Crown of Briars Read online

  “I see.” She was expecting the statement to take him aback — but instead, he merely filed away the information. Slowly, the seigneur pushed to his feet. “How unfortunate. I shall have to change that.” He plucked his coat from the back of the chair. “So that I am clear… if I go with you to retrieve your fellow warlock, your Lady shall give me back the only other copy of my secrets, to do with as I please?”

  Zoe shook her head. “Hell no,” she said. “My Lady gives you back your secrets when I’m happy enough with you to ask her to. That means I’ve got to be alive and well to ask — it also means Simon’s got to come back with me, and you can’t have pissed me off too badly.” She eyed him suspiciously. “I went to a lot of trouble to make sure I could give you back your blackmail. I’m not gonna go back on my word… but I’m not gonna give you any wiggle room either. Until this shit is over with, you want what I want, monseigneur.”

  The seigneur shook his head and laughed softly. He tugged on his coat, and turned to offer out his arm to her.

  “Please,” he said. “I insist that all of my blackmailers call me Jean.”

  Chapter 14

  Jean Belmont had clearly never been to Arcadia before.

  That was wise of him, of course. Arcadia wasn’t the sort of place you went to on a whim — unless, of course, you were a warlock, and it was your patron’s whim.

  The carefully-composed vampire didn’t blink as Zoe opened the Hidden Path to the Hedge that lived just next to the Court of Appeals. But as the fingers of the Hedge eagerly reached out to claim them, and the great green skies of Arcadia fanned out before them, Zoe saw the slightest hint of awe and trepidation in Jean’s aura.

  Still… she had to give him credit. When she took that final step into the too-bright faerie world, Jean Belmont did not hesitate to walk after her.

  Arcadia was still overwhelming to Zoe’s Witchsight, though the Lady’s power had given her a bit more capacity to internalize it without going mad. The Hedge was a bit easier to digest, thankfully — the vibrant plants that crawled its length weren’t part of the Briars, but they were still amenable to the Lady’s power, and even eager to assist. Zoe wasn’t terribly adept with the direct magic of the Briars yet, but it didn’t seem to matter overmuch; just by running her fingers along the thick hedge walls, she was able to feel out their immediate route, picking out nearby dangers and pacifying the occasional hungry plant.

  Fool’s Hope, she had learned, was quite close to Delirium — a fact unlikely to be a coincidence, given that Malcolm had probably intended to take this very same Path, before he’d been cornered into using his short-cut. Thankfully, they didn’t need to go through Fool’s Hope to get where they were going; Simon’s notes to Dorian had been quite clear that no one who entered Fool’s Hope ever left again until they’d gambled their way past the Lady of Fools herself.

  The last time Simon had mentioned Delirium to Dorian, he had given a rough estimate of where Delirium tended to remain within Arcadia. Zoe followed those instructions carefully, painfully aware that circumstances might have changed in the interim.

  “This place is bizarre,” Jean admitted, as she paused to chart their path. His silver eyes tracked every little twitch and movement of the hedges around them. A keen sense of predatory alertness had engulfed him the moment they stepped through to Arcadia, and it had yet to lessen.

  Zoe pulled out Simon’s compass, checking the relative direction of the Briars and calculating from there. “You need to relax some,” she said. “You’re wasting energy. This is just the Hedge — it’s like the in-between place where all the other realms connect.”

  Jean glanced toward the compass in her hands. “I’m quite certain this is still a dangerous place,” he observed flatly.

  “Absolutely,” Zoe agreed. “You’d probably get eaten alive or turned into mulch if you had to wander around here alone. But I know where I’m going, and the Hedge likes the Lady and her warlocks, so we’re relatively safe here. Delirium is gonna be a whole different story.”

  The seigneur’s aura settled some at that. He seemed to trust that Zoe knew what she was doing… which was probably more than she deserved. Simon knows what he’s doing, she consoled herself. And I’ve got what he left behind.

  Jean watched her closely as they went now, and Zoe thought it likely that he was trying to gauge how it was she was navigating the Hedge, in case he needed to return without her. Good luck, she thought. If it comes to that, we’re both pretty screwed.

