Chapter 26

TWENTY-SIX

COLLINS

I felt only cold determination as Mom lowered us onto the angels’ rooftop terrace. The sky was beginning to lighten, with the blues being chased away by pinks and oranges. The city was quiet from up here. It was a gorgeous morning for murder.

We’d pissed Riven off to an extreme, and I understood the rage aimed at us, so now I wanted to make it right. Or at least make amends. To show remorse and that we felt bad. The last thing I ever wanted to do was endanger another person, least of all another Stone Keeper I hadn’t even met. I prayed this gesture would soften the new hatred he had to have harbored for us. That was a genuine desire at that moment.

I wasn’t sure what it said about me that I also prayed he’d give us the answer we needed in return. I liked to think it was simply sheer desperation and fear because otherwise I was as manipulative as the rumors of the fae suggested.

Zuriel stepped onto the terrace from inside Araqiel’s office before we even touched the ground. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked up at us with those midnight-blue eyes of his. His expression was unreadable, as always.

I’d told Bash to land here with Venus, that they’d understand. However, my confidence in that statement was fading with every inch we lowered. My stomach was a ball of tangled nerves. When I finally touched the ground, I stepped away from my mother and stopped in front of the angel.

“This is not a habit you’re at liberty to make, Ms. Elliott,” he growled.

I licked my lips and nodded. “And it won’t be, I promise. But I thought perhaps this one time could be an exception given the cargo we carry?”

Zuriel glared at me for a long, long moment before he finally smirked. He waved the others forward with one flick of his wrist. “You two continue to entertain me with your violent natures.”

My face flushed with heat.

“Thank you,” Bash spoke softly.

“Um, pardon me, Zuriel?” I cleared my throat and waited for his attention to swing back to me. When it did, I nearly lost all my courage to ask, but I had nothing to lose. He’d either save us the hassle and answer or he’d refuse and we’d have to hunt it down. “When we captured Venus, she told us she, too, had been bound to Third Realm along with Tephine.”

His dark eyebrows rose.

“We were hoping you could confirm if this is true or not.” I grimaced. “Please?”

He shook his head and chuckled. “Always a liar, this one. Her mouth cannot be trusted. Why, Bastien, have you chosen to listen now?”

Normally, Bash asked everyone to call him Bash when they spoke his given name. This time he did not, and something told me it was a test of some kind from Zuriel. Bash sighed. “I do not believe her words at all . . . but there is enough of a sliver of doubt to make me hesitate.”

“Why?”

“Because I could not live with myself if I acted so rashly and caused the death of my entire realm. All those innocent people do not deserve that fate.” He shrugged. “Their lives are worth pausing to ask.”

“And why do you assume I would answer such a question? Angels are limited in their assistance?—”

“For the same reason you just said their and not our. ” I smiled and gestured to the cocoon of ice at Bash’s feet. “And every day that Venus and Tephine live is another day of potential clean ups on your part to keep the humans safe and ignorant. We’d like to expedite the process of killing her.”

“What, you didn’t want to ask MoVaun . . . Sandra? ”

Mom’s face fell. She just shook her head.

“You cannot make a habit of coming to me to answer your questions. Others cannot know of this.”

I grinned. “We won’t tell if you won’t.”

Zuriel nodded. “Venus is not bound to any realm. She may be disposed of at your earliest convenience.”

I exhaled as relief washed through me. My stomach rolled. Apparently I hadn’t been too confident in my opinion of Venus’s lie. But Weston and Shylock’s faces flashed through my mind, and I was glad I’d at least asked.

“Clean up after yourself.” He started to turn to walk away.

“Actually, there’s one other thing I wanted to ask you?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I do believe we just went over this?—”

“I need to summon Prince Riven one last time,” I said in a rush. “So . . . may I borrow your terrace again?”

Zuriel’s eyes widened for a moment, then he cocked his head to the side. “I just saved you from being killed by Riven?—”

“And we are eternally grateful. Really, we owe you one. But . . .” I glanced down at the soulmate mark on my arm and sighed. “I think he needs this.”

Zuriel threw his head back and laughed. “You are surprising, Ms. Elliott.”

I bit my lip. “Thank you?”

Zuriel stepped aside and gestured to the open glass doors that led into Araqiel’s pristine white office. “It is your lucky day, as I saved you a step.”

