Chapter Five

HER PHONE STAYED dark and Briar was left wondering if she had done something wrong. Fauna hadn’t answered her texts all morning and she hadn’t been able to bring herself to message Lillia.

She wanted to. She found herself picking up her phone every few minutes, fingers hovering over the screen. Guilt gripped her before she could press send on any of the messages she typed out and she’d deleted all of them.

The origin of her guilt was a mystery to Briar. Was it for the way she had thought of Nilaja the night before? She’d done—and certainly thought—far worse in bed before. She hadn’t thought about her very long, that was certain. Was it her meeting with Evaria? It wasn’t her fault she’d said all those devious things. Was it because she’d said “I love you” to Lillia and neither of them had mentioned it again?

Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t because Lillia had almost died or that summoning Ortus had been Briar’s idea in the first place. It wasn’t because she had convinced everyone if they kept pestering the Gods they would eventually give them another answer. No, it had to be one of the other things because Briar couldn’t spend another second replaying the night in her head, the way Lillia’s skin had lost its color. The thought of those moments made corrosive magic and nausea roll together inside her.

Anger for the Gods kept growing in her chest, and she had to remind herself that the others weren’t like Eliana. They were true and, as far as she could tell, good. They weren’t waiting for her to complete some task before they told the truth. They’d been honest with her from the start. The cost for Eliana was a life.

But Lillia wouldn’t have come up with that disastrous plan on her own. Everyone else was prepared to accept the answer when it had come from Ivian, even if they hated it. She had been the one who made them keep going.

Briar shook out her hands and ran them through her hair. Lillia was fine—a little shaken, but they all were. They should be shaken. They couldn’t forget what they were up against. And that was no reason not to call Lillia. So she’d been wrong, Lillia was a grown woman, strong and capable, and she hadn’t seemed angry, quite the opposite, when Briar had last seen her.

There was nothing to suggest Lillia held anything against her. She just needed to find some courage. Briar slid her fingers over the screen of her phone once more and it lit up.

Someone knocked on her door.

She clicked her phone off and took a deep breath to steady herself. Truly, she had reverted to high school. She needed to act like an adult, this was so childish.

The visitor knocked again, and she yelled at them to hold on.

“No, you little terror. Hurry up.”

She was surprised to hear Henrik Stuttle’s voice on the other side of the door and she did indeed increase her pace in a rush to open the door. He pushed past her and shoved the door shut behind himself, then settled onto her couch, pulling a pink pillow into his lap.

“You or your cousin really should be answering your aunt Vestia’s calls.”

Briar perched on the coffee table. “That sounds like terrible advice, to be honest. Do you want something to drink?”

Pushing his heavy frames up his nose, Henrik fixed Briar with a stare. “An hour ago, I watched Jenia Alvier walk into the lobby of Vestia Constance’s midtown high-rise.”

“Shit.” Briar pulled her feet up onto the table.

“Look, I’m really old, and I know sometimes that scares you, but I have used all these years to learn a few things. And I’m old enough to notice when something isn’t right. I’ve done plenty of interviews with Jenia when she lived here, I’ve spent time with her. I know her energy and it isn’t right and neither is she. I never once believed you or Soren threatened her, and I know he doesn’t want retribution for his father. I also know Jenia Alvier used to play with her necklace while she waited to take the stage and now her hands fold in her lap. But, Briar, I don’t know what it means.”

Briar walked to her kitchen and grabbed her kettle just in time to finally see a message from her cousin come through on her phone.

Sorry, I was busy. Ansel offered to help us. You said you talked to Evaria. Maybe we can figure something out.

Briar chuckled as she turned the knob on her stove. The Gods had no answers but maybe mortals would. They were starting to notice, beginning to care. Something was wrong. She already knew it, but like Henrik, she could feel it too, feel the disconnect in the magic of the earth. Others would feel it as well. They were certainly flocking to the center of this disaster, noticing the way she didn’t quite fit.

Henrik Stuttle’s on my couch. Your mom is meeting with Eliana so we might be able to get some answers from her later.

Hopefully it was just talking. She tried not to think of all the other possibilities right now. Everything was moving forward so quickly and it terrified her. She shoved down her fear; she was too full of too many other things. If she let in fear, she worried it would be the only thing she could think of.

Henrik followed her to the kitchen and pulled out mugs and bags of tea. “Loose leaf is better.”

