Serpent's Storm Read Online Free

site and the row of street vendors camped out next to the subway stop at Canal Street, I was wearing a thickly woven Prada scarf I’d gotten as a gift from my sister Clio on my last birthday. It was light gray and went splendidly with the purple plaid knee-length skirt, gray tights, and creamy charcoal leather cropped jacket I’d gotten at H&M the week before.
    I know shopping at H&M might be seen as slumming it a little, but I was seriously learning that relaxing my rigid “designer only” policy was freeing to both my pocketbook and my psyche. My jacket may not have been culled from the finest lambskin money could buy, but it looked supercool and was definitely within my price range—no need to forgo lunch for a week because I’d plumbed my bank account of every last penny to buy it, either.
    Clad in my Swedish import best, I may’ve looked like a discount fashion plate, but I was so not feeling the love on the inside. I was running late from an aborted lunch experiment, and I knew if I didn’t make this train, I was gonna be up shit creek without a paddle. My boss, Hyacinth Stewart, was a complete and total taskmaster. She’d just as soon put my bloody head on a pike as dock my meager pay if I wasn’t back at my desk—butt in chair and furiously answering e-mails—by one o’clock.
    I didn’t know what I’d been thinking, going so far downtown for lunch, but I’d read on this fashion blog about a new restaurant that’d opened in SoHo—and happened to be coowned by three supermodels of late nineties’ fame—so I was exceedingly curious about getting a look at the place. Of course, you needed reservations months in advance just to have a drink at the bar; still, I had an hour to kill for lunch and I was more than willing to pop by and see if I could worm my way in for a look-see.
    I’d had to settle for stargazing at the struck metal and glass sign on the front of the building—no supermodel action on the agenda for me that afternoon. I did spy a couple of polished-looking women in Armani who I thought I recognized from the society section of W magazine, but they only stopped on the sidewalk long enough to coo over the Pinkberry two doors down, completely ignoring the fashionable new restaurant I’d been obsessing over. After that, my highly annoyed stomach had growled three times in quick succession to remind me it needed feeding, and I’d grudgingly given up my spot in front of the restaurant I obviously was not gonna see the interior of, grabbing a chicken shawarma pita from a Pakistani street vendor I passed as I trudged back toward the subway stop.
    For some reason luck was with me. I ended up elbowing my way onto the subway platform just as the train arrived. I slid in and immediately found a seat—which should’ve clued me in that something was amiss—because I never find a seat on a crowded train. Usually, I end up mashed underneath the armpit of some really tall, grubby guy with incredibly strong body odor, so this was a rare treat.
    “Hello, Mistress Calliope,” I heard a melodious male voice whisper into my ear.
    I jumped in my orange plastic subway seat, spilling tahini sauce all down the front of my shirt.
    “Dammit, Jarvis!” I choked, pulling a Kleenex from my purse and quickly wiping at my shirtfront. I sighed when I realized there was no helping the beige stain now front and center on my white sweater—and the Kleenex I was using to dab the stain was only sloughing off and making it look even grittier.
    “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked through gritted teeth, looking over at my father’s Executive Assistant, who was sitting primly on the seat beside me, fiddling with his pocket watch. He was wearing a fitted blue wool blazer with gold buttons, no pants, and a pince-nez perched precariously on the end of his aquiline nose.
    “I am here to force you into finally making good on your promise,” he replied in his clipped British accent. “Since you obviously were