  “…there are people who will miss me, if I do not return,” Jean said suddenly. His voice was calm, reflective. There was no pleading in the tone — it was simply a statement of fact.

  “That’s really not my problem,” Zoe said, though the words made her every bit as uneasy as he’d probably intended.

  “It may be,” Jean told her. “That depends. How much do you care about Detective Basak?”

  Zoe frowned, pausing to check the compass once again. “I need to get my hearing checked. I could swear you just implied that Jaz would miss you. The last time you guys met, she pointed a gun at you, and you intentionally made her feel like shit.”

  “Mais non,” Jean said. “I quite like Detective Basak. She is capable, and possessed of great integrity. The city is fortunate to have her. And since the city is mine… I am fortunate to have her as well.” He paused. “She does not believe that she would miss me. But were I to perish, one of my enemies would likely take my place… and she would have only the briefest of time to lament my absence before she joined me.”

  Zoe set her jaw. He’s manipulating me. I know that. But god damn it, it was working. Worry crept into the back of her mind. “I don’t believe you. On either count.”

  “That is your prerogative, of course,” Jean acknowledged.

  Zoe shot him a dark look. “You’re not doing much to convince me you’re any less of an asshole.”

  Jean smiled. “That was not my intention. I am what you say. I make hard choices, for the greater good of my city. I am as kind as I am able to be… to those who matter.”

  “Having been one of the people who didn’t matter to you, that doesn’t impress me as much as you might think,” Zoe muttered.

  “You misunderstand. La Voûte’s assistant keeps her head down and dutifully does her job. She matters — but she is already protected in other ways. Detective Basak matters — she gives of herself to others in ways that they rarely notice, and contributes much to the community. She had no protection but her own, until I decided to prioritize her.”

  The seigneur picked his way carefully down the steep slope before them. “Vivienne Cloutier… she is a murderer and a parasite. She killed many people that mattered. But other people did not consider them of worth, and so I had no simple way to stop her.” Zoe stumbled on the hill. In a flash of movement, Jean reached out to catch her by the shoulder.

  His silver eyes met hers. “You are upset that you were pulled into my politics. But your ability to avoid politics is one born of privilege, mademoiselle. Vivienne’s other victims did not have the option of avoiding her. They were not protected so well as La Voûte’s assistant was. Those who care about them have no choice but to play politics.”

  Zoe’s stomach clenched. You piece of shit, she thought. How the hell did you manage to turn this around on me?

  “People who do bad things always find a way to help themselves sleep at night,” she spat at him. “Your life got easier when Vivienne died. Maybe you helped a few people out too — but that doesn’t make you some kind of saint. And it doesn’t change the fact that you used me and Dorian to do something you considered important, without any kind of warning or request.”

  Zoe pulled away from his grip. “Simon is like Jaz. He’s always putting everyone else before himself. He matters. So if you really give a damn about all that, you’re in the right place to do something about it.” She narrowed her eyes. “But frankly? I think you’re full of bullshit. And I think you’re the only person who hasn’t rea
lized it yet. It’s time you did some of your own dirty work, Jean.”

  The vampire didn’t try to hold her. A tiny thread of thoughtfulness curled through him.

  He stayed silent as they picked their way toward Delirium. That thread of thoughtfulness coiled and stretched, worming its way down into his soul. It was a rare sight, and admittedly unsettling. Zoe hadn’t actually expected him to listen to a word of what she’d said.

  He’s probably reassessing how he can win me over, she reassured herself. This is just another kind of battle to him.

  The only way to win his game, she thought, was not to play at all.

  The demarcation between Delirium and the Hedge was so subtle and insidious that Zoe walked right past it.

  A piercing headache had slowly built up over the last half-hour of walking. By the time the brambles around them began to visibly twist and wither, the headache had reached a peak, pounding insistently at the back of her eyes.

  “You are agitated,” Jean observed. “I do not think it is natural.”

