by Page Morgan
Ingrid had spent the week in her room. Mama and Papa had turned their heads when Luc arrived each morning and slipped up to Ingrid’s bedroom to hold her the day through. Gabby had stayed with Mama during the day and Ingrid at night, when Luc left. As she listened to Vander, who was standing at the head of the dug grave, reading from the book of Psalms, she felt exhaustion weighting her.
Theirs was a small crowd of Alliance, Dispossessed, and those who knew their secrets standing around the casket, which had already been lowered into the freshly dug ground. Nolan stood behind her, his hand lifting every now and then to the small of her back. Rory was with him, his dagger vest replaced by a more respectful black waistcoat, jacket, and tie. Hugh Dupuis had delayed his departure for London until after the burial, and he kept beside Rory—a place in which Gabby, and a few others, had noticed he could usually be found.
And then there was Chelle. She stood between Rory and Nolan, trembling like a reed in a rushing stream. Nolan and Vander had broken her out of the basement at Hôtel Bastian, and when they’d told her about Grayson, she had done something neither of them had ever seen: she had collapsed. She’d cried in great, heaving sobs, and Nolan had later told Gabby that he’d needed to carry Chelle out of the basement. That she’d been inconsolable since.
So Grayson had gone and fallen in love. And yet he’d only known that first taste of it. Gabby had tried putting herself in Chelle’s place, imagined Nolan being taken from her now, before they could even really begin. It had made Gabby cling to him when he’d next visited the rectory.
Finishing with the Psalms, Vander closed the Bible he’d been reading and adjusted his wire spectacles. He was a reverend now, though he wasn’t wearing anything that would mark him as such. Just his usual threadbare tweed.
“I would like to say something more before we commit Grayson’s body to the earth. Something not found in here,” he said, lifting the Bible in explanation.
Ingrid’s arm kept shaking, and Gabby wished Luc could be standing on her sister’s other side. He, Marco, and Gaston, accompanied by Monsieur Constantine, stood across the open grave. Luc’s eyes were fastened on Ingrid, watching her, ready. But the intimacy of standing so close would not have been borne here, in public view.
“I met Grayson when he first came to Paris. He was here alone, trying to prepare this old rectory for when his sisters and mother would arrive. He admitted to me that he was nervous, that perhaps he’d made a mistake listening to Constantine and purchasing the abbey.” Vander paused and sent Constantine an apologetic glance. “Grayson told me about Waverly House, and the conditions his sisters and mother, whom I hadn’t yet met, were used to. This place would be a change. A drastic change, and he worried it wouldn’t be good enough.”
Gabby listened, rapt. This was Grayson before the Underneath. Grayson before she’d known he’d changed. Nolan slid his hand against her back, a sturdy reminder that he was there.
“I asked him, half joking, if his sisters were really that spoiled.” This time Vander sent Gabby and Ingrid the apologetic glances. “He looked at me, and more serious than I’d yet seen him to be, he said his sisters deserved to be happy here. He said he’d tear down this place and put up a new Waverly House if that was what it took.”
Ingrid’s fingers tightened around Gabby’s. She knew Ingrid’s chin was quivering just as violently as her own, the tears coursing freely down her cheeks.
“I knew right then,” Vander continued, “that Grayson was the kind of man who would do whatever it took to take care of the people he loved. He walked into Axia’s nest knowing he probably wouldn’t leave it alive.” Vander crouched before the grave, his toes crumbling a bit of dirt. The clumps landed on the varnished tiger-oak casket. “He went anyway. He went for all of us.”
Gabby released Ingrid’s hand as Luc threw caution aside and broke from his indomitable hold across the grave. He walked around Vander, to Ingrid, and brought her against his chest. He began to lead Ingrid away, her broken sobs knifing through Gabby.
Nolan touched her shoulders and brought her closer to him. If Ingrid could seek solace in the arms of a gargoyle, then she could very well do the same with a demon hunter. She still snuck a glance up at her father as she allowed Nolan to guide her away from Grayson’s grave.
