Demon's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood) (34 page)

“Are you certain this is the right address?” Mac asked, looking a bit pea-green himself.

Through her watering eyes, Bianca checked the paper one final time. “This is it.” She jumped back as a rat the size of a lapdog scuttled out from under the rotted foundation to disappear down a nearby drain. “You’d think someone as well-known as this Ringrose fellow would be able to afford a decent workplace.”

Mac threw her an encouraging smile. “Mayhap the rare-plant business isn’t what it used to be.”

She hiked up her resolve with a lift of her shoulders. “Well, we won’t find out by standing here.”

Mac turned the door handle, ushering her inside.

A bell tinkled over the doorway as they entered, an answering chime echoing from somewhere in the back, but Bianca’s attention was all for the Aladdin’s cave of treasures that lay before them.

Narrow aisles ran between shelves heavy with old and weathered books mixed in with jars big and small containing specimens preserved in brine: here a small toad, there what looked like a hairless rat, the third Bianca couldn’t even begin to guess and, by the looks of it, was better off not knowing. Another aisle held shrunken heads—of men and women—some with hair, some without. A trio of mysterious bottles labeled XXX and with a skull and crossbones stood like soldiers in a row beside a stuffed parrot and a glass dish of eggs the size of apples. Just beyond was a wall that contained nothing but drawers from top to bottom. She pulled open a few to find small bundles wrapped in cloth, colored stones, a fish skeleton.

From the ceiling hung thousands of bunches of dried plants, so many tucked against each other that the ceiling joists had disappeared from view. In addition, running the perimeter of the shop were wide counters containing live plants growing in glorious profusion. She recognized sweet marjoram and garden rocket. A small pot of rush leeks peeked from behind the wide leaves of an endive. One wall held a profusion of featherfew blooming as if it were July. Another contained great blowsy peonies, which typically only burst into flower in April.

Vaguely, she registered Mac’s hand giving hers a reassuring squeeze, his muttered oath mixing with her own, the clamor and chaos of the bustling
wharves cut off as the door swung shut with the clang of a prison cell.

Dizziness overcame her, a strange tilt and spin as if the earth had suddenly shifted for a moment beneath her feet, the light growing flat and gray, her stomach rising into her throat. She closed her eyes, inhaling through her nose and out her mouth, feeling Mac’s tension in the grip of her hand, the heat in his voice.

“This place reeks of magic, Bianca. We need to leave. Now.”

Her eyes snapped open, the world steadying as she gripped his arm tighter. “We can’t. Not if we want to find the last plant on Adam’s list.”

Mac shot her a strange, worried look. “Bianca? Is something wrong? You seem unwell.”

“Who’s there?” From behind the curtain, a voice as crackly and old as dry paper piped up. “Who is it, Badb? Can you see them?”

“I’m here seeking Bartholomew Ringrose,” Mac called.

Something black and swift as an arrow dove on them from the ceiling, brushing so close by Bianca that she felt the whisper of its talons pass her cheek. A crow half again a normal size alighted upon a chair back, studying them with eyes shiny black as marbles.

“Well, Badb? Do we know them?” the voice asked, still from the anonymity of the back rooms. “Are they who they say they are?”

A croak from the crow, a twitch of its glossy head.

“See for myself?” the voice whined. “Well, I shall, won’t I? I hope they don’t expect to be fed. I’ve only lunch enough for two.”

A hand pushed aside a faded, once-luxurious
velvet curtain separating the store from the rooms behind, and out stepped a skeletal man with a long white beard, flowing silver hair, and bushy eyebrows like whisk brooms. Dressed in a shabby suit of threadbare clothes, he had a napkin stuffed into his shirt and a striped and tasseled cap perched upon his head. The combination of all this should have given him a clownish air, but there was nothing humorous in the expression blazing from his glittering silver eyes.

“What’s so important you feel the need to interrupt someone’s luncheon? I warn you, I haven’t enough for any guests. Besides, it’s chops and gravy, Badb’s favorite, and she doesn’t like to share.”

The crow fluttered from her perch upon the chair to land upon the man’s shoulder. With twin pairs of gimlet eyes, they sized Mac and Bianca up with raking stares that could curdle milk. A headache blazed up behind her eyes.

“We’re looking for a plant. We were told you might have it,” Mac said.

