“Shut up,” she bit back through her teeth. “This is the fault of your people.”
“Mmh.” It was clear he was holding back a laugh. “I see.”
Kalo shot a look at them over his shoulder. It was clear he heard their exchange. But he had the good sense, or at least the tact, not to say anything. He led them deeper into the building, through winding hallways and past room after room of soggy, moldering furniture or crates whose contents had long since wasted away into unrecognizable mush.
With each step her heart grew heavier. With each step she regretted coming here at all. To the Grove, yes. But now? To the Wild at all. She knew this was only the beginning of what she was going to learn.
The elders’ chamber should have been something wonderful, something at the base of the roots of the great, twisting, carefully maintained set of vines that had been grown into a careful pattern. They should have met around a pool or a lake as black as glass. It should have been a place of veneration.
Instead, the door that Kalo opened looked like it went to a rotted-out storeroom. Giant wine casks lined the walls. Most of them were in various states of collapse, and the ones that weren’t had clearly been emptied of their contents long ago.
A balcony lined the room around them, the rusty frame supporting a patchwork of grating. Standing on it were guards—mostly human, although some were fae. All were armed to the teeth with rifles, pistols, daggers, and probably more she couldn’t see.
None of them were pointed at them.Yet.
A large, circular, dingy table sat in the middle of the room. The planks of wood that made up its surface were long exposed to moisture and had split from their neighbors, the hard grain lifting and the rest sinking and growing soft.
Sitting alone, opposite the door at the table, was an old fae woman who Nadi presumed was Grandmother Ebiti. Her skin had the texture of tree bark, and her hair was white as bone, braided with beads. Her eyes were the deep green of old leaves. And they fixed instantly on Raziel beside her.
“So. The Serpent finally arrives.” Her voice was scratchy and raw, but hard.
Nadi tried not to feel slighted.
Raziel stayed silent for a moment before answering. “If you are unhappy at the speed of my arrival, bring it up with my escort, not I.”
The old woman leaned back in her thin-spoked wood chair. “Do you know who I am,vuampi?”
He shrugged. “I can only make assumptions. And you are assuming I care.”
“I am Grandmother Ebiti, keeper of the Eastern Routes, guardian of the Old Laws.” She leaned forward. “And I remember when thatfi’tiLilivra crawled out of her stone crypt, thinking herself mistress of thepaiidiworld.”
Raziel’s expression didn’t shift. “It seems she did not ‘think’ it, she ‘is’ it, if you are here, and she is there. But I do not think you brought me here to argue semantics, did you?”
“No.” Ebiti’s gaze flicked to Nadi. “And you. The last fae Iltani. Killer of her own kind.” She spat on the ground beside her. “I should kill you both where you stand.”
Well, that settled the question ofifthey knew. The only other question washow.But she wasn’t in a position where she could ask and expect an answer to that. The only thing she could expect an answer to was something far more obvious. Something that Ebiti would likely tell them anyway. “Then why are we still alive? What purpose do we serve?”
“War.” Ebiti grinned. Her teeth were all sharpened to points, yellowed and stained as they were. “Warwith those bastardbloodsuckers up above. They have gone too far. Taken too much. It is time for us to rise up and take back the surface.”
Nadi stared in shock.
Raziel burst out in laughter. “You mustbe kidding! You want to go towar?With thevampires?You will all be slaughtered! A paltry pack of humans and a few fae with…what?Guns? Against them? Against Mael, Lana, all the power the Nostroms have amassed, and now the Rosovs as well? You will be wiped out of existence!”
Wait.
Wasn’t that their plan?
To do exactly that?
What the fuck was he suddenly playing at?
She kept silent.
“Not with you.” Ebiti grimaced. “You know them.” She pointed a gnarled finger at him. “You can tell us where to pick them apart. Find their weaknesses. Tell us how to dismantle them from the inside.”
“And why in the name of the void would I do that? To save my own skin?” Raziel huffed a laugh. “I have no reason to trust you. The moment I told you what you needed to know, I’d be as good as dead. We both would be.”
Ah. Now it was clicking into place.
