At the head of the thundering army sat the Maid of Orleans—Jehanne d’Arc, with her cropped hair, as she was depicted in the safe house. She carried her banner of an angel holding a lily. She was very young, maybe seventeen, and a hooded pure white peregrine falcon rested on her gauntleted arm.

  “Jean-Marc,” the wind whispered. Jehanne looked skyward and saw him floating on the clouds. Then she lifted the hood off the falcon and lofted it upward. It took flight, fluttering up into the brilliant sunshine.

  “Catch my little one,” she called to him in medieval French. “Take her under your wing!”

  He stared at the sight of the falcon rising above her gauntlet. The image was the exact likeness of the armored hand and dove of peace of his House. As he watched, he remembered flying among the seagulls, looking for her; he had Seen her as a falcon then. So was this the image upon which his House had been founded—the patroness of the House of the Flames, sending forth Isabelle of the Flames, to his protection?

  “Fool, save her!” Jehanne commanded him.

  An arrow shot from the army on the field of green. Whining through the air, it hit the falcon directly in the breast. The impact flung it upward toward the sun; it held for a moment as if still in flight, then plummeted toward the ground. Billows of gray clouds rolled in from the north, swallowing it, cloaking Jehanne and her followers. He heard the whinny of horses, the clank of armor and Jehanne.

  “Don’t let that happen to my nestling,” she exhorted him. “You take the arrow. You die for her.”

  “I will,” he told her, as smoke and fog surrounded him. He heard low laughter; a hiss.

  Jean-Marc, I search for you, my handsome one. Where are you? Come back to me, and give me the rest of your soul. We need it.

  It was Lilliane. He set his jaw and narrowed his eyes. Le Devourer would never have the rest of his soul, ever.

  Izzy heard herself speaking in perfect French.

  “Jehanne, ma patronesse, je vous en prie.” Joan, my patron, I entreat you.

  And suddenly she was floating in a tunnel of white light. Sweet soprano voices raised in song, surrounding her as she floated past glowing beams and gentle waves of light. She looked down at her hands. Dressed in her white satin gown, she was solid flesh and bone. Ringlets of her hair bobbed in front of her eyes. She moved them away from her face, blinking as a sphere of light more dazzling than the sun blazed at the opposite end of the tunnel.

  She tried to look away, but she couldn’t close her eyes. She was mesmerized. The sphere separated into two smaller spheres. They became human-shaped—woman-shaped—and the one on the right opened her arms, as if in welcome. The taller one, on the left, did not.

  “Isabella Celestina De Marco, I summon thee,” said the tall one.

  “Jehanne,” she whispered, wondering how she knew.

  “Oui. I am your patron. Or rather, I was.” The figure became clearer; it was the young woman whose face was featured all over the safe house. Unsmiling, angry, she wore chain mail over her head, and light glinted off her armor. Gloves of chain mail covered her hands. A sword appeared in her right hand. She raised it toward Isabelle.

  “I withdrew my patronage from you because you conjured a demon. I forbade you, but you continued. You defied me.”

  Izzy took a breath. “I don’t remember that. But if I did it, I must have had a good reason.”

  Jehanne’s mouth dropped open. “How dare you speak to me so. You were to be a general in my army, but in my army, not yours.”

  She raised the sword over her head, as if to cut Izzy down. “You pray to me, and beg me to forgive you, and then you insult me and argue with me?”

  Izzy ticked her attention from the furious woman to the less distinguishable figure at her side. Hidden by light, it took a step toward her. The light dimmed, and Izzy saw her own face, slightly younger, staring back at her. It was her dead mother.

  She felt as if someone had just thrown her off a cliff. She panicked for a moment, mentally grasping at anything that would break the fall. The ground, the world, rushed up toward her, to flatten her.

  And then, she floated.

  “Ma fille,” her mother whispered, reaching out a hand. “I’m here, my sweet. I’m here.”

  Her mother turned to Jehanne. “My patron, will you kill my daughter in front of me? Where was your mother, when you burned at the stake? My ancestress watched with you, prayed with you. She risked her life to comfort you. Though she could have been arrested for treason, she stood witness when you died. Where was your mother?”

