I’m too tired to argue, plus I’m glad to get away from the sosyetes for the night. Still, I’m relieved when I hear Caleb calling my name. I turn to see him emerging from the cemetery, his shirt ripped on the right side and dirt streaked across his left cheek.
“Hey,” he says, falling into step beside me.
“What happened?” I ask.
“We caught the guy who attacked you.” Caleb hesitates. “He won’t be bothering you anymore.”
Something cold wraps itself around my heart. “You killed Vauclain,” I say softly.
“We had to,” Caleb says. His voice breaks, and he pauses before continuing. “Patrick was the one who caught him, and Oscar was right behind him. He was already dead by the time I got there.”
“He was their leader,” I say. “They’ll want revenge even more now.”
“We didn’t have a choice,” he says. “If anything had happened to you . . .” He trails off, sending a shiver up my spine. “Eveny, I never would have forgiven myself.”
He stops walking, and a few steps later, I stop too. I look up at him, and he puts a warm, rough hand on my cheek. We stare at each other for a long moment. He leans in, and I’m sure he’s about to kiss me, so I close my eyes. But his lips never meet mine, and when I open my eyes a moment later, I feel like an idiot.
He’s just staring at me. “Eveny. Have you made plans for the Mardi Gras Ball yet?”
“No.” I hold my breath.
“Do you think . . . What I mean is. . . . Would you want to go with me?”
My heart leaps into my throat, but there’s something about his expression that feels off. “You don’t have to ask me if you don’t want to, you know,” I say.
“I know. It doesn’t change anything between us, but,” he says, looking into my eyes, “I want to. So is that a yes?”
“Of course it is.”
“Good.” He clears his throat and looks up at the moon. “Now come on. Let’s get you home before we lose the light.”
I walk inside to find Aunt Bea pacing the living room. “There’d better be a good explanation for what happened tonight,” she asks, but before I can open my mouth, she adds, “Because this isn’t the way I raised you, Eveny. You have no idea what you’re dealing with here.”
I open and close my mouth before I finally settle for, “Who called you?”
“Chloe’s mother,” she says. “I told you this was the sort of thing that could happen if you got involved in zandara, Eveny!” Aunt Bea slams her fist against the wall.
All of a sudden, a wave of calm rushes over me. “Aunt Bea,” I say, “I can’t run away from this.”
“But I can. And I can make you come with me. We’re going back to New York. I never should have brought you here.”
They’re the words I would have given anything to hear a few weeks ago. But now, everything’s different. “No.”
“No?” she repeats.
I shake my head. “It’s not what Mom would have wanted. I know things are messed up here, Aunt Bea, but I think I’m the one who’s supposed to fix them.”
Her eyes are suddenly awash with sadness. “But Main de Lumière killed your mother,” she says. “You want to wait around and have the same thing happen to you?”
“But Main de Lumière didn’t kill her,” I say, explaining what Vauclain told me in the cemetery. “I don’t think he was lying. He had no problem admitting what they did to Glory.”
“Well, if they didn’t kill your mother, who did?”
“I was hoping you’d have some idea,” I reply. “Vauclain said I should be worried.”
Aunt Bea looks down at the floor. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe it was my dad,” I venture after a pause.
Her head snaps up. “Where would you get an idea like that?”
“You despise him. You refuse to talk about him. And he’s completely vanished.”
Aunt Bea looks away. “Your father didn’t kill your mother, Eveny. We are not living in an episode of The Jerry Springer Show.”
“You hate him so much, though.”
She gazes out the window. “Yes, because he left. Because your mother always believed he’d done the right thing, even when he abandoned you. Because he can’t run from who he is, or who he was born to be.”
Something inside me lurches. “What do you mean? Who was he born to be?” My heart pounds quickly; I have the feeling that whatever she’s about to say is important.
But her face goes blank, and she looks away. “It’s none of your concern, Eveny,” she says tightly. “It has nothing to do with you.”