Chapter 35

 

Breakfast concluded with the family moving into the parlor for the meeting Magnus called together. No one liked the idea of leaving the refugees alone in the diner, not after the last attack, but this was urgent.

“Baron has a mole in the manor,” Zara said. “I’ve been going through all their minds, trying to find who it is, but I can’t.”

Liam didn’t turn from the window. He wasn’t even listening. His mind was a picture book of rolling green hills and a pretty blonde in a white dress. The girl was clearly Kyaerin when they were younger. She looked almost the same, except somewhere over the years, she’d lost her glow, the thing that made her carefree and happy. In his mind, she was laughing with a group of girls in a village. The sunlight streamed through her unbound curls, turning them a vibrant gold. Her eyes glittered like oceans in the morning.

She was beautiful.

“Zara?” Magnus placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, pulling her out of the memories.

She blinked and struggled to focus. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Is there anyone you might have missed?” Gideon repeated.

Liam’s projections were growing stronger, becoming a reel of sounds and lights. Kyaerin’s laughter was no longer a mute sight in his mind, but a clatter of giggles echoing through the room, filling her head.

“Eight? Are you out of your mind, Avery?” Her giddy delight trilled. “One, a girl. A beautiful blue-eyed pixie with black hair.”

“Two,” said a male’s voice. “A boy and a girl.”

Kyaerin’s laugh continued as if she couldn’t stop. “I don’t care. I just want them, all of them with you.”

“We should start now.”

“Now? Here?”

“Yes! Here, now. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

“I love you, Liam…”

“Zara.”

Sucking in a breath, Zara shot to her feet and put space between her and the man across the room. Her head swam with the voices and images. They kept flickering in and out of focus.

“Zara?” Magnus’s hand found her elbow.

“I can’t…” She squeezed her eyes closed, but they only intensified the field and the couple on the blanket. She opened them, breathing hard. “I can’t be in here.”

Magnus frowned. “What?”

Her head rushed with soft sighs and deep groans. It brimmed with the scent of warm bodies moving together under a warm sun.

She gasped and staggered under the weight of emotions. The power behind that single memory was unlike anything she’d ever felt. It was beauty and pain. Solace and torment. It made her want to scream and cry.

“Your father,” she rasped.

Magnus looked back to where Liam stood, doing nothing but peering out the window.

“Dad?”

The others in the room turned, but Liam didn’t.

“Dad!”

He twitched, a subtle jerk in his shoulders. He turned, blue eyes curious.

“Hmm?” He looked over the faces watching him as if just remembering they were there. “Sorry. I didn’t hear. What was that?”

The memories dulled, but remained a muted picture moving in the background.

Zara pulled in a breath and tried to steady herself. “I … I was saying I’ve checked everyone. The only person I can’t read is Akilah, but that’s not—”

“Where is Akilah?” Valkyrie interrupted, glancing around the room as if expecting the woman to be hiding in a corner.

“I went to her room and knocked, but there wasn’t an answer,” Riley chimed in. “I thought maybe she was still sleeping.”

Gideon and Reggie were already on their feet, but Zara stopped them with one hand, while she strained her senses outward through the room and out into the corridor. She pushed it through the rooms, looking for the void the woman’s presence usually created, and finding nothing.

“She’s not here.” Zara opened her eyes. “I can’t find the child either.”

Gideon and Reggie stalked from the room anyway. Their boots pounded until they faded.

“Just think, Liam, one day, this place will be filled with our grandchildren.” Floorboards creaked under Kyaerin’s sensible shoes, disturbing dust. She stopped just inside the main doors and peered at an empty diner. “It’s a bit dark and gloomy, but we’ll make it home, right?”

“Zara?”

She blinked and found herself in the parlor. Liam was staring off again.

“I should go help…”

Magnus stopped her. “What’s going on?”

Telling him the truth didn’t even cross her mind. Allowing him to see those memories, see his mother was still a wound too fresh to be disturbed. His father was already suffering enough for all of them. She wouldn’t pull Magnus into it.

“I’m not feeling myself.” It wasn’t a lie.

“Do you need to lie down?” He was already reaching for her.

She shook her head. “I just need to find the person—”

“Promise me something, Liam. Promise that no matter what happens to me—”

“Mo ghrá—”

“You will protect our children. Promise me.”

“That’s nonsense. Nothing’s going to happen to you. I won’t let it.”

“Mo mhuirnín.”

“Fine. I promise, but I will never let anything hurt you.”

Zara pulled herself free and fled the room. Her feet thundered down the corridor in no planned direction. Her heart pattered in her chest, a panicked beat of a fleeing rabbit. She hit the stairs and pounded down.

“Hey Rapunzel!” Agnus appeared from the kitchen, a large piece of cheese in her hand.

Sweaty and out of breath, Zara stared at her. “You’re never going to poop right again if you eat that.”

Agnus eyed the cheese. “It’s not for me. It’s for the mouse I’m going to catch and put in Sheena’s bed.”

“Sheena?”

“Yeah, the girl being a bitch to Otis.”

