Page 109 of In the Shadows

shadowed in the dimming evening light. There was already a large

bruise blooming on his cheekbone.

Minnie ignored him, looking to Arthur, pleading silently with

him to make it not true. He would produce Cora and Charles. He

would have already saved them.

Minnie saw the gun was now in Arthur’s hand, his eyes fixed

on a point to the left of her.

For a brief moment she wanted to sink to the ground in

despair, to give up, to be anyone but herself. This was not a story

she wanted to tell. It was not the story she wanted to be in. She had

dreamed so many times of danger and intrigue, weaving imagin-

ings around herself so tightly she could no longer see reality.

Had she created this horror, then? Had she wished it upon all

of them?

Steeling her shoulders, she pushed Thomas’s hands away. “If I

knew, I wouldn’t be here! They’ve been taken. We have to get

them back!”

“Why is there blood on your skirt?” Arthur said, a note of

unaccustomed panic in his voice.

“I’m not hurt.” She glared at him and then at Thomas, daring

either of them to question her further. They didn’t, just as she

didn’t question why Arthur held the gun.

“The teahouse,” Thomas said, twitching, already moving in

that direction. “They meet at the teahouse!”

“They won’t be there.” Minnie knew for certain. That had been

the trap, the lure. Whatever Alden and his friends had planned,

they were not deeds for teahouses and towns, certainly. “Arthur, I

need you to tell me everything you know about the Ladon Vitae.”

His voice came out a dead whisper. “No.”

“We don’t have time for secrets! They have my sister!”