“How are you doing?” I asked, clearing my throat. “I haven’t seen you… for a while.”
“I’ve been busy dealing with… the aftermath.”
“And Clementine’s fitting in on the Senate?”
He straightened. “Yes,” he said, his tone closing the book on that subject.
I tapped the shoebox. “Thanks for the shoes. I’ll probably never wear them, but they’re the prettiest things I’ve ever owned.”
His expression softened. “It was the least I could do. After everything.”
“The protesters are having a field day.” I leaned forward and hugged my knees. “But the Senate’s damage control seems to be doing okay.”
“So far.” He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and left it on the coffee table. “A cheque for services rendered. It’s made out to you, but we trust you to split it between everyone who helped.”
“We’re getting paid now?” I grinned. “That’s new.”
He shrugged. “The Senate desperately needs to keep everything aboveboard. If your people were working under our orders, then there should be no blowback on you for… anything that comes to light.”
“Ah.” I pushed the envelope aside. “I’ll make sure everyone involved gets their fair share. Is the night Egan died going to be a problem for… anyone?”
“Me, you mean?” he said wryly. “Not so much unless the Senate decide to oust me.”
That worried me. “Would they do that?”
“I’ve come to understand that people are capable of anything. This will blow over, but that doesn’t mean it won’t rise up again in the future.”
“Do you think…” I bit my lip. “Do you think it’s over with Egan? Or will there be any nasty surprises down the line?”
He looked faintly surprised. “He’s dead. The school will reopen soon. The protesters will get bored. The newspapers will find a new story. It’s over, Ava.”
“And the halfway house?”
“We’re pushing it forward.” A sheepish laugh escaped his lips. “Noah proved to have more sense than I did. He deserves a chance to keep proving himself.”
“Like Clementine, eh?”
“You know how it is, Ava.” He licked his lower lip. “I’ve been to see Lavinia and Robin. They’re related to the twins in some way, so I suppose they are family.”
“Lavinia’s had a weird life. She might struggle in the real world without some help.”
“She told me things that make my skin crawl,” he said. “But they’re safe now. Tomas is well protected in case any of the criminals he’s helping us find decide to get rid of him.” He sighed. “And I heard from Lorcan. He told me you convinced him to return home for a visit.”
“I thought you might need that, given everything that happened. But he didn’t need much convincing. I think he’s looking forward to it.” I rubbed the back of my neck, wondering how to begin. “There’s something I found that I didn’t show you.”
He froze. “What is it?”
“When Breslin was looking for information on tithes and such, he found some of Baba Yaga’s old ledgers. She had a lot of deals and favours, too, but she also kept records on the lost souls she helped. There’s an entry or two that you might be interested in.”
I fetched Baba Yaga’s book. I knelt by his side and showed him the page. He frowned as he skimmed the page.
“But what does it mean?” he asked.
“At some stage, you had dealings with the Matriarch,” I said. “That’s all I know. I could get Breslin to look into it, but he might not be able to find anything out. You could have exchanged a favour, but maybe you really were a lost soul, Phoenix.”
He looked at me. “And now you’re the Matriarch.”
“Yeah. Does anything there make sense to you?”
“A trade.” He pointed at the markings on the page. “This symbol means nothing to me.” He frowned. “Do you think Helena was a slave when I met her?”
“I mean, it’s possible, but—”
“The trade,” he continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “What if that meant some kind of trade-off? What if Helena and I fell in love, and then we managed to trade her place with Lavinia’s mother or grandmother? What did we do?”
“Stop,” I said softly. “You don’t know. Don’t start wearing the blame for things that might never have even happened.”
He sighed. “All the same, I’ll make sure Lavinia and her baby are taken care of.” He held my gaze in silence for a couple of seconds, and goose bumps prickled my arms. “I should go.”
I walked him to the front door. In the afternoon sun’s haze, he lingered, looking out at the children playing in the cul-de-sac. “At least some good has come of this experience.”
“A lot of good has,” I said. “A lot of bad people are going to be hunted because of this. And the twins have found new family.”
“Lavinia tells me their blood is cursed.”
