Daniel and Lewis left the steamboat some distance away from the mansion and maneuvered their way on foot through the jungle that bordered the house. Each man had a machete and a pistol, and by the time they neared the big house, both were soaked in sweat and covered with dirt. Clearing a path through the thick undergrowth had been especially cumbersome with limited light—Daniel was leery of announcing their presence so they used the torches sparingly—and he felt the stress of the situation begin to take its toll.
Finally, they stood at the edge of the property where the house overlooked the water. The house was utterly dark, sucking in all the life around it. The air felt heavier, and he forced himself to focus on nothing but the most concrete of details.
“In areas where there are fewer windows, we can use the torches,” he whispered to Lewis, who nodded. “We’ll begin on the lower level and work our way through each floor.”
“Keep an eye out for the witch’s spell book,” Lewis said.
He glanced at Lewis. “You’re certain she’ll have one?”
“Every practitioner of any kind of magick has their own spell book. Usually bound, but sometimes they just have individual pages. If that’s the case, the pages will be kept in the same portfolio.”
Daniel inched his way to the right and looked up at the building, taking in the missing chunk of brick and stone that once formed walls and a ceiling. “Is that an unwritten rule or something? Suppose I decide to practice magick, but I don’t want to write down my methods or spells?”
“You’re burned at the stake.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “I am genuinely curious.”
“Or dunked in water repeatedly. If you drown, it means you’re not a witch so you’re not required to keep a spell book.”
Daniel glanced at his friend with a smile, appreciating the humor.
“Truly, though, it does seem to be an unwritten rule—witches write everything down. My mother is meticulous about keeping records. We have scores of volumes at home—collections from relatives dating back five generations.”
Daniel gripped his Tesla torch tightly, his machete in the other hand, and motioned with his head. “We locate Isla first, if she’s here, and the spell book second, and then we leave.”
Lewis nodded, all traces of humor fading. “We must be prepared to return, though. It may be that we’ll need something personal of Malette’s, or an ingredient that only she might have access to.”
“Very well.” He nodded toward the back door and, inhaling quietly, snuck from the shelter of the jungle to the house. He was prepared to pick the lock, but the door handle turned easily. The door swung open, and Daniel didn’t know if that meant their task would be simpler than expected, or if they were walking into a trap.
Once inside, they quietly made their way down a narrow hallway, proceeding slowly to avoid shining their torches near the windows. As dark as the house appeared from the outside, Daniel didn’t delude himself into believing they would be entirely invisible, but his efforts made him feel better.
The house was clammy and still as a tomb. They wound their way through what was once likely a grand home: large kitchens caked in dust, an enormous formal dining room with tattered drapes that hung in shreds, and a wooden table that had rotted through. Formal parlors, a ballroom, and a grand front entrance completed the first floor. They took a large stone staircase to the second floor.
Here they found sitting rooms and bedroom suites, all in various states of disrepair and disarray. At one end of a hallway, they came to a locked door, and upon picking it, saw the first room of the entire house that had been maintained. It was a large bedroom; there were no cobwebs, no layers of dust or broken furniture. It was neatly kept, but as cold and dark as the rest of the house. There were symbols inscribed along the massive bedframe, and Lewis eyed them before beckoning to Daniel.
“We should leave. I don’t know the exact nature of those symbols, but I suspect they are meant to ward off her enemies.”
Daniel frowned, but followed Lewis to the door. “Suppose her spell book is in here? It’s where I would keep something I wouldn’t want in another’s hands.”
“It could be in there,” Lewis agreed as he closed the door. “It could also be in her library or sanctum where she practices magick.”
At the center of the second floor were double doors, and Daniel opened them to reveal an enormous area that was open to the sky, which was beginning to lighten.
“This would be the gaping hole then,” he said to Lewis, and stepped inside.
To his left was a partial wall, dividing the area. The majority of the third floor remained intact, providing a ceiling for the area to the left which proved to be a library. Along one wall were a row of spices and jars containing various animal parts and a few things Daniel could not identify. Pieces of furniture were scattered throughout in states of disrepair and neglect, and Lewis cursed as he backed into the spindle of a broken spinning wheel that had been discarded in a dark corner. He nudged the contraption with his foot, and the wood knocked against itself as a few spokes dislodged from the wheel.