Lord Brickton stared at his son’s casket, his wife shuddering in his arms. The insignificance of everything else hit Gabby, and she sank into Nolan’s warm side.
“Cousin,” Rory whispered, tagging Nolan’s elbow. He glanced toward Chelle, who had seated herself on the flat top of an old gravestone. Her shoulders and back heaved and shook. “Ye know yer the only one who can calm her.”
Nolan took a deep breath, his arm taut around Gabby. “Rory … stay with Chelle for just a little while and I’ll be there when—”
Gabby pressed her palm flat against Nolan’s chest. “Go. It’s all right.”
Nolan would return to her side in a few minutes. Grayson would never return to Chelle’s.
He kissed her forehead and ceded Gabby’s arm to Rory. “Don’t get into trouble.”
He walked across the grass, between the scattered gravestones, toward Chelle. Gabby was grateful for Rory’s muscular arm. There weren’t many people here to say their goodbyes to Grayson, but those who were had proven their loyalty to one another.
“Are you going back to London?” Gabby asked, keeping her voice low.
Rory’s bicep flexed underneath his black suit jacket. “Aye, laoch.”
“I’m sure Carver will be thrilled to see you again,” she said, remembering Hugh’s gargoyle.
Rory smiled, confirming Gabby’s speculation with his usual poise.
“Hugh’ll have a time of it tryin’ to keep Hathaway and the rest of the Directorate off his scent,” Rory added, switching tracks.
In the craze and chaos following the battle in the Champs de Mars, the Daicrypta doyen, with Rory’s help and a few gargoyles as well, had transported Axia’s netted and incapacitated body to the abandoned Montmartre mansion owned by his father. He’d hooked Axia up to the ancient draining machinery housed in the little outbuilding behind the courtyard and drained every last drop of her blood. Had they allowed the Alliance to drag her body away, Hathaway would have had the same thing done, most likely on the machine Nolan and Vander had been building at Hôtel Bastian. Gabby didn’t know what Hugh had done with the blood, but she trusted him. Whatever his plans, he had no designs against the Dispossessed, as Hathaway did.
According to Rory, Hugh had given Axia’s desiccated remains to the horde of gargoyles waiting in the Daicrypta courtyard. The gargoyles had disposed of her, and with relish.
Hans and Hathaway had suspected Rory’s deceit, but with no evidence, what could they do? They certainly couldn’t charge him with treason, the way they’d threatened Nolan. Of course, the angelic net had worked, and there was no doubt that Nolan’s actions had only helped bring Axia and her Harvest to an end. There would be no trial against him in Rome. When he’d told Gabby the news, she’d dissolved into new tears. Better tears. And they had felt good.
“I’m going to miss you,” Gabby said, squeezing Rory’s arm.
“Ah, laoch, I dinna think ye’ll be missin’ me long.”
She released his arm and peered up at him. “Why do you say that?”
“Quinns have a way of stayin’ close.”
Gabby stepped away. “But I’m not a Quinn.”
A little smile lifted the corner of Rory’s lips. “I suspect Nolan’ll take care of that in time.”
Gabby, flushed and speechless, let her mouth hang open as Rory bowed and walked away. She didn’t have a moment to think about what Rory had said before a hand settled on her waist. Nolan’s forearm braced her back as he returned her to his side.
“What’s my cousin smirking about?” he asked, looking after Rory. And then, upon seeing Gabby’s shocked expression, added, “What did he say to you?”
Oh no. She wasn’t about to divulge that. Gabby
straightened her posture and searched for Chelle. Vander was leading her away, toward the abbey.
“Will she be all right?” she asked.
Nolan reached for the collar of Gabby’s cape and drew the panels tighter together for her. “We’re talking about Chelle.”
“But she loved him,” Gabby said, and then realized something. There were words—significant words—she hadn’t yet said. Gabby lifted her gloved hand and caressed Nolan’s freshly shaven cheek. “I love you.”
He stared, gone still at her confession. He had to have already known, but he looked as if she’d just told him the location of the Holy Grail. Or, on second thought, he stared at her the way he had in London, in her room, when he’d confessed that he wouldn’t leave her side.
