The Dolls Read online

  Concern flashes across his face for a split second but vanishes just as quickly, replaced by a smirk. “Oh, but you don’t know that for sure, do you?” he asks. “You fled before your little ceremony was over.”

  He’s right. For all I know, I disrupted the power of our circle by breaking away from it. I curse myself for being so stupid.

  “Now, Eveny,” he says smoothly, releasing my arm. “I was hoping we could speak for a moment like rational adults. Do you think you can handle that?”

  Instinctively, I reach for my Stone of Carrefour, but Vauclain’s hand shoots out again at lightning speed, his cold fingers wrapping around my wrist.

  “Ah ah ah,” he chides. “Don’t even think about it. Using magic right now would be a very, very bad idea. I’ll have no choice but to end your life.”

  “Get it over with, then,” I say. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it.”

  He smiles. “But what’s the rush, Eveny? The small talk is my very favorite part.”

  “Well, gee, don’t let me stop you.”

  Vauclain laughs again, and the sound makes my blood run cold. “A sense of humor, I see. I like that. But then, I already knew you had wit. We’ve been watching you for years, and I must say, we’ve been very impressed with your aunt’s resolve not to introduce you to zandara.”

  “I don’t see how that’s your concern.”

  “She’s a wise woman, Eveny. She’s kept you from magic because she finds it detestable. Yet you seem not to have inherited her intelligence, for here we sit in a cemetery, just after you’ve performed a serious zandara ceremony.”

  “It wasn’t some magic joyride,” I say. “It was a ceremony to fix what we screwed up last week when we opened the gates for that party. We were trying to get rid of you.”

  He chuckles again. “How very foolish and small-minded of you to assume that taking care of me would remove the threat to your town. You must know by now that there’s someone on the inside who wishes you dead. After all, an attempt has already been made on your life.”

  “Drew’s truck,” I say softly. “That wasn’t you?”

  He looks offended. “I would never end your life in such an unimaginative way. Plus, of course, there are the far-too-obvious parallels with your mother’s staged suicide. But this, conversing with you in the very cemetery where your ancestors lie just before I end your life, well, it’s much more poetic. When I recall your death later, these are the moments I’ll savor.”

  A chill runs through me. “So I suppose you’ve spent a lot of time savoring the details of Glory Jones’s death too.”

  He laughs coldly. “I didn’t do that myself, of course. I would never get my hands dirty with someone with no real power of her own. And to be honest, it wasn’t part of the plan, but she was, how do I put it, uncooperative. Although I admit, the soldier who killed her has gone a bit rogue. It’s rather amusing to watch the unraveling.”

  “Did one of your soldiers kill my mother too?” I ask. The words are thick and sour in my throat.

  He looks surprised. “Of course not. It would be pointless to kill a queen without stabbing her through the heart,” he says, as if it’s the most logical thing in the world. “Her murder wasn’t our style at all, although we’re certainly grateful that someone else chose to do it.”

  He begins to explain that stabbing a queen through the heart prevents her from taking power on to the afterlife and seeking revenge, but I tune him out, realizing that as he’s talking, his grip on my wrist is relaxing. I scan my brain for an herb I can channel if I’m able to touch my Stone of Carrefour.

  The only thing that comes to mind is an image of wishing on dandelions with my mother when I was a little girl.

  It’s not perfect, but it will have to do.

  I silently ask Eloi Oke to open the gate, and then, just as Vauclain is concluding his explanation of how a queen’s heart is her greatest source of magic but also her greatest vulnerability, I twist my left hand away from him and punch him across the face with my right.

  In the seconds it takes him to recover, I grab my Stone of Carrefour and say, “Dandelion, I draw your power. Spirits, please grant my wish and render Aloysius Vauclain incapable of following me. Mesi, zanset.”

  He’s already grabbing for me, and I have no idea if the charm worked, but I don’t wait to find out. I begin to run back in the direction of Peregrine’s house, my head throbbing and my mouth dry with fear. I trip over a root and scramble to my feet again.

