The Veil by Chloe Neill
“I think you look devastatingly handsome.”
Mos looked up at me, blushed. “You shitting me or trying to get information?”
I grinned at him. “Telling the truth. Plus the information thing.”
He looked at Liam. “I like her.”
Liam made a vague noise that probably could have gone either way. “I got a message you have something for us.”
“I do,” Mos said. He spun in his chair, used the dark monitor behind him to check his reflection, finish his hair, then tossed the comb away. And then his hands were on the keys, and he was moving through layers of security like a knife through butter.
He got to a document, sent it to an old-fashioned printer that whirred back and forth across paper with holes on each edge.
“You are the master of technology,” Liam said.
Moses grunted. “Don’t I know it?” When the pages had printed, he ripped it off the printer, ripped away the edges, slapped them on the counter in front of us. “Poked around a little in the Containment files searching for the name you gave me, then moved into the files of some of those businesses they hired to do their work. This one belonged to a contractor called ComTac.”
Liam nodded. “Some of our acquaintances talked to them.”
We looked down at the page. It was clearly a list, but that was about all I could tell. They used the English alphabet, but the words themselves didn’t make any sense. Just jumbled bunches of letters.
“I don’t know what I’m looking at here, Mos,” Liam said.
“It’s a list of persons of interest,” Mos said. “Says so right at the top.”
The top said nothing of the sort.
“But not so you’d get that at first glance,” Mos said. He flipped over the pages, folded it once longwise about a third of the way across, then again. When he turned it back, he folded the flap again, hiding some of the letters in the middle.
“Cheap way of encrypting,” he said. “Effective if you don’t do print.” He grinned with sharp teeth, turned the list toward us again. “But ineffective if you do.”
It became readable. And it became a list of three columns: name, location, power.
“Oh, damn,” I murmured through the horror. “It’s a list of Sensitives. Probably the ones who worked with PCC during the war.”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “Their persons of interest.” He flipped to the second page, reoriented the folds so the names lined up, scanned them. “I count forty-three names in total. And they’ve been working through the list.”
He was right. The first two dozen names had lines through them; they’d been marked off the list. Marla Salas was right in the middle, her name struck through. And we knew what had become of her.
“Damn it, Liam—she wasn’t saying ‘contact.’” I looked at him. “She was saying ‘ComTac.’ She was trying to let us know. She was communicating with us.”
Liam’s eyes widened, and he stared down at the paper. It was the first proof we’d had that wraiths really were capable of communication. “Damn,” he said quietly. “ComTac is trying to open the Veil. They have to investigate each one. Eliminate them one by one to find out if they had the encryption keys.”
I looked back on the list, scanned through for names that looked familiar, as if I’d somehow be able to match up the wraiths I’d seen with the Sensitives on the list.
And on my second pass through, I saw it.
“Oh my God.”
Liam’s gaze snapped to mine in alarm. “What?”
The names had been crossed out in order—one after another. And the next two names on the list, the ones that hadn’t yet been crossed out, were frighteningly familiar. I knew them.
Phaedra Dupre Chenal Conduct magic
Zana Dupre Chenal Call animals
“This is Tadji’s family,” I said, looking up at Liam. “Her mom and aunt. Is Chenal in Acadiana?”
“Yeah. Pointe Coupee Parish, I think.” He frowned. “Why?”
“She said she wasn’t sure where they were—that they moved around a lot—but she told me she grew up somewhere in Acadiana.”
“That a friend of yours?” Mos asked.
“My best friend.” I turned to Liam. “We have to warn her, and we have to get them out.”
It only took Liam a moment to realize the implication, what they were in line for.
“We’re going right now,” he said, and put a hand at my back to guide me to the door. But he looked back at Moses.
“Take care of yourself, Mos. If this is ComTac, or even if it isn’t, they’re willing to hurt people. I don’t want you to be one of the people hurt. Hell, we’ve probably put you in danger just by coming in here.”
“People come in, come out, all the time. You’re no different.” His voice was gruff, but I saw the understanding in his eyes. “I’ll be careful like I always am. You take care of yourself and Red. And you let me know what you find out.”
We left Moses to his store and ran for the gate.
• • •
Ten sprinting minutes later, we were back in front of my store, where Liam had parked his truck. We climbed back in and flew toward Tadji’s cottage.
