“Peregrine—” Chloe says in a warning tone.
“It was your great-great-great-grandmother Eléonore’s fault,” Peregrine says, cutting her off. “Our great-great-great-grandmothers were wise enough to realize that if they had this kind of power, they shouldn’t waste their time on something as pointless as falling in love. But Eléonore decided she was above all that. She fell for a man and let him get to know her daughters, and look what happened: he killed one of them.”
“The murderer was Eléonore’s boyfriend?” I ask.
“She was engaged to marry him,” Peregrine says smugly. “When she and our ancestors fled to Carrefour before he could finish the job, he vowed that he’d find us, no matter how long it took. It’s revenge, pure and simple, passed down through the generations, all because of Eléonore’s stupidity.”
Chloe takes over. “What she’s trying to say, Eveny, is that after Eléonore made that mistake, the queens vowed they’d never let their hearts get in the way again. They need to give birth to continue their bloodlines, but they decided it was easier to have one-night stands then use zandara to make the men forget. It just uncomplicates things.”
It takes me a second to grasp what she’s saying. “Wait, your fathers don’t have any idea you’re their kids?”
“We don’t even know who our fathers are,” Peregrine says. “And when you don’t know someone in the first place, they can never deliberately let you down, like your father did. I mean, our dads don’t know we’re theirs, but yours chose to abandon you.”
Peregrine obviously thinks she’s pushing my buttons, but I’m not about to waste my time and push back. Instead, I return to the more pressing topic. “How are you so sure Main de Lumière has found Carrefour?”
The question is greeted with silence. Finally, Chloe says, “Because we’re fairly certain they killed Glory.”
My blood runs cold. “I thought she killed herself. Didn’t she?”
“The police chief is part of our mothers’ sosyete,” Chloe says. “He helped cover up her death and make it look like a suicide.”
“Otherwise it would have panicked everyone, made them leave town. We can’t afford for people to be leaving right now, especially in the Périphérie. Our power has to come from somewhere,” Peregrine adds.
“What?”
“What Peregrine’s trying to say,” Chloe interjects, “is that in every great society, there are people of privilege and people who make sacrifices for the people of privilege. You need that separation to keep things balanced. Though we totally make life as comfortable as possible for the people who don’t live in central Carrefour!”
“But you don’t treat them as equals,” I say. When neither of them says anything, I push down my annoyance at their snobby attitude and ask why they suspect Main de Lumière of killing Glory.
“Their pattern is always the same,” Chloe explains. “They stab practitioners of magic through the heart, because that’s the source of our greatest power. And that’s how Glory died.”
My mind flicks to my mother. If Glory’s suicide was staged, is it possible my mom’s was too? But her wounds were to her neck, not her heart. . . . I fight off a sense of disappointment and say, “I thought the charm around the gates was supposed to protect us from intruders getting in.”
“Main de Lumière could only have gotten to Glory if they recruited someone who already lives here in Carrefour,” Peregrine says. For the first time, she looks worried instead of just smug. “In other words, someone who grew up in town, maybe even someone we’re friends with, has turned their back on us and joined Main de Lumière.”
I gape at her. “No offense, but with all of this going on, doing some sort of charm to let strangers into town doesn’t exactly seem like a genius move.”
“First of all, opening the gates isn’t going to have any impact on the person who’s already here,” she snaps. “Second of all, we only invited the very hottest fraternity guys from LSU, and they’ve all passed their background checks with flying colors. Plus, we’ll have Oscar and Patrick, two older guys who work for us, checking IDs at the gate. No one will get in if they’re not on the list.
“Besides,” she adds, “if Carrefour gets any more boring, there’ll be no point in protecting it anyway. Don’t you see, Eveny? We can have anything we want. Good grades. Fabulous clothes. Immunity from teachers’ punishments. Control over everything. Lust and love from whatever boys we choose. It’s all ours. Doesn’t that interest you?”