was clever and far-seeing for our kind that cannot know the future. Perhaps he knew it would one day be useful to have all of you.”
“Fine,” I say, crossing my arms. “But you’re flinging Armand in my face because…?”
She cocks her head, smiling in confusion. “Why, to finish your ingenious plan for Cole Matheson’s downfall, of course.”
I freeze as I did when Cole was painting me—it was the only way to keep the horror off my face.
“You seem surprised,” she says. “It was, after all, your idea.”
My idea. My fault. Whatever is to come is all my fault…
“This is how we took down Marilyn, Jimi, Janis…” Eisheth continues. “Our victories that you said yourself ‘made waves.’ Drugs, alcohol, fame—the trifecta that spoils many a human’s rise to sudden success.” She aimed a red-lacquered nail at the hotel door. “These three are Vices. They attach to a human who is flush with new money and remind them that they now have access to every drug, every drop of alcohol, every resource in the world to numb the pain that fueled their art. And they shall do the same to Cole Matheson.”
I nod faintly, each of her words tearing me apart, one syllable at a time.
Eisheth paces leisurely in front of me. “It was already an ingenious plan to begin with, Ambri, but I have to admit, where you have taken him is quite extraordinary. Ambitious.”
My gaze jumps to hers. “What do you mean?”
“Bringing Cole to the highest of heights is all well and good, but making him fall in love with you is a masterstroke. It will break his very soul when he learns the truth.”
Those words are like little bombs dropped in the center of me. “The truth…”
“That it was all a lie,” Eisheth says brightly. “This victory will ensure you’ll be lauded in the halls of our hierarchy to the end of time. That was the idea, Ambri…” She cocks her head. “Wasn’t it?”
I feel her studying me. Mocking me. I nod, formulating a plan so quickly that my thoughts give me whiplash. My future with Cole has burnt up in an instant, and now my entire purpose in this godforsaken realm is to protect him from “the Vices” at any cost.
“Yes, of course,” I say with a haughty sniff. “Admittedly, that was not my intention at first, but when I realized how the simpleton grew infatuated with me, it seemed obvious.”
I want to rip my tongue out for saying such abominations. For being so stupid. So reckless. The horror unfolding in front of me is doubly unbearable because I should’ve seen it coming.
Because I let it happen.
“I see,” Eisheth says. “Because it would be a shame to find out you had other plans.”
“What other plans could I possibly have?”
