Roses & Rye (Toil & Trouble Book 3) (8 page)

It’s not a memory but the sound of my sister’s actual voice that yanks me back to the present this time. “Well, look at this fucked-up little tea party.”

Jett
is standing in the archway to the parlor.

I don’t know where’s she been or what she’s been doing. I’ve tried following her, but even as a ghost it’s difficult keeping up with someone who can teleport. Not to mention the distractions inherent at every stop. I’ve lost her too many times to count, so I gave up.

Then again, maybe I just don’t want to know the truth. This is my sister we’re talking about here.

She’s in her favorite T&T tank top and jeans, her ever-present supple leather boots on her feet. Always in the best shape of the four of us, Jett has lost weight and gained a pallor that makes her dyed hair look even blacker. All in all, her appearance is positively wraithlike, her sword visible over one wiry, inked shoulder. Her expression is a bit shy of wary and a little more than resigned.

She knows this is it, but she saunters into the room anyway.

“Did I misplace my invitation? Hope you haven’t broken out the absinthe yet.”

Her lapis-blue eyes fall on each person in turn, lingering on my sisters, then Stephen, who straightens almost imperceptibly. At an equally minute slash of her hand, he relaxes, but she crosses the room to stand next to him, as if she can’t help herself.

Ana’s gaze flickers between the two of them, then she focuses on Jett alone.

“I texted you. Multiple times.” The words are full of a perfunctory irritation. I guess even Ana gets tired of playing the scolding big sister.

“Misplaced my phone,” Jett says, her tone trying for cool indifference, but failing. I don’t think anyone notices, but then I catch Stephen’s frown. So does Jett. She jerks her gaze over to Jack.

My sister—the one who kills with less guilt than most women sneak chocolate—swallows at the look in my lover’s eyes and takes a step back. Syana gasps.

The air in the room is wavering, faintly colored with streaks of blue and green and purple. Everyone stares at Jack, and Ana starts to rise, her mouth falling open. Instead of the pretty snow I remember when he was upset with me, it’s the northern lights trying to manifest now. There’s a weird keening, almost as if the walls are moaning. Despite the vampire fang and my mother’s bonds, everyone is realizing they may have underestimated Jack. The tension is palpable. Styx’s eyes start to glow, Ana lifts her hands, and Tyr reaches for his sword. Then to my surprise, Jack manages to rein himself in. The colors bleed from the air as he takes a long, slow breath.

Ana retakes her seat, looking pale. While everyone is looking at Jack and Jett, I notice Tyr scoot his chair closer to hers. Frowning at the assassin, I look away when Jack starts to talk.             

“Glad you decided to show up, Jett. I really wouldn’t want you to miss this.” Ice weaves its way through every terse syllable.

“Miss what? Is this a confession?” She tries to smile, but it’s so brittle it breaks before it can fully form. Stephen stirs restlessly, his expression puzzled. She doesn’t try to stop him when he reaches for her this time, nor does she flinch away when that big hand falls on her shoulder. In fact, she leans into his touch. Carly and Ana exchange a look.

“Afraid not. You might call it… a declaration of innocence.”

“Innocence? Really, Frost?” Her thin eyebrows rise as her tone veers toward mocking.

Jack continues, his rough voice grating. “Someone else was in that room besides me and Seph.”

“The one-armed man, maybe?” I recognize that flippancy. It’s exactly how I get when I’m in over my head. Or when I’m scared. Or my heart is breaking. Something twists inside me as I look at my sister’s pale face.

Jack, though, only gets more pissed, his voice frigid. “You find this conversation amusing, Jett?”

“Just get to the point, Frost.” Her words lash through the room. “Everyone knows the bruins didn’t find any other tracks around the cabin. Only Seph’s—and yours.”

“Not everyone has to leave tracks. For instance, when I use the wind—no tracks. When you do your teleportation deal—no tracks.”

“What the hell are you insinuating here?” Ana rises from her chair again, but Jack stops her with a raised hand.