I followed his hand into the office, but I only saw Araqiel sitting in his desk chair with a greasy brown paper bag in his lap. And then I saw him. Prince Riven . . . tied to a chair just inside the doors.

My jaw dropped. Behind me, the others gasped.

Prince Riven presented a stark contrast with his black clothes tied to a white chair. He snarled and his upper lip pulled back to reveal vicious-looking fangs. Those pale-blue eyes burned with a rage worthy of a thousand suns.

“Prince Riven.” I held my hands up, then stepped aside, gesturing to the ground behind me where our present sat. “A gift . . . for you.”

He growled and opened his mouth to spit vitriol at me—when his gaze spotted Venus. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Riven just stared. And then he thrashed against the ropes pinning him down.

In the back of my mind, I wondered what the hell kind of ropes those were, but I had to focus, so I just held one hand up to flag down the fierce angel. “Zuriel, please unleash the beast so he can feast upon his present.”

Zuriel laughed and shook his head. Araqiel scowled, his face pinched up in blatant distaste. But Zuriel either did not care or did not notice because he flicked his wrist and Riven’s rope vanished. The Vampire Prince was unleashed.

Riven leapt to his feet and took a step—then appeared right in front of me.

My breath caught in my throat. I pointed to Venus. “This one needs to be killed. Want the honor?”

“Yes,” he growled.

“She’s all yours,” Bash said quietly. “I’d just like to watch.”

Riven strolled over with his hands in his pockets, looking the picture of calm and ease. It was a lie, a mirage of sorts, but he was good at faking it. I turned to watch him, as did the others in our group. Ellie and Stellan stood a few feet back with Savina, looking a mixture of panic, fear, and nervous anticipation.

“You have frozen her without turning her to ice.” Riven spoke in a low voice. “Encased her in a glass ball and left her able to watch.”

Bash nodded. “She deserves worse.”

He crouched down and looked through the ice to her wide pink eyes. “You have no idea.”

I do.

Riven stood up straight. “Remove the ice that binds her.”

Bash opened his mouth, then shut it. He frowned. “I don’t know how to do that, or if I can?”

Riven scowled and glanced over his shoulder to Zuriel, then arched one eyebrow. Zuriel shrugged one shoulder. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. When Riven spoke, his words were so soft I had to strain to hear, only to find they weren’t even in English. Bash nodded his head over and over even while his eyes looked lost and confused.

Then Bash bent down and pressed his palms to Venus’s ice-covered back.

Blue flames hissed and flicked off of her body. But Bash didn’t move. After a moment, the ice began to melt away inch by inch. In a minute or less, Venus had been carved from her ice sculpture and sat there on the terrace looking a menace. Even with my green vines coiled around her body and little crystal shards tucked beneath them, Venus still radiated power. I felt it wash over my body and turn my heart to rage. I wanted to turn to Bash and scream at him. With a curse, I shook it off and refocused on the task ahead of me.

Venus thrashed against my vines and screamed, but her words were muffled.

“Let her go,” Riven growled.

For a brief moment, I thought he meant to actually let her go like released back into the world. But then I saw the look in his eyes and the tension in his muscles and it clicked.

Riven was going to play with his food.

Ellie sucked in a sharp breath of realization. “ Oh , Jurassic Park style.”

I grinned over at her.

“On that note . . .” Araqiel sighed and leaned out of the doors of the terrace. “I’m going to get tacos. Clean up your mess once it’s done. Zuriel, you coming?”

The dark-haired angel shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

I snickered under my breath.

Venus’s eyes widened and it pulled at the acid scarring on the side of her face.

Mom and Ellie exchanged nervous glances, then shot into the sky, hovering above the terrace and nearly blending in with the night sky. Savina and Stellan moved to opposite sides of the terrace so the four of them made a square—two on ground, two in the air. They weren’t taking any precautions with this female.

Bash walked up to her and bent down so their eyes were level. “I want you to know that even with your strongest, best efforts, you could not rip us apart. And I’m going to enjoy every second of this.”

“Release her,” Riven snarled, his fists balled at his sides.

