Page 45 of The Salt-Black Tree
Maybe Leo…Nat sucked in a breath, her fingers tightening on the wheel. It wasn’t even an effort to avoid mortal vehicles anymore, their indistinct shadows wrapped in thick cotton.
You really could get used to anything. Anything at all.
All this way, and she hadn’t had time to really contemplate her eventual return to ice-locked New York. She was supposed to take the arcana, not to mention the Heart, straight to the Laurelgrove and her mother. But if she went home instead, if Baby turned down South Aurora and the little yellow house was a caved-in ruin…
Why could she imagine her own gruesome demise in vivid color, but not anything approaching freedom? Even “moving out” had been a hazy, indistinct idea, for all her careful lunchtime research about sublets and roommate-wanted ads, snatching quick bites of mortal food along with rent numbers, adding together first, last, and deposit over and over, calculating.
Even theideaof liberty had been enough, really. But reality was approaching at high speed now, and she couldn’t blink past it like a wallowing mortal semi. “Dmitri?”
“Hm?”
“Did you ever not know what to do?” She tried to imagine him arriving from the old country, probably steerage in aTitanic-sized ship, an urchin or skinny teenager with a nasty, prideful sneer and quick temper. Or had he simply appeared when mortals stepped off the gangplank onto dry land, bringing a cargo of belief with them?
He dug the chameleon cigarette pack, green this time with yellow calligraphy, out of his suit pocket and tapped up a smoke. Their fragile road-trip détente probably wouldn’t last past theElysium’s revolving glass door. When she got her hands on the Heart—hisheart—all bets were off.
“You think too much.” But the truce still held, because he lit the cigarette with a fingertip flicker and exhaled, heavily. “Time to survive,zaika moya, not wonder about old wolves.”
He was right, but she still wondered. Fog thinned, mortal traffic thickened, smoke curled around his dark head, and he jabbed two fingers at the windshield. The mist cringed away; an exit sign loomed.
He was showing her, of course, the way to the Elysium.
A REASONABLE PRECAUTION
Nat only caught a few glimpses, but the French Quarter was just as rococo as all the movies and books hinted, even under a flat gray morning sky with the humidity hovering near “unbreathable.” Two of the streets Dima pointed her down were pedestrian-only, but none of the mortals ambling along even glanced at Baby, whose engine hushed to a library whisper before a sudden right turn through a low arch spat them into a courtyard with a familiar revolving glitter at its far end.
The Elysium New Orleans was sheathed with yellowish brick and bright gleaming glass, wrought-iron balconies starring its face. The courtyard held two fountains shaped like well-pruned magnolia trees as well as the usual trio of doorman, valet, and security guard. The enclosing walls were jaundiced brick like the paving, the revolving door was just as bright and hungry-looking, and once through, the lobby was entirely the same. Marisol had indeed left a gift in Baby’s trunk—three antique leather suitcases of varying sizes were dutifully hauled on an antique brass-railed cart by a crimson-uniformed bellboy summoned by the doorman.
The valet driver cleared his throat respectfully before informing Baby that the parking garage was in the sub-basement; the blue car’s engine roused and she moved away at a sedate pace, apparently hip to the program.
Nat wanted to watch where her chariot was going, but there was no use in protesting at this point.
Inside, Mr. Priest’s greeting, right down to the speech about not causing any trouble unless it was in the Ring, was almost word-for-word. His uniformed acolytes were different, though—a smiling woman with an ink-black pixie cut and a young man with a shaved head and a prominent Adam’s apple—and this time the rooms were on the third floor, “near the exercise facilities, and with a view,” Priest added, smiling modestly.
“Separate,” Nat clarified. “No adjoining door.” She waited for an objection.
Mr. Priest did not wait for Dmitri’s agreement. “Yes, mademoiselle.Martin will handle your luggage.”
Maybe there was some residual truce left from their all-night drive, because the gangster just shrugged. “Marie still on St-Ann?”
“Herlevée’s held near Pontchartrain, nightly. A new lake house, since the recent weather events… well.” Mr. Priest glanced at Nat. “Does monsieur require acarte d’invitation?”
“Two. And a carriage. Traditional, you know.” Dmitri’s smile was as wide and white as ever, but this time it didn’t send a chill down Nat’s back.
Maybe she was getting used to all this divinity stuff.
The short ride in the whisper-quiet elevator was an eternity, especially since the gangster locked gazes with her in the mirrored door, tiny red dots swimming in his black, black pupils. Martin the carrot-haired bellboy lugged the brass-railed cart out on the third floor and set off down a long crimson-carpeted hall, his red pillbox hat bobbing. A cut-glass bowl full of fragile white flowers she couldn’t identify stood on a spindly ebony table before an antique mirror at the far end.
Dmitri cleared his throat, meaningfully.
“Don’t threaten me.” Nat was just glad to be out of the car; even though Baby was beautiful, long drives wore on the backand neck, not to mention her legs. The sense of bodily well-being was still eerily strong, but her weariness wasn’t physical.
Besides, the deep, unsettling, blurring buzz surrounding Georgia’s house was still in her bones. It slept uneasily, and even though Nat had no desire to find out if she could summon the crackling scent of ozone Maria Drozdova could, the feeling might not ask her permission.
You didn’t think I’d let you leave without a gift, did you?
“Your room,mamzelle.” Martin gestured at a white-painted door, its polished brass plate bearing a quasi-familiar symbol. “Monsieur, a moment, and I’ll show you to yours.”
“Be ready at sunset.” Dmitri tilted his head, one corner of his lips twitching upward. It wasn’t his usual murderous grin, but it was still uncomfortable. “Wear something nice, eh? But no big dinner.” The half-smile fled. “Might not be wise.”
