Midnight at the Magnolia (Venom and Virtue #1)

Epilogue

EPILOGUE

EVANGELINE

CRESCENT CITY GAZETTE

Councilman Davis suspected in Viper Cases.

The French Quarter pulses around me like poisoned blood through dying veins. Grandma would appreciate the metaphor—how this city feeds on sin and salvation in equal measure. Bourbon Street’s cacophony floods my senses—horse hooves on cobblestone like a funeral drum, a saxophone wailing like a lost soul, spilled bourbon and beignets mixing in the air like medicine and poison.

“New soil doesn’t mean the old roots are dead,” Grandma’s voice whispers as I adjust to my latest skin. Three months since the museum, since I watched betrayal bloom in Ethan’s eyes like nightshade. Three months of becoming someone new, though the old ghosts still linger.

I push open the door to Madame Laveau’s Voodoo Emporium, brass bells singing a warning more than a welcome. The air inside wraps around me thick as burial shrouds, heavy with incense and secrets. I breathe deep, cataloging scents like Grandma taught me—sage for cleansing, patchouli for power, and something darker beneath it all. Something that smells like fate.

Today, I am Evangeline, keeper of others’ secrets while nursing my own. My fingers trace the smooth wood of the counter, worn by countless desperate souls seeking answers. Some gardens grow in darkness, Grandma would say. Some flowers only bloom in shadow.

“Any messages, Claudette?” I ask the ancient woman hunched over her gris-gris bags. Her eyes, clouded with age but sharp as thorns, fix on me with knowing.

“Just one, cher,” she croaks, extending a piece of parchment like an offering to dark gods. “A man called. Said he’s an old friend.”

The paper burns in my hand like poisoned ivy, Ethan’s number searing into my flesh. My heart—that treacherous bloom I can’t seem to kill—skips a beat. Why now, when I’ve almost convinced myself I’ve pulled out love’s roots?

“Even the deadliest garden,” Grandma’s voice whispers, “remembers what grew there before.”

The TV in the corner catches my eye, its harsh light an invasion in the shop’s mystical gloom. “Corruption Scandal Rocks City Hall,” the headline blazes. I turn up the volume, feeling fate’s thorns pierce deeper.

“Several high-ranking city officials have been arrested,” the reporter drones, her plastic smile a mask as false as any I’ve worn. “An anonymous tip led to a treasure trove of incriminating documents.”

A smile curves my lips, savage as belladonna’s bloom. My parting gift to this cesspool of a city—papers I’d stolen the night everything changed, insurance against the darkness to come. But triumph withers quickly in this garden of corruption.

Councilman Davis appears on screen, and even through pixels, his eyes find me like a predator scenting prey. “This isn’t over,” he snarls. “You have no idea what’s coming.”

Ice spreads through my veins like winter killing summer flowers. He knows. In all my carefully planted lies, he’s found the truth growing wild. The shop’s walls press closer, voodoo dolls watching with button eyes that seem to know too much. For a moment, I swear I see Sarah’s face in one of them, her features twisted like kudzu strangling a tree.

“The most dangerous blooms,” Grandma’s wisdom echoes, “are the ones that grow back after you think you’ve killed them.”

My phone buzzes against my thigh like a rattlesnake’s warning.

Unknown number : We need to talk. The game has changed. - L

Lucas. The mad scientist with devil’s hands that heal and harm in equal measure. His scent ghosts across my memory—sandalwood and chemical burns, genius and madness mixed in perfect measure. I remember his fingers on my skin, stitching flesh while unraveling lies, his brilliant mind seeing patterns in my chaos.

When I close my eyes, the world spins like petals in a storm. Ethan. Jazz. Lucas. Three different poisons, each deadly in their own way, all circling closer. When I open them, Claudette watches me with eyes that see too deep, too clear.

“Trouble follows you like a shadow, cher,” she murmurs, her voice smoke and whiskey and old magic. “But remember, even in the darkest night, stars still shine.”

I nod, grateful for wisdom that cuts like Grandma’s sharpest thorns. “I need some air,” I whisper, fleeing into the humid evening that wraps around me like a funeral shroud.

“Running from poison,” Grandma’s voice follows me, “just spreads it through your veins faster.”

The Mississippi calls like a siren’s song, dark and treacherous as the secrets I keep. Standing on its banks, I watch muddy water swirl and eddy, carrying away some sins while nurturing others in its depths. The scent of river mud and decay fills my lungs—New Orleans’ true perfume, underneath all the sugar and spice.

“Water remembers,” Grandma would say. “Every poison, every prayer, every promise broken.”

