A Feather of Stone

  He followed me.

  “What do you have there, Clio?” he said. His voice was beautiful, slightly accented, and reminded me of afternoons we’d spent lying in each other’s arms.

  “Candles.” I chose some off the shelf, making sure they were unscented and the right diameter.

  “The books,” he said, and reached for them, his fingers brushing my side.

  A tingling shock went through me, as if I had touched a live wire. I tried to pull away, but the books slipped out from under my arm. Luc read the titles, his eyelashes thick and dark as he looked down.

  “None of your business,” I said coolly. “Just like every other aspect of my life.”

  He looked up at me, his handsome face thoughtful. “How are you?” he asked, not commenting on the books. “Have you recovered from Récolte?” He’d been furious at the Récolte circle—he’d punched Daedalus, knocking him to the ground.

  I took my books back, practically snatching them out of his hands. Inside, I felt trembly, uncertain, hurt. All the usual Luc feelings. I wondered if he wished he’d run into Thais instead.

  Not answering him, I headed to the checkout counter. I hated this. I loved him, but he loved my sister. He was still everything I wanted. Why was he playing games with me? What could he possibly get out of it now?

  The clerk rang up my candles and started to ring up the books. She paused when she saw the red RESTRICTED stamp on the inside, by the handwritten price. Looking up at me, she seemed to weigh her options. She’d been working here for several months, and I knew she was Wiccan. Not everyone who worked here was a witch, but she was. She said, “Are you over eighteen?” She looked barely over eighteen herself, with her turquoise hair, pierced nose, and tattooed arm.

  “Yes,” I said clearly, wanting to will her into believing it but figuring it probably wouldn’t work.

  “Can I see some ID?”

  Crap. Damn it. How freaking embarrassing, right in front of Luc. I really needed these books, had to have them. I didn’t want to come back—

  “Those are mine.” Luc stepped up to the counter and put down some money and a driver’s license.

  The clerk glanced from Luc to me while I held my breath. Luc looked only a little older than I did—he’d been frozen in time when he was nineteen. He would be carded in bars forever.

  The clerk finished ringing up my candles and handed me my change. She looked at Luc’s license, rang up the books separately, and put them in a plain paper bag. Handing it to Luc, she gave us both steady looks, as if to say, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Outside, in the night air, I took the books back from Luc. “Thanks,” I said ungraciously, and held out a twenty.

  He shook his head, waving it away. “Those books are dangerous, little Clio. Why do you want them?”

  I turned to head for my car, but his warm hand on my shoulder, heating my skin right through my shirt, made me stop. I loved the way his hands felt on me. A wave of longing and attraction washed over me, practically making me whimper.

  Slowly he turned me to face him. “What are those books for? Or . . . who?”

  I shrugged. Who else would they be for? He didn’t think Petra would want these titles, did he?

  “Tell me. I might be able to help you.”

  The thought of making magick with him made me want to cry. This was unbearable. I pulled my shoulder away. “You’ve already done enough,” I said, my voice shaky, and headed back to my car.

  But again, as I was reaching for the door, Luc turned me to face him. I stood as he traced my cheek with his fingers, burning trails of awareness wherever they touched. He put his head close to mine, and I thought I would scream.

  “I miss you,” he said softly, gently raising my chin to look into my eyes. He pushed his other hand through my hair, holding the back of my neck. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.” Then he lowered his lips to my temple and pressed a feather-soft kiss there. My knees felt weak, and I hoped they wouldn’t buckle.

  “Please tell me how I can help you,” he said. “You don’t have to go through this alone.”

  Somehow that did it—that word woke me up, made me snap back to reality. I drew back a bit and finally looked him in the eye.

  “I’m not alone,” I said, making my voice strong. “I have my sister.”

  Pain flared in his gorgeous, dark blue eyes. His hands dropped away from me and he stepped back.

  I drove home, refusing to cry.

  Someone Who Could Help

  Outside the airport terminal, Marcel inhaled deeply, then coughed out a lungful of car exhaust. Another thing to long for: the clean, pure air of his home, scented by the sea, by peace. The air in New Orleans had taken a dive since the last time he’d been here.

