Bayou Moon - Andrews, Ilona [14]
“Lagar,” she whispered. “Don’t screw with me. Where are my parents?”
Lagar stepped closer, dropping his voice. “Forget Gustave. Forget Genevieve. Your parents are gone, Cerise. There’s nothing you can do.”
The cold knot in her stomach broke and turned into rage. “Do you have them, Lagar?”
He shook his head.
Her horse sensed her anxiety and danced under her. “Who has them?” No matter how far away the Sheeriles had hidden them, she would find them.
A thin smile curved Lagar’s lips. He raised his hand, studying it as if it were an object of great interest, watching the fingers bend and straighten, and looked back at her.
The Hand. Louisiana spies.
Ice slid down Cerise’s spine. The Hand was deadly. Everybody heard stories about them. Some of them were so twisted by magic, they weren’t even human anymore. What would Louisiana spies want with her parents?
Lagar raised his voice. “I’ll send a copy of the deed to your house.”
She smiled at him, wishing she could let her sword slide across his neck. “You do that.”
Lagar bowed with a flourish.
“This is it,” she said. “No turning back.”
He nodded. “I know. Our great-grandparents started this feud, and you and I will finish it. I can’t wait.”
Cerise turned her horse and urged it on. Behind her, Mikita and Erian rode through the rain.
Her parents were alive. She would get them back. She would find them. If she had to paint their trail with Sheerile blood, all the better.
CERISE burst into the yard at a canter, her mare’s hooves splashing mud. She’d asked Erian to ride ahead to get everyone together. He must’ve done a hell of a job, because Aunt Murid stood on the verandah with a crossbow. Up to the left, Lark sat in the pine branches, and to the right, Adrian had climbed up into a cypress. Both had rifles and neither missed often.
Derril ran up to take the reins from her, his eyes wide.
“Is Richard here?”
Her cousin nodded. “In the library.”
“What about your uncle Kaldar?”
Derril nodded again.
“Good.”
During the ride, her fury had crystallized into a plan. It was a ridiculous plan, but it was a plan. Now she had to convince the family to follow it. By the last count, the Mar clan consisted of fifty-seven people, including the kids. Some of the adults had seen her in diapers. They listened to her father. Making them listen to her was an entirely different matter.
Cerise locked her jaw. If she had any hope of seeing her parents again, she had to catch the reins her father had dropped and grip them tightly now, before the family had a chance to think things over and argue with her. She had to hold them together. Her parents’ lives depended on it.
Cerise walked up the stairs. Mikita followed at her heels.
She paused by Aunt Murid, who was standing at the door. Six inches taller, dark-haired, dark-eyed, Murid rationed words like they were precious water in the middle of a desert, but her crossbow never failed to make a point.
Cerise looked at her. Are you with me?
Murid nodded slightly.
Cerise hid a breath of relief, swung the door open, and stepped inside.
“No hesitation,” her aunt murmured behind her. “Walk like you mean it.”
The library lay at the end of the hallway. The largest room in the house, with the exception of the kitchen, it often served as the gathering place for the family. By now, the news of her parents having gone missing would have spread throughout the Rathole. The library would be full. Her aunts, uncles, cousins. All listening to her as she came down the hall.
Cerise took a deep breath and strode down the hallway, not caring about tracking mud.
She walked into the library, cataloging the familiar faces. Aunt Emma, Aunt Petunia—Aunt Pete for short—Uncle Rufus, in the chairs; Erian to the left, his slender blond body draped over a chair; Kaldar, his dark hair in wild disarray, leaning against the wall; half a dozen others; and finally Richard, the oldest of her cousins, tall, dark, with the poise of a blueblood, waiting by the table.
They all looked at her.
Cerise kept her voice flat. “The Sheerile