It was a traditional New Orleans Creole cottage—a small, boxy front, with two long shuttered windows in between two narrow doors, a small porch in front. The house was painted a pale, cheery green, the trim and porch white. Tadji sat on the porch in one of two rocking chairs, notebook and pencil in hand. Surprisingly enough, Burke sat in the other chair. I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that. Glad that we’d be able to loop Delta into what we’d found out. But I didn’t like to see Burke hanging out with Tadji under what might have been false pretenses. Did I think he needed to tell Tadji the truth about who he was? Absolutely. But did she need to find out here? Right now, and from me? I was fuzzier on that.
“You take her, and I’ll take him?” Liam asked.
“You read my mind.”
Tadji and Burke stood when we climbed out of the truck. Burke smiled, at least until he saw the expression on our faces.
I saw the instant flinch of concern in Tadji’s eyes, but she stayed composed. “What’s wrong?” she asked as we crossed the small strip of grass in front of the house.
“I need to talk to Tadji about a family matter.”
Burke’s eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he looked at Tadji. He was worried about whatever this was, and he’d take his cue from her. “Tadj?”
She watched us for a moment, eyes narrowed. It was clear she was suspicious, but she had to know we wouldn’t make such a weird request unless there was a good reason for it.
“It’s fine,” she said finally. “I’ll talk to them.”
Burke smiled, squeezed her hand. “All right,” he said. “But I’m holding you to that lemonade you promised.”
She nodded, watched as he walked down the couple of porch stairs to the sidewalk. He stopped when he reached Liam.
“Let’s go inside,” I said. She stood there for a moment, not sure what to do, before nodding and opening the door.
The interior of the cottage was as original as the exterior. Old oak floors, brick walls, simple, pretty furniture. The house smelled of antiques and peonies, but it was a little stuffy. Probably why she and Burke had been sitting on the porch.
“What’s this about?” Tadji asked. She put the notebook and pencil on a small table, crossed her arms.
“Your mom and aunt might be in danger. We need to find them.”
“What? How could they be in danger?”
“Because they’re Sensitives.”
She froze. “How would you know that? Is this because of those questions you were asking me the other day? Because you were trying to find out where they were?”
“What? No. Oh God.” I put a hand on my chest, horrified that she’d had to worry I was trying to rat out her family. “Is that what you thought? That I was trying to get information about your family? No. I mean, I was curious, but not because I wanted to ge
t your family into trouble.” I swallowed. “It’s because I’m a Sensitive, too.”
She looked stricken, like I’d slapped her.
“Let’s sit down,” I said, gently taking her arm and moving her to a chair. When she was seated, I took the chair opposite her.
“Tadji, I know you don’t like magic, and I know you don’t want to talk about it. But I think it’s better just to get it all out there, okay? So that’s what I’m going to do.” I moistened my lips.
“Someone is trying to open the Veil, and they need Sensitives to do it. Your mom and aunt are on a short list of those who’ve been targeted for information. The people who are doing this—we think it’s a defense contractor—is turning the Sensitives into wraiths to cover their tracks. We need to get to your mom and your aunt before they do, and we need to go now. I wouldn’t bring this to you if I didn’t think it was necessary. If I didn’t think there was a chance they were in very real danger.”
Her gaze stayed steady on me. “You’re sure about this? You’re positive?”
I nodded. “I’m sure.”
“They’re my family,” she said quietly. “Magic or not.” She cleared her throat nervously. “Right now they’re in Chenal. I knew where they were. I didn’t tell you, or anyone else, because . . .”
“Because they’re Sensitives,” I said gently. “Because they’re fugitives. I understand.”
She nodded. “We can go now?”
“Right now,” I agreed, standing, and offering her a hand. “And we’ll get there in time.”
Days like this I really missed telephones.
• • •
I considered, before we left town, going to the Cabildo and dragging Gunnar into the truck. But like Tadji and Burke, I wanted to ease him into whatever was going on here, not throw him into the deep end. We’d get Tadji’s family safe, and then we’d talk to Gunnar.
It would take about two hours to get from New Orleans to Chenal, and we’d pass what remained of Baton Rouge along the way. We hurried down I-10, the six-lane divided freeway that would get us past Baton Rouge to the Mississippi River.
Louisiana’s former capital had taken too much damage, and was closed after the war—the humans relocated, the Paras shipped to Devil’s Isle. Louisiana didn’t have a functioning capital anymore. The entire state was within the Zone, a “conflict community” under the Magic Act, and that made it Containment’s territory.