  Jehanne blinked hard. She looked from mother to daughter and exhaled heavily. The sword disappeared from her hand.

  Izzy’s mother held out her arms, and Izzy moved into them. Her mother was warm and solid, and as Izzy sank against her, she wrapped her arms around Izzy and cradled her against her breast. Izzy heard her heartbeat. She smelled her skin.

  “Oh, my poor darling,” her mother whispered. “It has gone so hard for you. My fault, all of it.”

  “She has free will, the same as you,” Jehanne said impatiently.

  “Tell me who I am,” Izzy whispered. “I can’t remember.”

  “You’ve been told the truth. You’re my daughter, the child of Marianne de Bouvard, Guardian of the House of the Flames, and of Etienne de Malchance, Guardian of the House of the Blood. I was such an idiot. I was as blindsided by passion as any Ungifted, and I called it love.”

  “Maybe it was love,” Izzy murmured, holding her close. She had roots; she had a history. She was not just a pawn in a game she didn’t know how to play.

  “It was far from love,” her mother said. “Limited, possessive, manipulative. When I realized it for the mistake it was, I tried to run away, to protect you both. He was coming for you. He wanted to raise both of you in the House of the Blood.

  “After your birth, I wove spells around you, Isabelle, and my nurse took you to safety. I was exhausted. I had nothing left for your sister, Lilliane. My nurse came back for her, but Etienne found them both. He killed the nurse and took Lilliane. And she grew up in that evil, demented family.

  “Then I began to die, and blood called to blood. Your Gift began to manifest, and the Malchances became aware of your existence. They wanted both of Etienne’s daughters.”

  Jehanne took up the thread. “Luc de Malchance was your cousin. He invaded your House and took you prisoner. He stole the soul of Jean-Marc, and that was when you called forth the demon. And I turned my back on you. At that precise moment, I took back the Gift I gave you.”

  She narrowed her eyes as she continued. “But when you risked your life to save Jean-Marc, you were able to save him. You didn’t do it with Bouvard magic.”

  Izzy took that in. “I’m half Malchance. I must have used Malchance power.”

  “Impossible. Malchance magic couldn’t be used against itself,” Jehanne replied. “I don’t know how you did it. In any case, your mother begged me to reconsider my withdrawal of patronage. And so I have attempted several times to give it back to you. And I have failed.”

  So I’m off the hook, Isabelle thought.

  Jehanne smiled grimly at her. “I can’t tell you how many times I, too, hoped that I was ‘off the hook.’ I was nineteen years old when I was burned at the stake.”

  “She didn’t mean any disrespect, ma patronesse,” Izzy’s mother said quickly. “She was raised among Ungifted. She doesn’t know our ways.”

  “Rest easy, Marianne. I know that,” Jehanne said gently. “I was able to overlook your indiscretions, was I not? And bring you to me after your death?”

  “Am I dead?” Izzy asked anxiously.

  “Non,” Jehanne replied. “Miraculously, you are still alive. The Malchances have come at you hard, but here you are.”

  “And where is that? Is this heaven?”

  “Not even close,” Jehanne said. “But it is a place where we may speak to you.”

  “But is there a heaven?” she pressed.

  Jehanne held up her hand. “These are questions for another time. Attends-moi, ma fille. Listen well, my child. I believe it lies within you to accept your Gift again. But first, you must rise above your Malchance nature, and I can’t help you with that. I have no influence over that side of you. And I believe it is preventing my helping you.”

  Her mother stepped forward. “Your sister has conjured a terrible demon.”

  “Le Devourer,” Izzy murmured. “He took part of Jean-Marc’s soul.”

  “Oui. And they are feeding him the souls of others to strengthen him and bring him into this world. If they succeed, this world will pay a terrible price. You have to stop them.” Jehanne looked hard at her. “You. The Daughter of the Flames and of the Blood. With Jean-Marc de Devereaux.”

  “The Son of the Shadows,” Izzy murmured.

  “So he is called.”

  “But why not take her power away and make her like me?”