They crept through the dark room quietly, and Lewis swept his torch beam across large built-in shelves that covered the back wall. “I believe we may be close to finding what we need.” He ran his fingertips across several worn, leather-bound volumes.
Daniel frowned. “Where is she?”
Lewis began pulling books from the shelf. “Isla?”
“Malette. If she isn’t here, then where is she?” Isla didn’t appear to be here either, which meant she was probably outside with an hour before awakening.
He returned to the open area and looked upward. The sun was rising, but the sky was overcast, and he feared a good storm. His stomach twisted in knots.
A thick sense of foreboding settled on him as the first few drops of rain begin to fall. A circular stone staircase wound its way upward along the far wall and ended on a jagged, crumbling platform that was once part of the third floor. The more the sky lightened, the more the room took on a dark green hue, casting the space in cold shades of black, green, and grey.
A subtle sound echoed through the air and filtered down into the mansion, a rumble he felt in his chest.
Daniel returned quickly to the library. “Lewis, we must go. Or hide.”
Lewis frowned. “I haven’t found her book yet. Not the right one, anyway.”
“I believe she is returning. She cannot find us exposed this way or we’re done for.”
Lewis shoved a book back onto the shelf and followed Daniel to the open area and back out the second-floor double doors. “There was one cabinet I couldn’t open,” he said as they ran down the stairs to the main floor, around back, and out the door.
“Locked?”
“Or spell protected.”
The sound reverberated again, louder, closer, and they ran for the jungle’s thick, concealing cover. A flash of something caught Daniel’s eye, and he retraced his steps to see a pair of small buildings mostly hidden by encroaching vegetation. He motioned to Lewis, and they headed toward them as a loud crack of thunder sounded.
Rain pattered around them, quickly gathering in intensity, before they reached the first of the two buildings. It looked to have been recently accessed while the other was covered with unbroken ivy and vines.
“A smokehouse,” Lewis panted as they reached the door. “Appears to be, anyway. No windows . . .”
Daniel turned the handle, the door opening with a protesting squeak of rusty hinges. A form slumped in the corner was the only thing in the room, and he swallowed his disappointment when he realized it was Crowe, not Isla.
They ran to his side, and Lewis put his fingers to the man’s neck. “Unconscious but alive.” He turned Crowe slightly, revealing a mass of cuts and bruises along his face and arms. “Someone beat him soundly.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “A pity I didn’t reach him first. Let’s get him away from here. I have questions.”
Crowe’s hands and feet had been bound, and Lewis quickly cut the ropes. Daniel hoisted the unconscious man over his shoulder and nodded to Lewis, who took both machetes and led the way back into the jungle.
Daniel was exhausted by the time they reached the docked boat, and he gratefully dumped his heavy load onto one of the berths below deck. “See what you can do to awaken him,” he told Lewis grimly.
Daniel climbed topside and checked the equipment. He flipped a switch, and the mechanical gears of the rain shelter clicked, grinding until the waterproof covering snapped into place and sheltered the seats and the helm, creating a makeshift room.
“Need the medical kit down here . . .” he heard Lewis call from below. Daniel retrieved Lewis’s medical bag and delivered it to him, and then waited as Lewis opened a jar of salts and waved it under Crowe’s nose.
Eventually, Crowe moaned and winced, and rolled onto his side, shielding his torso. His normally olive-skinned complexion was pale beneath a multitude of bruises, and one eye was swollen shut.
He coughed and struggled to rise, and Lewis propped a pillow behind his back and leaned him against the hull. He winced again and hissed in pain as he shifted on the bed.
Lewis gave him a canteen, and Daniel watched impassively as Crowe drank as though he were dying of thirst.
“I suppose it would be too much to hope Isla did that damage to your face,” Daniel said, working to maintain an even tone.
Crowe smiled crookedly. “No, she did not. But I fear by now she will dearly wish she had. I left her locked in a cabin.”
“She’s not there now.”
He sobered instantly. “She must be. She was completely safe, I swear. I secured the windows, bolted the door—she doesn’t even have shoes!”
