“Not that I know of.” Lagar gave her the same friendly smile.
“If you’re not lost, then what are you doing on my land?”
Lagar peeled himself from the post with affected leisure. “My land, love.”
“Since when?”
“Since your father sold it to me this morning.”
Like hell he did. She pursed her lips. “You don’t say.”
“Arig,” Lagar called. “Bring the deed to our pretty guest.”
The youngest Sheerile brother trotted over to her horse and offered her a piece of paper rolled into a tube. She took the tube from him.
Arig leered. “Where’s your cute little sister, Cerise? Maybe Lark would like some of what I’ve got. I can show her a better time than she’s had.”
A shocked silence fell.
Some things were just not done.
A lethal fire slipped into Lagar’s eyes. Peva stepped off the porch, walked over to Arig, and grabbed him by the ear. Arig howled.
“Excuse us a minute.” Peva spun Arig around and kicked him in the ass.
“What did I do?”
Peva kicked him again. Arig scrambled through the mud, up the rickety porch, and into the house. Something thumped inside, and Arig’s voice screamed, “Not in the gut!”
Cerise glanced at Lagar. “Letting him go around without a muzzle again?”
Lagar grimaced. “Look at the damn deed.”
Cerise unrolled the paper. The signature was perfect: her father’s sharp narrow scrawl. Lagar must’ve paid a fortune for it. “This deed’s false.”
Lagar smiled. “So you say.”
She handed it back to him. “Where are my parents, Lagar?”
He spread his lean arms. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen them since this morning. They sold us the manor and left in perfect health.”
“Then you don’t mind if we check the house.”
He bared his teeth at her. “As a matter of fact, I do. Mind.”
The crossbows and rifles clicked as one, as safety latches dropped.
Cerise fought for control. It flashed in her head: jump off the mare, use her as a shield against the first volley, charge the porch, split Arig’s stomach with a swipe of the blade, thrust into Peva … But by then both Mikita and Erian would be dead. Six crossbows against three riders—it was no contest.
Lagar was looking at her with an odd wistful expression. She had seen it once before, two years ago, when he got drunk out of his mind at the Summer Festival. He’d crossed the field and asked her to dance, and she spun one time around the bonfire with him, shocking the entire Mire into silence: two heirs of feuding families playing with death while their elders watched.
She had an absurd suspicion that he was thinking of pulling her off her horse. He was more than welcome to try.
“Lagar,” she whispered. “Don’t screw with me. Where are my parents?”
Lagar stepped closer, dropping his voice. “Forget Gustave. Forget Genevieve. Your parents are gone, Cerise. There’s nothing you can do.”
The cold knot in her stomach broke and turned into rage. “Do you have them, Lagar?”
He shook his head.
Her horse sensed her anxiety and danced under her. “Who has them?” No matter how far away the Sheeriles had hidden them, she would find them.
A thin smile curved Lagar’s lips. He raised his hand, studying it as if it were an object of great interest, watching the fingers bend and straighten, and looked back at her.
The Hand. Louisiana spies.
Ice slid down Cerise’s spine. The Hand was deadly. Everybody heard stories about them. Some of them were so twisted by magic, they weren’t even human anymore. What would Louisiana spies want with her parents?
Lagar raised his voice. “I’ll send a copy of the deed to your house.”
She smiled at him, wishing she could let her sword slide across his neck. “You do that.”
Lagar bowed with a flourish.
“This is it,” she said. “No turning back.”
He nodded. “I know. Our great-grandparents started this feud, and you and I will finish it. I can’t wait.”
Cerise turned her horse and urged it on. Behind her, Mikita and Erian rode through the rain.
Her parents were alive. She would get them back. She would find them. If she had to paint their trail with Sheerile blood, all the better.
CERISE burst into the yard at a canter, her mare’s hooves splashing mud. She’d asked Erian to ride ahead to get everyone together. He must’ve done a hell of a job, because Aunt Murid stood on the verandah with a crossbow. Up to the left, Lark sat in the pine branches, and to the right, Adrian had climbed up into a cypress. Both had rifles and neither missed often.
Derril ran up to take the reins from her, his eyes wide.
“Is Richard here?”
Her cousin nodded. “In the library.”
“What about your uncle Kaldar?”
Derril nodded again.
“Good.”
During the ride, her fury had crystallized into a plan. It was a ridiculous plan, but it was a plan. Now she had to convince the family to follow it. By the last count, the Mar clan consisted of fifty-seven people, including the kids. Some of the adults had seen her in diapers. They listened to her father. Making them listen to her was an entirely different matter.
Cerise locked her jaw. If she had any hope of seeing her parents again, she had to catch the reins her father had dropped and grip them tightly now, before the family had a chance to think things over and argue with her. She had to hold them together. Her parents’ lives depended on it.
Cerise walked up the stairs. Mikita followed at her heels.
She paused by Aunt Murid, who was standing at the door. Six inches taller, dark-haired, dark-eyed, Murid rationed words like they were precious water in the middle of a desert, but her crossbow never failed to make a point.
Cerise looked at her.
Murid nodded slightly.
Cerise hid a breath of relief, swung the door open, and stepped inside.
“No hesitation,” her aunt murmured behind her. “Walk like you mean it.”
The library lay at the end of the hallway. The largest room in the house, with the exception of the kitchen, it often served as the gathering place for the family. By now, the news of her parents having gone missing would have spread throughout the Rathole. The library would be full. Her aunts, uncles, cousins. All listening to her as she came down the hall.
Cerise took a deep breath and strode down the hallway, not caring about tracking mud.
She walked into the library, cataloging the familiar faces. Aunt Emma, Aunt Petunia—Aunt Pete for short— Uncle Rufus, in the chairs; Erian to the left, his slender blond body draped over a chair; Kaldar, his dark hair in wild disarray, leaning against the wall; half a dozen others; and finally Richard, the oldest of her cousins, tall, dark, with the poise of a blueblood, waiting by the table.
They all looked at her.
Cerise kept her voice flat. “The Sheerile brothers have taken Grandfather’s house.”
The room went quiet like the inside of a grave.
“Lagar Sheerile showed me a deed of sale to Sene Manor signed by my father.”
“It’s a forgery,” Aunt Pete said. “Gustave would never sell Sene.”