  “She has never used Bouvard power in her life,” Jehanne said. “Everything she has done has been as a Malchance.”

  “Then why don’t I have Malchance power?”

  “Perhaps you do. There are many things I don’t know, Isabelle. I’m only a saint, not God Himself.”

  “Is that what you are?” Isabelle asked fervently. “And is there a God?”

  “Many claim so. But you must put those questions aside. You’re not off the hook. You’re a Guardian, and you don’t get to quit.”

  “I don’t want this,” Izzy murmured. “I want to be a normal person. My boyfriend…I can’t even have that.”

  “Je sais,” Jehanne replied gently. “And though I grieve your loss, I envy you the experience. I died never knowing the love of a man.”

  The sword reappeared in Jehanne’s hand. Izzy could see it clearly now—it was steel-colored, inlaid with flames of silver and a string of words in Gothic script bordering the blade. The only word she recognized was Jehanne. The hilt was golden, corded with silver.

  “Kneel.”

  As her mother looked on, Izzy sank to her knees. Jehanne lowered the flat of the blade onto Izzy’s shoulder. It was unbelievably heavy. It felt like the weight of the world.

  “I send you on a dangerous journey to Haiti,” Jehanne said. “There’s no one else I can send. But the enemy is your own sister, and it is our responsibility to stop her.”

  Jehanne raised the sword and placed it on Izzy’s other shoulder. Her spine bowed.

  She trembled.

  “You are my knight. My warrior,” Jehanne intoned. “Will you go?”

  Izzy shuddered, as if the hand of death, and not a sword, lay across her shoulder. She didn’t want to say yes. But she knew there really was no choice.

  “I’ll go,” she said in a whisper. Something shot through her—a burst of energy, a quickening pulse—was it her Gift?

  Her mother gazed at her with tender pride…and great fear. She reached out a hand and touched Izzy’s cheek. She closed her eyes and felt the soft sweetness, so long denied.

  “I am so sorry,” her mother said. “And yet, I can’t regret that I brought you into this world. You are my life.”

  An image of Jean-Marc blazed into her mind—damaged and fragmented because of the actions of the women of her family. She couldn’t let those actions stand. He must be healed, and her family redeemed.

  He is my life.

  “A warning,” Jehanne said. “This quest may kill you.”

  Izzy said, “Then I will die.”

  Chapter 11

  “T hen I will die,” Isabelle murmured.

  Jean-Marc jerked out of his reverie. The mists were gone; she was still kneeling beside him with her eyes closed, her hand pressed to his.

  The blood from their hands dripped onto the bodice of her white satin dress, soaking into the fine fabric. He saw the magical evidence of her Malchance heritage—the deep, nearly black blood. The sight must have appalled the Bouvards. As a Devereaux, he didn’t have such a visceral reaction. Bouvard, Malchance—they both were not Devereaux, and that was all that mattered.

  He murmured a few words and the stains disappeared. She hadn’t seen them, didn’t know they had been there, as she opened her eyes.

  “St. Joan of Arc spoke to me,” Izzy said, dazed. “She actually spoke to me. And my mother was there.”

  “And she said?” Jean-Marc prompted her. Something about your dying?

  She looked down at their hands and pulled hers away. She caught her breath as she traced the cut across her palm. “I…how did this happen?” She didn’t remember slicing her flesh with the shard of glass.

  “What did your patron saint say to you?” he pressed.

  She examined the wound, as if the answer lay there.

  “I’m supposed to go with you to Haiti, where my sister is,” she said, not looking up at him. “And stop her and Le Devourer from destroying the world.”

  He molded his hand around hers and willed healing energy into it. He wasn’t very Gifted at such things, but when she opened her hand, the cut had at least closed.

  “That’s what I was told, too,” Jean-Marc said. And that death would go with us. Did your patron tell you that you would die? Did you see a falcon with an arrow through its heart?

  “I don’t have my Gift back,” she added. He was terribly disappointed. “Jehanne said she wouldn’t be able to help me in Haiti. The Malchance influence is too strong there.”

  “My patron said the same, of me. “He took a breath. “I’ll go alone.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” she said.