The city looked like a ghost town. The downtown had been almost completely destroyed in the Battle of Port Allen. Containment blew the levee to shift the momentum in the fight. It turned the tide, literally, but flooded the city. The capitol building’s former tower, four hundred and fifty feet of limestone, had fallen, and now spread across the ground in a long pile of vine-covered rubble.
Neighborhoods not blighted by war and magic still stood empty, but like the tower, nature and time were taking them back. Where the soil was still good, vines and grasses had crept in from the edges, threatening to overtake streets and bridges, and the asphalt had buckled in areas Containment hadn’t bothered to fix.
Liam slowed as we prepared to cross the New Bridge that led across the river. It wasn’t really new anymore, but the name had stuck.
“What’s wrong?” Tadji asked.
“Just want to take it slow,” Liam said, eyes scanning left and right. “You can never really tell about bridges—how well Containment’s kept them up.”
Tadji grabbed my hand, squeezed, and, just as I’d done when I was younger, I tried to hold my breath as we drove beneath the bridge’s steel ribs, and the river roiled beneath us.
“Look,” Liam said as we reached the crest of the river. A black bear ambled in the opposite lane, two small cubs trotting playfully behind her.
Humans were no longer in control of Louisiana, if they’d ever been.
• • •
We passed the cities, entered rural areas where there once had been long fields of rice and sugarcane. Some areas were still scorched by the magic. Shrubby trees were beginning to cover the fields that hadn’t been, because there was no one left to farm them. In another few years, it would be impossible to tell a field had ever been here.
“Why?” I wondered, staring at a strip of land that was still black and devastated so many years later. “Why does magic do this to land?”
“Salt.”
Liam’s answer was so quick, so simple, I glanced back at him. “What?”
“‘For they have destroyed the offenders and salted the earth beyond them, so that nothing else shall grow there,’” he quoted. “Magic is power. Power effects chemical and physical change. And where earth is concerned, it tends to make salts.”
I nodded, recognized a dark box on a pole near the road. “Magic monitors?”
Liam glanced out the window, nodded. “Yeah. Not nearly as many out here as closer to the cities. And the farther you get out, the fewer the markers.”
Along with the magic monitors, billboards dotted the landscape. They were peeling or shredding now, but they’d been long forgotten by whatever company had hung them. They advised people to save water, to GARDEN FOR VICTORY, and BEAT MAGIC WITH MIND AND MUSCLE. The letters were big, the pictures simple. The messages a little depressing, even now.
• • •
As twilight fell, scorched land turned to swamp and both sides of the narrow road dropped into murky water dotted with duckweed, cypress trees and their knobby roots peeking through like tentacles. Liam turned off the AC and rolled down the window. The scent of the bayou washed in—green things, wetness, decay. It was an earthy scent, not totally unlike the smell of New Orleans after a heavy rain. It was all swamp one way or the other.
Other than the occasional scorched tree, there wasn’t much evidence of war here at all.
“The battles didn’t often reach the bayous,” Liam said. “Too messy, too wet, not enough line of sight.”
Tadji nodded. “And when they did, the impact was often covered with a few feet of muddy water. Turn here,” she said, and directed Liam to turn the truck onto a bumpy gravel road, the swamp lapping at the edges. If the water had been much higher, the road would have been impassable.
The house sat on an empty rise surrounded by magnolia trees and palmetto plants, and was absolutely gorgeous. We weren’t far from the river, and the house, two stories with porches that extended the length of the building, sat on brick columns to keep it dry in case of flood. Both floors were lined with windows and haint blue plantation shutters. The house looked old, but was in perfect condition.
A car was parked beside a boat on a trailer in the driveway beside the house, and a pirogue leaned against one of the columns. Transportation for any conditions.
Tadji opened the truck door, hopped down into the grass, wiped Quinn Truck Residue from her pants. I followed her.
Liam circled around, and we glanced at each other while she looked at the house.
“You all right?”
“No,” she said. “I’m nervous, and my palms are sweating, and my stomach is in a knot.”
“You can do this,” I said. “We’ll go in, get them out, and go.”
“Let’s be quick about it,” Liam said, and gestured to the stairs. “Shall we?”
We took the steps to the first floor, and Tadji knocked on one of the double doors, also haint blue, before pushing it open. She walked inside, and we followed.