Zara started to tell her that wasn’t very nice when Magnus came running down the stairs behind her. He stopped short when he spotted them. His gaze went from Zara to Agnus, to the cheese. His eyebrow lifted in question.

“You’re never going to shit right if you eat all that.”

Zara laughed.

Agnus made a face between disgusted and amused. “Yeah, you two aren’t weird at all.” She started past Magnus up the stairs, but stopped to add, “And you should really watch your language around children. I could be impressionable.”

“A pain in the ass is what you are,” Magnus shot back.

Agnus grinned. “That too.”

Magnus shook his head and turned to Zara. His grin faded.

“What happened?”

Without the cloud of misery surrounding Liam choking her, her mind was finally clear.

“I wanted to find Akilah,” she lied. “I thought we might cover more ground if we split up.”

He closed the one step separating them and took her waist. He pulled her to him.

“What was it really?”

Unable to maintain eye contact, Zara lowered her gaze to the collar of his top.

“I don’t want to lie to you, so please don’t ask. I’m okay,” she insisted when he opened his mouth. “I’m better help down here.”

“It’s Dad, isn’t it?” He tipped her face up. “He’s thinking about my mom.”

“Magnus…”

“You don’t have to protect me, Zara.” His palm glided down along her hair. “You don’t think I know he’s not the same? We all notice it. She was our mom, but she was his mate. It’s different. Losing a mate is the worst thing to happen to a selkie. It kills something inside us, we begin to fade. It’s why there aren’t many of us left after the war. We will literally die of a broken heart, especially if you’ve been together for as long as my parents were, been through everything they went through. She was his whole world.”

The guilt was piercing. It speared straight through her chest with the precision of an arrow. The puncture stole her breath. She nearly doubled over had it not been for his arm around her middle.

“I’m so sorry…” she began, only to be silenced by the descent of his mouth taking claim of hers.

“Stop,” he murmured, his lips stroking hers. “This isn’t on you, do you understand?”

“I hate that you’re all hurting.”

“That’s not on you either.” He kissed her again lightly. “People you love will always die, my father told me that. You just need to keep fighting.”

He held her a long moment, seconds and minutes that never felt enough. She drew away and turned towards the kitchen and the voices carrying through the space.

“I don’t think she’s here,” she decided carefully. “I think her whole purpose was to inform Baron of what was happening here until he had me.” She glanced back at Magnus. “He never planned that I would return.”

Magnus considered that while toying with the end of a lock of her hair. “You couldn’t read her at all?”

Zara shook her head. “She was a void, an emptiness, like a hole in the room. When she came into my head with you, she left behind a … a…” She rubbed her fingers together for emphasis.

“Slime? Grit?” Magnus offered.

“Greasy,” she concluded. “Oily. I can still feel it here,” she touched the back of her skull. “It’s not a pleasant feeling.”

“Well, if it was her, at least Baron’s spy is out of the house,” he decided. “We’ll barricade the doors and—”

She touched his arm lightly, her expression pleading. “I know this isn’t the time, but the man below … Devlin…”

Magnus winced. “Fuck, I forgot about him.”

Zara knew he had, knew they all had. Kyaerin was the only one who looked after him, fed him, made sure his bucket was empty and his sheets clean. Without her, no one had fed him in almost two days.

“Please,” she whispered. “It’s enough.”

Magnus sighed and peered past her towards the door leading into the kitchen. His thoughts were a cyclone of annoyance and guilt, both at himself for not putting an end to it sooner and forgetting the man existed. They’d all been so caught up in everything that Devlin probably could have died and no one would have noticed.

With a shake of his head, Magnus moved past her and started in the direction of the storage room, a single, wooden door between the kitchen and the corridor leading into the back. Zara had deliberately avoided even glancing at the thing. It’s mere presence always sent a jolt of unease scuttling through her.

But she hovered by the door when Magnus pushed inside. She watched his back move around the crates and duck out of sight. Rusty hinges squealed as the trap door was yanked open.

There was a stretch of silence where only the voices from the diner filtered through. Devlin was far enough below ground that she almost couldn’t hear him, except for the bouts of madness that would take hold, sending him into a fit of agony. That was always the worst. The suffering, the endless, crippling darkness that would envelope him. The screams as he begged for someone to end it.

The latter never failed to carve into her. She’d been in the dark long enough to know what it did to the mind and soul. Devlin was beyond help. She had absolutely no idea what they were going to do with him, but enough was enough.

Magnus returned with the lump of a man sagging at his side. He could have been handsome once, but months below ground with very little food and light had robbed him of his youth. His skin held the yellow tinge of someone severely ill and his eyes were sunken pits on a skeletal face. His gauntness extended to his limbs and the thinness of his chest. Clothes, what little remained, was shredded and stained with things best not identified.

He limped with Magnus’s support through the path towards Zara, but his thoughts reached her before he did. The chaotic noises, the nonsense ramblings, the erratic and tattered images made no sense, but they overlapped in a frantic chatter that made her head hurt.

Nevertheless, Zara reached to help him over the threshold.

Devlin flinched when she took his hand. “An deireadh.”

“Shh,” she whispered. “It’s all right now.”