“A plant? You’re bothering me for a plant? What do I look like, the corner flower girl? Buy the woman a bunch of violets and be done with it. Come bothering me for a plant,” he muttered. “Badb, can you believe it? As if I’ve the time for such nonsense. And us just settling in to our luncheon.”

The crow squawked, skittering a few steps up and back on Ringrose’s shoulder.

“I’d wish you good day, but I’d be lying. Now, push off and let me get back to my chop.” He turned away, obviously already dismissing them from his mind.

“I can see why the plant business isn’t booming,” Mac muttered.

Ignoring the mounting discomfort at her temples, Bianca shushed him with a wave of her hand. “We’re looking for
Aquameniustis,
Mr. Ringrose. Have you heard of it? You’re our last hope.”

The man peered at her closely for the first time, his stare giving her a pins-and-needles feeling as it traveled from the tip of her head to the tips of her boots. The thudding behind her eyes doubled in intensity, spreading from her temples to overtake her whole brain. It throbbed with every beat of her heart.

The crow bobbed its black head and flapped its wings.

“What’s that?”

“
Aqua
—”

“Hush, woman. I heard you the first time. Just getting my bearings.”

Bianca sucked in a breath, her hand tightening on Mac’s. Here it was. The answer they sought. Even now, the plant they needed could be hanging inches away or tucked among the vines and greenery growing rampant around the room.

“
Aqua
 . . .” he mumbled to himself, combing a hand through his beard, eyes lost in thought. “. . . 
iustis
. Sounds familiar. On the tip of my tongue.”

Bianca crushed her reticule as she awaited his answer.

Ringrose stopped, hands still tangled in his beard, eyes narrowed. “Never heard of it. Sounds made-up to me. Now, be off with you and let me get back to my luncheon.”

He started to dive back behind the curtain, but Bianca snatched his sleeve. By now her eyes watered, her vision narrowing. The pain seized her brain in a vise-like grip, pushing down into her spine, and she wanted to be sick. “If you remember or come across
it, please send for me—Mrs. Parrino.” She handed him her card. “It’s very important.”

His glittering gold stare moved from the card to her face and back again. “Parrino, is it? The one who murdered the chap in St. James’s Park?”

He twitched free of her, diving behind the curtain, leaving Bianca shaky-kneed and splashed with perspiration, hopes cracking in her chest.

“It’s over, Bianca. Come along.”

She hung back, expecting the old man to return, tell her it was all a mistake, and present her with the specimen. Like a child anticipating a treat, she dragged her feet, throwing expectant glances over her shoulder—right up until the door closed behind them, and they were left standing out upon the street, a buzzing in her head, and a pain in her heart.

“I’m not giving up,” she vowed.

“Maybe David’s right. Maybe I’m chasing phantoms,” Mac said, a harshness to his features she’d not seen before.

The chill in the air acted like a slap to the face, the worst of her sickness seeming to fade in the brisk river wind. “The answer is out there. Adam wouldn’t have listed it if it didn’t exist. We just have to find the right person to ask.”

Mac looked on her, eyes blazing in his stark and pale face, cupping her cheek in one shaking hand. “I have found exactly the right person, Bianca.”

*   *   *

“Thank you for coming with me. Sebastian’s been too busy and Sarah isn’t exactly up on her swordplay. And since the truth has come out, they both have barely let me out of their sight.”

“They rise in my estimation every minute. It’s unsafe for you until Madame Froissart is contained.”

“You mean killed, don’t you?”

“She’s dangerous, Bianca. Any Fey-blood powerful enough to manipulate my
krythos
is a force to be reckoned with. I’ll not have you hurt.”

“A bit late for that,” she said with a rueful twist of her lips.

She moved up the stairs and into her bedchamber, the hearth black and cold, curtains drawn against a dim afternoon, Mac’s tread slow behind her. “Gray explained what happened . . . why Renata Froissart seeks you.”

Mac’s face tightened until the bones stood stark and sharp under his skin, eyes like dark pools, fists clenched. “Did he?”

“He told me everything, including Adam’s role. You didn’t kill anyone, Mac. It wasn’t you who murdered the chevalier and his family. It was Adam. He killed all of them.”

But I would have if I had been there in his place,” Mac answered. “I would have wielded the sword just as effectively. I would have done my duty and eliminated the threat.”

Her heart galloped in her chest. “And now?”