  “You’re weak.”

  “You’re wrong. She knighted me. She said I had to go for her. For my family.” Her voice shook.

  “You’re afraid.”

  “Of course I am.” She studied his face. “Aren’t you?”

  He took her hand. Flesh on flesh. Desire and tenderness rushed through him, accompanied by a thoroughly masculine need to shelter and protect her. He had told her his heart wasn’t available, and he had to keep it that way. But every part of him wanted her. He felt like the sun, blazing through a thousand midnights.

  How can what I’m feeling be seen as limited?

  He didn’t understand his passion for her, his…love. He didn’t want to understand it. He didn’t have time or room for it. He had a family to save, and possibly, a world.

  But I can’t let her die.

  “I want to show you something,” he said harshly.

  He snapped his fingers. Instantly his clothes appeared on his body. Then he walked her to the opposite side of the altar room, away from the door. He moved his hand and mist drifted down from the ceiling, eddying and thickening. Jean-Marc inhaled the calming scent of lavender and sent out thoughts of serenity to Isabelle.

  The mist thinned, revealing the entrance to a tunnel cut from living rock. Of course she was startled; she didn’t remember that her bedroom back in New Orleans had contained such a tunnel. It had led to the bayou. This one led to part of the penthouse not permitted for public viewing.

  He went in first, easing her behind him. Creating a ball of light, he allowed it to drift above his head, showing the way. After a minute, they came to a door marked with protective runes in gold and silver. In the center was a rectangular-shaped box. Jean-Marc spread his fingers and pushed his hand against it. The box glowed blue.

  As the door slid open sideways, he pointed to the thin sliver of blue light across the threshold.

  “That’s a very powerful ward,” he said. “Your lack of Gift might trigger it. It’s very painful. So if I may, once again…”

  He scooped her into his arms. She said nothing, only looked down at the azure glow as he walked through it. He kept walking, savoring the sensation of her body against his, trying to force the images of her and Pat out of his mind. Their passion had nothing to do with him.

  They faced a second door, then one made of reinforced steel. There was a card reader beside it. He pulled a magnetic card from his trouser pocket and swiped it through. The door thwummed open and he carried her across that warded threshold, too.

  He felt her tense at what they saw.

  Six fully veiled White Women sat like specters on backless marble benches on either side of a hospital bed. The walls of the room were painted soft green, and lilies and roses were arranged in waist-high alabaster vases shaped like flames, rising up behind the benches.

  In the bed, the unsouled policeman twitched and shivered beneath a white satin quilt stitched with flames and ornate Bs for Bouvard. Speech had been taken from him so that the Femmes Blanches could concentrate on their work. Otherwise, he would have gibbered and groaned incessantly, in the throes of perdition.

  On either side of the man, a Femme Blanche held his hand. The next Femme Blanche on the bench held both her hand and the hand of the woman next to her. The two on the ends laid their loose hand in their laps.

  “Oh, my God,” Isabelle whispered, instinctively clinging to him.

  “This is what I was like after my soul was taken. Just like this. You performed sex magic with this. If your soul is ripped away, this is what you will look like. He is dying without a soul.”

  If there’s a choice, feed her to Le Devourer. Let her die soulless, rather than you. Better yet, use her as bait. Lilliane will want to destroy her for revenge, if nothing else. Let it happen.

  “Ouch,” Isabelle protested. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Pardon,” he murmured, easing his grip. “You had to see this before you agree to go. You have to know what you’ll be getting into.”

  It was wrong of him. The Grey King had told him she must go. Why was he doing this to her? To make her careful.

  “That won’t happen to either of us.” Her voice was hoarse. She pulled herself out of his arms. He set her down and she took the hand of the Femme Blanche nearest her.

  “Thank you for helping him,” she said. “Please don’t give up. He’s suffering.”

  The woman gently lowered her head. Isabelle jerked as if in response. Her lips parted, and she looked from the woman to Jean-Marc and back again.

  “I’m going to call a meeting to discuss the op,” Jean-Marc said. “The best thing you can do is get a lot of sleep.”

 

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