  Still, the moment he’d set foot on the pavement, he’d felt immeasurably better. No longer did he feel as though a thousand insects were crawling under his skin. He’d lost much of his tension, his anxiety—and would lose even more as soon as he saw Daedalus.

  The rage, however, would remain.

  Here, in the city where virtually every kind of vice was tolerated and condoned, his worn brown monk’s robes attracted even more attention than they had in Shannon. He needed help. He had no money, no other clothes. He was completely drained, an emotional shell. It had been days since he’d been able to sleep or eat, thanks to Daedalus.

  A taxi pulled up to the curb, and Marcel climbed in. He would go to Petra. She would help him. She always had.

  Thais

  The next afternoon I eased the Camry into a parking space in front of our house, then forgot to put the clutch in. The engine gagged, then died with a shudder. I winced and turned to Clio, who was wearing her saintly “hope you learn to drive soon” expression.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Clio gathered her stuff and opened her door. “I’m sure my kidneys will bounce right back.”

  I laughed. “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, opening the front gate.

  “Isn’t all this stuff going to die when it freezes?” I asked, pointing to the plants.

  Clio shot me a superior look. “You’re such a Yankee.”

  “It freezes here, right?”

  “Every couple of years,” Clio admitted. “Let’s go see if they finished the back yet.”

  We’d done as much of the work repairing the back of the house as we could, but Petra had hired professionals to do the rest. Rain had delayed the final paint job, but maybe they’d done it today.

  We started down the narrow alley along the side of the house. Without warning, Clio stopped so suddenly that I walked right into her.

  “What’s—” I began, but her hand motioned me to be quiet. I peered over her shoulder.

  “Down there,” she barely breathed, and I went on tiptoe to see better.

  A brown snake was coiled on the sidewalk right in front of us.

  “Is that a good snake?” I whispered.

  “It’s a copperhead—a water moccasin,” Clio whispered back.

  “So that’s not good?”

  She didn’t answer. The snake’s head swayed as it rose into the air.

  “It’s going to strike,” Clio said without moving her lips. “It’s poisonous.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment, and just like that, words came to me. I breathed them out. “Sister snake, leave us now. Return home to your young. Our place is here. Return and be healthy. Va-zhee, va, let, monche.” I didn’t know what those last words were, but the snake paused as if it heard me.

  It pulled back, as if it were going to leave, but suddenly it swung around. Clio backed up quickly, pushing me behind her, but the snake twisted toward us. Suddenly I remembered my nightmare, the one where the snake was coiled around my neck, choking me.

  Clio repeated the spell I’d just said, with the same words at the end. At the last words, she drew two signs in the air, ones I didn’t recognize.

  Again the snake paused, and again it s
wiveled back toward us. “Our magick’s affecting it, but it’s fighting us,” Clio said.

  I couldn’t take the tension anymore. I slid my purse strap off my shoulder and hummed the purse right over Clio’s shoulder at the snake. Clio shrieked almost soundlessly and pulled back. My purse hit the snake, and I mentally said, Sorry, sorry.

  But it did seem to break the snake’s concentration. With a last look at us, it turned and slithered under our neighbor’s fence so quickly that it was gone in a flash.

  I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until I let it out with a whoosh.

  Clio turned to me. “A snake in our alley.”

  “Does that ever happen normally?”

  She paused, considering. “Well, copperheads are all over the place, but not usually uptown. They stay closer to water.”

  “We’re only three blocks from the river,” I pointed out. I paused, shivering despite the heat. “Or do you think it was magick?”

  “I don’t know,” Clio said. “I mean, was this an attack?”

  She headed toward the back again, and I picked up my purse carefully, looking all around in case the snake came back. I’d lived in Welsford, Connecticut, for seventeen years, and the only dangerous thing that had happened to me had been stepping on a dead bee. Since I’d come to New Orleans, I’d been living in mortal peril, like, every day.