He quirked his head back at Magnus, the twitchy motions of a bird. “An deireadh,” he squeaked again.

She shushed him lightly, but spoke to Magnus. “Get me a blanket, please?”

Not waiting to see if he would, she guided Devlin stiffly towards the kitchen and the small room off to one side consisting mainly of a table and a row of metal shelving. She helped him into a chair.

“You must be starving,” she murmured, not expecting an answer, but getting a wobbly, “Angels.”

Leaving him rocking and shivering, Zara poked her head out of the doorway to where Gorje stood stirring a large cauldron over the flames in the hearth. The raver demon hadn’t said a word to Zara, not one, but when she asked for a plate of whatever he was making, he ladled a large spoonful into a bowl and shoved it at her with a spoon.

It seemed to be stew, a favorite of the family’s, she noted, trying hard not to make a face at the floating potatoes and carrots as she started to turn back.

An iron mallet collided with the side of her face with a ferocity that sent the world bursting with stars and the ground vanishing from beneath her feet. Pain exploded up her side, a cobweb effect that tore up her arm and down her legs. It reverberated through her skull, rendering everything silent, except the heated pulse of her face and the sick taste of bile in her throat.

“Zara!” Hands grabbed her and pulled her over. Magnus’s face swam into view, a murky ripple of smudged colors that made her stomach queasy. “Look at me.”

That was the problem; her eyes were open and everything hurt.

“What happened?”

She struggled to turn over, knowing it would be easier for when she threw up, but his hands stopped her. They kept pushing her back down.

“Lie still,” he ordered. “You hit your head.”

Zara groaned and reached up to touch the spot. “I’m okay.”

She really wasn’t. She could feel the severity of her injuries, the litter of bruises beginning to form all up her one side, the bulb blooming on the side of her head, the split lip releasing trickles of blood down her chin. There was no telling how she actually looked when she felt like the entire one side of her face had been crushed in.

Magnus touched the spot, a gentle brush of his knuckle over tender, burning flesh. She both barely felt it and yet the feather light caress seared the area making her cry out.

“I’m going to fucking kill him.”

He never gave her a chance to ask who when he bolted to his feet. The movement was far too quick for her roiling insides, but she tried to follow him with her one good eye.

Gorje had Devlin’s neck locked in the curve of his massive bicep. The bulging muscle strained like a second head alongside the first. Devlin was squeaking and flailing, his face a brightening tomato. His eyes protruded from his skull, glassy orbs of terror. They swung from person to person, yet not seeing anyone. They latched onto Magnus.

“An deireadh … an deireadh…”

The silver blade gleamed in the dull light of the kitchen as it was drawn from Magnus’s pocket.

“Oh, it’s the end all right, fucker,” Magnus snarled.

Zara struggled to push herself up, using cold, hard laminate as a cushion to brace her aching limbs. Her temples throbbed, sending new currents of pain down the back of her skull, but she managed to prop herself up against the wall.

“Magnus, no, don’t…” Her voice hitched on the vomit climbing up her chest.

Heat rose off her skin, prickling her good eye and sticking bits of hair to her neck. The bowl of stew lay a few feet from her, upended, the vegetables a close resemblance to what was threatening to come up. She looked away.

Octavian appeared at her side. He dropped down next to her and took her gently by the shoulders. He turned her.

“Are you all right?”

“Stop him,” she breathed, attempting to lift her hand and motion, but unable to feel the thing lying limp in her lap. “Please, he can’t…”

Octavian looked away from her to where his brother stood, body braced and vibrating with rage. His gaze traveled down to the blade before lifting up to focus on the wiggling form in Gorje’s clutches.

“Christ! Devlin.” His shock over seeing the other man was quickly pushed aside for the whole scene. He leaped to his feet and grabbed Magnus. “Stop.”

“Get off me!” Magnus threw his brother’s hold off and rounded on him. “He hit her. Killing him is the only mercy he’s getting.”

“This isn’t how we’re going to end this,” Octavian rationalized. “Not here in the middle of the kitchen.”

“This is the perfect place,” Magnus argued vehemently. “Gorje can throw him into the fucking stew after.”

“Magnus.” Octavian put his hands up slowly, palms out. “Come on. What if the boys had come through here, or one of the other children?” He shook his head as if disappointed. “Take him out back first.”

That wasn’t what Zara had been hoping for when enlisting Octavian’s help. She struggled to push off the cold floor. The room swayed with her efforts, but she managed to pull to her feet. She moved to stand between the three, hoping to talk sense into someone.

“You can’t kill him,” she protested. “He didn’t mean to hit me. He was confused and scared.”

“We can’t keep him,” Octavian replied. “We really can’t. We can’t trust him, but aside from that, I don’t want him here. So, unless you have a place we can take him…”

She didn’t. No one would take a slightly deranged selkie.

“But you can’t kill him,” she argued again. “We have to think of something else.”

The two glanced at each other. It was a small victory, one that was short lived when Valkyrie stalked into the cramped space, followed by Gideon and Riley. The trio stopped simultaneously and gaped for a full second before the Harvester caught her tongue.

“What is he doing out of his room?”

“We’re letting him go,” Zara said with more confidence than she felt.