  Zoe brought herself up short. She pinched the place between her eyes, breathing in. “That’s because I have a fucking headache,” she muttered. She paused, hearing the words aloud. The pain had crept up on her so slowly that she hadn’t even been conscious of it until that moment. “Shit. I bet it isn’t natural.”

  She focused her Witchsight carefully on the world around them. The already-blazing Arcadian colors had become brighter, but also more blurry and less distinct. A subtle, bitter scent hung in the air. As she breathed in, it burned lightly at her throat.

  Zoe glanced toward Jean. His carefully-controlled bloodlust was just a bit less neatly-coiled than usual. His irises had expanded, darkening his eyes. He was doing a better job of holding off the realm than she was, though he probably wasn’t directly conscious of its assault.

  “Delirium snuck up on us,” she told him, irritated. “I meant to take a few precautions before we got here, but I guess it’s better late than never.”

  Zoe pulled out the wooden box in her pocket. She’d replaced the iron inside with three somewhat-crumpled crimson lilies, one of which she handed to the vampire. As he took the flower from her, Zoe flicked her finger at the blossom, and its stem snapped out to slither around his neck. The seigneur jerked back, but the flower didn’t pull tight enough to hurt.

  “I made these in the Briars, where I’ve got a little more punch to my magic,” she told him. “Spiritually, they’re close enough to blood that the realm will mistake them for part of you. They’ll absorb a certain amount of the poison here… but they won’t last forever.”

  Zoe closed the other lily about her neck. As it wriggled into place, her headache instantly eased, and she let out a relieved breath. Next to her, she felt Jean’s tiny spike of bloodlust abate. She tucked away the last lily, trying not to think about who it was for.

  “I can’t pre-emptively protect us against everything we might find here,” Zoe told him. “But that’s why I’ve got you. You’re my buddy system. If something fucks up my calm, I need you to steady me out long enough that I can figure out how to protect us both.”

  Jean rubbed at his throat where the lily had settled. He considered this for a moment. “…and what will you do if I lose my mind?” he asked. “Have you a plan for surviving my hunger?”

  Zoe pursed her lips — and offered out her arm. “Have a drink,” she said. “On me.”

  Jean’s brow knitted. Wariness and confusion flickered through him. “You want me to drink your blood?” he asked, as though to confirm.

  “Only a little bit, please,” Zoe said. “And it’d be nice if you were gentler about it than Vivienne was.”

  The seigneur seemed to sense that there was a hidden danger in what she was asking. But he still saw Zoe as a warlock, and not as a witch. Gently, he took her arm. His eyes came to rest on the dislodged bandage where Vivienne had torn into her wrist. Rather than reopen the injury again, he carefully rolled up the sleeve of the button-down she had stolen from Simon to expose the inside of her arm. He brought his mouth down to the skin there, and Zoe did her best not to wriggle away in discomfort.

  Jean was gentler than Vivienne. In fact, it took Zoe a moment to realize that he had broken the skin at all. Her intense awareness of her own blood told her that the seigneur had swallowed a mouthful. A pleasant tingle shivered up her arm. He drew away, and she realized that she couldn’t even see the place where he’d bitten her.

  “Is that sufficient?” he asked.

  Zoe blinked. “Yeah,” she said. “Man. I ought to have you do my next blood test.”

  That elicited a slight smirk. “Quebecois vampires are so forward,” said the seigneur. “I normally appreciate the quality, but their feeding habits leave something to be desired.” He released her arm, and she tugged the sleeve back down again. “You have an interesting taste. I am sure that does not bode well for me.”

  “You’ll be fine as long as you don’t try to tear my throat out,” Zoe told him. “But I’d advise avoiding that if at all possible.” She paused. “On a similar note: there’s a good chance we’ll be running into an insane Scorpio witch in here. He might or might not be a warlock of… uh, you know who.” It was best not to say Lord Wormwood’s name in his own realm; nothing was likelier to draw his direct attention. “Anyway, if we see Malcolm, our best chance is to kill him before he kills us. Whatever you do, don’t let him get his hands on your blood… and for god’s sake, don’t drink his.”

