House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

But she was a civitas. A full citizen, which meant she had to be something they deemed worthy. Given her skill set, the House of Flame and Shadow was the likeliest place for her—even if Fury was certainly not a daemonaki, vampyr, or even a wraith. Definitely not a witch-turned-sorceress like Jesiba, either. Or a necromancer, since her gifts seemed to be taking life, not illegally bringing it back.

“Where’s the leggy one?” Fury asked, taking the wine bottle from Bryce and swigging as she scanned the teeming clubs and bars along Archer Street.

“Hel if I know,” Bryce said. She winked at Fury and held up the plastic bag of mirthroot, jostling the twelve rolled black cigarettes. “I got us some goodies.”

Fury’s grin was a flash of red lips and straight white teeth. She reached into the back pocket of her leggings and held up a small bag of white powder that glittered with a fiery iridescence in the glow of the streetlamp. “So did I.”

Bryce squinted at the powder. “Is that what the dealer just tried to sell me?”

Fury went still. “What’d she say it was?”

“Some new party drug—gives you a godlike high, I don’t know. Super expensive.”

Fury frowned. “Synth? Stay away from it. That’s some bad shit.”

“All right.” She trusted Fury enough to heed the warning. Bryce peered at the powder Fury still held in her hand. “I can’t take anything that makes me hallucinate for days, please. I have work tomorrow.” When she had to at least pretend she had some idea how to find that gods-damned Horn.

Fury tucked the bag into her black bra. She swigged from the wine again before passing it back to Bryce. “Jesiba won’t be able to scent it on you, don’t worry.”

Bryce linked elbows with the slender assassin. “Then let’s go make our ancestors roll over in their graves.”





5

Going on a date with Connor in a few days didn’t mean she had to behave.

So within the inner sanctum of the White Raven, Bryce savored every delight it offered.

Fury knew the owner, Riso, either through work or whatever the Hel she did in her personal life, and as such, they never had to wait in line. The flamboyant butterfly shifter always left a booth open for them.

None of the smiling, colorfully dressed waiters who brought over their drinks so much as blinked at the lines of glittering white powder Fury arranged with a sweep of her hand or the plumes of smoke that rippled from Bryce’s parted lips as she tipped her head back to the domed, mirrored ceiling and laughed.

Juniper had a studio class at dawn, so she abstained from the powder and smoke and booze. But it didn’t stop her from sneaking away for a good twenty minutes with a broad-chested Fae male who took in the dark brown skin, the exquisite face and curling black hair, the long legs that ended in delicate hooves, and practically begged on his knees for the faun to touch him.

Bryce reduced herself into the pulsing beat of the music, to the euphoria glittering through her blood faster than an angel diving out of the sky, to the sweat sliding down her body as she writhed on the ancient dance floor. She would barely be able to walk tomorrow, would have half a brain, but holy shit—more, more, more.

Laughing, she swooped over the low-lying table in their private booth between two half-crumbling pillars; laughing, she arched away, a red nail releasing its hold on one nostril as she sagged against the dark leather bench; laughing, she knocked back water and elderberry wine and stumbled again into the dancing throng.

Life was good. Life was fucking good, and she couldn’t gods-damn wait to make the Drop with Danika and do this until the earth crumbled into dust.

She found Juniper dancing amid a pack of sylph females celebrating a friend’s successful Drop. Their silvery heads were adorned with circlets of neon glow sticks chock-full of their friend’s designated allotment of her own firstlight, which she’d generated when she successfully completed the Drop. Juniper had managed to swipe a glow-stick halo for herself, and her hair shone with blue light as she extended her hands to Bryce, their fingers linking as they danced.

Bryce’s blood pulsed in time to the music, as if she had been crafted just for this: the moment when she became the notes and rhythm and the bass, when she became song given form. Juniper’s glittering eyes told Bryce that she understood, had always understood the particular freedom and joy and unleashing that came from dancing. Like their bodies were so full of sound they could barely contain it, could barely stand it, and only dance could express it, ease it, honor it.

Males and females gathered to watch, their lust coating Bryce’s skin like sweat. Juniper’s every movement matched hers without so much as a lick of hesitation, as if they were question and answer, sun and moon.

Quiet, pretty Juniper Andromeda—the exhibitionist. Even dancing in the sacred, ancient heart of the Raven, she was sweet and mild, but she shone.

Or maybe that was all the lightseeker Bryce had ingested up her nose.

Her hair clung to her sweaty neck, her feet were utterly numb thanks to the steep angle of her heels, her throat was ravaged from screaming along to the songs that blasted through the club.

She managed to shoot a few messages to Danika—and one video, because she could barely read any of what was coming in anyway.

She’d be so royally fucked if she showed up at work tomorrow unable to read.