CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Tadji. What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here. It’s too dangerous. And you aren’t to bring strangers into the house. Are you all right? Is everything all right?”

Her words were fast, panic clearly seeping in.

“They’re friends,” Tadji said, taking a step forward, “and they’re here to help. Things are happening, Mama. Big things. You need to be prepared.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What kinds of things?”

“We should talk to you and Aunt Zana together. It affects both of you.”

She picked up the spoon, turned off the stove. “Zana,” she yelled. “Come in here, please.”

We stood in awkward silence in the kitchen until floorboards began to creak in another part of the house.

Zana came through the doorway in a pale pink dress, looking much like a ghost in this very old house in this very old bayou. She could have been Phaedra’s twin. She had the same long bones and wispy figure, but her face was a little longer, her mouth a little rounder.

Her eyes widened when she saw Tadji in the kitchen. “Tadji. What are you doing here? Has something happened?”

“Hi, Aunt Zana. This is Claire, and this is Liam,” Tadji said, pointing to us. “We need to talk to both of you. Is there a place we can sit down?”

Phaedra took Zana’s hand, walked into the living room linked to the kitchen. They sat down on one couch while Tadji and I sat down on the other. Liam stayed on his feet, arms crossed and ready to move. I hoped we had more time than that.

“What’s this about?” Phaedra asked.

“It’s about you and your magic,” Tadji said.

The sisters looked at each other, linked their hands again.

“What about it?” Phaedra lifted her chin defiantly.

“Someone’s trying to open the Veil,” Liam said, “and they’re looking for Sensitives who can help them. They have a list of Sensitives, people who they’re interrogating to get that information. And we think they’re making them wraiths so they can’t report about that interrogation.”

Phaedra’s brows lifted. “I don’t see what this has to do with us.”

“You’re both on the list,” he said. “We think you’re next.”

The words fell like thunderclaps in the quiet room.

The sisters’ fingers tightened. “We haven’t left the bayou in years,” Phaedra said. “We couldn’t be on any list.”

“We’ve seen it,” Liam gently said. “You’re on it.”

Tadji stood up. “It’s too dangerous for you to be here without help, without support. They could come for you, and no one would know it. You could come back to New Orleans with us.” She looked at me and Liam.

“We have friends you could stay with,” I said. “You’d be safe there until we can make sure the threat is gone.”

Tadji nodded. “Yes. Exactly. The three of us rode down here together. I can drive back with you in the sedan.”

“Nonsense,” Phaedra said, crossing one leg over another. “That’s nonsense. We’ve done no one’s business but our own for years.”

“But you did someone else’s business at one time, Mrs. Dupre?”

All eyes turned to Liam.

“You helped Containment during the war. And when you discovered they lied about immunity, you disappeared. Maybe after that, you’ve done favors for friends, used your magic. Become known as women who could help?”

Phaedra’s chin lifted again in that proud, defiant way. She was definitely Tadji’s mother. “It’s a difficult life out here. You work hard for it, and you get to know the folks who help you. We’ve done right by our neighbors. It’s what anyone would do.”