Page 6 of Iridian

“I guess I could laugh at you, too,” I said, while she pulled herself together again. “I mean,David Hill.” She stopped moving. “He was in your house. You taught him everything he knows—wasn’t that what you said?”

“What do you know about David Hill?”

“I know who he is now,” I said, and finally, I’d caught her by surprise. Finally, she was showing me emotion, frustration,rage.“We met, only briefly. Only until Alejandro Ammiz told us all about how they were friends, and how he, since forever, has been gathering everything he needs to bring back the Delaetus Army.”

Her glass of whiskey ended up on the wall behind me.

A scream slipped out of me because it was so sudden. The sound of broken glass got to me, even though she moved so fast I hardly saw her throwing it. So fucking fast her arm turned to a blur.

“Don’t lie to me, Rosabel,” said Madeline, her now empty hand raised to her right as she whispered another spell to bring herself a new glass. A clean glass where she could pour her whiskey. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot now—that’s the only thing that had changed about her. And her magic—it vibrated in the air around her, too.

“I’m not lying,” I said, and I hated that my voice shook. I hated that even now, even after everything I’d had to go through the past year alone, my body still behaved like I was afraid of her.

Not anymore,I thought, and I forced myself to raise my chin. She could throw her glass at my fucking face next, and I didn’t care. I would not cower back in front of her.

“I am not lying, Grandmother. He admitted it himself. He’s been collecting everything in the Vault—the veler, the Script of Perria, the bracelet…” My eyes closed and I tried to recall what else the Devil had mentioned. “He hassoul vessels,too, though I don’t know what those are.”

“Why?” she whispered, and her own voice seemed to surprise her, like she hadn’t meant to ask that question at all.

“I don’t know, but I would imagine for the same reason Titus created that spell when he did.” To rule over the world. To begod.

It was almost funny. The first time I heard about it, I was shocked at the idea alone—who even had such ambitions?!

Men did. Iridians did.

Putting the glass down on the table, Madeline stood up. If it wasn’t for her spell holding me—now weaker still—I’d have probably moved away just in case. As it was, I just watched her as she slowly made her way around the coffee table and to the shelf, ran her fingertips over the spines as she searched for what she wanted.

A moment later, she found it. Took it off the shelf. Turned to me and sipped her whiskey.

“Did you know that this was your mother’s favorite book?” she whispered, and it was like she’d slapped the shit out of me. Like she’d thrown that glass at my face.

She looked down at her book. “Yes—Titus always intrigued her. How much do you know about him, though? Do you know thewholestory?”

She asked me that. She really asked me that.

But I couldn’t speak. Something about her mentioning my mother. Something aboutthinkingabout my mother when it feltlike I hadn’t in such a long time. The best I could do was shake my head.

“Very well. I shall tell you.”

Chapter 3

Rosabel La Rouge

“His time was long ago, long before the French and British colonies first set foot in what is now Canada. Titus was born and raised in what is now called Nova Scotia—an exceptional mage, more powerful than anything the people of his time had seen. A Whitefire and Laetus hybrid, more powerful than both combined.” Madeline pressed her lips into a tight smile as she slowly paced in front of me with the book still in her hands. “It’s a shame that the world hasn’t seen talent such as his often. Orever,after him, if you ask me.”

My ears could be fucking with me. “Talent?He created a curse to control people.” Just in case she’d somehow forgotten that part.

Her eyes brightened. “Precisely. The amount of power and dedication and attention to detail a curse of that magnitude requires…can you imagine?”

The question sounded rhetorical, but I answered anyway. “I don’t have to imagine anything—it already happened.” And she knew this way better than I did, apparently.

Madeline flinched—actually flinched. “Yes, it did.” She finally sat down on the coffee table again, the book on her lap. And I realized I’d never seen her so…not-perfectly-composedaround me before. It was almost like she washuman,like the rest of us, which couldn’t possibly be. This was Madeline Rogan, and Madeline Rogan was a monster who probably had no beating heart and no soul and her insides were made of plastic.

She continued.

“Titus was, in fact, trying to find acurefor curses, if you will. An anti-curse—theanti-curse that would serve to deflect and mute every curse ever cast by magic, but he created something far superior instead.”

Is it just me or is Madeline a fan of Titus?I mean, the way she was talking about him almost made me blush.

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