“Gabriella,” he whispered. If they had not been where they were, surrounded by sadness and gravestones, she knew he would have swept her up into one of his kisses. The ones she dreamed about at night. Instead, Nolan took a long breath and started walking her slowly back toward the rectory.
“Your oaths ceremony will be in Rome,” he said softly. “As soon as you think we should leave.”
Hathaway hadn’t been able to save his precious angel blood from underneath Yann—who had ultimately suffered the same fate as Axia—but the Directorate representative had witnessed Gabby’s bravery and acknowledged her hand in capturing Axia. Though without genuine excitement in the request, Hathaway had asked her to Rome.
“I don’t think I should leave Mama yet. Or Ingrid,” she answered.
“Don’t forget yourself, lass,” Nolan said. “You lost him too.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder as they walked. He nuzzled the crown of her head.
“I should probably stick around as well. For Chelle,” Nolan said, then tacked on, “And Vander.”
They were mourning Grayson, yes, but Vander had lost something else. It was no longer a secret, not within the Alliance or the Dispossessed, that Ingrid had fallen in love with Luc, and he with her. Things were still tense and uncertain, but so far, the Dispossessed had not acted against Luc in any way. It could have been because he was their new elder. Marco had confided in Gabby earlier that the majority of the gargoyles seemed willing and open to a new way. Or, Gabby considered, they could have been willing because of who Luc’s chosen human was. After Ingrid had unleashed that electrical firestorm into Axia in the Champs de Mars, no gargoyle could believe it wise to cross her.
“Gabby.” Nolan pulled up short of the rectory’s front door. “I know you were having second thoughts about joining the Alliance, and if you decide not to … if you don’t want to go through with it …” He cradled her scarred cheek in his palm. He always reached for that side of her face. Always ran his fingers along the track of scars. He loved every inch of her. Even her flaws.
“Whether you’re Alliance or not, I’m staying with you, lass.”
She leaned into his touch and sighed. “We are a good team, aren’t we?”
“The finest. Although I think I’ll have to be even more disciplined than I was before. I anticipate being more interested in kissing you than hunting demons.”
Gabby laughed, and she imagined Grayson would like the sound of that more than he would all the sobbing. So she laughed again. “I don’t think my father will approve of that.”
Nolan scowled. “Your father and I will have to come to an understanding, then, because I intend to kiss you every day for the rest of my life. Starting now.”
Without checking to see if they were alone, Nolan took her mouth in a fast, fervent kiss. After a week of feeling cold and lost, it made Gabby feel alive again. Grayson would want her to live—he’d died so that she might.
This was her life. The one she wanted. And for Grayson, for all he was and all he could have been, she would live it.
Ingrid shouldn’t have been smiling. She shouldn’t have been feeling so happy and proud. But as the abbey’s fan-vaulted ceilings captured the animated voices of the gallery’s first patrons and organ music breathed from the copper pipes, she couldn’t stop.
The gallery was filled to overflowing. Opening night, so far, was a smashing success. There were oil portraits and bronze sculptures alongside woven tapestries and Impressionistic landscapes, and even works by that awful painter of women’s dimpled backsides whom she and Gabby had so unfortunately met at a salon once.
Ingrid stood mostly to the side, avoiding conversation and waving away Marco when he came around in his crisp tuxedo offering champagne and colorful commentary on the well-heeled guests. His mood had improved in the days following an unexpected visit from Irindi. The angel had repaired Marco’s back, erasing the burns that Axia had wrongly inflicted. The mending had been almost as agonizing as the initial burns, Marco had said, and he’d gleefully shucked his shirt for Ingrid and Gabby—and unfortunately Mama—to show off the return of his smooth, bare skin. Mama had been quite flummoxed, which Ingrid imagined had been Marco’s intent.
The gallery opening had been delayed by a week, for obvious reasons, but more tourists for the exposition had begun flowing into Paris. Mama had hired an entirely new staff to replace those who had abandoned the rectory, and her energy had returned. As brokenhearted as she was, she’d whisked into the dining room one morning for breakfast, Papa seated at the head of the table with his paper, and made an announcement.