Bash glanced back at me and nodded, then popped his wings out and shot straight up, stopping higher than Mom and Ellie. A third layer of defense. I frowned and looked to Zuriel. Sure, I trusted my group, and I actually trusted Riven—and I had no doubts this Vampire Prince was lethal in vicious ways. But we’d finally caught Venus. Releasing her made me nervous. I just needed the angel’s approval before I let her go.

Zuriel’s dark-blue gaze slid over to me. He had his arms crossed over his chest, no wings in sight, but there was no question whether or not he could catch her if she took off. I arched one eyebrow. He gave me the slightest of nods and smirked, then turned his gaze back to Riven.

I pulled the vines back from Venus and they dropped to the ground around her feet. She scrambled onto all fours, then pushed to stand. Her wings fluttered to life and she shot up into the air in the blink of an eye—just as we expected. I looked up just as the others moved for her.

Riven jumped straight up and grabbed her by her wing, plucking her right out of the sky before she could even get as high as Mom and Ellie. He dragged her back down to the terrace with force, slamming her into the ground so hard dust billowed around her. She crumbled into a pile of awkwardness with a groan, on all fours once again. Riven landed behind her, reached down to grip her wings, and ripped them down the middle. She screamed in agony. I loathed her, yet I still flinched as she dropped to the ground at his feet. Riven grabbed what was left of her wings and shredded them into little pieces. The scream that echoed out of her was guttural and consuming.

Yet he relished her pain.

Little stumps were all that was left of her wings. Her whole body trembled, yet she still tried to crawl away from him. He took one step and grabbed ahold of those bloody stumps. She bellowed in pain. And then he tore them completely off her body. My stomach turned. Venus hissed and gagged with pain. I grinned. She deserved to feel this after what she’d done to me .

Blood poured down her back and sides, pooling on the ground at his feet and atop his black shoes. Nausea rolled in my stomach and shot up my throat. I gagged. I felt that pain like it was fresh in my own back. Venus wailed and her body quaked.

He stood over her with blood caked in his fingernails.

Venus staggered to her feet and ran toward the door to Araqiel’s office, her pink hair flowing behind her as she bolted. Riven was there before any of us could move or blink. Before she made it to the door, Riven snatched her long hair flying behind her and yanked his arm back. He swung his other hand up and I caught the shimmer of a metal blade right before it sliced through her pink locks. She screamed and sank to her knees, holding her head.

Riven held her long luscious pink hair in his fist. A bone-chilling grin spread across his face as he handed the hair to Zuriel. “For your souvenir collection.”

Zuriel chuckled silently but he took the hair and ran his fingers over the strands, braiding it without moving his fingers.

Venus reached out to him, and her pink power flowed around Riven. It was like a cloud of powder. He walked right through it like it was nothing. When he stood over her, she twisted her hand and her power tightened around him. But it no longer influenced him. Maybe thousands of years ago when he was a young vampire. But that no longer applied. Venus never had and never would show any of us any kind of mercy. She’d maimed most of us and tortured the rest in one way or another. She’d cost Riven time with his soulmate, and for that her death would be vicious. A deserved viciousness.

Riven wasn’t done playing with her yet. He grabbed her arm and jerked her around to face him. His hand squeezed her wrist so hard his knuckles were white and the bones in her forearm snapped. She threw her other hand up and slapped Riven across the face. When he dropped the hold he had on her other arm, it fell limply to her side and her forearm looked like it was in the shape of a banana. He smirked at her like he let her hit him just for shits and giggles.

Venus leapt back and spun around, her eyes locked on something behind me as she sprinted in my direction.

Riven grinned and took a step, clearing the distance between them effortlessly. He grabbed hold of the back of her neck and dragged her back against his chest. With blinding speed, he tilted his head to the side and sank his fangs into the side of her neck. Venus gasped and thrashed but his grip on her held her in place. He flicked his head back and ripped out the skin on the side of her neck with his teeth in one fluid motion. He spit the chunk on the floor, and it landed there with a wet slapping sound.

Our little group gasped in unison.

Venus staggered back and pressed her hand to the side of her neck. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly as she tried to stop the flow of blood. But it spurted between her fingers and ran down the side of her body.

