Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters #6)- Kristy Cunning Page 0,54

which one.

There’s a stone slab covered in blood, and the woman in the ornate clothing wordlessly stands behind it, while holding some type of slim, gold, rectangular box.

The two women approach the altar first, and the two men hang back, while the woman in the decorative clothing chants something. The Portocale women start chanting something as well, while I idly glance around, wondering where Vance is, since these should be his memories.

There’s no sign of him, and I half wonder if I haven’t tapped into Portocale memories, given the fact his mind is trapped inside a Portocale curse…

Not important.

The important part is the fact this must be Pandora.

My eyes immediately bounce back to the box.

The legendary box.

The box people all around the world have referenced, though most lost belief in its existence.

It’s more royal and less little-box-of-horrors, which is slightly unexpected.

The lid is an oddly shaped piece of metal with a small-but-distinguishable ruby in the middle.

Easing closer, I take in the scene and the quiet fury resting in all their eyes, aside from the woman who is presumably Pandora. Her eyes look eager and excited.

No words are exchanged. It’s as though they’ve already rehearsed the steps that follow.

The men slice their hands with two separate knives, and they hand the blades to the women, who’ve knelt before the altar. The men kneel on either side of them, as the women slice their hands. No one flinches. No one reacts.

It’s as though they’re too numb to feel anything.

This…is after the massacre. I think.

As they move their hands to bleed over the box, it pops and sizzles. Pandora leans over, fingers gripping the ruby to lift the lid, and an audible breath that almost sounds like a whisper escapes from the crack.

The world shakes beneath my feet so abruptly that I stagger forward, stumbling against the altar that bangs the side of my knee. Wincing against the pain, I idly wonder why I can feel and touch things in here.

I was expecting more of a ghostly presence, but…then again, Damien certainly doesn’t feel ghostly when he does a full-on invasion.

The Portocales tip their heads back, drawing my attention back to them, as the world continues to quake all around us. Their eyes go white, and ice spreads under them, as a grayish-colored smoke is funneled into their mouths.

Pandora’s eyes beam with menace and mayhem, and I find myself watching her instead of them.

The box disintegrates, turning to ash on the altar, as the metal lid melts into an infinity symbol. Pandora takes the gold infinity thingy and pulls her dress up to her thigh, while the smoke continues funneling.

She presses the symbol to her thigh, and I suck in a breath of surprise when it sizzles and melts into a tattoo on her leg. The ruby melts as well, glistening like fresh red paint when it finishes.

It dries almost immediately, and I see the smile in the blood-witch’s eyes when she stares to clearly admire it.

“So you needed people willing to handle all the hardships and sacrifice that came along with that box just so you could gain your own immortality,” I say to Pandora, narrowing my eyes.

Obviously, she gives no reply.

The smoke finishes, and the Portocales rise, pupils dilated.

Pandora turns and melts into the wind, her smile disappearing last of all. What the actual fuck can a blood witch do? Someone did say she’s not a threat any longer, right?

It’s hard as hell to find information on Pandora to see the truth for myself, and now she’s sort of creeping me out. Everyone has their own way of summing up things, when it involves her and if she’s still a threat, and sometimes one contradicts the other.

“War! War! Beyond the Double-Dutch doors!” I sing into the air.

The image ripples, and in the next instant, two doors are blowing open in front of me to the massacre that is most decidedly the night of the sacrifice. Since Neopry heads are all over the floors.

I spot the guys, all of them clearly burning with misery and anguish. Anger comes next.

I admit, I have no emotion seeing them so upset, since I feel sort of bad for them for being so painfully manipulated by the woman they trusted and loved, no matter how many times she tricked them.

I know what comes next.

“Sing, sweet gypsies, who will be mistaken no more.”

I land in the middle of a forest that is brightly lit by a full moon, even through the canopy of limbs and leaves, and