  Once I’m out of the clearing, I run for my life, branches scraping my face. Their gnarled fingers reach for me in the darkness as I stumble into the tombs that rise from the soft, decaying earth. The ground rolls beneath my feet, and I can’t trust my own steps.

  The only thing I do know is that Vauclain is somewhere behind me, his long jacket making him one with the black shadows of the cemetery. I can hear his footsteps in the darkness. The jagged edge of a broken tombstone appears just ahead, and I stumble, landing flat on my face. A buried rock slices into my cheek, and I feel blood as I scramble to my feet.

  “Help!” I cry, hoarse with terror as the mansion on the edge of the graveyard comes into view. It glows in the blackness, but I fear I won’t make it that far.

  I just have to get out of the cemetery, I tell myself.

  I struggle to my feet once again. I want to live. I have to live. I hold so many lives in my hands.

  It feels like an eternity passes before I can see Peregrine’s back fence. I turn to glance behind me and as I do, I collide hard with someone warm and solid who lets out a startled “Oof!”

  I scream, sure that it’s Vauclain, that he’s somehow materialized in front of me to kill me within sight of salvation.

  “Please don’t!” I cry.

  “Eveny?” says a deep voice, and that’s when I realize it’s not the Main de Lumière general. Relief floods through me as I look up to see Caleb’s face creased with worry.

  “Caleb,” I breathe, collapsing into him.

  He holds me for a moment, then pulls away, steadying me by putting his hands on my forearms. “Eveny, what is it?”

  “The frat guy,” I begin, but I’m barely able to get the rest of the words out. The ceremony-induced exhaustion I’ve been fighting for the last hour is overtaking me. “It was the Main de Lumière guy,” I finally manage. “The one from the party.”

  He’s already scooping me into his arms and carrying me toward Peregrine’s house. “I thought he was going to kill me,” I say weakly, my voice muffled against the soft nub of his shirt.

  “Eveny, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.” Caleb’s voice is rough with emotion, and it looks like he’s about to cry. “I tried to follow you, but possession ceremonies take all the life out of you. By the time I got to the door, you were gone, and . . .”

  “Caleb, if you’d been there, he could have killed you.”

  We’ve reached Peregrine’s back door now, and Caleb gently sets me back on my feet. “Are you okay? Can you stand?”

  I nod, but before I can say anything, he pulls me toward him, and I melt into his strong chest, already feeling safer. “How can I ever ask you to forgive me, Eveny?” he whispers into my hair.

  “It’s not your fault,” I say softly, and Caleb makes a deep guttural sound in the back of his throat.

  “Eveny—” he begins, but then he stops.

  “What?” I whisper.

  “It is my fault.” He looks away from me and puts his hand on Peregrine’s back door. “It’s just like I said. My feelings for you . . . I didn’t know you were in trouble until it was too late.”

  “But it wasn’t too late,” I say, and I pull him back toward me. “I’m here. I’m okay.” I never want him to let me go.

  But then the door flies open, and the moment is over as Peregrine and Chloe stumble out. Their eyes focus unsteadily on Caleb and me, and Peregrine’s mouth opens into a little o.

  “Eveny,” she begins, her eyes flicking uncertainly between Caleb and
me. “I didn’t mean for you . . .” Her voice is slurred and she trails off.

  “We’re sorry, Eveny.” Chloe’s voice is stronger and clearer, but she doesn’t sound normal either; it’s more like she’s just run a marathon and is weak and out of breath. “We didn’t expect the spirit to say what he did through Pascal,” she says. “But whatever it is, we’ll deal with it together.”

  It takes me a moment to realize that she and Peregrine think I’m shivering in fear because of what happened during the ceremony. “It’s not that,” I tell them. “I . . . I tried to run home, but in the cemetery, I was attacked by the guy from Main de Lumière.” I add pointedly, “The one who was posing as Blake Montoire at your party.”

  I watch as their eyes widen into saucers, and I realize for the first time how dilated their pupils are. “Wait, what?” Peregrine whispers.

  “Are you sure?” Chloe asks at the same time.

  “Positive,” I say and recap my encounter in the cemetery.