“What?” She stalked forward in her towering boots. “Who says?”

“I say.” Zara straightened to her full height and still fell short. “He’s a living creature. You can’t just keep him down there.”

“Yes, I can. He’s my prisoner.”

“He’s done his time!” Zara cried. “Look at him. You’ve successfully broken him. You can’t do any more that’ll make a difference.”

“He’s done when I say he’s done.” Valkyrie bared her teeth. “He hasn’t suffered nearly enough after what he did to me.”

“But you got the child back.”

“What if I hadn’t? What if she was gone forever? Would I be allowed to keep him then?”

Zara had no response to that. It was a losing battle she had no hopes of winning when everyone was against her.

“Zara’s right.” Riley moved to take the other point in the triangle. “This has gone on long enough. You got your revenge, you got your baby, it’s time to let him go.

“This isn’t your choice,” Valkyrie snarled. “Either of you.”

Neither of them had any response to that. The person who did have the final say was upstairs, staring out the window. The other one was dead. That left no one in charge. That knowledge hit each of them one at a time. They were an army without a general, a kingdom without a ruler. There was no one to maintain order.

“Okay.” Octavian stepped forward and looked over the group. “We’re not killing him … here,” he added when Magnus opened his mouth. “But we’re not keeping him anymore,” he added for Valkyrie. “It’s done. He needs to go. We have too much shit on our plates right now without risking the chance that he might escape … or die. But how he dies or how we get rid of him will be a joint, family discussion. In the meantime, someone get him fed. Green-Eyes, grab the basket and see about Zara’s face. Magnus, put your blade away. Gideon, clean the floor. Valkyrie, come with me. I have a job for you.”

No one seemed pleased by their given task, except Riley, who hurried deeper into the kitchen. Valkyrie eyed Octavian as if debating whether or not to test him, but she wasn’t raised to question orders. She was trained to follow them. Magnus stuffed his blade away reluctantly and faced Devlin still hanging from the crook of Gorje’s massive arm.

Riley returned with a canister of cream. She smiled at Zara and motioned her into the tiny room with the table. Zara didn’t protest; Devlin was safe for the time being and her face really needed a heavy helping of the cream. The entire thing felt swollen and droopy. She had half a mind to poke at it, but the way it was stinging, she didn’t think it would be a good idea.

“Is it bad?” she asked the redhead.

Riley glanced back, and was sweet enough to conceal her grimace, even while her inner voice groaned.

“No!” she lied a bit too loudly. “Just a tiny bruise.”

It was unfortunate that the cadence of her voice didn’t match the image Riley had in her head, because the image was horrific. Even Zara winced at the bruised apple bulging from her cheek, shiny and a furious display of colors ranging from an angry red to a pus yellow. They all bled together from jaw line to the sensitive skin under her eyes where the shade ringed the whole shape in a violent blue-black. Four white lines printed on the hollow of her cheek, the exact shape of a man’s bunched knuckles. Skin had split over the rise of her cheekbone, a nasty gash that painted one side of her face crimson. Combined with the nick on her bottom lip, she resembled something from a nightmare.

“It looks awful.”

Riley pulled out a chair and sat. Zara took the one opposite her and brushed her hair back.

“No, it really doesn’t.”

Zara didn’t push as the cool cream was rubbed into the injury. She felt the magical properties seep beneath the tender tissues, causing the area to tingle and itch. Her eyelids slipped shut.

They opened with a quiet rustle of movement from the doorway. Her head turned, careful not to disrupt Riley’s work.

Magnus stood on the threshold, arms folded, one shoulder propped against the frame. His face was pinched in the same murderous rage.

“I’m fine,” Zara assured him yet again.

“Should have let me kill him.”

“Done.” Riley dabbed the final touches to Zara’s face and pulled back.

Zara rose, the right side of her face heavy with cream. She definitely didn’t want Magnus to see her like that, but there was no helping it.

“It wasn’t his fault.”

Magnus took her chin between his fingers and gently tipped the injured side towards the light. He examined it carefully.

“Definitely should have killed him.”

She pulled away. “Where is he?”

It was unclear why she needed Devlin to make it out of there in one piece. She didn’t know why it was so important he wasn’t killed, but something was telling her to keep him alive. She just needed to convince the Maxwells

“Getting fed.” Magnus continued to study her face, as if waiting for it to get worst. “You should lie down for a—”

He never got to finish that last sentence, much to Zara’s relief; if she was told to rest one more time, she most likely would have lost her mind. But a woman had appeared behind him, hesitant with thin, slitted eyes the color of jades. She squinted from him to Riley then Zara, lingered on Zara’s face before returning to Magnus.

“There’s someone at the door.”

Riley and Magnus immediately exchanged bemused glances, then both turned to Zara, expressions questioning.

Zara’s ears were still ringing, her vision was barely completely in focus. She couldn’t even read their thoughts, never mind anyone outside the house. But she strained what little concentration she had left and tried to identify the person on the front porch. She reached over all the other heads in the diner, ignored the prickle of movement from overhead where the family lived, and the three in front of her. She closed her eyes and focused, but there was nothing.

