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One by one the other queens rose as well, holding their goblets out.
I rose too, lifting my glass. “To Paris and the Great Mother’s daughters who hold the City of Light!”
“Long live Shara Isador, Queen of Paris, last daughter of Isis.”
37
SHARA
Harvey gently set a bowl of bright green creamy soup in front of me. “Asparagus and Tarragon Velouté, Your Majesty, finished with olive oil.”
“Thank you, Mr. Renardet.” I took several bites, appreciating the smooth texture and freshness. I’m no food connoisseur but it was far better than the cold gazpacho I’d eaten with the queen of Rome. “So… Did you discover anything interesting at House Damas?”
Mairead laughed. “You could say that, Your Majesty.”
“When we stepped out of the fountain directly into the nest, we scared poor Agatha to death,” Sorcha said. “She’s Damas’ majordome, or rather, was. We dismissed everyone and removed their access to the blood circle immediately. Everyone was quite distraught. Several of the humans wanted time to pack and complained about not knowing where to go. They’d lived their entire lives serving Damas. I told them to leave everything as it was for now, and we would arrange a time for them to return and retrieve their things.” She paused, giving me a worried look. “I hope that was acceptable, Your Majesty.”
“Of course, though I admit that I didn’t really think things through how to handle several people at once, especially people who’d lived there all their lives.” Guilt twinged, especially when I imagined someone forcing Magnum to leave the Park Avenue House. Or Frank and Gina from their home. “How many humans did you dismiss?”
“Nearly twenty,” Mairead replied.
“So many? How did you manage that many at once?”
Eyes dancing with mirth, Sorcha shrugged. “We used the magic in the blood circle. It’s ours now. Well, ours through your blood, of course, Your Majesty. Though we did add our blood to the circle before we left.”
“We did the same.” Leonie nodded across the table at Josephine, who grinned and said a long string of French with a laugh. Leonie translated for me. “We said, ‘In the name of Shara Isador, get the fuck out.’”
“Exactly,” Sorcha replied. “The magic forced them to leave expeditiously. Every second inside the circle worsened the urgency to leave to the point of pain.”
“We didn’t want to give them time to destroy anything,” Mairead added. “From the state of the private study, they’d been preparing for disaster. Boxes were stacked everywhere, papers and ledgers tossed in haphazardly. Push carts loaded down, ready to go. I don’t know if they were going to simply hide everything or try to destroy it.”
“Charles Valois was trying to burn the records first and the house second. He said his former queen didn’t want any of her physical possessions to belong to anyone else.”
Mairead gave me a narrowed, interested look. “Makes one wonder what physical items she had in the house that she didn’t want you to have, Your Majesty.”
“Exactly.” I finished the soup and as if he had internal radar, Harvey swooped in and whisked the empty bowl away. “I would prefer you simply call me Shara, by the way. I don’t really care for formalities. Especially while we’re eating and talking.”
“As you wish, Shara, my queen.” Though Mairead stammered slightly over my name. “If you feel as though it’s safe to return to Palais de Valois, we will go over the house carefully looking for any other hidden chambers or traps.”
I glanced over at Warwick, who stood near the door, his back to the table. He’d dressed in black slacks and a long-sleeved shirt like Guillaume’s. Might even be one of his. Simple but functional. “The pestilence we encountered has been cleared, though of course there could be other traps.”
“Can you tell us more about what happened?” Sorcha asked.
The quiet chatter around the table stilled, everyone tuning in to hear the details. I took a sip of wine to buy myself a little time to clarify and organize my thoughts, deep inside myself where no sibling bonds could overhear. I didn’t mind telling them what happened, to a point. But I would tell no one the deal I’d made with Coatlicue. All I needed was an enemy queen plotting to assassinate one of my Blood in the hopes of killing all of us.
“Before I was born, two of my mother’s former Blood were sent to House Valois, and they spent some time chained in the attic before Rosalind shipped them to America. They heard someone inside the bricked chimney that runs through the center of the house, and he was still inside. We freed him, of course, not understanding that he carried a pathogen targeted toward Aima instead of humans. We started to die almost immediately.”
“What kind of pathogen?” A queen asked from further down the table.
“We’re still learning how it was created, but it was a pestilence created by Queen Damiana, Daughter of Eris, Queen of the Nosoi, which are demons of plague and illness from Greek mythology.”
“Eris,” Mairead whispered. “The goddess of discord and strife.”
“Evidently Damiana became obsessed with creating her own version of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. We encountered the Knight of Pestilence. The Dauphine had him brought to Paris inside an iron maiden and installed him inside the Valois chimney, where he lay imprisoned while the house was built around him.”
Sorcha’s eyes shimmered. “So long. That poor man.”
“I don’t know how long he’d been imprisoned before she got her hands on him. I don’t know if Rosalind even knew he was there. My Blood determined no one had even entered the chimney in decades.”
