Genevieve pushed her way inside the door just as Blackwell clothed himself and Ophelia.
One look at their compromising position and Genevieve huffed. “You would follow me here and then end up having a more fun time than me.”
Ophelia scrambled off Blackwell’s lap. Her sister was clad in a dress she’d brought from home: pink chiffon that hugged her voluptuous curves sweetly. Ophelia’s brain struggled to compute that Genevieve was really here, right in front of her, after all this time.
“Ophie? Would you like to make introductions?” Genevieve prompted sweetly.
“Vivi, this is Blackwell.” Ophelia gestured to the Ghost who was watching them with intrigue. “Blackwell, this is my sister. Genevieve Grimm.”
Genevieve held her hand out to him, and he bowed formally at the waist as he took it and pressed a chaste kiss to her knuckles.
Ophelia rolled her eyes. “Suck-up.”
Blackwell grinned over at her as he straightened himself up.
“Tell me, Blackwell,” Genevieve said in a saccharine tone. Warning bells immediately sounded off in Ophelia’s head. “What are your intentions with my sister? Besides fucking her stupid, I mean.”
Blackwell nearly choked at the bluntness of Genevieve’s words, but he quickly recovered with a laugh. “I think I should leave you both to have a conversation.”
Ophelia’s face dropped at his words, and she knew her sister had caught the disappointment immediately.
Blackwell leaned down to press a kiss to Ophelia’s temple in reassurance. “I’m a call away. The two of you have a lot to catch up on and don’t need me getting in the middle of it.”
With that, he disappeared.
Ophelia and Genevieve stood, staring at each other for what felt like an hour before Genevieve finally sighed and broke the silence.
“You would follow me here even though I said I’d take care of things,” she carped.
Ophelia gawked in disbelief. “Of course, I was going to follow you! You’re my baby sister! What on earth were you thinking entering a place like this? You hate anything even remotely related to the paranormal, and yet you come here?”
“I was thinking that I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself and wasn’t going to sit by and watch you make yourself sick with worry about how we were going to get on without Momma.” She took a deep breath. Then, “And I don’t hate the paranormal, Ophie. What I hated was having it forced into every aspect of our lives growing up.”
“Because making myself sick with worry for your well-being in this hellish place is much better?” Ophelia scoffed, ignoring that last bit of Genevieve’s speech. That was a lot more than they had time to unpack right this second.
“I didn’t think you would figure out where I was going,” she muttered. Then, as if it just dawned on her, asked, “How did you know I came here?”
“I… might have found your diary.” Ophelia looked down at her hands with guilt.
“You read my diary?” Genevieve half screeched. “I am going to kill you, Ophelia Grimm!”
Ophelia’s fists balled at her sides. “I wouldn’t have had to read it if you were just honest with me! You knew about our father, and you never told me, Genevieve. How could you keep such a thing from me? I thought we were closer than that, but all this time you’ve been living a completely different life.”
Genevieve’s face softened now, a look of regret in her eyes. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up. Our father… he was so hard to track down. It took me a whole year of sneaking through Momma’s records and hidden journals to determine who he was and where they’d met. And then when I found out it was this place…”
Ophelia swallowed and nodded. “After all of Mother’s rules and warnings, this was the last place I thought our legacy would be tied to. And to find out about the curses…”
Genevieve’s eyes widened. “You know about that part?”
“I know a lot more than you think,” Ophelia affirmed.
Genevieve sighed. “Alright. Why don’t we both start from the beginning?”
And they did.
The two of them were sitting, face to face, cross-legged atop Ophelia’s comforter. Just like they used to when they were supposed to be asleep, and Genevieve would sneak into Ophelia’s room to talk until they passed out well into the witching hours.
Now, instead of gossiping about which boy Genevieve kissed in the French Quarter, or which of their mother’s customers definitely murdered the very relatives they were trying to summon, the two of them divulged every detail of their experience in the Devil’s Manor.
Genevieve explained how she had been tracking Phantasma ever since she figured out that their parents had met here, and the curse that had befallen them. She had intercepted several letters from a man named Gabriel White a couple years ago and kept tabs on his every move since. She’d last tracked him to New York—Phantasma’s previous location before it had appeared in New Orleans.
Genevieve also explained how she’d accidentally found out they were in financial debt from a friend of a friend whose mother worked at New Orleans City Bank; when she confronted their mother about it, she was sworn to secrecy.
“She was afraid you were already under too much pressure,” Genevieve admitted. “She was hoping to pay everything off in a few months. She even had me deliver some of the checks to the bank, so as not to tip you off since the two of you always went to town together. But then things got… worse.”
“What things?” Ophelia pressed.
“No matter how many times I begged Mother to tell me why we were in debt, she wouldn’t. Only that she had priorities that mattered more than the house. It was driving me mad not knowing the full story. You know how I’m nosy—”
Ophelia snorted. An understatement.
“—and so I followed her.”
“What do you mean, you followed her?”