The interior was lovely, and beautifully French. Ivory walls climbed to an olive green ceiling, which met the painted wooden mantel of a fireplace. The floors were dark wood, mostly covered by a faded rug. The furniture was simple, and probably as old as the house. Ladder-back chairs, a table that held a hobnail vase of flowers, a low sofa.
We walked through one parlor and then a dining room, also pretty and outfitted with antiques, and then into the kitchen.
A woman stood there, stirring a pot that sizzled on the stove.
“Hervé? That you? I thought you were bringing the propane tomor—
” She turned back and glanced at us with eyes the same deep brown of Tadji’s. The resemblance didn’t end there. Her skin had the same dark depth, her limbs similarly long and slim. Her hair was a short cloud of tight curls, the fingers around the spoon elegant and slender.
When she recognized Tadji, she froze, looked from her daughter to the strangers she’d brought with her. Fear crept into her eyes, and the spoon clattered to the floor.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Tadji. What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here. It’s too dangerous. And you aren’t to bring strangers into the house. Are you all right? Is everything all right?”
Her words were fast, panic clearly seeping in.
“They’re friends,” Tadji said, taking a step forward, “and they’re here to help. Things are happening, Mama. Big things. You need to be prepared.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What kinds of things?”
“We should talk to you and Aunt Zana together. It affects both of you.”
She picked up the spoon, turned off the stove. “Zana,” she yelled. “Come in here, please.”
We stood in awkward silence in the kitchen until floorboards began to creak in another part of the house.
Zana came through the doorway in a pale pink dress, looking much like a ghost in this very old house in this very old bayou. She could have been Phaedra’s twin. She had the same long bones and wispy figure, but her face was a little longer, her mouth a little rounder.
Her eyes widened when she saw Tadji in the kitchen. “Tadji. What are you doing here? Has something happened?”
“Hi, Aunt Zana. This is Claire, and this is Liam,” Tadji said, pointing to us. “We need to talk to both of you. Is there a place we can sit down?”
Phaedra took Zana’s hand, walked into the living room linked to the kitchen. They sat down on one couch while Tadji and I sat down on the other. Liam stayed on his feet, arms crossed and ready to move. I hoped we had more time than that.
“What’s this about?” Phaedra asked.
“It’s about you and your magic,” Tadji said.
The sisters looked at each other, linked their hands again.
“What about it?” Phaedra lifted her chin defiantly.
Mos looked up at me, blushed. “You shitting me or trying to get information?”
I grinned at him. “Telling the truth. Plus the information thing.”
He looked at Liam. “I like her.”
Liam made a vague noise that probably could have gone either way. “I got a message you have something for us.”
“I do,” Mos said. He spun in his chair, used the dark monitor behind him to check his reflection, finish his hair, then tossed the comb away. And then his hands were on the keys, and he was moving through layers of security like a knife through butter.
He got to a document, sent it to an old-fashioned printer that whirred back and forth across paper with holes on each edge.
“You are the master of technology,” Liam said.
Moses grunted. “Don’t I know it?” When the pages had printed, he ripped it off the printer, ripped away the edges, slapped them on the counter in front of us. “Poked around a little in the Containment files searching for the name you gave me, then moved into the files of some of those businesses they hired to do their work. This one belonged to a contractor called ComTac.”
Liam nodded. “Some of our acquaintances talked to them.”
We looked down at the page. It was clearly a list, but that was about all I could tell. They used the English alphabet, but the words themselves didn’t make any sense. Just jumbled bunches of letters.
“I don’t know what I’m looking at here, Mos,” Liam said.
“It’s a list of persons of interest,” Mos said. “Says so right at the top.”
The top said nothing of the sort.
“But not so you’d get that at first glance,” Mos said. He flipped over the pages, folded it once longwise about a third of the way across, then again. When he turned it back, he folded the flap again, hiding some of the letters in the middle.
“Cheap way of encrypting,” he said. “Effective if you don’t do print.” He grinned with sharp teeth, turned the list toward us again. “But ineffective if you do.”
It became readable. And it became a list of three columns: name, location, power.
“Oh, damn,” I murmured through the horror. “It’s a list of Sensitives. Probably the ones who worked with PCC during the war.”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “Their persons of interest.” He flipped to the second page, reoriented the folds so the names lined up, scanned them. “I count forty-three names in total. And they’ve been working through the list.”
