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Rhea glared at the screen from the Hekate Council meeting room at the Crossroads estate near Sleepy Hollow. Her metallic-silver hair shone like tinsel and her green eyes flashed with annoyance. In deference to her newly elevated position as the head of the Hekate Council, she wore a white chiton. But her expression was pure schoolmarm—the same one she often wore when I screwed up during my magic lessons. “What part of ‘we expect daily reports’ did you not understand?”
I cringed. “Yeah, about that. Sorry—things have been a little crazy.”
Rhea raised a brow. “Crazy good or crazy bad?”
I glanced at Adam for help. “Crazy… it could be worse?” he offered.
The Queen pointed at us. “Who is the mage lingering in the background there?”
“This is Erron Zorn, Your Benevolence,” Adam said. “He volunteered to put us in touch with Abel’s contact here.”
The Queen nodded regally in Erron’s direction. “Well it’s good to hear some part of your mission was successful.”
Rhea’s expression was friendlier. “Thank you for your aid, Mr. Zorn. The Hekate Council is in your debt.”
Behind me, Erron shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. “You’re welcome.”
As a Recreant, it had to be odd for him to be having a discussion with the head of the Council that stripped him of his healing power when he dared challenge their authority. Of course, Rhea hadn’t been in charge when that happened, but still.
“And the meeting with the contact?” the Queen prompted.
“It went well,” I said. Not quite a lie, but not the whole truth either. I wanted to ease into dropping the bombshell. “We’ve managed to make contact with Abel and have a meeting set up for tomorrow night.”
Rhea smiled. “Excellent. Great job, you guys.”
“Err,” Adam said, shifting in his seat, “thanks, but there’s some new information about Abel you need to know.”
“Oh?” the Queen said.
“Yeah,” I said. “We found out his real identity.”
She banged an impatient hand on the table. “Out with it, girl!”
“We haven’t seen him in person, but we have good reason to believe that Abel is really…” Now that it was time to spill the beans, I couldn’t do it. Saying it out loud to Rhea, who’d known my father since he was a child and witnessed the fallout when everyone believed he had died, felt weird. Luckily Adam stepped in before the tension could mount too much further.
“Turns out Abel is someone you already know. Or knew.” Adam let out a breath. “Tristan Graecus.”
Rhea’s hand flew up to her mouth and a gasp escaped her. Queen Maeve simply blinked, the news far less shocking to her since she’d never met him and couldn’t care less about my personal dramas. However, since Tristan had been the son of the leader of the mage race, she no doubt knew the history about his disappearance fifty-odd years earlier.
“Are you certain?” Maeve said in the wake of Rhea’s shocked silence.
I shrugged. “Like I said, we haven’t met with him yet. But our contact swore it to be truth. Also, I spoke to him on the phone earlier and he answered to the name Tristan.”
“Oh gods, Sabina!” Rhea finally exclaimed. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I want answers and I really don’t like this kind of surprise falling in my lap right now, but as far as I’m concerned, it changes nothing.”
“Sabina, you’re not serious.” Rhea frowned. “This changes everything.”
I crossed my arms and set my jaw. “No, it doesn’t. I’m here to do a job. He has information I need to get the job done. I’m not interested in tearful reunions or heart-to-hearts or whatever.”
Rhea sighed a martyred sigh. She knew my mulish expression and tone very well. “Just… be careful, okay? This is pretty big news.”
Adam cleared his throat and leaned in toward the screen. “You didn’t… uh… I mean, this was a shock for you, too, right?”
Rhea tilted her head. “What? Are you asking if I knew he was alive all this time?” She looked like he’d slapped her. “Of course not. Adam, how could you think that?”
Adam’s cheeks went red. “Look, I’m sorry, but someone had to know he wasn’t dead.”
“What about Orpheus?” the Queen said. “Weren’t he and Tristan good friends back in the day?”
She had a point. If anyone would have known about Tristan being alive, it would have been Rhea’s predecessor, who’d run the mage race following Tristan’s mother. He and my father were apparently both members of the Pythian Guards, a special-ops unit under the Hekate Council.
The mention of Orpheus’s name made Rhea blanch. She and the former High Councilman had been good friends—and maybe more, according to my theory. The implication that he’d hidden a secret this huge made Rhea’s voice tremble with rage. “You all listen to me right now. Orpheus would not have hidden this from us. He loved Maisie and respected Sabina too much to hide something this huge.”
“Unless he had a good reason for wanting us to continue believing Tristan was dead,” I said.
Rhea slashed a hand through the air. “Regardless, it doesn’t matter now. Orpheus is dead. I say you focus on demanding answers from the one who is alive—Tristan.”
I sighed deeply. “We’ll leap off that bridge when we come to it.”
The Queen was ready to move on. “Is that all you have to report?” Clearly Rhea hadn’t had a chance to fill the Queen in on the Persephone situation yet.
“No, actually,” I said. “We had a bit of a surprise turn up. You’ll never guess who’s in Rome.” Maeve looked totally uninterested in playing the guessing game. “Persephone.”
That got her attention. “You’re certain?” the Queen snapped.
“Yes. I met with her tonight at the home of the Donna of Italy, Chiara Rossi.”
“When is she returning stateside?” Rhea asked.
“If it’s up to her, never,” I said. “She officially abdicated her right to rule the Lilim to me.”
The Queen muttered an unladylike curse. Then she snapped at someone off camera. When she was finished, she looked at us and said, “My people are getting Slade and Alexis on the line.”
“Good idea,” Rhea said.