“Demon.”

She was beginning to recognize the blank spots. Demons left no projections of themselves. Their presence was a dark smudge she couldn’t pick up if they were older or more powerful.

Angels hurt. Their presence was a white, hot spear of punishment straight through the brain.

Humans were bright, sharp, colorful forces of light that never stopped pulsing. Their thoughts roared around them in a whirlwind of anxiety and doubts.

Veil creatures were whispers, quiet hums of energy bleeding between the light and darkness.

But whoever was outside, had no energy signal.

The two traded glances again.

“Baron?” Riley asked.

“Maybe.” Magnus turned his whole body towards Riley. “Get the others.” He faced Zara next. “Get the people in the diner back to their rooms and make sure they stay there.”

She knew what he was doing, even if he was trying to be sly about it; if it was Baron, the only reason he would be there was for her, or to see where the family was on their decision. Either way, Magnus wanted to keep her as far away from the diner as possible. Normally, she would have argued, but she needed to find Agnus.

The group parted in the kitchen. Riley ran towards the back, while Zara followed Magnus into the diner. The woman trailed after them and immediately hurried to the table in the corner where a man and two teenage boys were playing cards. She whispered something to them and the three got to their feet. They were already heading for the doors when Zara faced everyone else. Behind her, Magnus went straight to the doors, heavy boots thumping on the steps to the short landing.

“Can everyone please return to their rooms?” she announced, careful to ease the request into everyone’s mind, but not push.

Passing along messages to a large crowd was always tricky. It involved a certain amount of balance to make sure everyone heard her, while not killing anyone accidentally by screaming into their head. She was even softer when touching the elderly or children. Their minds were fragile.

Questions and chatter rose as the owners followed suit. Chairs shrieked across the hardwood, floorboards creaked. But one by one, everyone started towards the kitchen doors.

Zara waited until the very last person had exited before following behind, a shepherd herding her flock. They made a single file line down the hall. The shuffle of their feet reminding Zara of the line at the auction house, the children ahead of her, all being force marched up wooden steps to the stage. The memory was enough to have her step off to one side, just to assure herself she could, that she wasn’t shackled with iron.

It took longer getting the children up the stairs. Some needed help, others didn’t want to. But every second of delay was a new pin in her anxiety, in the knowledge that Magnus had probably already opened the door and whoever was on the other side was in the diner with him at that very moment, and he was completely alone. The knot tightened until it was an overpowering force bunching her insides together. It was enough to make her want to leave the group and hurry back.

It never came to that. Gideon, Octavian, and Reggie cut their way through the mass going in the opposite direction. The crowd scooted to one side as the men thundered past. Valkyrie appeared a second later, sword already drawn. That had a lot of people pressing right into the wall as she plowed through them. She never even slowed in her march. Her whole focus was getting to where the fight would be.

Zara was fine with that so long as the Harvester got there in time.

Riley was at the top of the stairs when Zara finally made it. She waited with Zara as everyone shuffled to their rooms and sealed themselves in.

“Where are the boys?” Zara asked as the door shut behind the last person.

“I asked Gorje to sit with them and Agnus.”

Relief washed over Zara. “You found Agnus?”

Riley nodded and motioned Zara to follow her back downstairs. “She was with Otis. They were playing with a dead rat…”

“She wants to put it in Sheena’s bed,” Zara volunteered.

“Sheena?”

“The little girl from this morning.”

Riley paused on the bottom step and met Zara’s eyes. “That’s really sweet.”

Zara partially grinned as she cleared the last few steps and reached the bottom. “I thought so as well.”

Neither said another word until they pushed through the flapping doors and faced the newcomer.

“You!” Riley and Zara blurted simultaneously.

Jacinda peered dryly over at them through the cat-shaped lenses of her glasses. The red plastic matched her lips and the litter of polka dots all across her white blouse. A red coat hung over one arm, complimenting the tight lines of her fitted skirt and towering heels. A clipboard was clasped to her chest with the other. She looked exactly how Zara had seen her the last time with her blonde hair pulled back tightly in a ponytail that rained thick curls down her back. Her tail swished lazily behind her, the content sway of a cat.

“You’re Baron’s … person,” Riley continued, struggling to recall the exact term for whatever the blonde was.

Blondie shot her an exasperated glower. “I am not a person,” she mumbled. “I am a demon, who also happens to be Baron’s executive assistant.”

“If your master has sent you to get our decision—” Octavian began, only to be cut off.

“I don’t care about your decision.” Waiting for no one, the demon stalked past all of them straight through the kitchen doors. They scrambled after her. “Where’s the rest of your family?”

“Stop!” Octavian blocked her path before she could make her way upstairs. “You’re not going anywhere near my family until you explain yourself. What are you doing here?”

Jacinda checked her watch. “You have exactly twenty minutes to believe me, that is not a lot. In fact, for the things I need to tell you, we would need weeks.”

“We could have seconds and I would still not let you near my family without an explanation.”

