“Ahem.” Jilo banged on the top of the gate with her cane. I tore myself from Emmet’s embrace, startled and ashamed. “Wouldn’t mind a taste of that myself, mud pie.” She cackled and closed the garden gate with her stick. Both hands on its handle, she wobbled her way toward me. “Jilo understand you be needin’ her.” I looked from her back to Emmet, glowing in his smugness. In that moment, I hated him; in that moment, I knew that if it hadn’t been for Jilo’s arrival, I’d still be lost in his arms, my body demanding his.

THIRTY

“The game is afoot,” Emmet said, glancing over at me as we pulled up to the gates of the Tillandsia house. I rolled my eyes, and he smiled. He turned down the long drive, pulling near the oval, which had been a patch of dirt only a few days ago. Tonight, a decades-old magnolia stood there, fragrant in its full and miraculously timed bloom. The scent wafted in through my cracked open window. It intoxicated me, almost as much as the few times I’d allowed myself to glance over at Emmet. His piercing eyes burned, and despite their fire, they were even blacker than the tuxedo he wore. His hair was combed back in thick onyx waves. I fought the urge to run my fingers through them. My love for Peter was all that prevented me from acting on my desire.

I forced myself to concentrate on the matter at hand. Our plan was good, although I was not about to jinx it by thinking of it as foolproof. My job was to unlock the energy, and then Emmet would relay it to Jilo, who had ensconced herself in her haint-blue chamber and would be waiting to take charge of any magic we sent her way.

We pulled around the oval, where attendants were opening car doors and collecting keys. Emmet placed the car in park and turned to face me, a hint of a grin on his lips. “I’ve never driven before. Did I do okay?”

I laughed even though I shouldn’t have. I should have questioned his overly earnest request to act as chauffeur. Tonight, though, I didn’t want to ask too many questions of him. I was afraid of the answers. “You did great.”

Powerful searchlights crossing beams overhead and smaller lamps scattered throughout nearly turned the night into day. Peter’s crew had done no additional work since Tucker’s death, but the Tillandsia house shone, the very image of perfection. Only magic could have transformed it so quickly. The sad and peeling paint had been exchanged for a fresh and nearly luminescent white that coated the house’s Doric pillars as well as the building itself. The shutters had been enameled black. Only the door remained as it had been, the same black and red that the Tillandsia Society had evidently adopted as its symbol.

The attendant opened my door, and I stretched out my legs, making sure that my much higher than usual heels connected safely with the still fresh pavement. Emmet met me at the side of the car and offered me his arm. I let myself lean on it, enjoying the comfort of his strength. My fingers dug into his jacket as we stepped past the infamous door and over the threshold. My eyes darted nervously around the entranceway, but there was no visible dome overhead. The true architecture of the house fully honored the Georgian preference for symmetry—two stairways curved gracefully up to the top floor, one on each side.

Eyes fell on us from every direction, predatory and hungry—some for me, some for Emmet, and a good number for us both. I recognized some of the faces, including a teacher from my high school and a few business people and their respective spouses. Most of the faces were new, but all, the new and the known, glowed with the same carnivorous delight. Conversation stopped as a servant who was attired in a period costume, complete with a powdered wig, stepped forward. “Your invitation, please.” He held out a silver tray to receive it. I looked at Emmet with panic in my eyes. I’d forgotten to bring it. He smiled and produced the paper from his coat pocket. After he placed it on the tray, the servant picked it up. “Miss Mercy Taylor and Mister . . . ?” He paused, appreciating the dark wall of man next to me.

“My name is Emmet Clay.”

“Wouldn’t mind spinning that clay on my wheel.” A stage whisper floated down from a group of middle-aged ladies at the top of the stairs. The conversation picked up again in spurts and stops, soon reaching its previous volume and complexity, even though most eyes remained fixed on the two of us.

“A warm Tillandsia welcome to you, Mr. Clay,” the servant said and bowed.

Emmet leaned over and whispered into my ear. “They can’t take their eyes off you.” His warm breath tickled.

“I think you are the one everybody’s checking out.”

“No,” he said. “You are breathtaking in that dress.”

I bit my tongue to keep from turning it into a joke, from saying, “What, this old thing?” Instead I returned a simple “Thank you.” I wore another of Ellen’s finds, an ice-blue vintage cocktail dress with trails of slightly darker flowers that ran down the fabric in rows. It read as very sweet and demure, and my amplified cleavage was well hidden by the collarbone-high neckline and wide straps. Even with the pleated waist, it still covered me without drawing attention to my pregnancy. The skirt fell a little below the knee. I’d borrowed Ellen’s pearls, wearing them for good luck as well as a sign of my faith in her, and had my hair up in a loose bun. The entire effect came across as much more Sunday school than orgy. I surveyed the room filled with high slit skirts and deeply plunging necklines, and realized the seductive power my modest look held simply due to juxtaposition.

Even though I knew the participants were here of their own volition, the house had the feeling of a zoo or prison, each room as a separate cage. I reached up and touched my aunt’s pearls, focusing on them, using them to help me hone in on her energy. “Aunt Ellen is here,” I said to Emmet. “I can sense her.”

“Do you detect that she is in danger of any kind?”

“No, she doesn’t seem to be under any stress.” In fact, when I reached out to her, I experienced a sense of calmness, as if she were resting or medicated. Waiters walked around carrying glass after glass of Ellen’s favorite form of medication.

“Then let us focus for now on the power.” Emmet lifted his hand, using it like an antenna or maybe a dowsing rod. “There is much of it here, just waiting for us to tap into it.”

“I feel it too.” The power did not resonate like the smooth and vibrant energy of the line, nor did it sizzle like the nearly psychotic electricity that had built up at the old Candler Hospital, having fed off the pain and misery of those who had been lost there. It lay somewhere between the two, and it felt something like silk being pulled across a ragged rock. I gave a slight tug to the bond Emmet had helped set up between Jilo and myself. She tugged back.

“The real party is this way,” a naked man I recognized as a former state senator said with a grin, using his sex to point to the doorway of what had probably been the parlor or drawing room.

I felt the blood rise to my face as I watched his pasty buttocks pass through the arch of the door. I turned nearly purple when the servant who announced us approached. “If you’d prefer a more private setting, there are rooms upstairs. Although there will be several,” he said, giving Emmet a thoroughly appreciative stare, “who will be very disappointed if you don’t join the festivities.”

“We came here to ‘participate,’?” I said, dreading the thought of crossing the barrier into that room.