As if she could ever forget. . the only time anyone had ever fooled her so completely.
“I know you’re still there,” Louis continued. “I hear you breathing. Ah, you’re still angry at me. I don’t blame you. Tell me, though, what did you do with that egg? Dash it upon the floor? Throw it in the Dumpster?” He chuckled. “You know it was priceless. At least, in sentimental value.”
“Yes,” she finally answered. “To all your questions.”
That was not entirely true. Yes, the egg’s sentimental value was beyond measure, as was its monetary value. And while she had thrown it in the trash, after the children and Cecilia went to bed, she had retrieved it.
It was foolish to remember their time in Venice.
“My dear,” Louis cooed. “I wonder how we can care so much for each other, and yet find so much pleasure at this torture? Why we cannot speak about how we feel? But”-his tone brightened-“that is not why I called.”
Audrey gritted her teeth. He was toying with her! Making a game of her emotions.
Her hands balled to fists. No. She would not let him get the better of her.
Audrey did not understand how he was connecting, but she suddenly understood where he had gotten her number: Eliot’s stolen phone.
As if reading her mind, Louis said, “I want to talk to you about the children. First, this business about Eliot’s phone. Don’t blame or punish him. He is a lamb among a pack of wolves. Borrowing his phone was only so I could reach out to you.”
Audrey took a deep breath and felt a bit of her control return. While every word Louis spoke was a potential lie. . this was a rare opportunity to find out what he was up to.
And how she could stop him.
“Speak plainly, Louis,” she said. “What is it you want?”
About her, the snow fell thicker and the temperature plummeted.
“I. . I do not know,” he said.
For the first time, Audrey heard a hint of uncertainty in his voice, something possibly even bordering upon sincerity.
“I find myself oddly unmotivated by self-interest,” Louis mused. “Or rather, I’m more interested in finding a way to protect Eliot and Fiona while gaining all the usual advantages. It is most curious. Besides you, I have never even considered the well-being of another. . ”
“You want to protect Eliot and Fiona?”
Audrey voiced this as a question, but it was not entirely directed at Louis.
A long time ago, she, too, pondered what was best for them without any other considerations. That was sixteen years ago. She had loved them all. The dream of a family, her and Louis and the children, it was still a possibility then-something resembling a normal life-the twins not in constant danger, not forever tested, and not inevitably marching toward bloodshed and war.
She had had hope-
— until she realized what and who Louis was, that his love for her, despite all his promises, was a charade.
For no Infernal had ever truly loved. And certainly none had ever loved an Immortal.
All contrivance.
“No, Louis,” she whispered. “I don’t believe you’re capable of thinking about anyone’s well-being but your own.”
“The obvious assumption.” He sighed. “I had hoped you would risk believing otherwise.”
Audrey moved her thumb over the END button.
She had to terminate this conversation before he tricked her again.
For some reason, however, her hand froze.
She hoped. . what? That she’d been wrong so long ago? That creatures such as they, whose families had been enemies for centuries, held apart from bloodshed, and by the most tenuous of treaties, could actually feel for one another?
“Don’t go,” he said. “Please. .” Louis struggled with his words as if each weighed a ton. “I had to tell you that, no matter what, I. . love you, Audrey. The children, too. Against all reason, I love you.”
There was no mockery in his tone. His words were clear and unadorned. It was the truth. At least, she so wished to believe it was the truth from him.
It felt as if a hundred daggers plunged into her heart, and her blood flowed out of the rivers.
She pressed her thumb on the END button and dropped the phone into the snow.
Audrey sank to her knees and let out a tiny gasp.
Accursed weakness!
Only Louis could do this to her. She was still so vulnerable to him. Why had she not killed him when she had the chance?
She gazed up into the night, watched the spirals of falling snow stretching to the infinite, and let tears spill down her cheeks.
A moment of truth. For Louis. And for her.
With her emotions freed, she realized that, severed maternal ties or not, as impossible as it was, she loved her children and wanted them both to live.
No matter if the cost was every soul in every realm.
And there was one other thing she knew.
Louis loved her still. . and she loved him, too.
SECTION V. THE SEMESTER OF FIRE AND BLOOD
Fiona organized the pile of three-by-five cards on the dining table.
Some semester break. She’d done nothing but study for the quiz Miss Westin was going to give when they came back.
A spring-semester orientation package had been sent the first day of vacation as well. In the accompanying letter, Miss Westin had congratulated Fiona and Eliot for passing their winter freshman semester. . what an honor it was. . and blah blah blah.
It also said the grade bell curve had been “severely skewed” during midterms. A correction would be required, namely, a quiz covering Zulu mythologies and the lost histories of the Gypsy Clans.
Fiona glanced at the grandfather clock: Fifteen minutes before they had to leave.
To make matters worse, Audrey had been gone the entire week. “Council business,” Cee had said. But that could mean anything.
She’d so wanted to impress her mother with her midterm grade. If anything could have cracked Audrey’s diamond-hard exterior, that A-might have.
Fiona sighed, and then inhaled the orange zest and cinnamon wafting from the kitchen. At least she’d get a good breakfast.
Aunt Dallas had arrived at dawn in cutoff shorts and a red tank top, carrying a double armful of organic groceries. She announced that they were all getting a grand meal to start the new semester.
Cee, of course, had protested.
Dallas just danced into the kitchen, ignoring her, and proceeded to take out every dish, turn on every burner, and then shooed them all out-even Cee (who Fiona had thought unshooable).
Feathers ruffled, Eliot had tried to soothe Cecilia with that stupid Towers game they’d started playing this week. The circle mat sat on the other end of dining table. He and Cecilia had been there for an hour, moving stone pieces, building towers, and then toppling them over one another.
Fiona had more important things to do-namely, cram. . and pick a new class.
The very first day, Miss Westin had explained that they had to take Mythology 101 and Mr. Ma’s gym class