“Didn’t you ever ask yourself how she rescued Seph, Ana? How she apparated into the middle of the Dark Council chambers to stop Tyr?” Ana blinks. The assassin pulls her back into her seat, his dark fingers squeezing one shoulder as if in silent warning.

Jack’s jaw flexes as he turns back to Jett, every word harder and colder. “Your power only works on places you’ve been or have had described to you so carefully you can picture it in your head, right? So how did you do it? Unless you’d been there before…or were working with someone who had.”

Stephen is staring down at my sister’s head, a deep line between his heavy brows. Mouths open around the room, no doubt ready to fill the air with various protests of rage and confusion, but Jack is already crushing the stone in his fist, the powder falling to the bright Turkish carpet in a glittery black rain.

The air, restless from the recent manifestation of his magic, catches the powder and draws it into quick, shadowy shapes, like an Etch-A-Sketch in midair. Everyone freezes as the tableau becomes clear.

It’s me, one hand buried in the chest of a two-dimensional, black-grained Jack.

A Jack that is falling to his knees, power shooting from him in thin slicing arcs, then being rebuffed. Scattered and diffused by the stone at my throat. Another burst of magic shoots from him almost immediately. This one never makes contact with my outline. Instead, those lines of power halt and slowly curl back into Jack’s collapsing form. Behind us, another figure forms grain by grain, arms raising a sword high, with only a slight pause before flashing down.

Jett’s sword being buried between my shoulder               blades.

I’m so enthralled by the replay of my death that I fail to notice the reactions around me until Ana gasps.

“It’s a trick. It has to be a trick.”

“It’s no fucking trick. The magic doesn’t lie and you know it.” Jack’s tone brooks no argument, but I can see the sympathy in his eyes.

Ana opens her mouth, then shuts it again, before saying softly. “
Jett
?”

Carly is taut as a bowstring next to Styx, her paint-flecked fingers curling into fists on her thighs. Syana is frozen, her mouth agape, Ajax’s arm tight around her shoulders as he looks to his next king.

Stephen is staring at Jett like he’s never seen her before, his hand slowly falling from her shoulder.

Tyr is the only one in the room with no expression whatsoever, his black eyes still and watchful, though I catch them dart Ana’s way once before going back to Jett.

She’s so pale now it’s like there’s a second ghost in the room, swaying in the sudden and absolute silence that follows Ana’s plea. Then her cheeks heat, flames bursting in all that white. In one swift movement, she draws her sword from its sheath at her back, placing the blade between her and the rest of the room. But no one moves to attack. Not even Jack.

She aims a vicious, bitter look at him. “We always knew you wouldn’t have the stones to do what needed to be done. So yeah, I did it.
I killed Seph
.”

“
We?
” Jack’s shout falls on empty air because before Stephen can reach for her again, Jett is gone.

For a long time after my sister’s disappearance the room is still. Slowly conversation starts up again, voices hushed, like a group of survivors coming together to sort out the event they all experienced but still don’t understand.

Join the club, suckers.

Ana is first, her voice low with shock and confusion.

“How did she apparate into the cabin? Jack, you’ve just pointed out she can’t go—”

“She’d been there before. With me,” Stephen says, still staring at the spot where Jett vanished, his voice hollow. “And she knew Seph was there that night. I called her. I told her what had happened to Georg and where Seph was. She came to the Den and stayed with me for a few hours.” He closes his eyes. “She left sometime that morning, told me she had things to take care of.”

“Things like murdering her sister,” Jack says coldly.

Ana shakes her head, her mouth open. From her expression she had no idea about Jett and Stephen’s liaison, but that’s the least of what she’s processing at the moment. “I can’t. Frost, I can’t believe this of her.”

“You took precautions,” Tyr speaks up, his dark eyes glinting at Ana. “Maybe Jett did, too.”

“What does that mean?” Carly this time, her voice soft. “What the hell does he mean by ‘precautions,’ Ana?”