Jacinda peered up at him levelly. “Fair enough.” she brought her clipboard to her chest and straightened. “You’ve been given a rotten deal, but fortunately for all of you, you’re far more popular than you think.” She adjusted her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose. “The demons want you, heaven wants you, you have the pick of the litter. Unfortunately, your window to decide is growing smaller by the minute, which brings me to my offer.” She paused and peered over the group, taking in their faces with a solemn deliberation. “My condolences for your loss. I’d only met your mother a few times, but she was an exceptional woman.”

Only Reggie shifted, a subtle tick in his hands that he stuffed into his pockets. Everyone else kept their eyes on their guest.

Jacinda didn’t seem to notice. She returned her attention to Octavian.

“We should sit for this conversation. Time really is of the essence.”

The eldest Maxwell hesitated. This wasn’t a decision he usually made. It was his father’s place, but the head of the household remained absent through it all. Zara wondered if he even knew there was a demon in the house, or, if he did, if he cared.

Octavian glanced back at his brothers, not for guidance, but agreement. If they were going to allow the executive assistant of the demon who killed their mother into their home, they all had to agree on it.

No one said anything, but the decision had been made. Jacinda was led to the parlor.

Liam wasn’t there, which surprised Zara. She’d been almost certain he hadn’t left it since that morning’s meeting. She briefly wondered if he was all right and if someone should check on him, but the moment was gone when Jacinda started to speak.

She took the head of the room, her willowy figure moving gracefully around the furniture until she stood before the fireplace. Her coat was lightly placed on the armrest of the sofa, leaving both arms free to clasp around the clipboard. The gesture reminded Zara of the demon at the market, Damier’s assistant. Dru, if she remembered correctly. Now that she thought about it, the two were very similar, too similar, and she wondered if they were related. It would make sense, especially when Dru had to call Jacinda to help Zara out when the portals wouldn’t work and the gateways wouldn’t let her out.

But those were questions for later.

“Will your father be joining us?”

No one spoke as they took their usual places. Each one concentrated a bit too hard on getting comfortable. But she was waiting, leaving Octavian no choice but to continue being the one in charge.

“No, he has other matters he’s looking into at the moment.”

If Jacinda caught his lie, she never let on, even when the shiny gold surface of her eyes glimmered behind her glasses.

“Very well.” She peeked down at her clipboard, pulled a pen from the clip on top and scribbled something. The pen was stuffed back behind the clip and she faced the room once more. “You’re losing,” she declared simply. “You may be ahead at the moment, but you’re sloppy. You’re not organized. You’re not ready. The world is in chaos, did you know? Do you have any idea what’s happening out there?”

The room exchanged guilty glances, but no one could answer.

She went on.

“You’re too busy saving babies and each other, and your women, and your family to realize just how screwed you really are. There is a much bigger picture and you’re missing it, which is how you are going to lose.”

“What are you talking about?” Gideon leaned forward on his perch on the armrest next to Valkyrie’s shoulder.

The clipboard was drawn back again and Jacinda peered over her notes. “There was a hundred-foot tsunami in Japan, killing thousands. Fire literally rained down on Athens, killing thousands. Seattle nearly vanished in a fault line that split open in the middle of the city, killing thousands. Mauna Loa erupted, only a few deaths with that one, but the point is,” she pulled the clipboard back to her chest, “the world is falling apart. The humans you swore to protect, are dying by the boat loads. These occurrences,” she waved the clipboard at them, “are not nature made as these humans think. They are battlefields. Demons and angels don’t belong on earth, but when they’re in the same place, this happens. Humans die.”

Octavian rose. “Why are you telling us all this?”

“Because not all demons believe we belong on earth.” She folded her arms across her chest, hugging the clipboard to her. “There is an order for a reason. Angels belong in heaven. Humans on earth. Demons in hell. That is the balance. But not all of us have the luxury of simply putting our foot down. So, we play our parts and do what we can to stop disaster from happening. Unfortunately, this time, the playing field is too big for just us. Baron has too many players, too many angles. We can’t do it alone.”

“Don’t you work for him?” Valkyrie piped in.

Jacinda peered at her coolly. “I do, but we all do what we must to survive. Unfortunately for me, he owns my soul. I can’t leave even if I wanted.”

“Well, we can’t help you either,” Octavian clipped in. “He has Riley’s contract.”

As if waiting for that exact moment, Jacinda pulled a piece of paper off her clipboard and passed it to him.

“No, he doesn’t. Not anymore.”

Octavian snatched it from her and peered over the print. Next to him, Riley had shot to her feet and strained to see over his shoulder.

“It comes in handy being the right-hand woman of the general,” Jacinda muttered, watching them. “He’ll know it’s missing, but it’ll be too late.”

“Oh my God!” Riley took the page after Octavian had finished reading and choked on a gasp. She didn’t even read it properly before lunging forward and embracing the demon, knocking her glasses askew. “Thank you so much!”

Jacinda blinked rapidly, body rigid. She took a step back when Riley released her and fidgeted with her glasses. They were set back into place.

“Yes, well, I hope that’s proof enough of my sincerity,” she said awkwardly.

“It’s not.” Octavian nudged Riley back towards the sofa and faced the demon. “How do we know this isn’t some elaborate trap to see what side we’ve chosen.”

