Book 3 Chapter 37: I Could Win
Dantes gave Jacque a small kiss on the forehead as he handed him off to Alessa. He’d slept the entire time Dantes had him, but that was okay, babies needed their sleep. Dantes walked up to the roof, and shifted into a pigeon. He could’ve chosen to tree-walk to the nearest large garden to the Silken Sin for his meeting, but wanted to see the city and stretch his wings. His flying forms didn’t get as much use in the confines of the Pit.
He started by flying in a wide circle around Midtown, dipping into the docks and taking some brief glances at his gardens. Life in Midtown was flourishing. Roofs were covered in gardens, flowers sprang up in front of shops, and every single patch of dirt where the streets had broken was now filled with green. Dantes could sense cats and dogs hunting rats, and rats claiming their due in the restaurants and shops that had once been barred from them through enchantment. Dantes’s gardens were no longer walled off, but now sat openly flourishing, with only a few private guards hired by ‘Jacopo de Fosse’ watching them openly. Midtown and the docks had always been lively, but before they’d looked decrepit, and miserable. Now they were filled with life, Dantes even saw people walking through the streets without hands clutched to daggers.
He broke off from his small tour and began beating his wings towards Uptown, and the Temple district where the Silken Sin resided. He shifted into himself a few feet above the entrance and landed lightly on his feet in front of two guards who jumped and reached for weapons before realizing who he was and letting him inside. He walked the now familiar path toward the Finger’s meeting place and pushed open the doors to walk inside.
He was the last to arrive, Argenta looked up at him without batting an eye, but the others didn’t react so calmly to his arrival.
“How the fuck are you here?” asked Drake.
“I walked through the door,” said Dantes with a smile, taking a seat on the couch next to Diamond before leaning forward to take a deep inhale of the hookah in the center of the room, and blowing out a thick ring of smoke.
“Did you break the enchantment somehow? Did Fel-,” she caught herself, but she’d already revealed she knew Felix worked for him. “Did a mage in your employ find a weakness in it?”
Dantes hadn’t heard her talk about magic much, despite her place in the fingers, she mostly focused on business and flirting. It was interesting to see her so interested all of a sudden.
“I broke no enchantments and had no help.”