Riven strolled around her in a slow circle. Blood covered his chin and ran down the front of his clothing. There was so much of it that even the darkness of black could not hide it. He stood beside her and leaned in close, whispering something in her ear that made her body shake from head to toe. With a lightning quick move, he shoved his right hand straight into her chest, buried within her ribcage. She choked on a squeal. Blood ran from the corner of her mouth onto the floor like a river. His other arm snaked around her body and then thrust forward. Venus’s back arched and a strangled wet sound left her lips. A warm squishy sound filled the silence, but I was afraid to ask what it was. I had to press the back of my hand to my mouth to stop from vomiting. A rattling, wheezing sound came from Venus as he held her there like a puppet.

He growled a low string of words into her ear, then yanked his arms in opposite directions. Venus’s scream cut off as her eyes went wide and her body fell to the ground like a meat sack.

Riven stood there holding her spine in his left hand and her heart in the other.

We all took a step back.

Except Zuriel.

“Oh fuck.” Ellie spun away and gagged.

The rest of us had no words. It was cruel but a deserved cruelty for the things that she’d done. I registered my group standing around me, but I couldn’t have said when they moved in. My entire concentration had been on Riven and Venus. I took a deep breath and froze. The tension in my body was gone. I looked up to my right and found Bash’s eyes on me, the expression soft and tender. Tears filled my eyes. I threw my hand out to him, and he took it without hesitation. All of the anger I’d been feeling for my soulmate vanished the instant Venus died.

Riven cast Venus’s spine and heart to the floor like the garbage he clearly thought she was. He licked the tips of his fingers one by one, then glanced at us for a second before turning his attention back to his kill. He bent over her body and picked up the rose quartz stone from her chest. He tried to wipe the blood from it, but that was pointless. He was covered in blood and now so was the stone.

He walked toward us, tossing that stone up and down. With each step he took it left a bloody print of his shoe on the floor. He stopped in front of me and tossed me Venus’s stone.

“Th-thank you?” The blood was still warm as I wrapped my fingers around the stone.

Zuriel chuckled.

I didn’t have pockets, so I turned and handed her stone to Bash. “Hold this?”

He nodded and shoved it right into his pocket.

A small white towel flew right at Riven’s face. He snatched it, then used it to wipe the blood from his face. As he stood there meticulously cleaning parts of Venus from his fingers, his pale-blue eyes shot up to me with sudden sharpness. “I did not inquire because I wanted it more than you could know. But tell me, petite chuchoteuse, why did you let me kill Venus?”

I took a deep breath and licked my lips, bracing myself for every kind of reaction. Then I said softly, “For your wife.”

Everyone in my group gasped. I may have forgotten to fill them in on all the details before. But the thing was, the stuff I saw in Augustine’s mind was not only insanely personal to them but also could be crazy dangerous if the information landed in the wrong hands.

Riven eyed the group, then me. “You and Violette didn’t tell them?”

I glanced at Ellie, but she just smiled and shook her head, so I turned back to Riven. “I owe it to her—especially after what we’ve done—to protect her in any way I can.”

His face fell.

“There were a lot of ears in Peggy’s house, and while I trust them . . .” I shrugged, then continued. “This is different, isn’t it?”

“What did you see?”

I exhaled roughly. “A lot?”

“I am waiting,” he said softly but with ice in his voice.

“Umm. Too much, too fast to process even a fraction of it.” I twirled one of my braids around my fingers to do something with the anxious energy running in my veins and pouring out of him. When he just stared at me, I realized he wasn’t going to let this go. “Okay, fine. So, I, uh, I saw soulmate marks on both your arms. I saw the moment you introduced Howard Prescott to your wife. Then I saw his journal, the very journal we traded with. I saw Venus. I saw what she did to you.”

Riven glanced at Bash.

“Exactly. I realized in that moment that what she’d done to you and your wife she was doing to us.” I looked over to what was left of Venus and shuddered. “I saw a lot of things too private and personal to speak out loud?—”

“ Now her memories are too private.”

I groaned, cutting his snarl off. Then I threw my hand up, without letting go of Bash with my other. “Riven, I am sorry. Really, truly, genuinely. I had no idea that was what we were going to see. It’s not like I have a ton of experience in digging through strangers’ minds for information. I didn’t even know what we were looking for. All I did was go in and bam there’s all this personal shit. We have to kill Tephine and we can’t because of what she did. You are the only hope we have of getting that answer. It wasn’t like we had any control of what MoVaun told us?—”

Riven snarled and shook his head.