“Okay, fancy pants.” Briar reached farther into her cabinets and pulled out a tin. Then she climbed onto the counter and rested her elbow on her thigh, thinking through what she had learned. Vestia was meeting with Eliana. Henrik could sense something was wrong. They weren’t in this alone. She should message Lillia.

Ansel…when had Fauna spoken to Ansel?

Grabbing her wrist, Henrik pried the kettle from her fingers and sat it on the hot burner. “Briar, you haven’t spoken in a while. I’m right about Jenia, something’s wrong with her, isn’t it?”

Briar closed her eyes and counted to three. A journalist. First and foremost, Henrik was a journalist, and this was a story—one that would certainly get him killed. “Don’t chase this lead.”

“I like Jenia. I’m worried about her. Something’s wrong with her and she won’t take my calls. Her secretary wouldn’t even forward me to voicemail. Neither will you, which is why I just had to bribe a doorman and come here myself.”

“Just tell me that you’re going to leave it alone, Henrik.”

“I can’t.” The bags under Henrik’s eyes were dark. Briar wondered when the last time he’d properly slept was. “She’s the Prime Minister. It’s national security. I have an obligation. How can I ignore this?”

“Because Jenia Alvier is dead, and you’ll end up like her if you do this. I know you’re powerful, Henrik, but you aren’t more powerful than this. You’re right, it is dangerous, but there’s nothing you can do and no one would believe you.”

Silence filled the kitchen, both of them staring into their hands, not meeting each other’s eyes. The only sound was the tea kettle as it started to gently boil.

Henrik cleared his throat. “If Jenia Alvier is dead then who is running the country? Because they look just like her.”

“You believe me?”

“What is there to believe? You haven’t told me anything. I trust you though, you’ve never given me a reason to doubt you, and you’re like me, you chase the truth.”

Briar wanted to yell at him to leave. Henrik held a mirror to her that she didn’t want to look in. She didn’t want to outlive everyone she knew. She didn’t want to have to hang on to stories because they were all that was left. She didn’t want any of this. When she had begun searching for the truth of fae and witches she never imagined it would lead to this. She should have left it alone, asked Vestia for some stupid job on the board, and spent her days traveling.

And she didn’t want Henrik to die. She didn’t want him involved in this.

She had to give him something, enough to scare him off contacting Eliana ever again. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the Goddess Eliana. I know her whole story now. She’s a child of the Gods, not a true Deity at all, but she’s powerful and incredibly cruel. She’s the reason for our magic and the reason fae and witches can’t seem to get along. You know King Velorian’s mysterious lover? Well, that was her and she didn’t take kindly to losing his affections. She was taken out of the world once by Velorian’s wife. Cordelia killed her own child because you have to kill someone you love to destroy her, that’s how bad it was. It’s old magic and I need to do it again to get rid of her. But I don’t want to, I don’t want to kill anyone so I’m searching for another solution.”

Briar rolled up the sleeve of her shirt, revealing shallow cuts where the Gods had not come with healing magic to answer her call. “I’ve summoned Gods and they all tell me the same thing. One day my fear of Eliana will overcome my love for my friends and I’ll kill someone to get her out of here. I can’t imagine it. I see no one at the altar when I try.” Tears welled in her eyes. She tried to blink them away but they fell instead. “So, there’s your story, Henrik Stuttle. I have all the answers I need but none I like. I have seen the Gods and I am absolutely terrified. She made us, that’s the answer we wanted. She begged the Gods for power, and they loved her so they made the witches. She gave more to Velorian, it created the fae and then he betrayed her and she cursed us all to hatred. I do not know if our power will leave once I kill her. I suspect it will stay. Now, please listen to me, because if you get involved you will get hurt and I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

The kettle started to scream, and Henrik grabbed it off the stove with trembling hands and poured them both a mug. The scent of orange and cloves filled the kitchen and he stared into his own cup as though he might divine something from it. “Not a story to follow.”

“No.”

He blew on his tea and the steam scattered. “But it is a cause worth helping. You’re going to need allies if what you say is true—and I believe you, but I’m still wrapping my mind around it. Let me be one of those allies. I’m old, I’ve had a whole life. I’m not that afraid to die and there has to be a solution to this. There’s always a solution.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than Briar.