  “Well, he was just bluffing,” Peregrine says when I’m done, her eyes darting nervously to Chloe, who’s chewing her lip. “The ceremony worked. He’s powerless in Carrefour now.”

  “But he confirmed that there’s already an operative here,” I tell them. “Someone we trust. Someone who killed Glory. Someone who isn’t powerless because they have a key to Carrefour. It’s just like we thought.”

  Peregrine grabs my right hand and Chloe my left, and before I know it, I’m being pulled away from Caleb. The moment I’m out of his arms, I feel cold and exposed.

  “We’ll call our mothers now,” Peregrine says. “Let’s get inside.”

  Caleb steps back into the darkness, and I hesitate. “Aren’t you coming in?” I ask.

  “There’s something I have to do.” His jaw is set, and I realize what he means.

  “You can’t go after him, Caleb,” I say. “It’s not safe.”

  “I’ll be fine.” He doesn’t give me a chance to argue. He turns away and strides toward the cemetery, his fists clenched.

  “Caleb!” I cry out. But Chloe and Peregrine hold me back as he vanishes into the darkness.

  “He’ll be okay,” Peregrine says. “Don’t worry.”

  “Don’t worry?” I demand. “You just let him go after a Main de Lumière general!”

  “A Main de Lumière general who’s powerless now,” Peregrine corrects. “Caleb can take care of himself.”

  I don’t believe her. I call out once more for him, but the only answer is the cawing of a raven from somewhere beyond the cemetery wall.

  26

  “You performed a ceremony with Eveny without bothering to explain it to her first?” Peregrine’s mother demands twenty minutes later once we’re all gathered in her living room. She and Chloe’s mother came right away from a cocktail party on the other side of town. Peregrine’s mother has her black hair done in a thousand tiny braided extensions, and she looks impossibly slim in a shimmery silver dress. Chloe’s mother’s sleek blond hair is pulled into a chignon at the nape of her neck, and she’s wearing a black cocktail dress that hugs her slender curves. They’re both clutching flutes of champagne, which the maid handed to them as soon as they walked in the door.

  “We thought it would make it easier on her if she didn’t know what was going to happen,” Peregrine whimpers, looking at the floor.

  “Easier on her?” her mother asks, her eyes flashing. “Or easier on you?”

  “I—” Peregrine begins, but her mother cuts her off.

  “Enough,” she says in a voice that’s deadly calm. She looks at me. “Eveny, on behalf of my daughter, and of both sosyetes, yours and mine, I apologize. What Peregrine and Chloe did was inappropriate. You’re one of us, and you deserve a full explanation from now on.”

  “Chloe knows better too,” Chloe’s mother pipes up, looking nervously at her daughter, who, like Peregrine, is staring at the floor like it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen.

  I shrug uncomfortably. I don’t need an apology—particularly not from the mothers, whose carelessness has nearly destroyed the town. “What about Caleb?” I ask. “He’s out there all alone.”

  The mothers exchange looks. “He’s not alone,” Chloe’s mother says. “Oscar and Patrick are with him.”

  “Besides, it’s certainly not your job to feel such concern for him. Quite the opposite,” Peregrine’s mother says. “Now, on to the more pressing matter at hand. Main de Lumière. Eveny, what did you find out?”

  As I tell them about the conversation with Aloysius Vauclain, everyone in the room stands completely still. There’s a collective gasp when I tell them how easily he admitted to Main de Lumière’s involvement in Glory’s murder, and another gasp when I say that he disavowed any Main de Lumière involvement in my mother’s death.

  “We need to figure out who the Main de Lumière operative in Carrefour is,” I conclude. “If we find out who killed Glory, we can protect ourselves.”

  “You know,” says Arelia, “the only new people in town in years have been Eveny herself and her aunt.”

  I open my mouth to defend Aunt Bea, but Peregrine’s mother beats me to it. “Arelia, I don’t care for Bea Cheval either,” she says stiffly. “But to accuse her of being affiliated with Main de Lumière is taking things too far.”

  “And how do we know it wasn’t you?” I hear myself say to Arelia. I hadn’t meant to confront her, but her blind accusation of my aunt makes me furious.

