Page 28 of Langiappe & Lost Legends

What we found in the archive room made me wish I'd grabbed one of those energy potions Kota was cooking up. Or maybe just a full bottle of aged whiskey. The place looked like a library picked a fight with a tornado and lost spectacularly. Papers whirled through the air, books were splayed open on every surface like wounded soldiers, and files scattered like confetti at a parade gone wrong. And in the middle of this chaos stood Viktor. He looked like the cat that ate the quantum canary while flipping off physics itself.

"Ah, the Sisters Six," he practically purred. "I was wondering when you'd join us." His tone was casual, as you please. You’d never know we'd caught him ransacking the council's brand-new archives. "Lovely morning for some research, isn't it?"

My charm bracelet was practically vibrating off my wrist. The probability threads around him were so twisted they made my eyes water. Yeah, this was going to be one of those days where being right sucked worse than gas station coffee. Every alarm bell I had was going off. Lucas tensed beside me. He was clearly picking up on the same vibe. "Viktor," I said carefully, "what exactly are you looking for?"

"Oh, you know," he waved a hand dismissively, but his eyes were sharp. "Just following up on some interesting energy readings. The crystal's signature has been... particularly active lately."

"You've been tracking it," Phi said in a voice flatter than week-old soda. She waved her latest science fair project around. It was some kind of detector that was having a seizure. "That's why the Lost Legends were always one step ahead. You've been feeding them information."

Viktor flashed us a smile that showed way too many teeth. Think shark meets used car salesman. "Smart girl. But then, that's why they chose your bloodlines, isn't it? The Smith determination and the Yearsley intuition. It’s the perfect combo for juicing up that crystal's power."

"You son of a—" I started, but Lucas caught my arm before I could do something stupid like try to punch a vampire. Though honestly, the way my day was going, it might have been therapeutic.

"You used us," Dani said. Her voice was colder than a witch's tit in January. "You fed them information about our activities so they could stay one step ahead."

Viktor actually clapped. The smug bastard. "Finally caught up, did you? Your awakening powers were just the beginning. The Lost Legends have been tracking your energy signatures across the Quarter. Six sisters with pure bloodlines. You're the perfect catalysts they've been searching for."

My stomach rolled like I'd eaten bad gumbo. They'd been following our magical trail like bloodhounds on steroids. Even now, they probably knew we were at the council chambers and were trying to find a way past the shields we'd thrown up around Willowberry.

"Why the wedding venues?" Noah asked, wrapping an arm around Dani like that would protect her from this clusterfuck. "Why target emotional bonds?"

"Because it's your business, isn't it?" Viktor said like he was explaining colors to a toddler. "Every couple that books Willowberry has to visit the property. We've been hoping oneof your happy couples would give us a way back onto your land." He spread his hands like a showman. "But you've gotten annoyingly good at warding the place. So, we've had to get creative. They can still drain your energy, but they can’t get back inside..."

He trailed off meaningfully, and I felt my blood run cold. They thought there were more artifacts they could use in our secret room, and they were determined to find a way back onto our property to get to them. Every wedding venue they hit was another attempt to get at us.

The realization hit me harder than my first hangover. "The Light Fae party," I breathed. "That's what they're waiting for. They’re trying to track that couple, but you couldn’t tell them the identities because we never told anyone."

"Bingo!" Viktor's grin could have powered Las Vegas. "And those fancy new wards you just put up? They're not keeping anyone out. They're keeping the power in."

Lucas moved faster than a cat in a dog park, but Viktor was already pulling his disappearing act. "Oh, and sisters?" his voice echoed through the archive like a bad horror movie. "Keep strengthening those wards. The stronger they are, the better they'll contain the explosion when they overload all those new toys."

We stood there like idiots among the scattered papers. Six sisters and two seriously pissed-off shifter mates, marinating in the knowledge of how badly we'd been played. "Well," I said, because inappropriate humor is my superpower, "guess we know why I've been mainlining energy drinks. Nothing like being an unwitting magical battery to drain a girl's resources."

"Lia," Lucas warned, but I could see the worry in his eyes.

"What? Can't a girl joke about being cosmically screwed?" I ran my hands through my hair. "Seriously, we're in deep shit. We can't cancel the party. It might be the last one we throw. Wealso can't leave the artifacts unprotected. And can't trust anyone who isn't in this room right now."

"We fight back," Dre said in a voice as solid as an oak. "They want to use our connection to the crystal? Fine. But they're about to learn that the Smith determination and the Yearsley intuition aren't just fancy words in some dusty journal."

"They're right about one thing," Phi added. Her brain was obviously running calculations faster than my credit card at Target. "We are perfect catalysts. But they forgot something important."

"What's that?" Kota asked.

A grin spread across Phi’s face as I felt the power building between us. "Catalysts can change the direction of a reaction. And sestras? We're about to flip their whole plan on its head."

"We’re going to need help. Call Kaitlyn," I told my sisters. "If we're going to turn this whole thing around, we need her working with us."

Dre had her phone in hand and a few minutes later, Kaveh teleported Kaitlyn into the council archives. "What happened now?”

We updated her on what we discovered about Viktor and his involvement with the Lost Legends. Kaveh cursed and vanished to go looking for the vampire. We left him to his hunt. "Okay," Phi said as she pulled out one of her new devices. "If Viktor's been tracking us and giving it to the Legends, we can use that against them. Every time they ping our location, they're creating a connection we can trace."

"Like supernatural breadcrumbs," Kaitlyn added with a grin. "We just need to follow it back to their hidey-hole."

Two hours and one warehouse raid later, we all looked like we'd gone ten rounds with a temporal blender. Blood dripped from our noses. Our powers flickered like bad fluorescent lights as reality tried to tear itself apart around us. "Well," I managedwhile trying not to throw up as time did the cha-cha around us, "that could have gone better."

"You think?" Dre snapped, pressing a rag against Dea's nose as it gushed red. "They were ready for us. They knew we'd track them."

"At least we know what they're planning now," Phi said. "They're toying with us."

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