“Curses can be broken.” I reached out and touched his hand. “That’s if they exist at all.”
He stared at my hand. “Emmett’s just there.”
“I know. Maybe it’s time I practised what I preached. The past can’t punish us forever if we don’t let it.”
He sagged against the doorway. “Ava, I know things have been… we’ve grown closer, but there’s nothing I can offer you. You saw me, how badly I coped with Egan. There is no future with a man like me.”
I held his gaze. “The future seems really far away right now.”
He bent and dropped a brief kiss on my lips. “I can’t offer you anything worth keeping, but if you ever want company, you know how to reach me.” The words sounded nonchalant, but the look in his eyes said something very different.
He left before I could think of anything to say. I had never seen him so low, and yet there was something new about him that I hadn’t noticed when he appeared on television—a lightness that vulnerability had given him. And I thought how very tiring it must have been for him to always put on a mask and hide the rest. If I could help him drop it, then maybe I should. I liked him, and I wanted to help him.
I watched his car drive away, saw Emmett throw a stone in its wake, and sighed. The past and the future didn’t want to jell.
Carl came out of his house, waved at me, and approached. “Was that Phoenix?” he called out.
“Yeah, he brought me shoes.”
He grinned and stepped into my garden. “I thought he’d chicken out. I told him you’d laugh at him. Did you laugh at him?”
“Not today. Since when do you buddy up with the fae anyway?”
He lifted his shoulders into a shrug. “He’s not so bad really, and if he wants to buy you things, who am I to stop him? Is he always so mopey, though?”
“Must be your influence.” I folded my arms across my chest as I watched Emmett kick a football against a wall. “Since… that night, he seems down about everything.”
“Yeah, well, he’s been getting a hard time in the papers.” He sighed. “Everyone’s ignoring the things that Shay and the Senate have discovered about Egan. They’re just pretending that he’s not the biggest scumbag who has ever walked the face of the planet.” He shrugged. “This year.”
I tried to smile. It wasn’t fair how Phoenix was being treated. But maybe I could help, even a little. “You seem in good form.”
“Got my job back.” He shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know. Kind of feels like the sun came back out.”
“You’re super-dramatic sometimes.”
“I’m trying this new thing where I’m less emotional and whingey.” He laughed, but I barely managed a smile. “Hey, you okay?”
I gazed out at the cul-de-sac. “Yeah,” I said. “I think I am. I have an idea, but I might need your help.” I went inside.
He followed. “What is it?”
“The news, the newspapers, they’re all spouting the same story all of the time. What if we get that reporter we met to write a diff
erent story? She could interview us, people at the school, IAs, supernatural business owners, kids like Noah, people like Nate. She owes us, right? So maybe she could do a positive piece, and we could give her the true story of Declan Egan.” I smiled. “We’ll clean up Kenneth and get him to reveal all.”
“That’s a sweet idea,” Carl said. “But I think people have already made up their minds.”
“So we should give up?” I shook my head. “We’ve never been ones for giving up, Carl. Why should we start now?”
Epilogue
Weeks had passed since Egan’s death, and Áine O’Neill’s stories about Declan Egan’s exploits, as well as her series on a different aspect of the supernatural world in Ireland every week, were being talked about as often as, if not more than, the Humans First take on the matter being a massive cover-up.
The reporter kept me updated on general public opinion of the pieces. While the pictures of the children in the school and Shay’s boxing club had helped them come across as real people, something about my name reminded plenty of people that I had been the one who first brought truth to them. Some people hated that, maybe even wanted me punished for it, but to others, it meant I could be trusted.
All in all, Áine’s editor had been impressed by the response, and she had been cleared to write a weekly column for the foreseeable future that would attempt to mend the disconnect between humans and everyone else.
I hadn’t seen Phoenix, but Shay let me know that his life was slightly easier after Kenneth and Tomas’s joint interview was published. Kenneth had cleaned up nicely, and with his brother gone, he was about to take over the legitimate company in his family’s name. Tomas had less personality but more facts, and between the two, they made the interview come across as convincing. Declan Egan had been a bad man, and more people were starting to believe it.