“It was several months ago. You were sick with a head cold—remember?—and she said she was going into town to get you some healing herbs from that apothecary on Magazine Street she liked so much.”
Ophelia did remember that head cold. She got one almost every year from New Orleans’s erratic winter temperatures.
“Well, I knew something was going on when I found the exact herbs she was claiming she was out of stuffed in the back drawer of our medicine cabinet,” Genevieve continued. “Not to mention she had been checking for the mail boy fifty times a day—there was no doubt in my mind she was receiving letters from our father again and didn’t want us to accidentally get ahold of them. So, when she said she was going to the apothecary, I followed her.”
“And where did she really go?”
Genevieve’s tone grew more serious. “To meet a Devil.”
“What?”
Genevieve nodded. “She was bringing some sort of rare items the Devil had requested in payment for their deal—the deal in which he erased our father’s memory of us. But because of Phantasma’s curse, the Devil couldn’t fully eradicate Gabriel’s memory of our mother. The last thing Gabriel wrote to her was that he was going back to win Phantasma and would ask to be reunited with her as his prize. We’re in debt because she used most of the family’s fortune to secure a second home in case we needed to leave at a moment’s notice. One that would be much harder for him to locate.”
“You mean we own a home that’s not Grimm Manor?” Ophelia asked.
Genevieve nodded. “She made sure to have it warded by extremely powerful magic so our father wouldn’t be able to pay a Witch or Seer to look for us anymore. The only problem is that she died before she was able to tell us about it and… I never found out where it’s located.”
Ophelia sighed deeply. Another wild goose chase.
“Now, how did you find out about our parents?” Genevieve pressed.
“Blackwell,” Ophelia stated and then took a deep breath. She went through every point of almost every hour that she’d spent in Phantasma over the last week—leaving out a few of the more scandalous details here and there—and it felt good to get it all off her chest.
When she was finished, Genevieve gave a low whistle. “Mother would be having another heart attack if she knew you made a blood oath.”
Ophelia winced and looked away.
Genevieve reared back. “You’ve spoken to her?”
“That part… there’s this place called the Whispering Gate that I’m apparently able to summon if there’s someone on the other side waiting to talk to me. She was.”
Genevieve’s eyes swelled with tears. “How was she? Was she okay?”
Ophelia nodded and grabbed her sister’s hand, squeezing it with affection. “She wanted me to tell you she loves you. Very much.”
Genevieve nodded, tucking a strand of her golden-brown hair behind her ear. “You’ll have to explain more about that later. Right now, I want to know more about the Phantom and what the Hell you were doing when I found the two of you.”
Ophelia flushed but only asked, “How did you even find me?”
“Oh!” Genevieve exclaimed. “A Devil told me that there was a Necromancer here whose face looked an awful lot like mine. Isn’t that odd?”
“Very. Why would a Devil seek you out just to tell you that?”
“I meant,” Genevieve corrected, “isn’t it odd they noticed our resemblance? No one ever discerns that unless we’re next to each other.”
“Vivi.” Ophelia sighed, exasperated. Of course that was what her sister was focusing on. “Go back to the Devil. What did they look like?”
“Hot,” Genevieve smiled. “Dark hair, handsome face, an ass like you wouldn’t—”
“Genevieve Grimm.”
“He had creepy eyes, though,” Genevieve continued. “Scarlet, with pupils like a cat’s—”
Ophelia froze. Sinclair.
“What, exactly, was your conversation with him?” Ophelia demanded.
Genevieve gave Ophelia an odd look. “When I got out of that last level, he found me in the hallway. He told me that thing about us looking alike, and I knew right away you were here. He told me what room you were in, so I came to find you. What’s going on? Do you know him or something?”
“Or something,” Ophelia muttered before questioning, “How did you manage to get through all those levels? If I hadn’t had Blackwell…”
Genevieve took a deep breath. “There’s one more secret about me that I’ve never shared, Ophie.”
Ophelia held her breath as she waited for her sister’s explanation, but Genevieve didn’t speak. No, she disappeared. Entirely.
Ophelia gasped. “You’re a Specter, too.”
Genevieve reappeared with a look of surprise. “A Specter? You mean—?”
Ophelia demonstrated her own ability, then explained, “We get it from our father, according to Blackwell.”
“I still can’t believe the Phantom you’ve been fucking actually met our father.”
“Don’t be crude.” Ophelia blushed.
“Uh-oh, I know that face.” Genevieve pointed at her, a look of fear in her eyes. “It’s not just fucking. You have feelings for him?”
“I have an array of emotions for him,” Ophelia muttered. “He can be quite the pain in the ass, I assure you.”
Genevieve’s grin was absolutely scandalized. “Oh, I bet he can be—”
“Vivi!” Ophelia scolded, playfully hitting her sister on the shoulder.
Genevieve tilted her head back and laughed. “I’m sorry, Ophie, I can’t help but tease. I’ve never seen you like this! The juiciest thing you ever did was Elliott Trahan, and I’ve had more chemistry with a slice of bread pudding than you ever did with that stick in the mud.”
