He shrugged. Maybe so she could have one last hurrah, even if shes not around to actually enjoy it.
Or maybe she didnt fully trust McAllister to see that her wishes were carried out.
Would you?
Good point.
But enough about all that, Finn said, straightening his bow tie just a bit. Were at a party, the night is young, and I look fabulous. He paused a moment. And so do you.
Good to know where I stand in your list of priorities. Although I dont know if fabulous is the word I would use, I muttered, and crossed my arms over my chest. I told you that I at least wanted something with sleeves.
And I told you that sometimes you just have to suffer for fashion.
I gave him a sour look, which he totally ignored.
Still, I had to admit he was right. I had cleaned up pretty well tonight, thanks to the dress Finn had picked out. The scarlet gown had a tight fitted top that emphasized the smooth skin of my arms and shoulders, while the front of the bodice swooped down to show off what assets I had there. Scarlet teardrop-shaped crystals decorated the seams that cinched in around my waist, adding some sparkle to the gown, before the fabric fell away into a long, flowing skirt, also dotted here and there with crystals. As I walked, the skirt swirled out around me, the slits in it showing teasing flashes of my legs. Finn had even insisted on my buying shoes the same color to match, although Id held my ground and had picked a pair with a relatively low, two-inch heel instead of the sky-high pumps hed tried to browbeat me into getting.
The gown was beautifulcertainly more beautiful than I wasbut I couldnt help but feel exposed it in. The top left my arms bare, which meant that I couldnt carry knives up my sleeves like I usually did. Still, I hadnt come to the museum completely weaponless: two blades were strapped to my thighs underneath the long skirt, just in case. I would have preferred to be carrying my full five-point arsenal, so to speak, but two knives were usually enough to get the job done, especially when I was the one wielding them.
Still, I couldnt help but listen to the tense, worried mutters of the stone around memutters that had only gotten louder and sharper since wed entered the rotunda.
And it wasnt just the stones whispers that made me wary. There were increasingly more giants inside the museum than there had been outside, until it seemed like they were everywhere I turned in the rotunda. Most of the giants were dressed as waiters, but really, they were just glorified guards in black bow ties. Theyd be ready to deal quickly, brutally, and efficiently with any problems that might arise. In fact, there were more giant waiters in the room than there were personal bodyguards. I supposed that some of the movers and shakers thought theyd be safe enough at such a public event and had left their muscle at home for the night.
Even so, the giants didnt bother me as much as the stares, snubs, and whispers. Opal wasnt the only person who recognized me, and more than one person turned in my direction to gawk. Apparently, an assassin attending such a high-society event was something of a shock. Please. Id snuck into my share of their fancy parties over the years to get close to a targetand more than one person had died before the last bit of bubbly was drunk. Or perhaps they thought it was gauche of me to show my face at an event commemorating the woman Id killed. As if they all hadnt wanted Mab dead for years.
Most folks limited themselves to whispering about me or turning their backs to me, but a few of the underworld figures had more interesting reactions. Ron Donaldson openly pouted at the fact that I was still breathing. Id killed three of his men last month when theyd ambushed me outside the Pork Pit. Lorelei Parker was another petulant pouter. Shed sent two of her men after me just last week, and I had Sophia send them back to her in pieces.
Oh, yes. Tension rippled through the crowd with every move I made. But even beyond that, a nervous edge crackled in the air. I couldnt quite put my finger on the source of it, but I felt it all the same, buzzing around like lightning getting ready to streak down from the sky and fry someone to a crispme, most likely.
Well, I think you look fabulous, Finn repeated. Now, what do you say we get some champagne and have a look at Mabs loot?
I snorted. Youre just trying to butter me up so you can get your way.
Is it working?
I sighed. Doesnt it always?
Finn grinned at me.
So I shut the stones murmurs out of my mind and ignored the folks whispering about me, determined at least to try to have a good time.