“I know.” Daniel’s lips tightened. “I suggest you explain yourself, or Lewis and I will finish off whatever your enemies have left undone.”
Crowe bent his knee and rested his elbow on it. He put his face in his hand and was silent. When he finally spoke, his tone was flat. He rendered an emotionless accounting of his activities over the prior forty-eight hours and explained what his involvement with Isla had been all along. Daniel suspected he left out several details, but under the circumstances, he let it alone.
“After leaving Isla in the cabin, you came here and approached Malette?”
“Yes. I tried to bribe her to release Isla from the curse.”
“What did you use as the bribe?” Lewis asked.
Crowe shook his head. “Doesn’t make a difference now. She refused and worked me over with her staff.”
“Her servants?” Daniel asked.
He shook his head. “A literal staff—long, with a small crystal ball atop. Her favorite plaything.” He rolled his eyes and then appeared to regret it, because he kept them closed. He spanned his forehead with thumb and fingertips, rubbing at his temples. “She turned her back on me long enough that I could put a temporary spell on the ball, at least. She won’t be able to use it to track Isla. The only way she’ll find her is if she sees her with her own eyes.”
He sighed. “The whole thing has been unforgivably stupid of me. I’ve observed Isla long enough to know how she would react when contained. We cannot allow her to get anywhere close to Malette.” Crowe’s jaw tightened, and he looked away. “I’ve brought about the one thing I’d hoped to avoid. I thought I was the only one with the grit to actually lock her up to keep her safe. I knew none of the rest of you would.”
“You’re right about that,” Daniel told him flatly. “We were working on a plan together as a group.”
Crowe turned to him, dark eyes blazing. “And as a group, none of you have any idea what my mother is like. You haven’t the least idea!”
“Then you ought to have told us!”
“I do not tell anyone anything!” Crowe touched his fingertip to the corner of his mouth where a trickle of blood had begun to flow. “I have never relied on anyone. I don’t share. I do not confide. I have never cared about anyone in my life until—” He closed his mouth and shook his head. “Until that woman. And now she is on a collision course with the most evil person I have ever known.”
Daniel studied the man in silence. He didn’t know if Crowe loved Isla, but his distress was genuine.
“I cannot . . . We cannot allow her to go anywhere near my mother,” he said quietly, his voice hoarse. “We must find the instructions for the cure ourselves, because the only thing Malette ever loved is dead. There is no leverage—I tried.”
Daniel released a slow breath. “Do you know if the curse and cure are written down?”
“Of course they are.”
Lewis looked at Daniel over his shoulder with one arched brow.
“She logs the spells she deems most important in her personal book. I’ve never paid much attention to it, but I’m sure it will be locked in the library.”
Lewis nodded. “I figured as much. How is it unlocked? She will have guarded it, I imagine.”
“Yes.” He smiled humorlessly. “But I know most of her tricks. I’ll write it for you so if something happens to me, you can still access it.”
“Nothing will happen to you, because you’re not going to simply walk in the front door again to chat with her,” Daniel said. “We do this together, in agreement on one plan. Chaos erupts when people go off on their own.”
Crowe looked at him flatly but refrained from comment.
“Sit up,” Lewis said and motioned at Crowe. “Is anything broken?” He took Crowe’s arm and examined it, probing with his fingertips.
Crowe raised a battered eyebrow. “You’re a doctor, now?”
Lewis reached for the other arm and paused when Crowe winced. “I have put together more than one man on a battlefield with shells exploding all around and ray guns firing in every direction. Fairly certain I can handle one man whose mother has slapped him about.”
Crowe’s lips twitched. “Apologies.”
Lewis examined Crowe’s torso. “Is your mother a shifter?”
Crowe nodded, eyeing him warily.
“Predatory?”
Crowe laughed but touched his tongue to the blood at the corner of his mouth. “As predatory as they come.”
“What kind?” Daniel asked.
Crowe shook his head. “You won’t believe me.”
“Give it a go.”
“She’s a dragon.”
Daniel squinted at Crowe, and then Lewis. “One too many hits to the head, I’m thinking.”
“Do not say I never warned you.”
