She remained technically alive, but only technically.
Izzy kept vigil, willing a better outcome for Jean-Marc.
Michel de Bouvard, Izzy’s liaison to the House of the Flames, poked his head in, saw Izzy and entered. He was still wearing his tux from the dinner. Coming up beside her, he crossed his arms over his chest and watched the medical team for a few moments before he asked, “How’s he doing?”
She wiped fresh tears from her cheeks. She’d been crying without knowing it. As steadily as she could, she replied, “He’s still alive.”
Michel wore a poker face as he took that in. Then he looked—really looked—at her and said, “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay. Let’s debrief,” she said tersely.
He held up his fingers as if to enumerate the facts of their situation. “Le Fils got away.”
“Right.”
“Andre is still missing.”
Aside from Jean-Marc, the werewolf was her strongest ally in this strange new world of passion and deceit. “Could he have survived that jump off the verandah?” she asked hopefully.
Cocking his head, he raised a brow. “A leap off the third story? I don’t know. Maybe. He gave you his gris-gris, so he didn’t have that protection with him when he jumped. I assume Jean-Marc made talismans for him, so they would help. And werewolves are uncommonly strong and quick to heal,” he added. “Like us.”
She filed that away, wondering if “us” meant all Gifted individuals or just Bouvards. She wanted Jean-Marc to be quick to heal. She wanted him healed now .
“What about Alain?” That was Jean-Marc’s cousin. He had been MIA since before Izzy’s private jet had landed. Jean-Marc had been terribly worried, sending two security details to search for him.
“Still missing.” His voice was flat, as if he was attempting to sound neutral. She knew Michel detested Jean-Marc; she had to assume he had no love for Alain de Devereaux as well. Was Michel involved in his disappearance?
“What are you doing to locate him?” she asked.
“We’re scouring the battlefield for residue,” he said. “And I sent out an additional search party. We’ve got one in the swamp and two in the city—one in the Garden District and one in the French Quarter.”
“Residue,” she said.
“Emanations,” he explained. “We may be able to read them for clues.”
She still didn’t fully understand, but she said, “Maybe I could help.”
“Madame, please leave these things to us. You need to meet with Gelineau, Broussard and Jackson.” They were the de Bouvards’ Ungifted allies: the mayor of New Orleans, the superintendent of police, and the governor of the state of Louisiana. “You should include Sange as well.” She was the elegant vampire with whom the House of the Flames had forged an alliance.
He took a breath and reached into his left pants pocket. “And you should put this on.”
He opened his hand, revealing the gold signet ring that was the symbol of authority for the House of the Flames. According to Jean-Marc, it was nearly seven hundred years old.
“Where did you get that?” she demanded, flushing with anger. Jean-Marc had been wearing it the last time she had seen it.
“I took it when they stripped him for surgery,” he replied guilelessly. “A reasonable precaution, given its value.”
Did she dare accept it from his hand? According to both Jean-Marc and Michel, innumerable factions sought to place their own woman—or man—on the throne. Jean-Marc spoke of assassination attempts on his own life, and the regent before him might have been murdered. For all Izzy knew, putting on that ring might be signing her own death warrant.
Where would it leave Jean-Marc? If she wore the ring, did that signify the end of his term of service? So many Bouvards hated him for ruling in her mother’s name. He was a Devereaux, an outsider, and though the Grand Covenate, the supreme governing body of the Gifted world, had arranged for his service as regent, the Bouvards had resented his presence from the start.
I don’t know what I’m doing, Izzy thought. She shut her eyes tightly and prayed to St. Joan, the patronesse of the House of the Flames, known to the Bouvards by her French name, Jehanne.
Jehanne, aidez-moi. Je vous en prie. Jehanne, help me. I petition you.
She heard no answer, felt no guiding intuition. She didn’t hear the voice that often counseled and directed her, which had sounded so clear and real in her dream.
“You must take it,” Michel insisted, extending his hand palm up. “I can’t wear it.”
With trembling fingers, Izzy closed her fist around it. It was much heavier than she had anticipated. She turned over her hand and opened her fingers, tracing the dime-shaped circle etched with flames surrounding a B for Bouvard. Then she clutched it in her fist again as she unclasped the gold crucifix that had belonged to Anna Maria DeMarco—the woman she had always believed to be her mother—in preparation for sliding the ring onto the chain.
Michel stopped her with a shake of his head. He said, “We have an agreement with Sange that no one wears crucifixes in the mansion. If you put the ring on that chain, she will be highly insulted. We can’t afford to alienate her.”
The rose quartz necklace Sauvage had made for her also hung from Izzy’s neck. She pointedly reclasped her crucifix—continuing to wear it—and unfastened the string of pale pink quartz. Then she slipped the ring onto the beaded necklace and reconnected the clasp.
A sudden burst of warmth pressed against the satin of her gown. She looked down to see a white nimbus of magical energy emanating from the ring.
Michel de Bouvard sank on one knee, lowering his head as he whispered, “Ma guardienne. ”
“I’m not the guardienne yet,” Izzy protested, as the light faded.
“You’re the closest thing we have,” he replied. His voice was softer, more deferential.
“Now we should go to the private meeting room upstairs,” he continued, rising. “I’ll let the governor and the others know you’re ready to meet with them. Jean-Marc and Alain both have assistants, of course. You should talk to them, as well. They’re very upset.”
“No.” She crossed her arms and stood rooted to the spot. “Tell everyone to come down here,” she said. “I’m not leaving my mother and the regent alone.” Marianne lay in her bed of state in the chamber beyond the OR.
Michel blinked, obviously taken aback.
“Devereaux and your mother are not alone.”
“Without me, they may as well be,” she retorted.
“Madame, these are healers,” he reminded her as he opened wide his arm, taking in the other people in the OR. “They honor the code of ethics of healers everywhere—First Do No harm.”
Harm