  Jean’s smirk disappeared at that. Even the seigneur had a healthy fear of Scorpio. “So noted,” he murmured.

  Zoe pulled in a breath, and turned her attention back to their surroundings. The Hedge’s basic structure had continued into Delirium, which was part of why it had been so easy to miss the transition. The neat walls of green were more disordered, though, and peppered with even less friendly-looking plants. She didn’t recognize many of them on-sight — she suspected that some of them didn’t even have real-world equivalents — but even without the power of the Briars warning her off, she could have guessed that the dark flush of poisonous purple on their leaves didn’t mean anything good.

  Arcadia’s sky was normally emerald in color — but here, it had shifted to a bright, acidic greenish-yellow, obscured in places by dark purple clouds. A soft rumbling filled the air. All around them, tiny, shivering drops of liquid began to rise upward from the ground toward the threatening storm clouds above.

  “Is that supposed to be rain?” Jean asked. Then, as though he wasn’t sure she was seeing the same thing he was, he added: “It is raining in the wrong direction.”

  Zoe reached out to run her fingers through the water. It tingled on her skin, and she felt the lily at her throat twitch. “Yeah, it’s real,” she said. “It’s also poisonous. Like everything else here, probably.”

  The seigneur frowned deeply. “I expect you have a plan,” he said.

  Kind of. “We find Simon. We wait for a distraction — there’s supposed to be a pretty big one at some point.” I hope. If Blackfrost cooperates and the Lady plays nice. “When that happens, we grab him and run like hell.”

  Jean looked terribly unimpressed. He flicked a raindrop out of the air as it passed him. “And how do we find Monsieur Leclair?” he asked.

  Zoe fell silent. The seigneur sighed.

  “Hey,” she snapped. “I’m doing pretty good for someone making all this up on a time limit. If you’ve got any ideas, I’m all ears.”

  Jean shrugged. “Can you not do some magic to find him?” he asked.

  Zoe groaned. “No,” she said. “I can’t just do some magic. There’s limits to what I’m good at. Directional magic is a Sagittarius thing—”

  She stopped. Jean raised an eyebrow.

  Very slowly, Zoe pulled out Simon’s compass. Its needle currently pointed back the way they’d come, toward the distant Briars. But if Simon had a piece of the Briars inside him the same way that she did, then technically, a small tweak might be en
ough to change the needle’s target.

  Zoe chewed on the inside of her cheek. “All right. I’m gonna try something. You mind keeping me calm while I do? If I fuck it up, we’ll be wandering around without a working compass.”

  “As you wish,” Jean said. She couldn’t tell whether he was being facetious or not. Either way, she felt his touch on her mind.

  The brush against her emotions was more obvious this time than it had been in the cemetery; Zoe suspected that was intentional. A soft numbness spread through the panic that had slowly begun to rise within her ever since she’d realized where they were. Like a mental anaesthetic, it dulled the edge and surrounded her in a cloud of nihilistic apathy. It wasn’t enough to drain her motivation entirely… but it did give her the focus she needed to reach out for the compass with her magic, unbothered by the possibility that she might accidentally destroy it.

  As with the last time she’d touched Simon’s Sagittarius magic, she saw the golden glow waver uncertainly against her dark, watery power. Zoe lightened her touch, delicately tangling herself in the spell. The thorn that made up the compass needle currently yearned for home — it dreamed of a rose in the Lady’s garden from which it had been plucked.

  Zoe smiled softly in spite of herself. One of Rose’s flowers, she thought. This should be easy, then.

  With her power, she whispered to the thorn of a different dream — another one that still lingered within it.

  Simon’s lips on hers. The feeling of his soft hair slipping through her fingers. His voice whispering her name…

  Fear threatened that delicate dream. What if he’s already dead? What if he’s lost his mind because I took too long? What if I never see him again—

  The glow in the compass wavered like a candle in the wind. Zoe hitched her breath; her heart clenched.

  But that numbness deepened, and she felt the fear plucked away with expert care, leaving only a strange emptiness where it once had been.