A dragon. Naturally. Daniel sighed, rubbed his eyes, and checked his pocket watch. It was nearly six o’clock. He pulled out his telescriber. “I’ll inform the Port Lucy constable that we have a missing person in the jungle near the peninsula. He has several capable deputies who can meet with Bonadea at the cabin and begin their search. Lewis, you and I will return to the manor and find Malette’s spell book, and some sort of”—he waved his hand in the air—“body part one would use in a spell. A hair, dragon scale, I don’t know.”
Lewis snorted, but nodded. “We can be in and out quickly, then help the others find Isla. When we’re safely away from Malette, we combine the necessary ingredients and mix up the cure.”
“It will not be that simple. Nothing is ever simple with her.” Crowe shifted and winced, wrapping his arm around his ribs.
“Have you a better idea?” Lewis asked him.
“No. But do not underestimate her, and do not delude yourselves into thinking she’s unaware we’re here.” He shook his head. “You didn’t see her in the house because she didn’t want to be seen. She is watching. Waiting. And with any luck, Isla has broken a bone and cannot walk.” He rubbed his hand over his hair, muttering, “I should have known she would find a way out of the cabin, but I also assumed she’d be more circumspect wearing only nightclothes and no shoes.”
Daniel shot him a glance and then looked out the porthole at the gathering clouds. “I’ve known the woman for a handful of weeks, and I could have told you she would walk into a swamp wearing nothing but fig leaves if it meant securing her goal.”
“She asked what kind of shifter my mother is, and I didn’t tell her. I told her she wouldn’t believe me, and if she makes it to the house ignorant of what she’s facing . . .” He sighed. “I ought to have told her.”
Daniel’s telescriber dinged, and he read aloud the message from the constable. “Son, I have traveled these rivers and swamps all my life, and I would wager my boat that a woman can’t find her way through the jungle to that mansion from the coordinates you sent me.”
The three men looked at each other, and Daniel decided it would have been funny if he’d not been so concerned. “He’s never met this one. She blackmailed her way onto my ship.”
Crowe shook his head. “She made my life on the Committee a living hell.”
“She’s been nothing but wonderful to me,” Lewis said with a light shrug.
Daniel and Crowe both turned to him in silence, and Lewis had the temerity to smile. “We should be going,” he said. “I’ll telescribe Bonadea the details of the plan.”
Daniel turned to Crowe. “I realize it would make more sense for you to return to the house with us, but frankly, I don’t think you’re in a condition to run if need be, or to fight.”
“I know how her mind works.” Crowe smiled, again without warmth. “I cannot run, but I’ll be more use to you as a distraction anyway. You’ll need me there.”
Daniel studied him. The man could barely stand without support. “She will kill you.”
He chuckled, but winced and touched his finger to his mouth again. “She cannot. Part of our loving mother-and-son bond. We cannot kill one another.”
“Can she not create a situation where you could be killed secondarily? Caught in cross fire, bring the house down on your head?”
He shrugged, his eyelids heavy as he looked at Daniel. “She cannot cause my death. At this point, however, it doesn’t matter much to me anymore. As long as she’s alive, I am chained. If she can never be brought down, I would rather be caught in the cross fire. This is no life.”
Daniel was silent before nodding. “We’ll take you with us. But you needn’t fall on your own sword. Nothing is as fatalistic or set in stone as all that. We go in there today with the intention of coming back out. That includes you.” He paused. “What did you offer as your bribe in exchange for Isla’s cure?”
Crowe released a quiet sigh. “Myself. I promised to stay here, to be her lackey, her spy. I vowed to stop interfering in her magick by blocking her progress. Between age and maturity, I’ve become a thorn in her side.”
“You can do all of that, and yet she still managed to do this damage to you? Why do you not use your skills against her?”
“She is often a step ahead of me. The older I get, however, the faster I’ve become. I told her I would stay away from her affairs forever, but it wasn’t enough, and frankly I am stunned. She’s used me for her own ends from my first breath, but I never have made it easy for her.”
“She hates Isla more than she wants cooperation from you.”
Crowe nodded. “Now that she has lost Gladstone, she has nothing left but vengeance.”