Kyler had clearly been listening in. He met my gaze with a grin. “You know I’m always a fan of research.”
Damon’s head jerked up over the heap of bacon he’d been inhaling. “What are we researching now?” he demanded.
Ky opened his mouth to answer, and the doorbell rang, followed almost immediately by a sharp rapping. I stiffened in my seat, and all five of my consorts tensed. Naomi’s brow creased for the few seconds before a muffled but strident voice carried through the door and down the hall with the knocking.
“Ginny? We need to speak immediately.”
“That’s Aunt Irene,” Naomi said to me under her breath. “She’s not very good at taking no for an answer. Or things like calling ahead rather than showing up unannounced.”
My shoulders came down, but my pulse was still skittering. “Should we be worried about her? She wouldn’t turn us over to the Assembly, would she?”
“I don’t think so,” Naomi said. “She’s a bit of a hardass, but she’s not, like, malicious. She’d never do anything to hurt the family. And I know she was wrapped up in the case with Grandma and Gramps when they were trying to reach out to your mom and then investigate her death. I’ve heard her and Mom talking about it a few times. She definitely didn’t like your dad at all.”
Aunt Ginny had obviously heard her sister’s call. Footsteps pattered down the hall. The door sighed open. Whatever she said to Aunt Irene, it was too quiet for us to make out all the way over in the breakfast room.
“They called me right up,” Irene replied, her voice even harder to ignore now that there wasn’t a door between her and us toning it down. “Wanted to know about Rose—said she might have come to see us, that she might have severalunsparked menwith her?” She sounded incredulous and either impressed or horrified. It was hard to tell which. I had a bad feeling I knew who “they” were, though. Our enemies hadn’t been totally convinced we’d left the city if they were still poking around here.
The conversation continued at more of a hush. I set down the rest of my croissant, no longer hungry. The pastry’s sweetness had soured in my mouth.
Gabriel reached over and set his hand over mine. Meeting my newest consort’s gaze, absorbing the reassurance of his touch, my nerves settled a little.
Whatever happened, we were in this together. Completely, now.
A moment later, an imperious woman swept into the room with Aunt Ginny at her heels. My mother’s older sister—because who else could this woman be—radiated an air of authority from where her gray-streaked black hair was pulled into a twist on the top of her head to the buckles of her loafers. She fixed her eyes, the same dark green as mine and my mother’s, on me in an instant.
“So, she is here,” she said, and took in the rest of the figures around the table too. “And the men too.”
My heart thumped faster, but I pushed myself to my feet and pasted a smile onto my face. “Aunt Irene? It’s so good to finally meet you. And to be able to introduce you to my consorts.”
Irene’s eyebrows arched. She gave me a crooked smile in return. “Alora’s Rose. What strange things you’ve gotten yourself into out there on the west coast. It appears we have a lot to talk about.”
* * *
When I’d finished telling Aunt Irene my story, she just looked at me for longer than felt completely comfortable. We’d moved into the living room, ending up in almost the same positions as when I’d given this account to Aunt Ginny’s family yesterday, except only Aunt Ginny and Naomi had joined the Levesque side of the room this time. Naomi had given me supported nods while I’d been talking. It had been a little easier the second time, as intimidating as my older aunt was.
“We’ve seen signs of it ourselves, haven’t we?” Aunt Ginny spoke up. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since Rose told me all this—there was Helen Osler, the way she got quieter during that first year of her marriage, and she faded out of the get-togethers with the rest of us… We thought she was just wrapped up in her new life, but maybe it wasn’t a good sort of wrapped up. I haven’t even heard from her in years now.”
“And Rhiannon Wells,” Irene said, her face drawn. “I have to wonder about her too. There was something about the consort she ended up with… I talked to her once after the move, and something in her voice…” She shook her head. “But that isn’t the most important matter of the moment. The most important matter is that you’re harboring six people the Assembly has named as criminals, even if most of the members don’t have the full story. They already suspect Rose might be here.”
“You said you got a call,” I ventured.
She didn’t seem bothered by my admitting I’d listened in on that conversation. Maybe she realized it was hard to expect anyone not to, at the volume she liked to talk.
“A representative from the Justice division wanted to make me aware of the ‘situation’ and find out if you’d been in contact,” she said. “I told her you hadn’t, naturally, because you hadn’t. But I’m sure this is the next place they’ll be checking. I’m surprised they haven’t already given you a call.” She glanced at her sister.
“They must have assumed you’d know all there is to know about the goings-on in the Levesque family,” Aunt Ginny said with a slightly teasing note in her voice. “Owen, Greg, and the girls know not to mention anything outside this house. We’ve been careful.”
“But if we know witches who might have had their magic bound like Rose’s father tried to do with hers,” Naomi said. “If it could be happening tootherwitches, witches my age who are just preparing to get consorted now—we have to stand up to them, don’t we? What if one of these predators sucked in Stella?”
Ginny’s jaw tightened. Of course she was worried about her younger daughter.
Irene let out a huff. From what I’d gathered, her only daughter was twenty-nine and already long consorted, and I supposed she didn’t need to worry about her son, who was twenty-one, getting tied up in some sort of trap.
“You haven’t had many opportunities to go against the Assembly,” she said to my cousin. “I watched everything your grandparents went through for Alora—and it all came to nothing. If you go after the Assembly and you don’t have an absolutely solid case, you’re as likely to be crushed as anything. Your grandfather lost half of his business clients over that matter. We nearly lost theestate, with that sudden drop in income.”
“I’m not asking you to fight for me,” I said. “We just needed somewhere to take shelter while we prepared for whatever we’re going to do next. And to find out if you had any proof or information we could use.”
“We don’t have a whole lot of choice about whatwedo,” Seth put in. “Either we fight, or we let them take us. And the second option probably ends with us all dead.”