Page 82 of The Exorcism of Faeries

“Well?” Atta prodded.

“Marguerite will be here in an hour to discuss what’s happened.”

“What does Marguerite have to do with all this?” Atta asked, finding herself irritated.

“She’s tangled in this mess with us now, and we need her help to continue.”

Atta

She heard Gibbs let Marguerite Vasilios in, but she and Sonder were still in a heated debate.

“We need to go find the faerie before it Inhabits someone else!” Her hand sliced through the air as she attempted to drive her point home for the thirtieth time over the last hour.

“It’s a vapour. How are we supposed to locate a vapour?”

She’d pulled him into the piano room to have this discussion and he looked up at her dubiously from the piano bench.

“I don’t know, but we have to try.” Atta crossed her arms. “What if it’s lying in wait for one of us?”

“Then we arm ourselves. Make it impossible to Inhabit us,” Sonder argued.

“We don’t even know how to do that,” she snapped, her nerves feeling frayed after all that had happened that day.

Sonder frowned at her and stood. He approached and placed his hands on her upper arms, sliding them up and down as if to warm her. “This morning was still a success.”

Part of her hated that he could read her so well. The other part of her was horribly grateful that she didn’t have to explain herself. “I let it get away.”

She peered up into his woodland eyes and let them search hers. “You didn’t let that faerie do anything. I am all for people taking responsibility for things that happen when the situation warrants it, but this is not one of those situations. For all we know, it was moving the damned thing that loosened the Celtic knot, and I’m the one who did that.”

Tears welled in her eyes despite her best efforts, and when one slipped down her cheek, Sonder was there to catch it, his palm along her jaw, his thumb swiping the traitorous tear away. “It’s going to hurt someone else.”

“We don’t know that,astór,” he reassured her, his voice low. “But right now we have to move forward. Success and scientific discovery are not linear. We’re still on the right path.”

He was right. She knew that much.

Atta sniffled and stepped back from him, letting her analytical brain take charge. “We need to ward the manor. I can do that while you speak with Professor Vasilios.”

Sonder nodded once and they strode out to meet Marguerite and Gibbs, who were conversing awkwardly in the sitting room.

As soon as she saw them, Marguerite stood up from the sofa, her distaste plain on her pretty features when her attention landed on Atta. “Miss Morrow,” she said icily. “I did not expect to see you here.” She shot Sonder a look. “Is this what Finneas is so livid about?”

“You’re not here to discuss Lynch, Marguerite.” Sonder had slipped into his cool, collected Dr Frankenstein persona as he sat in one of the wingback chairs opposite the sofa. “Please, sit.”

“Like hell, we’re not here to discuss Finneas Lynch,” Vasilios hissed but took a seat, smoothing out the skirt of her expensive two-piece. “He’s already on a tirade, trying to figure out who is going behind the Society’s back. It won’t take him two seconds to discover it’s you.”

Sonder tilted his head to one side, unbothered, and Atta sank onto the loveseat next to Gibbs, who looked at her with wide eyes.

“Whatare you doing, Sonder?”

“Curing the Plague,” he answered simply. “Isn’t that the job ofmyHouse within Agamemnon?”

A sharp, unladylike laugh popped out of Marguerite, incongruous with her polished demeanour. “You know how this works.” She gesticulated wildly. “We are their puppets or else we’re theirbones.”

Her last words sent a chill up Atta’s arms and Gibbs reached out to squeeze her hand once. She offered him a small smile of gratitude as Sonder responded.

“We’re already their bones and it’s foolish to think we’re not. Achilles has always stood as a place that was meant to find a cure. To put an end to this Plague. This has never been about glory or control, not for me.”

It dawned on Atta then that he had chosen the name Achilles very carefully. It was artful, brilliant, and so fitting of the hierarchy and relationship between the two, wasn’t it?Agamemnon and Achilles. And a slap in the face. Things were beginning to make a lot more sense.

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