  “Eveny,” Peregrine says in a warning tone.

  “No,” I say, turning to her. “Glory said she was meeting Arelia only hours before she died.” I look back at Arelia. “Do you have an alibi for the night she was killed?”

  I expect Arelia to have a retort ready, but instead, her face crumples, and she looks away. It’s Margaux who steps forward and says, “She was with me. I swear it on our sosyete.”

  “Well, there you have it,” Chloe’s mother says, clapping her hands together enthusiastically. “I take it that will be the end of that discussion.” She turns to me and adds in a lower voice, “In Carrefour, the women of the sosyetes stick together. They don’t accuse each other of things.”

  I’m being chastised. I don’t have a response, but I shoot a suspicious look at Arelia, who’s glowering at me now.

  Peregrine takes a step forward. “I say we hold a ceremony tomorrow night to cast as many protective charms over our sosyetes as we can.”

  “I disagree. I think we should stop practicing zandara for now, at least until the big Mardi Gras ceremony,” I say immediately.

  “This again?” Peregrine asks.

  “I’m just suggesting we stop until we figure out what the situation is and who’s after us,” I say. “We’re a target as long as we keep practicing magic.”

  “You’re assuming that this Vauclain person was being truthful with you about Main de Lumière’s motives,” Peregrine says.

  “I don’t think he would have bothered lying if he thought he was about to kill me,” I point out.

  “I agree with Eveny,” Chloe says. “It doesn’t mean we won’t be ready if there’s an attack. But there’s not much we can do without knowing the identity of the traitor.”

  “But we can’t just stop doing zandara,” Margaux protests. “That’s who we are.”

  “Which is all well and good until another one of us winds up six feet under,” Peregrine’s mother says sharply.

  “I agree,” Chloe’s mother says. “For now.”

  “There we have it,” Peregrine’s mother says crisply. “This means that for the next few days at least, no zandara in Carrefour. We must avoid calling attention to ourselves until we know what we’re facing.”

  “But Mom—” Peregrine begins to protest.

  Her mother cuts her off. “That means you girls.”

  “So what now?” asks Arelia.

  “Now,” says Peregrine’s mother, “we attempt to make contact with a few magical sects we trust in other parts of the country.” />
  “And in the meantime,” adds Chloe’s mother, “we lie low and keep our eyes open for signs that something’s not right.”

  “But—” Peregrine begins.

  Her mother interrupts again. “This isn’t open for discussion.”

  Peregrine seethes in silence as the meeting draws to a close.

  After I say my good-byes, I head out the front door, thoroughly exhausted. I’m worried about the walk home, but Peregrine’s mother hands me a sachet of protective herbs and promises that she’ll cast a charm so that she’ll know if I’m in any danger. “Besides, you’ll be fine,” she says. “Caleb and the boys are taking care of things.”

  I’m too tired to argue, plus I’m glad to get away from the sosyetes for the night. Still, I’m relieved when I hear Caleb calling my name. I turn to see him emerging from the cemetery, his shirt ripped on the right side and dirt streaked across his left cheek.

  “Hey,” he says, falling into step beside me.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “We caught the guy who attacked you.” Caleb hesitates. “He won’t be bothering you anymore.”

  Something cold wraps itself around my heart. “You killed Vauclain,” I say softly.

  “We had to,” Caleb says. His voice breaks, and he pauses before continuing. “Patrick was the one who caught him, and Oscar was right behind him. He was already dead by the time I got there.”

  “He was their leader,” I say. “They’ll want revenge even more now.”

  “We didn’t have a choice,” he says. “If anything had happened to you . . .” He trails off, sending a shiver up my spine. “Eveny, I never would have forgiven myself.”

  He stops walking, and a few steps later, I stop too. I look up at him, and he puts a warm, rough hand on my cheek. We stare at each other for a long moment. He leans in, and I’m sure he’s about to kiss me, so I close my eyes. But his lips never meet mine, and when I open my eyes a moment later, I feel like an idiot.

  He’s just staring at me. “Eveny. Have you made plans for the Mardi Gras Ball yet?”

  “No.” I hold my breath.