I remembered Gideon’s horror as Dominic swelled up. It had humiliated him so badly, he had locked me in my room for a week because I accidentally laughed.
Dev turned to me. “Really? What else do you know?”
I hesitated. “I never really talked to him much. Gideon thought it best if I was silent – or just not there when ‘company’ was over.”
“What’s his power? Do you remember?” Dev asked, already thinking ahead.
I thought carefully. “He has a high light APA. I know that much. Around 68L. Gideon was always trying to impress him. Like he was special.”
“I don’t think he liked my father as much. He used to come over a lot when Gideon was away. He and my mother are close.”
“Close how?” Dev asked.
I pulled a face. “I’m pretty sure they were sleeping together. It stopped a while back though.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I listened. What else was I going to do?” I shrugged. “We had a nice house, but the walls were thin.”
“Does Sable know any of this?”
I shook my head. “She was always away. With work. Or with Kieran. But I was there. I saw all of it. The people who came to my house begging for favours.”
“Like who?”
I looked at him. “What is this?”
“Think about it, Seph. We’ve been looking for intelligence on the Council of Light for years, but the records are always sealed. And you were there. Every day. Were there meetings at your house?”
“All the time,” I said, slowly.
“With who?”
“Dominic Lightwood. Charlie Hart. Jack Harper. Annabel Jameson. Edward Donahue.”
I took a deep breath. “And Alan Starling.”
For a moment I remembered his face the night his grandson killed him in Marr’s lab. I couldn’t even bring myself to feel the slightest pity for him.
Dev noticed, but he didn’t push. “Anyone else?”
“Grayson Hardy. He was there a few times.”
Dev looked up sharply. “Hardy? That’s not a council name.”
“I think he was a property developer. He had a lot of money. He used it to buy political support for his projects.”
But Dev was already jumping to his feet. “That’s it.”
“What is?”
“We’ve been trying to figure out where the next Council conference will be. With the recent raids, it’s being kept a secret and Gideon refuses to budge. Hardy owns half the developments in the region. If they’re meeting somewhere off record, he’d know. I have to find Kieran.”
“Dev, wait!”
“Seph, this is huge,” he said, already reaching for his phone.
I just stared at him. He wasn’t even looking at me anymore.