He was right. The first two dozen names had lines through them; they’d been marked off the list. Marla Salas was right in the middle, her name struck through. And we knew what had become of her.
“Damn it, Liam—she wasn’t saying ‘contact.’” I looked at him. “She was saying ‘ComTac.’ She was trying to let us know. She was communicating with us.”
Liam’s eyes widened, and he stared down at the paper. It was the first proof we’d had that wraiths really were capable of communication. “Damn,” he said quietly. “ComTac is trying to open the Veil. They have to investigate each one. Eliminate them one by one to find out if they had the encryption keys.”
I looked back on the list, scanned through for names that looked familiar, as if I’d somehow be able to match up the wraiths I’d seen with the Sensitives on the list.
And on my second pass through, I saw it.
“Oh my God.”
Liam’s gaze snapped to mine in alarm. “What?”
The names had been crossed out in order—one after another. And the next two names on the list, the ones that hadn’t yet been crossed out, were frighteningly familiar. I knew them.
Phaedra Dupre Chenal Conduct magic
Zana Dupre Chenal Call animals
“This is Tadji’s family,” I said, looking up at Liam. “Her mom and aunt. Is Chenal in Acadiana?”
“Yeah. Pointe Coupee Parish, I think.” He frowned. “Why?”
“She said she wasn’t sure where they were—that they moved around a lot—but she told me she grew up somewhere in Acadiana.”
“That a friend of yours?” Mos asked.
“My best friend.” I turned to Liam. “We have to warn her, and we have to get them out.”
It only took Liam a moment to realize the implication, what they were in line for.
“We’re going right now,” he said, and put a hand at my back to guide me to the door. But he looked back at Moses.
“Take care of yourself, Mos. If this is ComTac, or even if it isn’t, they’re willing to hurt people. I don’t want you to be one of the people hurt. Hell, we’ve probably put you in danger just by coming in here.”
“People come in, come out, all the time. You’re no different.” His voice was gruff, but I saw the understanding in his eyes. “I’ll be careful like I always am. You take care of yourself and Red. And you let me know what you find out.”
We left Moses to his store and ran for the gate.
• • •
Ten sprinting minutes later, we were back in front of my store, where Liam had parked his truck. We climbed back in and flew toward Tadji’s cottage.
It was a traditional New Orleans Creole cottage—a small, boxy front, with two long shuttered windows in between two narrow doors, a small porch in front. The house was painted a pale, cheery green, the trim and porch white. Tadji sat on the porch in one of two rocking chairs, notebook and pencil in hand. Surprisingly enough, Burke sat in the other chair. I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that. Glad that we’d be able to loop Delta into what we’d found out. But I didn’t like to see Burke hanging out with Tadji under what might have been false pretenses. Did I think he needed to tell Tadji the truth about who he was? Absolutely. But did she need to find out here? Right now, and from me? I was fuzzier on that.
“You take her, and I’ll take him?” Liam asked.
“You read my mind.”
Tadji and Burke stood when we climbed out of the truck. Burke smiled, at least until he saw the expression on our faces.
I saw the instant flinch of concern in Tadji’s eyes, but she stayed composed. “What’s wrong?” she asked as we crossed the small strip of grass in front of the house.
“I need to talk to Tadji about a family matter.”
Burke’s eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he looked at Tadji. He was worried about whatever this was, and he’d take his cue from her. “Tadj?”
She watched us for a moment, eyes narrowed. It was clear she was suspicious, but she had to know we wouldn’t make such a weird request unless there was a good reason for it.
“It’s fine,” she said finally. “I’ll talk to them.”
Burke smiled, squeezed her hand. “All right,” he said. “But I’m holding you to that lemonade you promised.”
She nodded, watched as he walked down the couple of porch stairs to the sidewalk. He stopped when he reached Liam.
“Let’s go inside,” I said. She stood there for a moment, not sure what to do, before nodding and opening the door.
The interior of the cottage was as original as the exterior. Old oak floors, brick walls, simple, pretty furniture. The house smelled of antiques and peonies, but it was a little stuffy. Probably why she and Burke had been sitting on the porch.
“What’s this about?” Tadji asked. She put the notebook and pencil on a small table, crossed her arms.
“Your mom and aunt might be in danger. We need to find them.”
“What? How could they be in danger?”
“Because they’re Sensitives.”
She froze. “How would you know that? Is this because of those questions you were asking me the other day? Because you were trying to find out where they were?”