Ana presses her lips together, glaring at Tyr. Then she sighs. “What the assassin means is that I hired him. To keep an eye on Seph.”

“
What?
” Syana is just as stunned as Carly. “But he tried to
kill
her! I was there.”

Tyr shoots her a thin-lipped smile. “Oh for heaven’s sake. You didn’t really think you got the drop on me, did you? I let you and Seph capture me, though I gotta say, I should have charged Anastasia more for the damage to my reputation.”

Carly is staring at Ana. “What about Mom?”

“What about her? Goddammit, Carly! She wanted us to do nothing.
Nothing!
Our own sister. How could I not?”

“You know what happens when we don’t listen to her. You
know
.” Her lips are trembling, but her eyes are steady. Carly doesn’t do mad often, but when she does?

Batten down the hatches.

Ana bites her lip until a drop of blood forms, bright and red. “I know, but the things Mom told us…I had to have a backup plan! She was asking too much this time.”

“She was asking for trust, just like always.” Carly’s eyes flick to Tyr. “And you know the consequences of breaking that trust.”

“You think my interference got Seph killed? It was Jett that put a sword in Seph’s back. Not me, Carlisle Grace.” My sisters glare at each other until Jack breaks the taut silence, addressing Ana.

“What did your mother tell you exactly?”

Ana looks at Carly, who shakes her head once. Ana lifts her chin and answers anyway. “Before she left three years ago? Not much. Only what we already knew, that someone had been trying to kill Seph for a long time, and that they were going to try again soon.”

Carly’s mouth tightens into thin, hard lines. Next to her, Styx is quiet, a still and watchful beast in the low light.

“Mom had always hinted it was because Seph was special,” Ana continues, arms folded. “That she had a gift unlike the rest of us, and that it was dangerous. Mom also hinted she did something to hide that gift from Seph until she was ready for it. She was very clear before she went away that we couldn’t tell Seph any of this, or do anything to interfere when it started up again. That’s part of why Mom showed up again before Yule; she knew I’d disobeyed.”

“
Part
of why she showed up? What was the other part?”

Ana’s face closes off, her eyes going blank at Jack’s questions. “None of your business, Frost.” There’s absolutely no give in her words. Jack tries another angle.

“You’ve been paying Tyr to keep an eye on Seph for how long exactly?”

“About a year.”

Jack looks lost in thought. “The truth stone—you had Tyr steal it?”

“That was my idea, actually,” Tyr interrupts. “Anastasia hired me to protect Persephone, but Cerunnos was also my employer. I had to juggle things quite a bit. When he directed me to set Seph up, I stole the truth stone so I could fulfill both agreements.”

“Clever.”

Tyr lifts his hands with a small smile. “And profitable.” Then he frowns. “It would’ve worked a lot better if Persephone hadn’t delivered herself into his clutches and lost the damn thing.”

“Yes.” Ana sighs. “Seph was always impulsive. Always wanting to face things straightaway, with no regard for the consequences.”

Gee thanks, Ana
. Never mind that she’s right. I stick my tongue out at her anyway.

“Maybe this was Jett’s way of stopping the prophecy,” Ana murmurs, half to herself.

“Or maybe she’s been in league with Cerunnos all along.” Jack, his voice cold.

“Don’t say that, you bastard.”

“Why not? It makes sense, Ana. She’s on the Council with your mother gone—surely you know he’s overtaken the Council. She could’ve been in his pocket for months. Remember the mall? The Council took your rights away as the oldest. Maybe that was because they were afraid you wouldn’t comply. Maybe they did it so the
right
sister would be the one to bind Seph’s magic. The one they could trust because she was on their side all along.
His side
. What else do you think she meant by ‘we’?”

Son of a bitch. My little epiphany. Except I had thought it was Tyr working with someone else to set me up. Instead it was Cerunnos.

Cerunnos and my sister.

“When that plan fell through,” Jack continues, “they had to go the more direct route. He sent Jett to the cabin that night to kill Seph.”

“You’re wrong.” Carly is white to the lips, staring at Jack.