Gypsy Moon (All The Pretty Monsters #4)(90)

“The soul stone you used to come back. The stone that killed Anna. When did you put that on me?”

“Violet, that has been attached to you since you were small. I didn’t want spirits infecting your mind. You’re too trusting. People have to disappoint you before you raise your guards.”

I stopped talking about that immediately. Mom’s not telling me something, and it’s clear she’s still keeping secrets.

“I’m sorry, Violet. I’m sorry you lost what sounds like the only decent ghost that still shouldn’t have been able to interfere with the living.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I really am sorry you lost a friend. But it’s amazing she even lasted three months with as much exposure as you’re claiming. Even with me tapped into the power source, Anna should have had no more than a month, and she never should have had the power to possess you. Why did you let her possess you?”

“She wanted to drink bourbon and have sex.”

Mom was shady and fidgety during the entire thing, downplaying it too much. It’s what she does when she’s trying to hide something bigger with something smaller.

What’s bigger than attaching a soul-sucking stone to my body? What’s bigger than her keeping it a secret that her soul is immortal? What’s bigger than me falling for four of her worst enemies?

What’s bigger than Idun?

Now, more than ever, I’m paying a lot of attention to the things my mother doesn’t say.

Absently, my fingers twitch, while I idly wonder if any of my Anna-salt-balls survived the crash. The luggage is just lost or torn open, clothes ruined by the elements and minor explosions.

The put-a-pin-in-it emotional bulletin board is getting crowded already, and I just decluttered it before we went on this trip.

“Violet should come with us, because four fucking alphas is better than one, and Edmond Portocale can’t be trusted,” Emit says very calmly, eyes moving to my mother’s.

“Do you hear the prejudice, Violet?” Mom asks incredulously.

I give her a look, since she specifically told me to stay far away from her cousin-brother—she calls him both, and she gets upset when she says his name.

She already knows what they’re apparently implying, and she’s playing dumb. I don’t even know or care what else I don’t know right now. I can’t handle any more.

“We agreed,” I remind her.

She holds my gaze for a moment, deciding if this is really something I’m capable of asking her to do.

I make the motion of pinning something, and she cracks her neck to the side, visibly dropping the fa?ade.

“Spare me your theatrical reveal of Edmond’s recent infractions. I’ll deal with him myself. For now, he does not learn of Violet. On that we can agree,” she bites out a little angrily.

Everyone looks like they’re now expecting her to shoot them with some more arrows. Arion looks as though he’s deflated, because he was clearly excited about revealing this monstrous secret to my mother.

I still don’t care or want to know.

After tucking a small throw pillow under Vance’s head, I go to the cabinet where Mom said her stash is, and start collecting the rare materials she seems to have a lot of.

Then I find the paper with the instructions and get to work chopping and doing, while they likely just glare at each other and deliver silent threats with their eyes.

I have the liquids mixing and almost coming to a boil, ready for the more…dangerous ingredients, by the time they finally break the silence.

“You know about Edmond and what he did?” Damien finally asks her.

“Of course I know. I—”

“This could get a little hairy,” I tell them in interruption.

Seriously, I don’t want to know this secret. I’ve got too much other shit going on.

I grimace at the very questionable intestines that belong to some fabled creature that surely can’t exist under the radar if all that fit inside it. “If you’re a respawner instead of an unkillable being, get out of the kitchen and at least a mile from the house.”

Mom assured me there’s a five mile seclusion radius.

Damien starts speaking to me, almost as though he’s too tired to deal with my tinkering right now. “Violet, that potion has to be fresh. There’s no need in—”

“You said there’s no time for them because you have to find Idun, but you’re all spending your time arguing about how to find Idun.”

“Idun takes more mind than action at first,” Emit explains. “She’s calculated and cunning—”

“Idun’s our problem, not hers,” Mom cuts in, looking at them like they’ve lost their minds.

For once, I agree with her; Idun’s not my problem.

“You really think Idun isn’t also Violet’s problem when she’s the omega underfoot?” Emit growls.

Arion predictably gets in on the Idun chatter. “Idun won’t be a problem, for fuck’s sake, if I can just—”

There’s a loud, bubbling, sizzling noise that cracks through the air, and I drop to the floor, as a pulse shoots from the pot.

Damien yelps, as he and Emit are thrown into one wall, and Mom curses seconds before she and Arion are launched almost into each other, hitting opposing walls instead, when they manage to twist in the air to avoid touching.