“Grayson worked tirelessly to get this gallery under way for me,” she’d said, fighting back tears. “I will not disappoint him.”
And that had been that.
Ingrid caught sight of her mother now, milling about the nave, her black bombazine dress the only indication that she was in mourning. Papa stood with her, and though he looked as starchy as ever, at least he was there. The grin fixed on her mother’s lips as she spoke and laughed looked genuine to Ingrid, and her own smile felt real, too.
“It’s nice to see that.”
Ingrid startled, stepping aside and brushing against the carved wooden frieze of the twelve apostles near the transept door. Vander had joined her, his gaze following hers.
“Mama’s smile?” Ingrid guessed.
Vander cut his eyes to hers. “And yours.”
She hadn’t seen him since Grayson’s funeral. She’d missed him but understood why he’d stayed away.
“So, Reverend, are you enjoying the gallery?” she asked, stressing his new title.
It earned her a groan.
“What? No clerical robes yet?” she asked, still teasing.
“I think I can follow my calling wearing my usual getup,” he replied.
“What about your crossbow and sword?” Ingrid asked. “They’re hardly reverend-like.”
Vander patted the side of his long tweed coat. “They are blessed, remember.”
Ingrid resisted the urge to laugh and flirt. Vander had always made it so easy for her. But that was over now, and Vander, seeming to sense her unease, took a step away.
“How are things going with Constantine?” she asked.
Her teacher had started taking in Dusters at Clos du Vie—both the original seedlings and the Dusters they had created when under Axia’s spell. People like Chelle.
“We’ve got a regular laboratory going on over there,” he answered.
He and Constantine, through correspondence with Hugh, were learning how to proliferate Vander’s mersian blood. The draining machinery Nolan and Vander had been working on had been moved from Hôtel Bastian to Clos du Vie, and with Hugh’s aid, it wouldn’t be much longer until it was in full working order. For now, those who could safely take injections were receiving them, and those whose blood would clot when matched with Vander’s, like Chelle, were learning to adapt to their new powers.
“So you’re an ordained scientist,” Ingrid said.
“I wouldn’t want to be too conventional,” he replied, and then, before she could respond, turned to face her. “Can we talk? Outside?”
Ingrid took a last glance into the crowd. She couldn’t find her m
other, but she did see Marco staring at her from beside a marble sculpture of a well-endowed Greek god. How fitting, she thought, as she turned and led Vander outside through the transept door.
The late April night was cool, a rain having just fallen. She smelled the spring-rich air as they walked toward the courtyard fountain, burbling for the first time since Ingrid had come to Paris.
The silence between them had started to grow awkward, when Vander finally spoke. And so like him, he swiftly cut to the heart of things.
“If a life with him is what you want, if it will make you happy, then I’ll never say another word about it.”
He wasn’t roiling mad, as he’d been in her room the time he’d found her with Luc. He didn’t corner her or rail at her the way he had then, teetering on the verge of losing control. He was just determined now.
“You know …” Vander gathered a breath. “You know that I love you.”
Ingrid had been crying for weeks, and not just over losing Grayson. She was exhausted, though, and she didn’t want to cry any more.
“And I love you,” she whispered. “But I can’t have you both.”
Vander stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded. “And right now you choose him.”
Right now. Right now and forever. “So long as he exists.”
He nodded again, though to himself, as if conducting his own conversation in his mind. “Luc saved my life. I don’t think he would have done that if you didn’t love me.” Vander met her eyes, which were rebelling against her will and filling with tears again. “That says something about him.”
Vander leaned forward and kissed Ingrid on her forehead, his hands still in his pockets, unable to touch her. He then turned and walked away, toward the hedgerow. He didn’t look back.
Ingrid stared after him. Being hurt was one thing. Doing the hurting was another. She didn’t know which one felt worse.
The grass squeaked under someone’s approaching feet.
“Griddy?” her sister called, using the awful nickname that she had graciously abandoned lately.
