bulky, old-man furniture, skates through the champagne foam, and tackles Charlotte full-on yelling, “Cadence! Slate! It’s my piece! Get everyone out of here, now!”
Putain de merde. That snaps me into action. “Out! Everybody out!” I shove Charlotte’s friend away from Adrien and his lit-up, in every sense of the term, girlfriend, then extend my arms and rake through the crowd.
Cadence and Bastian are throwing coats and scarves at random to the students funneling out of the house. Charlotte’s friend—can’t remember her name, something with a G maybe—offers to help, but I signal Bastian who calmly escorts her out, barring me from shoving her into the snow. It’s a goddamn circus, but a small one. In less than a minute, the party’s over and the door’s locked. No other guests are left except Alma, Cadence, Bastian, and me.
Shit. Alma. Should she be here?
I stare at Cadence, whose reddened eyes are wide with alarm. I hate that I did that. That I stood there and took the coward’s way out of our doomed relationship by accepting my burglarizing Casanova reputation, because losing her respect beats breaking her heart.
Let her go. She’s better off without you.
Everyone is.
Charlotte’s friend bangs on the window. “Let me in!”
I ignore her. We all do.
“A little help!” Adrien yells, straddling Charlotte, batting at her sweater with his palms.
I grab the ice bucket on the coffee table and dump it, turning her into a sputtering, angry mess. The flames fizzle, leaving behind the mangy remains of her fuzzy sweater and patches of blistered skin. Holy hell. That’s got to hurt. Wait. Does this mean she’s cursed, or is this some fake-Charlotte? Emilie’s listless body flashes behind my lids, and I stiffen like an ice-carving.
I glance at the ring on my middle finger. “Adrien, wait. The ring. It’s not shining.”
Adrien holds Charlotte to the ground, an arm shoved across her throat. “I’ll kill you, diaoul,” he growls. “Salt! I need salt!”
“Adrien . . .” I’m about to repeat my warning when the stone flares to life and a cramp shoots up my knuckles and tendons. I clench my jaw, breathing through the pain. Putain de merde, I was wrong. “Keep on doing whatever you’re doing,” I mutter through gritted teeth. “Bloodstone’s aglowin’.”
Charlotte’s eyes bulge as she thrashes about, high heels and pale fists alternatively banging the varnished wooden floorboards and Adrien’s powder-blue sweater-vest.
Cadence snaps into action, sidestepping me and the pair writhing on the floor. A second later, she returns clutching a grinder filled with fancy pink flakes. Doesn’t anyone own normal salt in this town?
Alma tugs at Adrien’s sweater, stretching the collar. “Adrien, you’re hurting her!”
Bastian steps up behind her and puts a palm on her shoulder, probably to haul her away before she can make contact with the piece and get cursed. Sagacious kid.
“She’s a fire diaoul.” A lock of hair flies into Adrien’s slitted eyes. “A demon!”
The stretched cashmere slips through Alma’s fingers. “A d-demon?”
Bastian pulls her back, and she stumbles into him on those wedged stilts of hers.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” Cadence whispers beside me.
I glance down at her, my heart wadded inside my chest like chewed gum. She’s right. The fire’s out, and Charlotte’s terrified. My groac’h was a lot of things, most of them nasty, but never panicked. There’s no seductive magic or eerie evil.
Cadence darts a glance at the ring, which has stopped emitting light and random bolts of pain. I extend my palm in front of me, closer to Charlotte. The Bloodstone doesn’t ghoulishly flare back, but a pin of bright scarlet remains in its center, and although my muscles are no longer seizing, they definitely feel a little crampy. But that could be due to the three-hundred pushups I did before coming to this rotten b-day party. I’d been trying to work out my excess . . . let’s call it energy, and wine wasn’t hitting the spot.
Adrien snatches the salt and sprinkles some on Charlotte anyway. Nothing happens. No smoke. No screaming. No melting. Nothing.
Charlotte’s face is turning the same blue as his dainty kitchen tiles. Demons can’t suffocate, can they? Can they even breathe?
“Adrien, get off her.” When he doesn’t, I grab a fistful of gelled locks and yank with such force that he yowls. That split-second of inattention is enough for Charlotte to slither away from his grip.
Cadence helps her sit.
“Don’t touch her! She’ll curse you, Cadence. Don’t. Touch. Her.” Adrien breaks away from me, but I grab him again, this time pinning him in a headlock. The