  We were almost at the back of the house when we heard Petra’s voice and someone else murmuring back to her. The side windows were open over our heads since the house was raised up on brick pilings.

  “Are you still worried that she’s a dark twin?”

  It was Ouida. Once again Clio and I stopped dead. She turned to me, her finger to her lips. Dark twin? I thought. What are they talking about?

  “I’m thinking—” Petra began, but then she stopped. “Are the girls home?”

  My eyes widened, and Clio pushed me back down the alley, fast and silently.

  “She felt us,” she whispered.

  “What the heck is a dark twin?” I whispered back.

  Clio shrugged, looking clueless. “Your guess is as good as mine.” Turning around again, she strode toward the backyard, making sure her feet made noise on the pavement. I followed, still keeping a wary eye out for the snake.

  “Yeah, and so I’ve got to reread that whole section in chemistry,” Clio said, pitching her voice just a shade louder than normal. “And I’m so bummed because I already answered all those questions.”

  I wasn’t nearly as good at subterfuge as Clio was. “Yeah,” I said, my mind spinning. “Um, I’ve got lots of homework too. So did they finish painting back here or what?”

  Now we were entering the backyard. We walked past the little laundry shed and then “saw” that the back door was open. Inside, Petra was looking out the screen door.

  “Hey,” I said, waving, hoping my face wasn’t too transparent. We hadn’t been deliberately eavesdropping, but clearly Petra hadn’t wanted us to hear about the dark twin thing. My life was one circle of secrets within another—I was losing count of who knew what and who thought what and who I could maybe trust.

  “Hi, girls,” said Petra. “Why didn’t you come in the front?”

  “We wanted to see if they’d finished painting,” said Clio. “And it looks like they did.”

  “Yes, the workmen left a couple of hours ago,” said Petra, opening the door. “How was your day? Did you feel safe?”

  “Yeah,” I said, mounting the steps to the back door. “Until the snake welcoming party when we got home.”

  “Snake?” Petra looked more amused than alarmed. I dumped my backpack and purse on the kitchen floor. Ouida was sitting at the table, and she smiled and waved a muffin in greeting.

  “A copperhead, in the alley.” Clio motioned outside with her head, already taking a bite of muffin.

  “They’re everywhere,” said Ouida. “You always hear about people finding them on their car engines or under the fridges.”

  “What?” I asked in alarm. I looked at our fridge, humming away in the corner.

  Petra smiled again. “They like warm places. So they coil up on top of your car engine or under your refrigerator, where the motor is. To be warm.”

  I didn’t know whether to feel relieved that Petra obviously wasn’t worried the snake had been another attack on me and Clio or freaked out about the idea that meeting up with snakes was an everyday thing around here. “So, you definitely don’t think this was someone trying to go after us again?” I asked, just to be sure.

  Petra pursed her lips, thinking. “It’s possible, of course, but very unlikely. Since nothing else has happened lately, I would say this was regular old luck that you met that snake.”

  “Well, either way, can we put an anti-snake charm around the house?” Clio asked. “I hated running into that thing.”

  “Snakes can be useful,” Petra said. “Keeping down the mice and rats.”

  I sank weakly into a chair. “We have mice and rats now?”

  Ouida and Petra both laughed.

  “Welcome to New Orleans,” Clio said. She looked at me. “Come on, we might as well do our homework upstairs.”

  I realized she wanted to talk to me alone, so I nodded and grabbed my stuff. My mind was reeling. I had done a spell, without thinking, out in the alley. It had almost worked. Now I wanted to know what a dark twin was. Plus, we had snakes and rats and mice, apparently. Ugh.

  In Clio’s room, she got out of her sundress and put on high-cut jean shorts and a tight red T-shirt with a silhouette of Bob Marley on it.

  “Okay, so what the heck is a ‘dark twin’?” I stretched out across her bed.

  “I don’t know. Ordinarily I’d ask Ouida or Melysa, but I think Nan doesn’t want us to know about it.” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and suddenly looked more like me—simpler, less like glamorous Clio. “We should go to the library and check it out or use a computer at Botanika or Café de la Rue.”

