AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Who?” he asked distractedly.
“Delphine’s sister is gone; she’s missing,” I said, staring down at my phone. “Does that sound like something your mentor would do?”
“Fuck,” he growled. “Exactly like Lambert. Levi, call your brother. He needs to get Delphine’s phone.”
I heard Levi’s voice in the background. “What do you mean she’s gone?”
“Who’s gone?” I asked, already knowing the answer and not wanting to.
“Delphine went to the bathroom a little while ago and she never returned,” Tripp said.
I swore. “Where are you? Are you any closer to finding him?”
“We have traced his signature all over town, but we haven’t found him.”
Running my hand through my hair, I looked toward the street. When had they taken her? Had they put her into a van or other vehicle? My eyes landed on Phoebe’s truck. “How’s Delphine getting around?”
“What?” Tripp asked.
“You guys have your truck, right? So how did Delphine and Roman get to the diner?”
He reasked the question to Levi. “They took a cab.”
Think, Hudson, think. “I think when she’s alone, Delphine always uses a rideshare. Do you know which one?”
“Levi says it was Mystic Transit.”
“We can call and ask if either of those places picked her back up and where her final destination was.”
“Okay, we’ll call the cab company since Levi knows a driver,” Tripp said. “You try Mystic Transit.”
“On it,” I said. “We’ll find her.”
Delphine
The rideshare pulled up to an ordinary house with a white picket fence. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a house that had a real white picket fence but this one did. The neighborhood was residential and didn’t seem to have many people around. They were probably at work or school. I climbed out and thanked the driver.
Then I headed for the gate. There wasn’t anyone on the lawn or peering at me from the windows, so I was starting to wonder if I had gotten the wrong place. As soon as I stepped through the gate, I knew I hadn’t.
The nice family house disappeared from view. In its place was a castle with a drawbridge and a moat and everything. Somehow it shimmered to life in the space of a small lot.
“Bigger on the inside,” I murmured, thinking I was a long way from watching Dr. Who episodes with my sister Clio. I walked up the worn path toward the castle. The grass around me was longer than the yards on either side. The castle’s stone facade and towering turrets cast an ominous shadow over the surrounding landscape. Gargoyles perched on the walls, their stony eyes glaring down at me. “What is this place?”
Suddenly, magic wove around me, clamping my arms to my sides and dragging me toward the castle.
“I was coming,” I muttered, blinking to clear my vision.
“Well, I couldn’t be sure,” a man’s voice said, and Lambert appeared in front of me. “And besides, I can’t have you taking off your medallion and causing trouble.”
He turned toward the castle and started walking, and his magic dragged me along behind him.
“Is Phoebe okay?”
“I told you your sister is fine,” he said. “You and I have some unfinished business.”
He stopped a few paces from the front of the castle and signaled to someone inside. The drawbridge rolled down with a heavy clanking noise. The gargoyles didn’t move. The magic pulled me across the bridge and through the doorway after the magician.
The temperature dropped as we crossed in, going from brisk fall day to deep Antarctica cold. I wanted to wrap my arms around myself but I could only shiver.
