In the Shadows

right, Alden — this is a fun addition to our gathering.”

“Can’t die, can’t die,” Mary sang, her tune mournful and eerie

in the cave.

“Yes, thank you, Mary.”Constance sighed impatiently. “Do be

a dear and go wait outside with the carriages.” Mary stood and

twirled, bare feet spinning slowly along the ground, as she left the

caverns.

Arthur staggered back as though he had been shot himself.

Were these the same people his father had traced through the ages?

The portraits, then, didn’t just look old — they really were that

ancient? Had his father figured it out? Had he known the true

secret of the Ladon Vitae?

“What happened to my father?” he asked. Here, at last, were

his answers, and dread and rage warred within him.

“This,” Alden said, snarling, as he raised a gun and pointed it

at Arthur’s chest.

“Stop!” Thomas roared, filling the cave with his voice. “If he

dies, you all go down!”

Alden pursed his lips in annoyance, but nodded for Thomas

to continue.

“We stole your papers. Lists, names, information. We took

some of Arthur’s father’s notes, too. I’ve sent them to a contact

somewhere far from here. If any of us — any of us — are harmed

or die in an unnatural manner, the information goes straight to a

newspaper I know will publish them.”

“Blackmail,” Cora said, her voice soft but her eyes hard.

Arthur could not take his eyes off Alden, off the man, the

monster, who had killed his father. His father, who had also tried

and failed to end this reign of terror.

“Well now,” Constance murmured. “This complicates things.”