  “Why can’t anything be simple?” I groaned. “It seems like I just get used to one thing, and then nine other weird things take its place.”

  Clio smiled. “Believe it or not, my life was much simpler before all this too.” She looked up. “Someone’s coming.”

  My first thought was Luc, but it would be crazy for him to come here. He was lying low lately—I hadn’t seen or heard about him since Récolte.

  The doorbell rang, and Clio went to stand at her open door, listening. We heard Petra walk to the front door and open it.

  “Marcel!” she exclaimed, and Clio looked at me with raised eyebrows.

  “That’s one of the Treize,” she whispered. “One that Daedalus got here with his spell of forceful summoning.”

  “Which one was Marcel?” I came to stand by her. Downstairs we heard murmuring and voices. Petra and Ouida both sounded glad.

  Clio frowned, thinking. “Uh—which ones aren’t accounted for? He wasn’t another slave, was he?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Wait. No.” Clio’s face cleared as she remembered. “Oh—Marcel was Cerise’s lover, the father of her baby. Cerise wouldn’t marry him.” She looked solemn.

  “Hm. Well, let’s go meet him.”

  We went downstairs—everyone was still in the front room. A young, strawberry blond guy was standing between Petra and Ouida. He was taller than Richard but not as tall as Luc. He had fair skin and blue eyes and looked more Irish than French. He was wearing a brown monk’s robe.

  When we walked in, he glanced up, then drew in breath with an audible gasp. He actually stepped back and put his hand up, his eyes wide. I wheeled to see if something was behind us.

  Oh. It was just us, the miracle twins.

  Petra gave a sad smile and took his arm. “Marcel, this is Clio and Thais—Clémence’s daughters. Girls, this is Marcel Theroux, one of the Treize.”

  I stepped forward and held out my hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  The seconds ticked by awkwardly, until Marcel
seemed to force himself to touch my hand briefly. “Hello,” he murmured, looking down.

  “Hi,” said Clio, not offering to shake hands. Marcel looked relieved.

  “Clio, could you please see if any mint survived in the backyard?” Petra asked her. “I’ll make us something soothing to drink. Let’s go back into the kitchen.”

  “We have to get you some new clothes,” Ouida said, taking Marcel’s arm, almost like he was an invalid, I thought. “Where are you staying?”

  “Nowhere,” Marcel said faintly. He had a bit of an English? Irish? accent, and I wondered where he’d been and what he’d been doing. Something monkish, I gathered. They were walking in front of me, and I happened to glance up as he blocked out the sunlight in the doorway.

  This time I gasped, stopping in my tracks. His silhouette, the outline of his head and shoulders—he was the man who’d leaned over the dark-haired woman in the vision Clio and I had shared, the day we’d set fire to the house. He had killed someone in the swamp.

  They turned to look at me, and I shook my head, looking down. My face flushed. “Saw a spider,” I said awkwardly.

  “Spiders, snakes—I guess you haven’t seen snakes in a while, have you, cher?” Petra asked Marcel.

  “No,” he said.

  “Can you come stay with me?” Ouida asked as they sat down at the kitchen table. Clio came in the back door, the strong scent of spearmint preceding her into the room.

  “Yes,” Marcel murmured, not looking at either me or Clio. “I would appreciate it.”

  “Have a drink, and then we’ll get you settled,” Ouida said. “You must be exhausted.”

  “It was a . . . long journey.” His voice sounded tense and sad, as if he were in physical pain. He was very different from the other men in the Treize: pompous Daedalus, quiet but kind Jules, weirdly dark Richard, and then Luc. Marcel seemed even more otherworldly.

  And he had killed someone; I’d seen it myself. But Ouida and Petra both seemed to trust him and care about him. I couldn’t imagine them feeling that way about someone capable of murder. Yeah, Petra had lied to Clio about huge stuff, and I didn’t fully trust her to be completely straight with us. But I did believe that the lies she’d told had been to protect Clio and me. She and Ouida were good people at heart. And if they trusted Marcel . . .