“I already know which side you’ve chosen, Caster,” she said coolly. “The right side. Baron knows you’ve made a bargain with heaven. He knows you’re going to betray him.”

“How?” Reggie blurted. “There was no one here, but us and no one here is a rat.”

“Akilah,” Zara murmured. “She could read your thoughts. She knew even before Abraham arrived that you planned on betraying Baron.”

“Reginald was indebted to Baron. He made a bargain, his first born in exchange for his family’s farm. He didn’t realize Baron would keep him at his word. He was young and stupid. His family’s farm wasn’t producing and his family was starving. A child that didn’t even exist to save the people he loved seemed like a small price to pay, until…”

“Until he had a kid,” Riley mumbled.

Jacinda nodded. “After Talib came into the world, he promised Baron his own soul, but Baron doesn’t work that way. Instead, he sent Reginald to you, to save you,” she looked directly at Valkyrie. “Successfully indebting you to his wife, his telepathic wife who knew if she failed, Baron would kill her son. All she had to do was listen to each of your thoughts and report back.”

“That seems like a lot of planning,” Gideon said. “Centuries of planning. Who has time for that?”

“Baron.” Jacinda pierced him with her eyes, warning him not to take this lightly. “He’s been planning this since the end of the last war. He’s been putting his pieces into place for hundreds of years.”

“But how could he have known about me?” Riley asked. “I mean, he said he was the reason I found Octavian, but that’s crazy.”

“Not if you have the Gravedigger in your pocket.”

“Septimus,” Octavian muttered. “Should have fucking known.”

“Baron knows what each of you is going to do before even you do,” Jacinda went on.

“Then he knows you’re here,” Reggie decided.

Jacinda pursed her lips. “No, I’m not stupid. I’m very careful about what I do and when. Plus, he doesn’t look for me. He doesn’t think I’m a concern. He thinks I would never betray him.”

“So, what now?” Octavian propped his hip against Riley’s armrest once more. “What’s the plan?”

Jacinda consulted with her clipboard. She never seemed to lift or move the papers, but squinted at the top page as if it was all written there.

“Well, you’re very behind.” She poked the bridge of her glasses higher and blinked. “Baron already has the south and east … no, wait.” Her chin came up. Her eyes were enormous staring straight at Zara. “You are.”

Zara exchanged a quick glance with Riley before facing the demon. “I’m sorry?”

“You are!” Delight blossomed across Jacinda’s entire face, erasing the lines bracketing her mouth. Her eyes glittered. “You are the rightful heir to the south. You are their queen.”

Zara stiffened. “What? No, I—”

“The west has Kyros. They’re going to execute him. You are the next in line! Baron doesn’t know! Oh my God!” She gasped and put a hand to her mouth. “Baron doesn’t know!”

They lost her for a moment as she scribbled frantically on her clipboard. The scratch of her pen filled the awkward silence her enthusiasm had left behind.

“I’m not queen,” Zara interrupted. “I don’t want to be queen. I don’t want anything to do with that place.”

“Too bad!” Jacinda made a dramatic stab at her page and stuffed the pen back behind the clip. She shoved her glasses back and beamed widely at Zara. “You are queen. The queen. The unaligned queen of the south, Zara.”

She stressed unaligned as if that meant something.

“Oh,” Valkyrie breathed from next to her. “Baron has no influence over you.”

Zara opened her mouth to protest, but Octavian broke in.

“You’re in charge of the entire southern army.”

“The second largest army,” Jacinda piped up, grinning so widely Zara wondered if her face hurt.

“The west has the first,” Valkyrie put in proudly. “And Serinda is already on our side.”

“We would have the biggest force in the war,” Reggie mumbled, eyes huge with awe. “There is no way we would lose.”

“Stop.” Zara pushed to her feet and glowered at each of them. “I will not take that throne. I will not be associated with their kind.”

“Your kind,” Valkyrie reminded her. “You are part Draconian.”

“Their kind,” Zara hissed. “I will not support the things they do.”

“Then change it,” Riley said simply. “When you’re queen, it’s what you say. They can’t say no to you.”

“You can help a lot of young girls,” Valkyrie added. “They need someone like you, someone to put an end to their barbaric methods and outdated customs.”

It was too much, all of it, the circle of voices, the push of elation that seemed to be coming off all of them. They were surrounded by the bright light of knowing they would finally beat Baron, but all she saw was returning to that place and those people. Even with Kyros gone, even all the changes she could make, so much damage had already been done there. Thousands of years of the same practice, what were the chances she could change them?

But what if she could? It would have to be done gradually, but over time, she could remove all usage of drosen. She could ban the whole tradition. She could start a new generation of warriors not bred through drugs and rape. She could make a difference, but it was also a purpose. She would have a home, one that she would build herself, one that no one could take from her. She would have stability. The only thing that she wouldn’t have was Magnus.

Her gaze went to him now, trying to assess his thoughts and was met with a door, a barricade she’d helped him create. His features were carefully set, void of anything that could help sway her decision, but his eyes were watchful, waiting for her to make up her mind on her own. She wondered if he realized that was something she’d never done before. Her mind had always been made up for her. Others had told her where to go and what to do, and what needed to be done. So, to be left with her own choices, Zara was terrified.