“Would you like me to kill you? That is the only solution they will give. I’m sure the spell is in the book but I haven’t had the courage to look for it. I know once I read the words, they will grow inside of me. They’ll get stuck in my brain, just like the spell to bring her back has, and I don’t know who I’ll become.”

Stirring sugar into his tea, Henrik stood in silence for a long time, before he answered. “You spoke of King Velorian’s wife, Cordelia, right? There is not much mention of her but I’ve seen the name pop up. I never followed the story beyond her refusing to take the throne. There’s a couple books on her, mother of Endlyian democracy and so forth.”

Briar nodded. The tea burned her throat but she gulped it down. “My mother says she is my ancestor. Only her, not the king. I thought I was destined for greatness, I really did, I was so stupid, but the world was always spread before me. Maybe I was always destined for slaughter, and I just didn’t know the difference.”

His hands shook and liquid sloshed over the side of the cup. Briar had never seen him so rattled before. “Fuck. I knew Jenia wasn’t right but I thought maybe it was a spell—it’s happened before, not often, but it’s happened. But the Gods returning? Fuck.”

“I have no idea what to do.”

“I can go visit Agatha and some other friends. I won’t give them the whole story but I’m not the only one who has suspicions. I get emails every day. Let me see what I can dig up.”

He wasn’t going to drop the story. He might not contact Eliana again, but he was going to chase this. She’d never convince him otherwise. Her heart beat too rapidly in her chest. This was the first time she’d spoken about the Goddess to someone who hadn’t been there. It was both relief and more terror. She was frightened for him. “Is it wrong that I want to wait? She killed the Beishan president.”

Henrik steadied himself with a hand on the fridge. “Hmm.” His throat bobbed. “No, it’s not wrong to wait, no matter what she does. You can’t come back from killing, Briar, not even for a good cause. And someone you love? I don’t think anyone could blame you for waiting.”

“If they knew…they would eventually.” There would be more victims and each death was blood on Briar’s hands, a life she could have saved. But who would she kill? Henrik was wrong; if people knew the truth, they’d hate her. They wouldn’t care about her loved ones or her trepidation if it was someone they cared about who Eliana targeted next.

But whose flesh would she sink a knife into?

Whose blood would she spill?

Fauna? Soren? Lillia? Each name was like acid in her veins. She’d rather turn the blade on herself. And yet she was scared to die.

“Don’t do anything yet. No one would, Briar. I’ll—”

The front door creaked open. “I’m sorry, my phone died. I totally forgot to charge it last night, you had me— Hey, Henrik!” A flush spread up Lillia’s neck.

“No worries.” Briar put her cup down and clenched and unclenched her fists before kissing Lillia quickly. “Let me know what you find, Hen.”

“Never call me that again.” A forced grin spread across his face. “Sorry to leave so soon, Lillia. We’ll have to get to know each other better sometime. I did a few stories about the shop with your grams.”

“I know. She didn’t care for you.”

Henrik laughed. “No, she truly didn’t.” He grabbed his coat and his eyes locked on Briar’s face. “You’re a good person, Briar Constance. I’ve met enough bad ones to know.”

“Wait.” She reached for him as he left. Her fingers gripped the sleeve of his jacket and he turned. “You said Jenia was meeting with my aunt.” It had flown from her mind briefly, pushed to the recesses by memories of bringing Eliana back. She dropped his arm and reached for her phone. Half a dozen messages from Fauna were on the screen.

Lillia’s wide eyes blinked as she took in the information. “That can’t be good.”

“No.” Henrik frowned. “I’ll go to the paper, see what I hear. Good luck, Briar.”

Her phone buzzed again, this time with Soren’s name.

I’ve talked her into going home instead of straight to her mother’s. Meet us?

Briar grabbed her shoes from beside the door and shoved her feet into them. “Remember that vacation I promised to take you on once?”

“I dream of the days when everything isn’t an emergency.” Lillia picked up the coat she had just taken off.

“We’ll make it a sabbatical.”

“That’s a word made up by rich people.”

Briar grabbed her by the waist, pulling her close. “Perks of me.” Their kiss was fast and rough and she pulled away wanting more. “If you ignore the ritual sacrifice, I’m sure it’s all very alluring.”

“The views from your condo aren’t bad either.”

“Like I’ve always said, as long as I bleed out from the penthouse, who cares about the blood?”