Free Roses & Rye (Toil & Trouble Book 3) by Heather R. Blair Page B

your hands…unless I’m telling the truth?”
    They have a staring contest until Carly enters the room, Ajax and Syana right behind her. Their quickie must have been pretty darn quick. My sister retakes her place next to Styx, who slides an arm around her and squeezes. He’s worried. He buries his nose in Carly’s red-gold curls and I frown, but then Jack looks around, looking agitated for the first time since he crossed the threshold.
    “Where’s Jett?”
    Ah, yes. I look up, almost expecting to catch the flash of my sister’s ragged blue-black hair, but she’s nowhere in sight. The stabby bitch is apparently going to miss this shindig.
    Ana confirms. “She’s out. I don’t know where and I wasn’t going to wait for her. Jett  doesn’t respond to half my messages these days and the other half she ignores just for spite.”
    “Why?”
    Ana scowls. “Maybe because none of us are doing too well since you murdered our baby sister, Jack. Though I’m quite sure she’ll be disappointed to have missed this.” Low and slow, she whispers the opening lines of her favorite rhyme aloud. “ Au clair de la lune… ”
     
    Under the moonlight,
    my friend Pierrot,
    lend me your pen
    to write a word.
    My candle is dead
    I don't have a light anymore
    open your door for me
    for God's sake.
     
    Yes, it’s not a traditional Mother Goose rhyme—one of my mother’s more whimsical moods—and yes, she uses the French version, but that’s Ana.
    “… ouvre-moi ta porte, pour l'amour de Dieu .”
    Jack makes no attempt to stop her, not that he could. He only takes a deep breath when the wards lock down again, this time with him on the inside, just as Ana promised.
    Stephen tenses. “What did you do?”
    Jack lifts a hand. “No open doors for me. Satisfied now, Ana?”
    “Fine, get on with it, then. My patience is waning.”
    Stephen nods. “Okay, Frost. You seem familiar enough with our laws. I already know what happened that night—as well as anyone does, since there were no witnesses save you and Persephone. Tell us your version.”
    Jack nods, looking unfazed, though I can hear his heartbeat from here. It isn’t fear of my sisters that has his pulse racing. It’s that Jack knows he’s about to rip what’s left of my family apart. Probably forever.
    He takes a deep breath. “Telling you what happened is pointless. We all know there isn’t a damn thing I can say that you will believe, not without proof. And I don’t have proof.”
    Ana raises an eyebrow. She’s striving for icy calm, but I know my sister. She’s a seething mass of hate and fury, looking for any excuse to tear Jack apart. “Well, if that’s the best you can do, Frost, what would you like first? Acid in your guts or lava in your veins?” Her hands twitch, but Jack lifts a hand.
    “I said I don’t have proof, but I know where it is. Seph told you both about the truth stone, right?”
    Everyone seems to tense. Ana frowns. “Yes she did. So what? The damn thing is gone, back into its owner’s hands. And I, for one, am not going to ask him to borrow it.” Her hands clench in her lap, knuckles white.
    Jack smiles thinly. “But I believe there is something very similar. In this house.”
    “Why would you think that?”
    “Because I gave it to you before I realized what it could do.”
    “What in the hell are you on about? I’ve never accepted a gift from you.”
    “Yes, you did, Ana.” Jack says gently. “The necklace your mother gave Persephone. I took it off her before I…” He clears his throat. “I left it on the ice for you to find after I finished laying Seph to rest. I meant it to be a token, but I need it back.”
    My sister’s face is livid. “A token of what? That you were able to beat our mother’s magic, to get through it to my baby sister? You son of—”
    “I didn’t beat your mother’s magic,” he says shortly. “At least not in time to save your sister. Oriane’s stone prevented me from that. It slowed me