He gazed at her with an expression she’d never seen before. It frightened her and thrilled her at the same time. “I could no more harm you than I could cut off my own arm.”

Gripping the back of a chair, she turned away, unable to face the intensity in his pale eyes. Her headache had receded, leaving in its place a hollow emptiness, his words seeming to echo against the fragile shell of her skull.

“Why did you want to come back?” he asked. “Couldn’t Deane have sent someone round for your things?”

“He could have, but I needed to see the place, if only to convince myself that the last few weeks haven’t been some grand hallucination. That I won’t suddenly open my eyes in my own bed and discover you and the Imnada and Fey-bloods and . . . and the two of us together wasn’t just a crazy dream.”

“Are you convinced?”

“I suppose I have to be, but it’s almost disappointing. I think I expected a unicorn to meet me in the hall or faeries to be dancing on my dining room table. It’s just musty and damp and no magic in sight.”

“As I recall, unicorns only show themselves to virgins, and the Fey are a dour, arrogant lot. You’d never catch them doing anything as frivolous as dancing.”

“Have you ever met one?” she asked, trying to keep the tone light despite the tension humming in the air. She knew that if she turned, he’d be watching her, his eyes focused like a beast upon its prey, body coiled like a spring. Crossing to the cabinet beside her bed, she slid open the top drawer, drawing out her pistol.

“No, though I’ve heard of Imnada who have and some who’ve never returned from the meeting or come away shades of their former selves.” He spied the weapon in her hand, taking a startled step back. “Bloody hell. Bianca.”

“Relax. This is what I came to collect.” He continued to eye her as if she’d run mad. “You asked me once how I managed to fend off all those unwanted suitors. Now you know. I keep it by my bed, just in case. Always have done since Lawrence . . . well, since his death.”

“You’re a constant surprise, Bianca Parrino.”

“I told you once before, I do what I must.” A shiver jumped down her spine as she placed the gun in her reticule.

Sarah called love a risk. Jory spoke of living versus surviving. Even Sebastian in his way had thrown a gauntlet at her feet. Clasping her hands together in front of her, Bianca breathed slowly through the fluttery excitement bubbling through her. “It all looks a little flamboyant and tawdry after Line Farm. Pink-and-gold wallpaper? It’s like a bordello in here.”

“You can’t compare this place to the Wallace house. May as well compare apples to pumpkins or yourself to Marianne. There’s no similarity.”

She rubbed the dust of weeks between her fingers, glancing back at him over her shoulder. “Isn’t there? I’d say we have quite a lot in common.”

His gaze flickered and was still. “I stand corrected. You and she are much alike. You both made the mistake of falling in love with a shapechanger.”

Dust forgotten, she dropped her hands to her sides. “Was it, Mac? Truly? I sent you away, but now I have to know. Was what we had between us a mistake? Was it nothing to you but a way to keep me close and persuade me to help you with Adam’s journal?”

Risk it all. Throw the dice. Ask the question. That’s what she’d done. Now it was up to Mac to offer the response. The silence stretched thin as wire between them, until she wished she’d held her tongue. Here, then, was her answer, much as it grieved her to admit it.

Unable to withstand the damning quiet, Bianca flung herself away, but a hand grabbed her arm, holding her captive. He spun her around until she stood
pressed against him, the buttons of his uniform poking into her skin, his grip cutting off the circulation to her fingers, his dark gaze burning a hole through to her brain.

She didn’t care. It was enough that he held her. That he would not let her escape. It was hope where she’d had none.

Slowly, Mac reached up to push a stray curl behind her ear, his gaze alive with a scorching hunger until she felt she must melt beneath his devouring stare. “Nay, Bianca,” he said, his voice hoarse, his breathing ragged. “No mistake and no trick. Not then. Not now.”

He lowered his mouth to hers in a kiss, gentle despite the urgency radiating off him like heat off sand. Even in his ruthless need, he held back, the strength it took visible in the rock-hard tension of his muscles, the racing of his heart beneath her palm. She shivered with love for this man who could offer her such a precious gift.

Threading her fingers into his hair, she pulled him closer, as if he might come to his senses if she allowed him time to think, or as if
she
might, given the opportunity. After all, they’d settled nothing between them. Not really. The curse still clouded every moment. Renata Froissart still hunted them. Mac’s decision to return to the clans had not changed. And as far as she knew, she remained unwelcome at the theater.