We grabbed some champagne and spent the next few minutes wandering around the rotunda. Actually, Finn dragged me from one group of people to the next, cozying up to all of his clients, saying hello to everyone he knew, and introducing himself to the few folks who hadnt yet had the supreme pleasure of his acquaintance.
Finnegan Lane was one of the best investment bankers in Ashland, and hed made a lot of people in this room a lot of money. We wouldnt take more than three steps before Finn would wave at someone he knew or a woman would sidle up and plant a coy, perfumed kiss on his cheek. Finally, after the fifth time that happened, I motioned at Finn that I was going on without him. He absently waved his hand at me and turned back to his apparently riveting conversation about tax shelters with a wizened dwarf wearing a dozen ropes of black pearls.
While Finn held court, I moved off into the crowd. I wandered from one display to the next, ignoring the awed whispers about my being the Spider and disappointed mutters about why I wasnt dead yet. Instead, I concentrated on all of the things Mab had collected over the years. Most of the items were exactly what Id expected: pricey paintings, large sculptures, small, detailed carvings, even a few silk wall tapestries. Nothing too exciting or interesting. In fact, I was rather disappointed by the whole thing. Given how cruel and vicious Mab had been, Id expected there to be something noteworthy on display, maybe a gun shed used to kneecap someone, a knife shed chopped off an enemys fingers with, a bit of rope shed wrapped around someones throat and choked them into compliance with.
But I should have known that Mab wouldnt have had anything like that. Shed preferred using her Fire magic to hurt, torture, burn, and kill people. She hadnt needed anything else. No props, no weapons, no help from her giant guards. Just the mention of her name had been enough to inspire abject terrorand rightly so.
What, exactly, are you doing here? a low voice snapped.
I turned to find Jonah McAllister standing behind me, his fingers clenched around a champagne glass and his mouth pinched down with as much surprise and displeasure as his tight features would allow him to show.
Why, hello, Jonah, I drawled. Lovely to see you again too.
His cold brown eyes flicked up and down my body, carefully studying my gown as if he expected to find bloodstains on the expensive fabric. Maybe later. Like Finn had said, the night was still young.
I told the guards to keep the riffraff out, but apparently, they didnt understand the meaning of the word, he said in a haughty, condescending tone.
I laughed in his face. McAllister had called me trashand worseon more than one occasion, but his insults didnt bother me in the slightest. In fact, I idly considered reaching out, grabbing the lawyers lapels, and dragging him back into a dark corner so I could stab him to death with one of my knives. But alas, there were too many people, too many cameras, and too many giant guards posing as waiters in here for me to get away with murdering McAllister.
Still, the lawyers days were numbered. Id make sure of that.
An angry, mottled flush stained McAllisters cheeks at my light, happy, mocking laughter, and I could almost see the wheels furiously spinning in his mind as he thought about how he could get the better of me. He took another long, careful look at me, intently eyeing me from head to toe, then pivoted on his heel and strode away. I watched him for a few moments, but instead of going over to a couple of the giants and demanding that they escort me out, he pulled his cell phone out of his pants pocket and started texting on it. Maybe he was sending his demands to someone higher up the museum food chain than the guards.
Strange, even for McAllister. Usually, he had some sort of devious plan in mind when it came to me, one that involved my untimely demise. It wasnt like him just to walk away after merely one insult. Id have to keep an eye on him
A fresh glass of champagne, maam?
A silver tray appeared at my elbow, and I stared up at the person holding it, a giant about seven and a half feet tall. She looked to be in her mid-fifties, judging from the wrinkles fanning out from the corners of her eyes, the deep laugh lines grooving in and around her mouth, and the long crease slashing across her forehead.
She wore the same starched white shirt and matching black tuxedo vest, bow tie, and pants that all of the other waiters did, but her features were quite striking. Her shoulder-length auburn hair was a mass of tight, wild curls, while her hazel eyes were just a shade darker than her tan skin. Her understated makeup highlighted her full mouth, sharp nose, and high cheekbones, and even the waiter uniform couldnt disguise her generous breasts or how long her legs were. Put a gown on her, and shed turn her fair share of heads in the room.
