Page 63 of White Little Lies

“And your favor was themgivingyou their magic?”

“Well in my head, the favor specifically stated that I could touch the well. That’s all I actually needed. Normally, only the nymphs can touch it.”

In my opinion she was splitting hairs. The contract had been vague at best, but… it had obviously worked for her.

Now to somehow un-work it.

“Enough of this.” Lucas stepped around me. “How did you get my feather from Helena?”

I froze at the name, something tickling the edge of my memory. I blinked at a flash of an image, my mother holding my hand when I was little. My father speaking to her, and he had called her… Helena.

But that wasn’t the name either of us had remembered. And now she was being called Celeste. Just how many names did my mother possess?

Penelope smirked, and I realized something else. I recognized her. I had met her before. As soon as the realization hit, everything flooded back. I had been here before. When I was just a little girl, my mother had taken me to the hells.

That would have been after she severed the paths to the other realms with the Realm Breaker, but the hells were a near realm. A full-blooded celestial would have no problem reaching them. Hell, even I had been able to reach them.

But that meant…

Penelope’s eyes shifted as my thoughts played out across my face. There was only one reason to visit a devil in the hells.

“You had a contract with my mother.”

Her parted lips showed a brief moment of genuine surprise, but she recovered quickly. “And here I thought she had stolen all your memories.”

I looked at Sebastian as I said, “Memories can’t be stolen. Only hidden.” He’d been the one to tell me as much. He had also admitted to knowing my mother far in the past, but he hadn’t mentioned any contract with his sister, and that would’ve been far more recent.

“Did you know?” I asked.

He just stared at me blankly.

“You son of a—”

Penelope’s finger whipped up, pointing at my face. “Now don’t go insulting our mother.”

I gritted my teeth. I still didn’t fully understandwhat was going on, but Penelope had a contract with my mother, and Sebastian never told me about it. “What did my mother want from you?”

Her eyes danced. Lucas was looming over her like he might pummel her, but she didn’t seem worried. She gave him a small smile as she answered, “She wanted information on the ones hunting her, and she gave me a favor from an angelic in return.”

Lucas seethed at her words. “It does not work like that. I only owe my oath where it was willingly given.”

She tilted her head, draping that long dark hair across the shoulder of her frock coat. “Oh, dear, but itdidwork like that. I knew as long as I had the feather and I knew where it came from, I could get you to do whatever I wanted. And youdid.”

“And now you’ll pay.”

Sebastian was suddenly there pulling me aside as Lucas’ wings flared out. He whipped them in a blinding arc toward Penelope, but his entire body froze mid motion. Only one toe still touched the ground. The only thing that moved was his throat bobbing as he swallowed.

“Unwise to attack a devil in the hells,” Penelope tsked. Whatever she had done, she hadn’t even broken a sweat. The lantern still dangled from one hand, undisturbed.

Sebastian gave me a meaningful look at her words, but I simply glared back at him. He had lied to me. Ididn’t carewhathe wanted me to know now. It was probably just more lies.

He gave me an impatient look, rolling his eyes toward his sister as she sliced her hand through the air, and Lucas fell to the ground in a heap. She stood over the fallen angelic, smiling. “Now, what am I to do with you? I am grateful that you brought Eva here, but she would have come for my brother eventually, so it’s not as if you’ve done me any grand favor.”

My eyes darted toward Sebastian again. So he was the bait to lure me here? Andwhywasn’t he saying anything?

Lucas scooted away from her, then hobbled to his feet. Whatever magic she’d used on him had done more than hold him in place. He looked like he could barely stand. He clenched his hands into fists, but didn’t attack again. It was shocking seeing him so easily bested. Even Sebastian had struggled against him.

But that had been on earth, where even Crispin’s magic was weakened.

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