Zuriel whistled under his breath.

“MoVaun was supposed to just tell you the answer, not—” He slammed his mouth shut and shook his head again, then he started to pace the terrace.

“Why couldn’t you tell us the answer? I know who she is to you, and I understand that, but I feel like there’s more to this than just her being your soulmate.”

“ I’m being tracked ,” he growled. “One of my cousins, the eldest son of King Armand, has been tracking me for a decade . . . looking for her.”

My heart sank. “So, if you go near her . . . you lead them to her. Oh God.”

“Now you see.”

“I’m sorry, Riven.”

He growled and spun away from me.

“Venus tore you two apart right at the end. She’s been doing that to me and Bash, and we’ve only just met. I cannot imagine the pain she caused you and your wife.”

“ Why do you keep calling her that? ” he snarled, his cheeks flushed and his eyes glassy.

I frowned. “Because someone should.”

He flinched like I’d hit him. The aura radiating out of him pulsed like electricity. His emotions were intense as they ripped through his body. He balled his hands into fists and clenched his teeth.

“There is . . . one thing . . . that happened that I have not yet told you. That I saw.” I glanced around but finished on Zuriel. “I . . . was not sure if I should?”

Zuriel took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

Riven’s eyes widened on his friend. “I do not like that. Why do you sound like that?”

“Because you are not going to like it.” Zuriel hung his head. “Tell him, Collins. It’s time he knows what I have not been permitted to share.”

Riven’s gaze snapped back to me. “ Tell me. Now. ”

“When she found the Blood Stone, deep in whatever castle that was, she found it in liquid form. She tried to flee with it, but with the war blowing the place up around her, the glass bowl it was in broke. It was about to be lost forever.” I glanced back to Ellie, not knowing if I should say the full extent of what I saw, but she nodded without hesitation, so I stepped closer to Riven and whispered, “She sat there defeated and though you were not there she said she was sorry . . . to you.”

His eyes snapped to me. “ What . . .”

“She said, Riven, I’m sorry. She knew she’d messed up, but it was too late to change it and fix it. Then she prayed to the heavens and asked you what she should do . . .” My throat was raw and thick with emotion even though it wasn’t my pain. “She made a joke that the Blood Stone looked like one of your glasses of wine . . . which gave her the idea . . . to drink it. ”

“NO.” He swayed on his feet. “ No, no, no. Ne me dis pas cela. Elle ne l'a pas fait.”

I did not speak French, or whatever ancient version of it Riven spoke, but I understood him enough just by the sound it made coming out of his mouth.

“Yes. Unfortunately, Augustine drank the Blood Stone.”

A shattered, broken sound came out of him. He staggered away from us and braced himself on the outside wall of the terrace. He’d turned sheet-white. His hands trembled as he put them on his knees and hung his head.

A hot lump of emotion formed in my throat. Tears stung my eyes. I gripped Bash’s hand just as he dragged me against his side. My mind hadn’t had time to process the implications of what I’d seen his wife do in her memories. Drinking an Origin Stone had no chance of being a good idea, of not causing immensely horrible side effects.

Riven had never looked so shaken.

Zuriel leaned against the terrace wall beside him, Venus’s braid dangling from his hand. He spoke to Riven in a language I did not recognize, not that it would have mattered as his voice was such a soft whisper it barely carried over to me. Riven squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.

Finally, Zuriel cleared his throat and gestured toward us.

Riven sighed and nodded, then pushed off the terrace wall. His gait was slower, softer. When he stopped in front of me, his eyes bore into mine. “Promise me you will not do that again without speaking to me first.”

“I promise,” I said without hesitation.

He scrubbed his face with his hands and left little streaks of blood across his cheeks. “She would hate me when her memory returns if I didn’t help you kill Tephine.”

My eyes widened. Hope flared in my chest. Bash’s grip on my hand tightened.

“The Nephilim had been trying to use the Origin Stones to reverse the effects touching them brought on us. Unfortunately, Howard and I did not discover this until the last of them died in my arms.” He shrugged. “Whoops.”

We all gasped.

He rolled his eyes. “War has a tendency to blur the lines in ways you cannot imagine.”

I grimaced.