“What? No. Oh God.” I put a hand on my chest, horrified that she’d had to worry I was trying to rat out her family. “Is that what you thought? That I was trying to get information about your family? No. I mean, I was curious, but not because I wanted to ge
She looked stricken, like I’d slapped her.
“Let’s sit down,” I said, gently taking her arm and moving her to a chair. When she was seated, I took the chair opposite her.
“Tadji, I know you don’t like magic, and I know you don’t want to talk about it. But I think it’s better just to get it all out there, okay? So that’s what I’m going to do.” I moistened my lips.
“Someone is trying to open the Veil, and they need Sensitives to do it. Your mom and aunt are on a short list of those who’ve been targeted for information. The people who are doing this—we think it’s a defense contractor—is turning the Sensitives into wraiths to cover their tracks. We need to get to your mom and your aunt before they do, and we need to go now. I wouldn’t bring this to you if I didn’t think it was necessary. If I didn’t think there was a chance they were in very real danger.”
Her gaze stayed steady on me. “You’re sure about this? You’re positive?”
I nodded. “I’m sure.”
“They’re my family,” she said quietly. “Magic or not.” She cleared her throat nervously. “Right now they’re in Chenal. I knew where they were. I didn’t tell you, or anyone else, because . . .”
“Because they’re Sensitives,” I said gently. “Because they’re fugitives. I understand.”
She nodded. “We can go now?”
“Right now,” I agreed, standing, and offering her a hand. “And we’ll get there in time.”
Days like this I really missed telephones.
• • •
I considered, before we left town, going to the Cabildo and dragging Gunnar into the truck. But like Tadji and Burke, I wanted to ease him into whatever was going on here, not throw him into the deep end. We’d get Tadji’s family safe, and then we’d talk to Gunnar.
It would take about two hours to get from New Orleans to Chenal, and we’d pass what remained of Baton Rouge along the way. We hurried down I-10, the six-lane divided freeway that would get us past Baton Rouge to the Mississippi River.
Louisiana’s former capital had taken too much damage, and was closed after the war—the humans relocated, the Paras shipped to Devil’s Isle. Louisiana didn’t have a functioning capital anymore. The entire state was within the Zone, a “conflict community” under the Magic Act, and that made it Containment’s territory.
The city looked like a ghost town. The downtown had been almost completely destroyed in the Battle of Port Allen. Containment blew the levee to shift the momentum in the fight. It turned the tide, literally, but flooded the city. The capitol building’s former tower, four hundred and fifty feet of limestone, had fallen, and now spread across the ground in a long pile of vine-covered rubble.
Neighborhoods not blighted by war and magic still stood empty, but like the tower, nature and time were taking them back. Where the soil was still good, vines and grasses had crept in from the edges, threatening to overtake streets and bridges, and the asphalt had buckled in areas Containment hadn’t bothered to fix.
Liam slowed as we prepared to cross the New Bridge that led across the river. It wasn’t really new anymore, but the name had stuck.
“What’s wrong?” Tadji asked.
“Just want to take it slow,” Liam said, eyes scanning left and right. “You can never really tell about bridges—how well Containment’s kept them up.”
Tadji grabbed my hand, squeezed, and, just as I’d done when I was younger, I tried to hold my breath as we drove beneath the bridge’s steel ribs, and the river roiled beneath us.
“Look,” Liam said as we reached the crest of the river. A black bear ambled in the opposite lane, two small cubs trotting playfully behind her.
Humans were no longer in control of Louisiana, if they’d ever been.
• • •
We passed the cities, entered rural areas where there once had been long fields of rice and sugarcane. Some areas were still scorched by the magic. Shrubby trees were beginning to cover the fields that hadn’t been, because there was no one left to farm them. In another few years, it would be impossible to tell a field had ever been here.
“Why?” I wondered, staring at a strip of land that was still black and devastated so many years later. “Why does magic do this to land?”
“Salt.”
Liam’s answer was so quick, so simple, I glanced back at him. “What?”
“‘For they have destroyed the offenders and salted the earth beyond them, so that nothing else shall grow there,’” he quoted. “Magic is power. Power effects chemical and physical change. And where earth is concerned, it tends to make salts.”
I nodded, recognized a dark box on a pole near the road. “Magic monitors?”