The tide was beginning to turn, and although people like the annoying protesters would never believe anything somebody like me said, others were easily influenced. And almost everyone won something.
Carl got his job back, Noah found a permanent escape from the children’s home in the form of a halfway house, and Clementine earned a spot on the Senate. Alex had a permanent job with Breslin, while Val and Peter finally started getting frequent offers of work. I was pretty sure Phoenix had something to do with that.
Nick and Emmett discovered a way to coexist, and the werewolves decided that keeping their cubs in school wasn’t such a terrible thing, after all. Anka’s business picked up, Dita got her werewolf friend to trust her, Wes assured me the old neighbourhood was back to normal, and Moses had cleaned up his flats again and was preparing to set up a new security business—with my help. The slaves had new lives, the blackmail and bribes had ended, the emergency services could be trusted again because Shay had been given the authority to vet the staff, and even Finn’s bar went back to normal, with added security.
But there were still loose ends. Jennifer Boyle and her boyfriend still hadn’t reappeared, and the culprit behind the gangland assassination wasn’t found. A reckless hothead had replaced the leader, but so far, everything had been quiet on that front. Not all of Egan’s suppliers had been tracked down yet because of cultural differences getting in the way of official investigations. That didn’t mean the search was over, but it was all out of my hands.
I went back to business and tried to move on. And I discovered I missed Phoenix’s company. When I thought about it logically, his actions weren’t so different to Peter’s in the past, but there were differences. Peter had never laid himself bare. He had always kept his secrets close to his chest and pretended they weren’t there. Phoenix let his mask fall in my company, and in some ways, I felt as though I knew him in a way I knew nobody else.
And maybe that was why I ended up on his doorstep late at night, my heart rattling in my chest.
He opened the door, clearly surprised to see me. “Everything all right?” he asked.
“Want some company?” I asked, and the words sounded as though I had just laid everything bare.
He held my gaze for about three seconds before taking my hand and pulling me inside the house. He closed the door and pressed my back against it. “Yes, please,” he said hoarsely.
And then he carried me upstairs.
About the Author
Thanks for reading Tithes. If you want to read more books about Ava’s Lost Souls, then please let me know you’re interested. Thanks again!
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For more information about me, check out my blog. For more regular updates, follow me on Twitter or Facebook. To be notified about new releases then sign up to the newsletter. Turn the page for a list of my books.
Contact Me:
@doingitwritenow
clairefarrellauthor
www.clairefarrellauthor.com
[email protected] Also by Claire Farrell
Books by Claire Farrell:
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Chaos Series:
One Night with the Fae (Companion Prequel)
Soul (Chaos #1)
Fade (Chaos #2)
Queen (Chaos #3)
Usurper (Chaos #4)
Blight (Chaos #5)
Kings (Chaos #5.5)
Sacrifice (Chaos #6)
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Ava Delaney Series (Completed):
Thirst (Ava Delaney #1)
Taunt (Ava Delaney #2)
Tempt (Ava Delaney #3)
Taken (Ava Delaney #4)
Taste (Ava Delaney #5)
Traitor (Ava Delaney #6)
Awakening (Ava Delaney Volume I – Books 1-3)
Uprising (Ava Delaney Volume II – Books 4-6)
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Lost Souls Series:
Tainted (Ava Delaney: Lost Souls #1)
Tethers (Ava Delaney: Lost Souls #2)
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VBI Series:
Demon Dog (VBI #1)
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Cursed Series (Completed):
Verity (Cursed #1)
Clarity (Cursed #2)
Adversity (Cursed #2.5)
Purity (Cursed #3)
Cursed Omnibus (Entire Cursed Series)
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Stake You Series (Completed):
Stake You (Stake You #1)
Make You (Stake You #2)
Break You (Stake You #3)
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Short Story Collections:
Sixty Seconds
A Little Girl in my Room
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Other:
Death is a Gift (A standalone banshee novel)
Zombie Moon Rising (A Peter Brannigan Novella)
Ghost Moon Rising (A Peter Brannigan Novella)
Crucible (A Phoenix Novella)
Claire Farrell, Tithes
(Series: Ava Delaney: Lost Souls # 3)
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