“Howard, Augustine, and I spent a long time trying to fulfill their efforts. To do so, we had to collect all the Origin Stones. We had all but Chaos and Blood, both of which were in the clutches of monsters: Tephine and my uncle Armand.” He gestured for the others to move closer. “Listen carefully for I will not repeat myself and we do not want others to hear.”

Bash lifted his arm and a black dome surrounded us. “Solves that part?”

Riven nodded. “Howard had devised a brilliant plan to trick Tephine into position. All we had to do was steal the Blood Stone. But it was dangerous, and I knew we would not all make it out alive. When Venus tore us apart, Augustine went for it by herself. I tried to stop her, but it was too late. The explosion happened before I got to her.”

“Explosion?”

Riven glanced to Zuriel with an arched eyebrow.

He shrugged one shoulder, which I was learning was code for yes.

“The Origin Stones are not meant to be near each other. Their energy too close together causes an explosion of magic and power. Howard’s plan was to position the Stones at the sacred ancient ritual site known as Stonehenge.”

I gasped.

“When the explosion occurred, each and every one of us lost our magic. We were turned human.” He glanced over his shoulder. “This is when Araqiel separated us into our own realms because he knew it did not work the way it should have, that our magic would return and therefore so would war. Howard and I have spent two thousand and nineteen years trying to figure out why it did not work?—”

“It’s because she drank the Stone,” Ellie whispered in awe. “It changed the structure of its magic, I bet.”

“It would have changed the ritual entirely,” Savina added.

Riven shook his head. “If only I could tell Howard. It all makes so much sense now.”

Bash cleared his throat softly. “I do not mean to be disrespectful in any way, but how does this pertain to what my mother has done recently?”

I snapped my fingers. “That’s the info she had Isolda get from MoVaun. The instructions on how to use the Origin Stones, right?”

“Yes and no. It is complicated.” Riven pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Tephine was trying to give herself the power of all the Stones. She has never understood the way these things work and so it backfired in a way she was not prepared for. Binding herself to Third Realm gave her more power but it hinders her as well.”

“Please, Riven, what do we do?”

“Tephine gathered an element to represent each of the Origin Stones, then positioned them in Crystal Henge. Augustine’s blood burning her told me you would need her blood to sever the bond and now I know why. The item she used to represent the Blood Stone would have come from a vampire in First Realm, and since Augustine drank it, no one since then would have had its power within them.”

We all just stared at him silently. This was a lot to process and yet I didn’t hear an answer.

Riven reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of white paper. He held it up between us. “You are smarter and more attune to magic than Tephine. I trust you will use this information properly.”

“What is it?” I stared at it.

“Instructions for how to sever the bond that I retrieved for you by going through Howard Prescott’s journal.” He held the paper out to me. “Do not open it here. You are fond of Peggy Bow. I would review this in the safety of her home. She has what you need.”

I snatched the paper from his hand, then pressed it to my chest.

He smirked. “You will need one more thing.”

My pulse quickened.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a vial, the same vial I’d seen in MoVaun’s shop when she’d broken the hematite in half. My eyes widened.

“This is . . .” He swallowed roughly. “This is my wife’s blood. Use it carefully as instructed.”

“Mom . . . Mom, take the vial please.” My voice was thick and burning. My hands were trembling. “I do not trust myself with it right now.”

Mom did not hesitate to step forward and take the vial of Augustine’s blood from Riven. She wrapped her fingers around it and held it close to her heart. “Is she safe?"

Riven’s eyes sharpened on her, but he did not speak.

“You went to great lengths to get us to this outcome?—”

“She is not safe, nowhere near safe.” Riven licked his lips and narrowed his eyes on my mother. “Tell me, petite rebelle, how did it feel to be backed into a corner knowing the only way to survive was to sell out your own?”

Mom nodded. “Then know we are indebted to her henceforth. Tell Gaston too. If we are needed, we will come.”

“We’ll be watching anyway, so you ought to warn Gaston we might show up before he has a chance to even call.” I licked my lips. “I’m sorry we put you— and her—through all this . . . Isolda . . . MoVaun…”

He turned his cold stare to me. “Assurances had to be made before we got here .”

“Thank you, Prince Riven.”

“You still owe me, petite chuchoteuse,” He aimed lasers with his eyes at me. “ I will not forget.”