“You were always Baron’s backup,” Jacinda murmured. “If Kyros failed to follow orders, he would have had you. That was his plan. That was why he kept you all those years. That’s why he took you there the other night. You were supposed to be his darling granddaughter, obedient, willing … queen.”

“Well, that was stupid,” Valkyrie snapped. “Considering he knew Zara was Magnus’s mate. Why would he think she’d ever sleep with Kyros?”

“The drosen,” Zara mumbled absentmindedly. “He wanted it done one way or another, if not willing…”

“He’s such a pig,” Riley muttered venomously.

“I don’t think he expected Kyros to get sentenced to death,” Jacinda went on, smirking. “I wonder how Septimus missed this. It’s a massive historical event.”

“Maybe you’re not the only one playing both sides,” Gideon mused.

Jacinda shook her head. “No, there’s another reason.”

She went silent for a moment, her gaze fixed unseeingly on something across the room.

“So, what now?” Octavian broke in.

Jacinda blinked and focused once more on the task at hand.

“Get rid of these people. They’re a liability. You never know which one Baron will turn. You don’t need another snake in the grass.” She peeked at her clipboard. “Start training. When was the last time any of you went hunting?” Her eyebrow lifted at all the dropped gazes. “Nice,” she muttered with a shake of her head. “No more babies.” She glowered at each of them. “I’m serious. Screw all you want, but no babies. This isn’t the time for it and Baron loves taking babies hostage.”

“Creeper,” Riley mumbled under her breath. Then louder, “I have two babies.”

Jacinda blinked. “You? Before you turned?” She looked over her notes. “I don’t see…”

“They’re werecubs,” Valkyrie supplied.

Jacinda recoiled. “Oh! Ew! Why?”

Riley stiffened. “Because they’re mine. Is that a problem?”

Even Jacinda had a hard time unfurling her lips from their disgusted curl. “I’ve heard of animals taking in strays to raise as their own, but this is truly … disturbing. Where do you keep them?”

Riley frowned. “Here.”

“In the house?”

“They’re babies!” Riley snarled.

Jacinda seemed to fail understanding the difference. “They’re—”

“Careful.” Octavian’s voice rumbled everyone into silence. He fixed the blonde with a look that would have made Zara flinch. “Watch your next words, demon.”

Jacinda wisely closed her mouth. She dropped her attention to her notes.

“Well, we will just have to make do.”

“There’s also Agnus,” Magnus added.

Jacinda’s head popped up. “Who’s Agnus?”

“She’s an empusa. Her parents were killed during a raid. She’s alone.”

The demon threw up her hands in frustration. “What is with you people and monster children? You do realize her kind snatches babies and eats them, right?”

“She’s a kid,” Magnus growled low in his throat.

“Until she eats one of you in your sleep and becomes a full fledge empusa with horns and a hunger for the other white meat. These creatures you’re adopting on a whim are dangerous and unpredictable. Even the demon community wouldn’t take them in. They’re literal monsters.”

“They are not monsters,” Zara snapped. “They’re children and children become what you raise them to be.”

Jacinda only shook her head and went back to her clipboard. “Anyone else? You’re not raising a Pontianak or chimaera, are you?”

“Not yet,” Riley remarked smartly.

The demon ignored that. “Okay, so no more babies, yours or adopted. Sometime soon, like today, Zara needs to return to her kingdom. She needs to claim it before Baron realizes what happened. This should be done before Kyros’s execution.” She made a small tick on the page after reading each item off. She paused to glance at her watch before continuing. “When are the angels supposed to get back to you on your arrangement?”

Octavian shook his head. “We don’t know. Whenever they feel like it.”

Jacinda nodded slowly. “Before they return, your father needs to meet with the strigoi leaders.”

“What?” several voices echoed at once.

“That goes against the treaty!” Reggie protested. “Strigois stay out of wars.”

“Not anymore.” She pushed her glasses back and looked up. “Baron already has one leader on his side. Mortlock. If he manages to convince the other four leaders to join his force…”

She didn’t finish, nor did she need to.

“Wait, did you say Mortlock?” Riley glanced up at Octavian as if trying to see if he recognized the name as well. “Isn’t that…?” It struck her and she gaped at Jacinda. “Baron?”

The demon nodded. “Like I said, Baron has been one step ahead of you guys from the beginning.”

“He killed me!” Riley sputtered. “That fucker!”

Jacinda ignored that and went on. “The other four leaders are undecided. They’ve been in debate for over a week already, but they’ve only heard Baron’s side. Your father needs to reach out to them as the leader of your family and make them see the importance of joining your side, because massive army or not, with the strigoi leaders on Baron’s side, you guys won’t stand a chance. None of us will.”

Gideon sighed and shoved all ten fingers back through his hair. “Great. No pressure. Oct?”

Octavian looked back at him, then at Magnus and Reggie, taking turns locking eyes with his brothers. An understanding went through each of them, a common acceptance. Overnight, he’d become their leader. It had been settled. They would follow him. It was that simple.

“We head out first thing.”