Unleash the Curse: An Imnada Brotherhood Novella by Alexa Egan

obscure scholarly Imnada references she could barely decipher. So much for her boast to Sebastian. She could barely puzzle her way through a few hundred pages. Whatever the Naxos were, the Imnada had done a good job of erasing any trace of them.
    Almost relieved to lay aside her task, she marked her place and rose with a lazy stretch. “I’m famished.”
    Hester groaned, eyes snapping. “Look what you’ve done to the back of your gown. Wrinkles from waist to hem. A fine figure you’ll make downstairs with all those lords and ladies.”
    Sarah checked herself in the cheval mirror, frowning at the rumpled creases marring the delicate lilac satin and silver lace. “Perhaps they won’t notice.”
    “The gentlemen might not, but the ladies surely will.” Hester put down her load and set to fussing. “If you insist on dressing prim as a minister’s wife while you’re here, the least you can do is dress like a fashionable minister’s wife.” She straightened, folding her arms with a satisfied tilt of her head. “There now. The worst is fixed. The rest you can disguise with some subtle staging. Stand close to the walls. Or sit quick so none can see your back.” She grabbed up her work basket.
    “Where are you headed?” Sarah asked.
    “Not sure what you got up to last night, but this hem’s nigh ripped to shreds. I’m taking it to the housekeeper’s room to mend. Light’s better there.”
    “So’s the gossip, I’d wager.”
    “Have to find out what’s what somehow, don’t I?” Hester chuckled as she left the bedchamber. “Now get a move on or you’ll miss the soup course.”
    What gossip would Hester discover among the Sharrow House servants? Did they know of Lucan and the existence of the Imnada? Would they pass along tales, or would loyalty to James and Katherine keep them silent? She brushed off her worries as useless. Lucan and the Imnada weren’t her problem. She needed to focus on the connection between the mysterious Naxos and Prince Christophe . . . if there was one.
    As she draped a silk shawl across her shoulders, she continued to turn over the conversation between Signore Ventrella and Christophe. What on earth could an Italian prince have in common with a Cornish baronet? Perhaps she needed to look at other connections to see where they led. There was Lucan. She knew nothing beyond the fact that he was a shapechanger. Not even his surname. But Duncallan had mentioned someone else. He’d told Sebastian to send a note to Gray de Coursy. And Gray de Coursy was well known to all of London.
    What did the Ghost Earl have to do with the Imnada? Was he a shapechanger? The idea should have been ludicrous, but after last night she ruled nothing out, no matter how insane it sounded. She grabbed up her Debrett’s from the bottom of the pile, leafed through the index until she found it—Morieux, family name of de Coursy. Turning to the page, she skimmed the entry, her eyes widening as they settled on the family’s longstanding seat of power in . . . Cornwall. Coincidence? She didn’t believe it for a second.
    “You are late, too, my dove?” Prince Christophe leaned against the door frame, the starched white of his linen accentuating the olive tone of his skin, an enormous ruby tucked into the folds of his cravat. “Wonderful. We will arrive together and give them much to speculate about.”
    She closed the Debrett’s and placed it back among the stack on her table. “They already do, thanks to your letting everyone know about the bracelet you gave me. This will only add to their assumptions.”
    Christophe entered her bedchamber, taking her hand and kissing the underside of her wrist, mischief dancing in his gaze as he glanced at her bed. “Let them assume. We’re to be wed. There’s nothing to offend about that.”
    As always, the musky sweet scents of cloves and cinnamon tickled her nose as she slid free of him with a smile. “You know I haven’t made up my mind.”
    “Why do you