Page 38 of The Heartless One
Agnes looked at Jessamine then, and she suddenly knew the answer to a question that had plagued her for a long time. What was the role of a gravesinger? Was she only here to raise a god and then blend into the background?
Now, she knew. Elric didn’t have the patience to convince someone on his own to join his coven. Witches had too much history in them. They knew the dangers that came with trusting anyone. She could feel it deep in her bones. The old history never died.
So she met Agnes’s gaze and nodded. “It is time, old woman. You have fallen so far, but we are here to catch you.”
“Fallen? I have not fallen at all.”
Elissa gracefully sat in one of the chairs, arranging her skirts around herself just so. “Fortuna Beaumont runs the entire Pleasure District now.With the king at her side, she will not be displaced. You will die long before you claim this district as your own again.”
It was fascinating watching Agnes’s features change as soon as Elissa said that. She went from a scared old woman to a hardened warrior who had fought far too many people to ever suffer being spoken to like that.
“Watch your tongue, girl,” Agnes snapped. “I have been in this district longer than anyone else. I know the rules of this place better than youorFortuna. If she thinks she can take this part of the city over, then she’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.”
“She might do just that,” Elissa insisted, but she’d already started wringing her hands in her lap. “We’re trying to help you.”
“By barging into my home? By spelling my bodyguard? By…” Agnes seemed to trip over the next words that she might say because she looked back at Elric, who still had her hand in his grip.
And that was where it all changed, Jessamine could see. She’d been there before. There were so many things wrong with what Agnes had done in her life, but right now, there was a god holding her hand.
Anyone could feel his power. Elric was so magnetic to people who could become witches, though they were terrified of that sensation.
Sybil walked to Agnes’s other side and reached for her free hand. Sybil didn’t hide what her own hands looked like. They were gnarled and old as well. Ancient as time could let them get, and she grasped the old woman’s fingers in her own as she sank onto her knees.
“You…” Agnes swallowed. “You look so young.”
“I am.”
“I can feel the wrinkles of your hands. You’ll be hard-pressed to tell me that you are young.”
“I am two hundred and seventeen years old,” Sybil replied with a soft smile. “And I am young for a witch.”
There it was. All laid out in the open for Agnes to know. They were witches, they were a coven who had come to collect her, and there was a god with them. But more than that, they were offering her immortality.
Agnes’s lower lip quivered before she stiffened it. “Deathless One, please release my bodyguard.”
“When we are gone.”
“Now. He is my grandson, and I wish to speak with him before I make my choice.”
Elric’s nostrils flared, but then he nodded. Which surprised Jessamine, because usually he would have been much more hesitant to release someone who was so aggressive. But then again, he had the man’s soul trapped. Perhaps he knew more about the grandson than even Agnes did.
A gasp echoed from outside the door, and then the man charged into the room. His face was red, his hands curled into fists like he was just waiting to put them through something.
“Easy,” Elric warned with a quirked brow. “I can put you back there.”
It was like watching a wall try to patch itself back up. The grandson pulled himself back together, bit by angry, vibrating bit, until he finally nodded and stiffly walked over to his grandmother. He stood behind her chair with his hands on the back of the rocker, holding it still as though his mere presence could keep her safe.
Only then did Agnes drop the mask of the frail old woman. She straightened, clearly far stronger than she had let on.
What a picture they were. An old woman, her hair white as snow, with the young man who was visibly her blood the more Jessamine looked at them.
“You offer me a great deal,” Agnes finally said, her voice still warbling with age. “But the Pleasure District does not need a savior. Even I, although wishing to restore it to its former glory, am unnecessary for its survival. You offer me a coven of witches, but I have never wanted to bind myself to the weak. Give me something greater, and perhaps I will consider your offer.”
Elric scoffed. “We are offering you the Pleasure District itself! What more do you want, you old bat?”
More wasn’t necessarily the question, Jessamine mused. It appeared Agnes was of the old blood, just like the queen had been. Jessamine’smother would never make a deal with someone who was newly rich, or who had recently taken a throne from another. New blood hadn’t worked through generations to get where they were, although such thinking had limited who she could work with. It wasn’t that Agnes didn’t recognize the power before her, but that she had no interest in it if there wasn’t a connection as well.
Jessamine knew women like her. Agnes would make choices based on what other people would think of her. Would she align with a brand-new coven of witches who thought they deserved the attention of a god? No. She wouldn’t. No one knew their names. To align herself with new blood was the kiss of social death.
