Page 33 of Petals for Vicious Secrets

The knot in Hope’s throat that kept her mouth shut was not just a shock about meeting someone that apparently had known her mother before Thyria. It was also doubt. How could this man know about her mark? Was it common knowledge in Thyria, Orizane, or Cardinals knew where he had found out? Did anybody else know? A distant thought questioned if he would know what to do with her mark, magic, or powers. Because she clearly didn’t.

Aurora swiftly sheathed her dagger and spoke before Hope could reply, “Let’s hear your plan, Marcus. But if you fuck us over, I will kill you. All of you.”

Marcus smiled, his teeth flashing briefly under the dim light. “I expect no less from you, my dear.”

By the time Marcus and Aridian had taken them to the windowless building they were now in, Hope had one thing clear: these courtrades weren’t normal people.

She was convinced there had been at least a dozen of them in and around the alley, yet she didn’t see a single one until they crossed the metal door. She wasn’t even sure she could have spotted the building if Aridian hadn’t stopped right in front of it. And the way they moved… Goosebumps rose on Hope’s spine. They walked like they had a private dance with the night. As if the night was part of them.

The pale blue walls of the hall were full of beautiful patterns that resembled the waves of the ocean intersecting with each other, so different from the vast facade visible from the outside. Marcus had told them to wait there and Nina, who had been unusually quiet on their way and still looked magnificently sexy, didn’t wait to get closer to admire the artwork. Hope noticed Aurora’s rigid shoulders and her jaw still clenched. Stepping closer to her mother, she whispered, “Remind me who are these people again?”

“I thought the Rulers killed the last of them years ago. I don’t know why they’re here. But if courtrades want to go to Thyria, they are looking for trouble.”

Except Hope, Nina and Aurora also wanted to go to Thyria and didn’t even know where to start. Sure, finding Raoul was one reason to go there. The main one for Nina, that was obvious.

But Hope also wanted to look for her father. What next, she wasn’t so sure about. Have a few words with him? Tell him what a piece of shit he was for discarding her mother to a semi-survival island with a newborn baby who happened to be his daughter? Ripping some throats off didn’t seem such a bad idea after all. It was more than well-deserved, especially as Hope remembered all those years when her mother lived in silence with constant blurry eyes.

As for her mother, Hope had little doubt that she was solely here to protect her and not leave her alone in a search for answers that in part she had kept hidden for years.

She needed to figure out what to do with her mark, if it had been such a liability for her father that it had been the sole reason for getting them out of Thyria. Was he scared of it? Of her? Because if that was the case, she had even a better reason to figure things out. Hope’s thoughts stopped wandering with Nina’s gasp.

“What the actual Cardinals.” Nina’s finger was touching one of the thin lines on the wall. A line, Hope realized with surprise, that was moving slowly, separating from a bigger one and curving and stretching to connect to another one to its left.

Aridian, who stood quietly in a corner of the room while waiting with them for Marcus, casually said with a tone that left little room for discussion, “It’s a living map. Keep your hands to yourself or someone will end up where they shouldn’t.”

A door to the right opened and Marcus led them through a narrow corridor with a curved shape that could not fit two people side by side. It took them to a circular room with a long metal table. As soon as Marcus tapped the surface, forms and silhouettes appeared on it. Forms and silhouettes, Hope realized, that represented—

“The Frenya Archipelago,” Nina whispered, confirming Hope’s thoughts.

The waves of the false sea on top of the table were moving in unison, and different islands scattered around the dark blue depth broke the water's surface. Thyria was in the middle, with its four-petal shape Hope knew was secretly on her skin too. It was the biggest island by far. Verdania, with its uneven shape and full of mountains and hills, was about a quarter of Thyria’s size. There were some islands scattered around the waters that Hope was pretty sure she hadn’t seen on maps before.

“We’re here,” Marcus stopped walking and pointed to the mass that represented Verdania. “And we want to go there,” he inclined his neck, his gaze fixed on Thyria. “I have over twenty people that I need to take with me.”

Aurora inhaled deeply next to Hope. “So many people? It’ll be harder to stay hidden. If not impossible.”

Marcus smiled with closed lips. “It’s not up for debate. I need every single one of them. Besides, nobody is going to see us.”

Over twenty people. Hope was not sure if she wanted to know why he needed so many. She was not sure if she was more surprised by said number or his sheer determination. As if he actually had a workable plan to take them there and live to tell the tale.

Hope lifted her eyes from the islands and found his eyes staring at her. “That’s where you come in.” His voice left little space to arguing. “We need you to avoid being felt. And to fuel our method of transportation.”

So confident he was. So damn confident. Hope looked at Aurora, wondering if she was despising this man that wanted to boss them around to fulfill his own agenda as much as she did. Did he seriously think that she was a mere asset to be used? Did he realize what a horrendous idea that was? Aurora didn’t need to nod. Hope read it in her eyes.

“Do you know I am not a panom?” she said, her voice almost broken by saying the word. It felt awkward on her lips, in her mind, to acknowledge her connection to something that the most powerful people in Thyria bore as an armor. Something that still was foreign to her, and yet it was inked on her.

Marcus’s left eye half-twitched. “You are as close as we could find. The four-petal marks recognize each other. You have one, and that is better than none. That should work for us.”

For us. The uncomfortable, almost unnoticeable sidestep Nina took next to Hope told her she had also noticed it. Marcus might as well have asked Hope if she could slice the mark from her neck and hand it to him, since it was the only part of her that clearly interested him. Still, Hope couldn’t resist the question that followed.

“If you don’t have a mark, what do you have?” Her lips thinned as her jaw clenched. It hadn’t been the best worded question, but she didn’t know how to phrase what she felt around them, about how they moved and interacted with the darkness.

Marcus’ chuckle didn’t reach his hard-as-steel stare. “I didn’t say I don’t have a mark. Courtrades’ business is no one else’s business. But, unlike you, I don’t have the four petals on me.”

Aurora’s fist closed in a way Hope read as My daughter’s business shouldn’t be courtrades’ business either.

The scar on the neck underneath her mother’s impassible face, a constant reminder of the cruel past, was enough for Hope to say, “What do you need me to do?”

19

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