Page 35 of Blood from the Marrow
“Elena has a home on a private island. It is secure,” Librada promised. “No one gets onto the island without our notice.”
Marisol remembered the ostentatious mansion Elena had presented to her and Zuri. The one they’d turned down like it was a leftover turkey sandwich.
Outside, Marisol took a greedy lungful of autumn air. It hadn’t felt cool until she had the stagnant dank to compare it to. Next to her, Librada pulled up her hood, and before Marisol could ask her if she was okay, someone opened the door to the arena behind them.
“Marisol,” Clara said when she met them outside. “The vote to accept your offer of help while we consider aiding Elena was nearly unanimous.” Her tired eyes were too big and too full and too disquietingly familiar. “I don’t know how to thank you.” She swallowed so hard it echoed in the pit in Marisol’s stomach. “I will convince as many as I can to help your partner. Just give me a little time. I know I can do this for you.” Her eyes were so wide and so heavy with unbearable pain.
Marisol wanted to tell her that just because she was her mother, that didn’t make her her mom. That she shouldn’t join them in some misguided attempt at connection. Doing so wouldn’t change the past between them. Couldn’t undo the damage. It was about Elena and Zuri and the family who had chosen her when Clara hadn’t.
But she couldn’t form the words. Instead, she nodded and followed Librada to the waiting SUV. In the backseat, she let herself sink into the comfort of Lib’s familiar silence.
An hour later, a ragtag caravan of old cars and battered vans was following them to Elena’s island estate. The sight of the vehicles in her rearview mirror filled Marisol with a weight she hadn’t anticipated.
Chest aching and heavy with doubt, Marisol thought about Elena alone in the penthouse. Of Zuri, fighting so hard and refusing to let any of them fall apart. She closed her eyes and prayed this was enough. That she was enough.
Chapter Sixteen
In the silenceof her greenhouse on the penthouse balcony, Zuri’s mind raced. She tried to soothe herself with the rhythmic scrapping of pestle against mortar. Tried to focus on the scent of dried rosemary, but all she smelled was sulfurous black salt. Everything she did seemed to add to the tightening knot in her stomach, the one that started growing the moment Marisol told her she was meeting Clara yesterday. Meeting her without Zuri.
It hadn’t loosened when Zuri had come home late the night before from the farm where she’d done her best to prepare the grounds. She didn’t know a witch alive who’d consecrated new earth for a coven, and so much had come from instinct. Instinct interwoven with metric-fuck-tons of doubt.
She’d crawled into bed naked after her shower because she was too tired to get dressed, only to spend what was left of the night listening to Marisol. Listening and worrying.
Clara had at least been honest about the group of Aglion. A hope of Aglion, she thought, recalling the night a million years ago when she and Bambi and Elena had named a grouping of Marisol’s kind. Her chest tightened and her stomach heaved. There was nothing Zuri wouldn’t give to exchange her ability to step into people’s memories for time travel.
Their time together hadn’t felt simple at the time. Zuri had been so stressed out trying to figure out how the hell to get Marisol’s powers to work so they could heal Elena and get the fuck out of there. And now, all she wanted was the simplicity of the three of them together. Unbelievably, she was once more tormented by the inability to make Elena whole. This time in a new and even more fucking impossible way. She worked the rosemary into fine particles and added three dried laurel leaves.
Her thoughts kept going back to every word Marisol had said the night before. No matter how hard Zuri tried to push aside her paranoia, she couldn’t help but suspect Clara’s motives. Why now? After all her years away—Bambi’s lifetime away—why had she shown up now?
The dry leaves crumbled under the pressure of the pestle, but the tension in Zuri’s chest refused to break. She ground the question in her mind along with the herbs, but wasn’t any closer to answer when she poured the pulverized herbs into the bowl of black salt. Protection, Zuri reminded herself. This was for protection and balance and wisdom, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were inviting danger in instead of keeping it out.
A knock at the glass door nearly made Zuri jump out of her skin. When Lib poked her head in a moment later, Zuri cursed her relief and then almost laughed. If someone had told her she’d be relieved to see the red-pupiled vampire at her door, she would have punched them in dick.
“I’ve returned.” Librada stepped into Zuri’s space with a small wooden crate and Zuri found she didn’t hate the intruder in her space.
Zuri cleaned her hands on her canvas apron before yanking it off. She tossed it on her work station and met Lib at one of the armchairs at the center of the small room. “Which one did you get?”
Lib’s face did something unprecedented when she glanced at her. With a lopsided grin, Librada inflated with pride. “All three.” She popped open the top of the container as if it hadn’t been nailed shut.
Inside, sitting in carved out spaces in a foam cube were three pieces that vibrated with age and unblemished power. Having been cleansed by sea salt for hundreds of years, they were pristine for a witch’s purpose. Zuri gawked at the unbelievable haul: a gold coin with a king’s cross that reminded her of a fancy wax seal with its slightly irregular shape, a piece of pottery—a perfect ceramic plate painted in an intricate blue and white pattern, and an emerald and pearl pendant.
Zuri resisted the urge to touch the pendant as she imagined gifting Elena something so beautiful in her first life. But she refused to indulge. Refused to tarnish the perfection with her energy.
“Will they suit your needs?” Librada asked, doubt slithering through her confidence.
Emotion rose in Zuri’s throat, choking her words. She wanted to tell Librada that she couldn’t have brought her anything better. That emeralds meant love and renewal and balance. That pearls brought purity and protection. That she’d brought her something incredible. But she couldn’t make herself speak. For the first time in weeks, she felt the delusional hope of an advantage.
“They’re better than I expected,” she said because it was true even if incomplete.
Librada nodded and covered the crate. “I can deliver it to your land.” She paused. “If that is acceptable.”
The idea of Librada crossing her barriers should have made Zuri’s skin crawl. It didn’t. “I guess you need vampire strength to carry that around like it’s a shoebox.” The joke fell flat to her ears and she added, “Thank you, Librada. This is extraordinary.”
Lib’s eyes went wide as if Zuri’s sincerity was the most unbelievable thing she’d witnessed in several hundred years. Zuri was ready to throw a barb her way just so shit didn’t get weird, but Librada spoke first.
“I made contact with an old acquaintance still in The Order.” She shifted the crate in her hands. “She is willing to meet with me if I travel to Venice.”
Whiplashed, Zuri stepped into Lib’s space. “Did she know about the Aglion?”