Ethan’s number burns against my skin like stinging nettle. My phone feels heavy as death in my hand as I stare at those digits that could undo everything I’ve become. What would I even say? Sorry I made you love a lie? Sorry I’m a monster wearing the face of the woman you trusted?

He doesn’t even know my real name. None of them do anymore.

Memory blooms like night jasmine—Ethan and I tangled in sheets, laughing as powdered sugar from shared beignets dusts our skin. His eyes so warm, so trusting. The taste of sweetness and love on his tongue. But the memory twists, darkens. Suddenly I see his blood on my hands, hear his screams pierce the night like thorns through flesh.

“Some gardens grow in blood,” Grandma’s voice whispers. “Some love only blooms in darkness.”

I blink away the vision, but the line between what was and what could be blurs more each day. Like morning glory and nightshade growing so tangled you can’t tell which vine will kill you.

My fingers move across the phone’s screen like they’re weaving a curse:

To Ethan: Tomorrow. Café du Monde. 9 AM.

To Lucas: Midnight Cypress. 11 PM.

Two seeds planted. Two poisons mixed. Two chances for everything to either bloom or die.

The city’s lights flicker to life around me, each one an eye watching, judging, waiting. The knife in my boot presses against my ankle like a lover’s promise—cold, sharp, faithful. A reminder of what I am, what I’ve done.

What I’ll do again.

“The deadliest flowers,” Grandma’s wisdom echoes, “are the ones that look most beautiful when they bloom.”

I touch the scar on my shoulder where Lucas’s stitches held me together while everything else fell apart. I remember Jazz’s warmth, his unconditional acceptance of whatever darkness grows in me. So many men, so many different kinds of love. Each one a different sort of poison.

Heaven help me—or maybe hell claim me—but I’ll face what comes with open eyes. For Sarah. For justice. For the twisted love that still burns in my chest whenever I think of Ethan. His smile, his laugh, his touch—they feed the fire of my madness like fuel on flames.

“Some gardens need to burn,” Grandma whispers, “so new seeds can grow.”

Back in the shop’s heavy darkness, I pull out a small leather-bound notebook stained with secrets and time. Grandma always said the most powerful herbs need recording, their effects, their dangers, their truths. As I write, my story bleeds onto the yellowed pages like nightshade juice, every lie and truth I’ve nurtured taking root.

Ethan,

By the time you read this, I’ll have worn a dozen different names, bloomed in a dozen different gardens. Each version of me a different kind of poison, a different shade of lie. But underneath them all, there’s a truth growing wild like kudzu, unstoppable and devastating:

I loved you.

That wasn’t a lie. Maybe it’s the only thing that wasn’t.

The words seem to crawl across the page like insects in Grandma’s garden, rearranging themselves when I’m not looking. Stories of Sarah, of Celeste, of the woman I was and the monster I’ve become. Tales of corruption growing deep in New Orleans’ soil, of men like Davis who think they’re above nature’s law.

“Truth’s like moonflower,” Grandma’s voice guides my hand. “Only blooms in darkness, only lasts till dawn.”

I write about Alex, about Lucas’s brilliant madness, about Jazz’s unwavering warmth. About choices made in blood and darkness. About a sister’s love turned to vengeance, about a city’s corruption that runs deeper than the Mississippi’s mud.

Every secret laid bare like plants pulled up by their roots.

The bell chimes behind me—just Claudette leaving for the night. She pauses at my shoulder, her ancient eyes seeing too much.

“The cards whisper of changes coming, cher,” she murmurs. “Big changes. Like a storm that feeds the poison flowers.”

I nod, feeling fate’s noose tighten like ivy around my throat. Tomorrow I’ll see Ethan, let him read these poisoned pages. Tomorrow I’ll meet Lucas, dance with his dangerous science again. Somewhere in the city, Jazz waits with his patient love, while Davis plots his revenge.

“Some gardens bloom,” Grandma’s final wisdom whispers, “and some gardens burn. The trick is knowing which fire feeds the soil and which salts the earth.”

I close the notebook, its pages heavy with confessions. Outside, New Orleans pulses with sin and secrets, while somewhere in the darkness, my enemies and lovers wait like seeds ready to sprout.

I am no longer just Celeste, the avenging angel. No longer Sarah, the broken sister. Not even Evangeline, the simple shop girl.

I am something new, something terrible and beautiful, poisonous and pure. I am every lesson Grandma taught about beauty hiding danger, about love bearing thorns.

I am New Orleans’ reckoning, and my garden is about to bloom.

“Laissez les bons temps rouler, cher,” Grandma’s voice whispers one last time. “Until the next storm comes.”