Allegiance (Causal Enchantment #3)(89)

“Where’s Bishop?” Caden asked coolly, all business.

Anguish blemished Amelie’s perfect features. “He remembered Fiona!” she cried out. I gasped at the sound of her name—Fiona. The forbidden name. “And then he ran screaming out of here. Mage went after him. That was over an hour ago.”

An hour. Not long after I had gone into the bathroom and disappeared. My blood ran cold. “How?” I whispered.

“I don’t know!” Amelie was hysterical. Julian’s hands rested on her shoulders, trying to soothe her.

I turned to Caden. “Who could have told him?”

His face had to equal mine in shock. “There’s no one left except a couple of wolves, and they don’t know about Fiona. Did you see what he was doing before you left?”

I frowned, squeezing the bridge of my nose as I tried to remember what had gone on before Caden kidnapped me from the bathroom.

“Think, Evangeline!” Caden pushed.

“I don’t know! We were sitting down here,” I said as I walked over to the couch, retracing my steps from earlier. The Victoria’s Secret box holding the provocative pink lace lay on the cushion, exactly where I’d left it. “I opened his present and I got up to go to the washroom …” I mimicked my motions, sitting down in the exact spot. Then I stood and took several exaggerated steps in the same direction I had earlier, my eyes scanning the area. A sparkle on the floor caught my attention. I stopped.

And gasped.

“Oh no, no, no, no,” I moaned as I dove to where Sofie’s gift lay, now cracked open. “Damn it!” Sofie’s note finally made sense. Full of those who love you. It wasn’t cryptic. It couldn’t be more obvious. “No, no, no …” I pried the locket open the rest of the way to find four tiny pictures inside, with an inner leaf for two of them. My fingers shook as I flipped through them. One of Sofie, one of my mother, one of Caden, and the last … a picture of Fiona, Amelie, and me, smiling.

“I didn’t know!” I yelled as I looked up at Caden, the evidence displayed in the palm of my hand.

Caden’s hands pushed back into his hair. “This is a disaster. We need Sofie. Now.”

“Sofie’s gone too,” Amelie answered, her lip trembling.

Caden’s hands dropped to his sides with a loud slap, his face filled with incredulity. “And where the hell is she gone to now?” he yelled.

“Mage is pretty sure she went to see the Fates,” Amelie said.

My jaw dropped. “To see them?” I didn’t think that was possible …

“And when will she be back?” Caden asked, his voice rigid and unimpressed.

After a long pause, Amelie’s mouth twisted into a frown. “Mage doesn’t know. Possibly … never.”

Her words sliced through me. Sofie … gone. Just like that. No warning, no goodbye. Nothing. “How could she risk that?” I cried out. But I already knew the answer. She was risking everything to fix me.

The room started to spin. Bishop, gone … Mage, gone … Sofie, gone. No. Not Sofie. Not yet! Sofie was my one constant in all of this. Always there, always caring, always trustworthy, even when her actions appeared counterintuitive.

“So what do we do now?” I asked, hunching into a ball on the ground, my voice hollow.

“Do you think Mage can catch Bishop?” Julian asked, wary eyes on Caden, as if unsure that he should make his presence known after the earlier bathroom incident.

“I don’t know … Bishop’s fast,” Amelie answered.

“Bishop’s fast when he’s not possessed,” Caden added. “Now? Faster. Way faster.”

Terrible scenarios cycled through my head. What if Bishop killed a bunch of innocent people to get away? What if Mage had to seriously hurt him to stop him? But worst … “What if Bishop makes it to Manhattan?” I heard myself ask.

“He can’t get into the building,” Caden assured me, pulling me toward him.

“No, but …” My brain wracked the possibilities. “He could … torch it!” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I was positive that’s exactly what he’d do.

“Then the witches will have to come out and he would kill them,” Caden countered without missing a beat. “That wouldn’t be the worst thing.”

My head was already shaking. “No, it’s too dangerous for Veronique.”

“But Veronique is safe in a stone statue,” Amelie turned to stare at me, eyes narrowed. “Right?”

I shifted my weight, my latest deception unmasked. “No … she’s out.”

What? When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me? Max hammered me with a barrage of questions that I couldn’t focus on, given the volume of Amelie’s voice.

“Out?” Amelie repeated. “As in, not safe … not in the statue?”

My head spinning, I put my hands up to silence them all. First, Max. “I’ve known for a long time, Max. Since the jungle. I could’ve told you, I guess. I just didn’t want you worrying. Or doing something stupid like running off to New York and getting yourself killed.” Turning to Amelie, I said, “That’s right. No one else knew except Caden. Not Sofie, not Viggo, or Mortimer or Mage …” In the moment of silence that followed, I explained what happened when the Tribe spell took effect, how I had an out-of-body experience.