Liam glanced out the window, nodded. “Yeah. Not nearly as many out here as closer to the cities. And the farther you get out, the fewer the markers.”
Along with the magic monitors, billboards dotted the landscape. They were peeling or shredding now, but they’d been long forgotten by whatever company had hung them. They advised people to save water, to GARDEN FOR VICTORY, and BEAT MAGIC WITH MIND AND MUSCLE. The letters were big, the pictures simple. The messages a little depressing, even now.
• • •
As twilight fell, scorched land turned to swamp and both sides of the narrow road dropped into murky water dotted with duckweed, cypress trees and their knobby roots peeking through like tentacles. Liam turned off the AC and rolled down the window. The scent of the bayou washed in—green things, wetness, decay. It was an earthy scent, not totally unlike the smell of New Orleans after a heavy rain. It was all swamp one way or the other.
Other than the occasional scorched tree, there wasn’t much evidence of war here at all.
“The battles didn’t often reach the bayous,” Liam said. “Too messy, too wet, not enough line of sight.”
Tadji nodded. “And when they did, the impact was often covered with a few feet of muddy water. Turn here,” she said, and directed Liam to turn the truck onto a bumpy gravel road, the swamp lapping at the edges. If the water had been much higher, the road would have been impassable.
The house sat on an empty rise surrounded by magnolia trees and palmetto plants, and was absolutely gorgeous. We weren’t far from the river, and the house, two stories with porches that extended the length of the building, sat on brick columns to keep it dry in case of flood. Both floors were lined with windows and haint blue plantation shutters. The house looked old, but was in perfect condition.
A car was parked beside a boat on a trailer in the driveway beside the house, and a pirogue leaned against one of the columns. Transportation for any conditions.
Tadji opened the truck door, hopped down into the grass, wiped Quinn Truck Residue from her pants. I followed her.
Liam circled around, and we glanced at each other while she looked at the house.
“You all right?”
“No,” she said. “I’m nervous, and my palms are sweating, and my stomach is in a knot.”
“You can do this,” I said. “We’ll go in, get them out, and go.”
“Let’s be quick about it,” Liam said, and gestured to the stairs. “Shall we?”
We took the steps to the first floor, and Tadji knocked on one of the double doors, also haint blue, before pushing it open. She walked inside, and we followed.
The interior was lovely, and beautifully French. Ivory walls climbed to an olive green ceiling, which met the painted wooden mantel of a fireplace. The floors were dark wood, mostly covered by a faded rug. The furniture was simple, and probably as old as the house. Ladder-back chairs, a table that held a hobnail vase of flowers, a low sofa.
We walked through one parlor and then a dining room, also pretty and outfitted with antiques, and then into the kitchen.
A woman stood there, stirring a pot that sizzled on the stove.
“Hervé? That you? I thought you were bringing the propane tomor—
When she recognized Tadji, she froze, looked from her daughter to the strangers she’d brought with her. Fear crept into her eyes, and the spoon clattered to the floor.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Tadji. What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here. It’s too dangerous. And you aren’t to bring strangers into the house. Are you all right? Is everything all right?”
Her words were fast, panic clearly seeping in.
“They’re friends,” Tadji said, taking a step forward, “and they’re here to help. Things are happening, Mama. Big things. You need to be prepared.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What kinds of things?”
“We should talk to you and Aunt Zana together. It affects both of you.”
She picked up the spoon, turned off the stove. “Zana,” she yelled. “Come in here, please.”
We stood in awkward silence in the kitchen until floorboards began to creak in another part of the house.
Zana came through the doorway in a pale pink dress, looking much like a ghost in this very old house in this very old bayou. She could have been Phaedra’s twin. She had the same long bones and wispy figure, but her face was a little longer, her mouth a little rounder.
Her eyes widened when she saw Tadji in the kitchen. “Tadji. What are you doing here? Has something happened?”
“Hi, Aunt Zana. This is Claire, and this is Liam,” Tadji said, pointing to us. “We need to talk to both of you. Is there a place we can sit down?”
Phaedra took Zana’s hand, walked into the living room linked to the kitchen. They sat down on one couch while Tadji and I sat down on the other. Liam stayed on his feet, arms crossed and ready to move. I hoped we had more time than that.
“What’s this about?” Phaedra asked.
“It’s about you and your magic,” Tadji said.
The sisters looked at each other, linked their hands again.
“What about it?” Phaedra lifted her chin defiantly.