Ophelia grumbled good-naturedly before redirecting the conversation back to her original question. “So, you got through the levels by disappearing the entire time?”
Genevieve sobered. “More or less. You should’ve seen me during that true or false one. If I hadn’t been able to unshackle myself, I absolutely would’ve been pummeled to mush. Turns out that I’m not too great at telling if people are lying.”
“What about all the manor’s haunts?” Ophelia asked.
Genevieve shrugged. “Easy to get out of those when you can walk through walls.”
“You mean, you can control your powers that well?” Ophelia asked, slightly shocked.
Genevieve bit her lip. “Yes. I’ve been doing it since we were children. It’s second nature to me now. It’s how I always got away with things at home.”
“I knew you were the one who stole that expensive bottle of liquor out of the cabinet during Mardi Gras all those years ago! No wonder Mother was so confused—you didn’t need her key to do it.”
“Well, she almost caught me that time,” Genevieve muttered. “Actually, I’m pretty sure she figured it out, but she never even bothered to confront me about it. I guess it wasn’t the right type of magic to make her notice me.”
“Vivi…” Ophelia whispered. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you could do such things?”
“Because…” Genevieve looked mournful. “I trust you, Ophie, truly, but when we were younger, I couldn’t risk you slipping up and telling Momma. The way she sheltered you—I didn’t want that. I was always afraid she’d find out I had magic and take away my freedom like she did yours. If only I’d known she probably wouldn’t have cared at all.”
“She didn’t take away my freedom—”
“Yes,” Genevieve interrupted. “She fucking did.”
“I had a good childhood, Vivi. I just… had different responsibilities and expectations than you.”
“You will never be able to fully understand how grateful I am that you are my big sister,” Genevieve said. “If it had been anyone less selfless than you, I don’t think we’d be as close. But I’ve always struggled to watch you put off your dreams and interests and… your whole life because of your sense of duty toward our family’s legacy. I want you to be who you want to be, Ophie.”
“Are we close?” Ophelia whispered. “There was this girl in my group… Luci.”
Genevieve reared back. “Luci Veil?”
Ophelia nodded. “She told me you were friends. A whole group of you. I had never even heard their names before—it felt like you were living an entire life without me. Like you were leaving me behind.”
Genevieve swallowed. “I never wanted to rub my social life in your face when it made you so sad. I wanted to tell you about my friends. I will tell you about them. I’ll tell you everything, Ophie. You’re the person I care most about in this world—you know that, don’t you?”
Tears pricked the corner of Ophelia’s eyes now. “Please don’t ever drift away from me. I need you. It’s us. Forever. Right?”
“Promise,” Genevieve whispered as she leaned forward and wrapped Ophelia in a hug.
They stayed that way for what felt like hours, holding onto each other tightly as if to make sure that this was real, they were real and together, and it was alright now.
When Genevieve finally pulled back, she asked, “What happened to Luci?”
Ophelia winced. “She’s alive.”
Genevieve sighed in relief.
“She’s also… cursed,” Ophelia revealed before going into that entire story as well.
“Luci is one of the best people I’ve ever met,” Genevieve said. “That’s devastating.”
“She was always nice. Her cousin, on the other hand…”
“Do you mean Cade?” Genevieve’s eyes sparked with anger. “Cade was here? He’s possibly one of the most egregiously awful people I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. And that was in passing.”
“Good to see his reputation really does precede him.” Ophelia nodded. “Especially considering I killed him.”
“What?” Genevieve screeched.
“It was him or me in that last level, and I chose me.”
Genevieve looked at Ophelia as if she were seeing her anew. “You’ve changed so much in so little time.”
“I’ve never felt surer about who I am than I do now,” Ophelia admitted. “I know that’s strange. This is the last place I ever thought I’d find myself. But it’s true.”
“Well, it is the place of your origin,” Genevieve joked. “Poetic, if you think about it. Or perhaps there’s just something in the water here.”
Ophelia gave a soft laugh. “Or that I’m just our mother’s daughter.”
Then Genevieve offered, “I’m proud of you, Ophie.”
Ophelia could’ve sobbed right then. “I’m sorry for what I said to you that day, in the alleyway. We had just said goodbye to Mother, and I was upset and stressed and I’m so sorry I drove you to come here.”
“Oh, Ophelia.” Genevieve shook her head. “I’m sorry if you ever thought for a second you drove me here. I was coming here either way. It had always been my plan. What you said that day… you weren’t wrong. You’ve always cleaned up my messes, and I just wanted to do something for you for once.”
A weight lifted off Ophelia’s shoulders at her sister’s words.
“Alright.” Genevieve clapped her hands together before climbing off the bed. “Next item on the agenda—we have forty-eight hours to make sure you don’t have to give up a decade of your life to a s*xy Ghost. Where do we begin?”
Ophelia smiled. She’d found her hope again.