She also seemed vaguely familiar to me, like Id seen her before, although I couldnt quite place when or where. Id probably noticed her at some other event, serving as a waiter or maybe even as a bodyguard to one of the underworld bosses. As the Spider, Id met a lot of giants in my time. Well, killed was more like it.
Maam? she repeated, moving the tray closer to my elbow. More champagne?
No, thank you, I said, putting my still-full glass on her tray. I seem to have lost my thirst for it.
Men will do that to you, wont they? she agreed.
Her voice was pure country twang, although the hard, knowing smile on her face told me that she was much smarter than the aw-shucks demeanor she radiated.
Before I could tell her that Jonah McAllister was in no way my sort of man, she moved on to the next person. I shook my head. First, the woman working the door had frozen up at my appearance, and now a waiter was giving me tips on my supposed love life with the smarmy lawyer. The night just kept getting weirder and weirder.
Id just started to wade back into the crowd in search of Finn when a sly wink of silverstone caught my eye, and I noticed one more display tucked away in a recess in the back wall of the rotunda. Curious, I wandered over and finally found something noteworthy after all.
Two silverstone rune pendants lay on a bed of blue velvet behind a sheet of glass. One pendant was shaped like a snowflake, the symbol for icy calm. The other was a curling ivy vine, representing elegance.
I knew the symbols, knew exactly what they meant.
Id once had a pendant just like them, one shaped like a small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. A spider rune, the symbol for patience.
The symbol that was branded into my palms to this day.
My hands balled into fists, my nails digging into the spider rune scars there.
Mab had put the marks there the night shed tortured me, using her Fire magic to melt my silverstone pendant into my palms. It had been one of the most excruciating things Id ever endured, but it was nothing compared with the utter shock I was feeling right now.
Because the snowflake was my mother Eiras rune. And the ivy vine had belonged to my older sister, Annabella.
4
I leaned forward, until my nose was almost pressed against the glass, and studied every single millimeter of the runes. The pendants werent polished to a high gloss like everything else on view was. Rather, the chains they hung on were blackened, and what looked like streaks of soot and bits of ash clung to the surface of the silverstone runes, as though theyd once been in a fire and had never been properly cleaned.
Theyd been in fire, all rightMabs murderous elemental blaze.
Mab . . . Mab must have taken my mother and my sisters rune necklaces after shed killed them that horrible night. Id thought that the pendants had been buried in the rubble after Id used my Ice and Stone magic to collapse the mansion on top of us all; or perhaps they had been pilfered by looters later on. But somehow Mab had gotten her grubby, greedy hands on them. Shed had the runes all these years, and now here they were, on display for everyone in Ashland to see, like alike a damn trophy celebrating my familys murder.
Id thought by killing Mab that I was finally free of her, that I was finally done with her, and that she couldnt shock, surprise, or hurt me anymore. Id even gone to her funeral and said my piece to her ebony casket. But once again, the Fire elemental had managed to reach out from beyond the grave and mess with me.
Shock, anger, rage, hate. Those emotions surged through my body, matching the sudden, rapid, painful thump of my heart. For a moment, I considered using my magic to harden my fist so I could punch right through the thick glass. It would feel good, so fucking good, to smash the glass and grab the runes. Because they were minemine and Briasand Id be damned if Mab or the museum was keeping them.
But I forced myself to slow my ragged breathing and calm my racing heart. No, I couldnt do that. There were too many security cameras in here for me to get away with such a crude smash-and-grab job. The guards would swarm me en masse, and Id end up like the dwarf at the Posh boutiquebloody, beaten, handcuffed, and escorted off the premises by the esteemed members of the po-po.
No, this would require a different approacha nice, quiet, after-hours visit to the museum. I wasnt leaving these last few precious pieces of my family behind.