Page 24 of Tanglewood Legacy (The Three Sisters 3)
“Do you remember the woman who begged me to intervene when we disembarked?”
“I do.”
“Her name is Delphine, and her husband was the first to die. I saw her last night at the tavern, and she was positively transformed from her previous sickly state to a supernatural beauty. And the man Pierre told me about this morning was Lucienne’s husband. Lucienne is Delphine’s sister.”
Medea thought about it for a moment. “Fuck. How? She was human when she stepped off that ship. I saw her in the light of day.”
“I don’t know, but I intend to pay Delphine a visit and find out.”
A fresh breath of air filled the room, like a morning breeze through dewy spring leaves, and Circe appeared, smiling in the doorway. Well, her belly appeared first. She was ever rounder each day now, the baby due in less than two weeks’ time. “What’s going on in here?”
Isis exchanged glances with Medea and hooked her pinkie inside her sister’s.No need to stress her about the killings.Reading one another’s thoughts was a talent the three sisters had been honing over the years. It was much easier to send the thought to Medea than to keep it from Circe.
“Isis has taken a lover,” Medea blurted. “I was just warning her about the consequences.”
Circe squealed and held her arms open to Isis for a hug. “Oh, honey! Tell me all about him.”
Medea left the room, rolling her eyes.
* * *
The next afternoon,Isis headed into town to visit with Delphine Devereaux. Traveling at night would have been easier for her, but this visit during the heart of the day held purpose. Vampires in Ouros experienced the sleep of the dead when the sun was up. According to Pierre, he’d seen Delphine the morning after her husband died, and she’d been human when Isis had met her on the ship. Either vampirism worked differently in this realm, or they were mistaken about Delphine and there was another explanation for her change in appearance. Either way, Isis planned to find out what her role was in all of this.
Thankfully, the death of Guillaume Laurent gave her the perfect excuse to visit Delphine. With a basket of goodies on her hip, Isis proceeded to the former Laurent residence under the guise of bringing a meal to a grieving widow and gave the home’s wooden door a firm knock. No answer. She knocked again. A thud sounded inside, as if something heavy had fallen off a shelf. Finally, footsteps. The door opened only a crack.
“Can I help you?” A young woman’s face appeared in the gap, her straight hair the color of ripe wheat. She looked familiar. Delphine’s youngest sister? What was her name? Isis couldn’t remember.
“Is Delphine here? The priest told me this was her home. I heard her husband passed and came to bring her a few things.” She held up the basket, brimming with freshly baked bread and smoked meats.
“That’s kind of you. I’m her sister Antoinette. I can give it to her.” She held out her hand.
Isis turned her body to move the basket out of reach. “May I see her? I’d like to convey my condolences myself.”
Antoinette turned her head, glancing inside the house. “She’s not taking visitors. You probably haven’t heard yet that our sister Lucienne lost her husband only yesterday to the same fever that killed Delphine’s husband. I’m afraid she’s crippled with grief. Delphine is tending to her and is, I’m afraid, in no condition to entertain guests.”
Fever.That was an interesting spin. A whisper reached Isis’s ear, the sound of a shadow trying to get her attention. Her magic reached out for it, and she searched the dark interior behind Antoinette. “In that case, please give this to her and tell her that Isis Tanglewood sends her deepest sympathy.” She shoved the wide basket at Antoinette, sticking her toe inside when the young girl opened the door wider to her. The shadow bit into her boot and melted icily through her skin. She stepped back again.
The door closed in her face, but it was too late. Images flashed in her mind, her magic wringing them from the shadows. Lucienne lay on a simple bed, deathly pale and thin. Delphine knelt beside her, bending over her as if in prayer. Perhaps what Antoinette said was true. Could Isis have been mistaken about Delphine being responsible for the deaths?
Another image flashed in her mind, Delphine raising her head. Isis gasped. Her skin was marble white, and her eyes glowed pale in the dim light. On the ship, Delphine’s eyes had been brown. She remembered as much. Now, they were too similar to Master Demidicus’s, the vampire who had helped them escape Paragon.
Everything in her believed Delphine was a vampire and the murderer, but she had to think what to do about it. She strolled the streets, pondering her next move. She had to get Delphine alone, confront her, make her understand she could not kill here again. Isis stopped short when a shop window caught her eye. Not the window itself but what was behind it, a perfect emerald of a cut she hadn’t seen since her time in Darnuith. She hadn’t known the people of this realm capable of such craftsmanship.
She tipped her head back and looked up at the sign:Blakemore’s Imports.Curious, she walked through the open door into the shady interior. The shop had all manner of goods—furniture, jewelry, bolts of fabric. She ran her hand along a particularly fine length of silk. This was not made here. Whoever owned this shop must have had it shipped in from the old world.
“Can I help you?”
Isis whirled at the voice and froze. Of all the things she’d expected to come face-to-face with in this wild, untamed corner of the globe, this was the last of them. A dragon, here, in la Nouvelle-Orléans.
ChapterTwelve
“I’m sorry… Have we met before?” The smoky scent of the dragon met her nose, and she examined him, disbelieving what was right in front of her. His illusion was good; she’d give him that. He appeared before her, a tall, dark human in contemporary finery. But all the signs were there. His unusually large size, the way his eyes reflected light more like a cat’s than a human’s, and this place, he was standing amid his own stash of treasure.
“No,” she said quickly. “I was just admiring your inventory.” Standing in the man’s proximity was like being in the shadow of a mountain. The aura of a warrior surrounded him. Isis knew her own power and, even so, was intimidated by his presence. She watched his nostrils flare and the smile fade from his lips.
Rounding the crowded room, he kept his distance while making his way toward the front of the store. “Is there anything I can help you find?” he asked, but his voice was wooden. She sized him up, and he did the same to her. Who was more afraid of whom?
“I was wondering where you obtained the emerald in the window and the one on your finger,” she asked, pointedly gazing at his large emerald ring. That piece of jewelry was charged with so much magic she could almost taste it. She knew what it meant, what he was.
