Page 132 of Love & Heart Braking

“I need to be at full strength to transport another. They kept me weak. I would estimate another two weeks for my magic reserves to be restored if they’re not depleted again.”

Two weeks. I could work with that. “Mistress Cineres mentioned other information you had on Venus’s line. Do you know what she was talking about? She said it would be personal to me.”

He sat next to Gug. “A letter was inside the tome. One written by your father in his last days. I don’t know if my father realized it was there. I only saw it when they ransacked my office.”

My father’s last words?

“Did you read the letter?” Devereaux asked him as I sat in body-numbing shock.

“I didn’t.”

Before I’d known the letter existed, I’d been at peace with my parents’ deaths. Now, the words would haunt me to the end of my days. Just like the mystery that plagued Devereaux, and just as the matriarch had intended when she’d mentioned there being more information.

She’d guessed I would question the daemon. She was trying to distract me, and I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

I sighed heavily. “I have the packet from the lab.”

Devereaux was watching with concern in his cool gray gaze, and I was too tired and heartsick over Soleil and the letter and this whole damn shituation to flash him a reassuring grin or wink.

I found the packet in my tote and tossed it onto the coffee table.

Devereaux picked it up. “Definitely the Doquu symbol.”

“The healer guy said not to ingest the contents whole,” I said. “I don’t know how harmful they are otherwise.”

My berserker tore open a small corner. His nose twitched. “It’s very faint.”

Gug croaked, “What is?”

Devereaux lowered the packet, appearing stunned. “Shade. A tiny amount only.”

Really?

“The Doquus are dealing in Shade.” He put the packet down.

“And the Cinereses are making it.” I frowned. “But don’t the Cinereses make Shade elsewhere too? Why keep this part of the operation on their estate?”

“Because it’s for the Doquus specifically?” Gug mused.

Something wasn’t adding up. “Soleil’s lab guy said the food didn’t show up anything unusual. The Doquus aren’t putting it in the food.” Thank Venus.

Lerome tapped his long fingernail on the coffee table by the packet. “What if this was the first shipment?”

“Shade has existed for over a year. Why would they only ship it now?” Devereaux asked. “Cerys is right. There has to be a reason they produce this separately from the rest of the drug. From the size of the biohazard room she described, they can’t possibly be making all of the Shade there. Plus, law enforcement stormed the Opifis’ yesterday morning. We seized product there and the tests came back a few hours ago. They were producing Shade in some of their factories.”

I blew out a breath. “So have the Cinereses just provided the recipe to the Opifis and then are making their own too? Or are the Opifis supplying the premises for the Cinereses’ drug operation? I still don’t understand why they’re making different stuff for the Doquus.”

“I think they were testing the effects of Shade,’ Maligni replied.

Everyone looked at him.

“Imosae liked to brag about his family. He was often assigned guard duty in the dungeon and thought it beneath him. He never mentioned Shade outright but said the twelve were testing something on Nepos’s dregs to see what it did to them. He used to laugh about how the addiction ‘fucked’ with people’s magic.” The daemon’s brows drew together. “The wording he used didn’t make me think this was a new operation. Rather that they’d been testing the product on people for a long time in preparation of something big.”

“They must plan to give Shade to the public,” I said. “Cause a community-wide addiction.” What if Lerome was right and this was the first shipment? What if we’d jumped the gun with testing the food?

Children would eat this stuff.

This was another bid to control descendants at large, and it made me as sick as their other ploy to control love.

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