Page 19 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

Xarek clapped a hand on my shoulder and spoke up. “Gabriel was taken by his father,” he said. It was like all of the air had been sucked out of the room. I could feel the eyes of Gabriel’s vampire friends—his chosen family—boring into me.

“What happened?” Lissa asked after an agonizingly long silence. Her normally boisterous voice had gone faint and thready.

“Lord De Montclair was prepared for us,” Marcus said. “He found our little group, and Gabriel split off to draw him away. We thought he would be able to get away with you, but... well, clearly we were incorrect.”

“Clearly,” Lissa echoed numbly.

“We saw it happen,” I said. I felt about two inches tall. “He made it up to the roof, but his father was right behind him.”

Xarek took a half-step forward. “I was the one who made the decision to leave the citadel without Gabriel. We were already in flight, and I wasn’t willing to risk all three of us being taken. Evangeline wanted to help him, but I refused.” He kept his voice even and calm, but the implication was clear: if anyone had a problem with his decision, they should take it up with him, not me. I felt pathetically grateful. I was already being rightfully blamed for the stuff I had done. The idea of being blamed for things out of my control did not appeal to me.

“It was a reasonable choice. In fact, I made the same one myself,” someone said from the landing of the grand, sweeping stairs. Pretty much all of us jumped, and Isabella and Theo twisted around to look at the stairs behind them. Standing there, half-hidden in a shadow, was Iskra De Montclair.

Lady De Montclair had Gabriel’s high, carved cheekbones and plush mouth, with a sharp nose and sharper eyes. She had the sort of face you’d expect to see carved onto the figurehead of a warship. When I’d met her before, she’d been decked out in brocade, but now she was wearing a simple dark gray dress that made her look a bit like Martha Graham. Yet she still seemed just as regal.

Iskra descended the stairs slowly, trailing one hand down the banister as she went. She knew she had the spotlight and intended to make the most of it.

“Roland won’t seriously hurt Gabriel, at least not physically. When he has a victory, he likes to take his time to gloat, and he always lets his guard down. It will be much easier to retrieve my son once Roland has gotten complacent.”

“What are you doing here?” I blurted.

Waiting for Roland to get lax about security didn’t sound like a good idea. I didn’t know if I trusted Iskra. Did she have some ulterior motive for being here? Or was I just on edge and paranoid from exhaustion and the dark magic rising in my system?

Iskra raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “I assumed you would wish to aid Gabriel. Your merry band struck me as very… eager to help.” She made wanting to help sound like a slightly embarrassing disease.

“How did you get in? None of the wards were tripped,” Theo said. They’d shot to their feet, and from their posture—tense hands, loose knees—they were ready to charge. I didn’t like their odds if they tried anything.

Iskra gave us a look of faint amusement. “I have my ways. After breaking into the citadel this evening, getting into my own son’s home was child’s play.”

Marcus was the first one who put it together. “You,” he said. “You were the one who set off the alarms.”

Iskra’s regal face creased into a scowl for just a moment before smoothing back out. “A regrettable lapse on my part,” she said. “I do hope it didn’t cause you any trouble.”

“You were breaking into your own vault?” I asked.

“I’d left a few things behind,” Iskra said. I thought of the walls covered in tiny drawers. A few, huh? “I wanted to reclaim them before my husband could scatter them to his little hideouts.” She said the word ‘husband’ the way some people would say ‘rotting flesh wound.’

“Roland doesn’t have the eye for magic that I do,” she continued. “But some of those trinkets could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. I didn’t think it wise to give him a chance to realize just what he had access to.” She’d reached the foot of the stairs now, and Theo jumped back to let her pass. Iskra glided across the smooth marble. “After all,” she said, clearly enjoying her ability to hold the entire room’s attention, “look at how much damage he was able to do with one little curse knife.” She tapped me right on the solar plexus, right where the curse had hit me, and when I looked down I saw that the spot was soaked through with black ooze. The curse was getting stronger again.

“You know what he did to me,” I said. Weirdly, it was a relief. Iskra was incredibly poised and radiated competence, even if she was undeniably dramatic and manipulative.

“I do.” She gave me a faint smile. “And I know how to fix it. Consider it payment in advance for saving my son.”

Half an hour later, I was in one of the spare bedrooms, sitting on the edge of the bed while Iskra and Marcus inspected the knife. Isabella was there as well, leaning against the wall by the door, with her arms crossed over her chest.

“How do you know about all this stuff, anyway?” I asked Iskra. I’d stripped out of my tourist sweatshirt, leaving myself in a tank top, feeling chilly and vulnerable. Vampires didn’t generally care too much about room temperature, so the house was freezing. Goosebumps covered my arms.

Iskra glanced up at me. “All powerful vampires have gifts. You know this, yes? I’m not sure what your kind are taught of my people these days.”

“I know some vampires can read minds,” I said. “And control them. I’ve seen Gabriel do it with animals.”

She nodded once, briskly, and I was a bit embarrassed by how pleased I was to have her approval. “Some can touch minds, yes. Some can direct certain animals, or fly, or create small, localized weather patterns. Some such as myself can see where magic has been shaped. I enjoy excellence in all things, and I like to surround myself with beauty. As such, I’ve amassed quite a collection of particularly well-crafted magical items over the years. To pass the time, I turned to studying them. I may not have the hands-on experience, but I’m extremely well-versed in the academic aspects of magic.”

“It must be fascinating to see magic around you,” Marcus said, setting out bottles and boxes he’d pulled from the pockets of his cargo pants. “How does the curse look with your ability?”

“Generally, if I focus my attention on a witch, I can see their magic as something like a diagram of nerves in the body. Lines of light connecting through their bodies. In Evangeline’s case, there’s a large disturbance right at her core.” She gestured at my solar plexus. “I can see the curse feeding off your own energy. The lines of power around it are dim, and a few have gone entirely dark.”

I didn’t love being talked about like some sort of medical curiosity to be poked and prodded. If Marcus started taking notes, I would absolutely lose my shit. I rubbed my hands over my arms, trying to chase the goosebumps away.

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