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“Is she planning to blame us for what happened last night? I don’t see how she could. We kept the situation from getting worse.” I pointed to the Tribune folded beside the food, which featured a shot of Ethan and me in torn wedding clothes, hands linked and staring at the desolation. VAMPIRES STOP RAGING HUMANS was the headline. It was, by far, one of the better headlines we’d seen. Maybe the city was finally beginning to see us as soldiers, rather than perpetrators.
Ethan’s gaze slid across the room, to the stained and torn heap of white silk and lace on the floor. “Until we take that to Helen.”
“She’s probably seen the Tribune,” I said. “I suspect she already knows.”
“And will undoubtedly be stewing about it until we return to the House.” Ethan stood up, the bottom half of his outrageous body framed perfectly by draped silk. “Eat your breakfast and get dressed, and let’s get this over with.”
I’d do both. But since it was still technically my honeymoon, I put an arm around his waist, tugged him back to the bed.
The mayor and the croissant could wait a little while longer.
• • •
We dressed and traveled through the lobby of our beautiful hotel, stopping when it seemed everyone else was pressed against the lobby windows or walking around outside.
Something had happened. Something that had drawn the attention of the humans and, from the jittering energy in the room, had made them very skittish.
Take care, Ethan silently said, and we walked through them, whispers in our wake. We stepped outside . . . and into a thick swirl of white snow.
The flakes were enormous, the snowfall heavy enough that I couldn’t see the buildings across the street. They muffled the sound of traffic, of pedestrians, of the typical buzz of the city.
“It’s seventy degrees outside,” Ethan said. “This isn’t possible.”
I’d paired a thin, three-quarter-sleeved black shirt with jeans and boots and was actually a little warm. This probably wasn’t the first time it had snowed in Illinois in August. And while we could see only a sliver of sky between tall skyscrapers, what we could see was dark and clear. Which meant the snow wasn’t falling from clouds, but from nothing. It was spawning out of literal thin air somewhere above us.
“Magic,” Ethan quietly said. “Gabriel said there was something in the air. I thought he meant last night.”
“Yeah. I did, too.”
Magic buzzed around us, but without the chemical smell that had marked the hallucinations. This was magic, but different magic. I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than the other option.
Our meeting with the mayor was about to get a little more intense.
My phone began to ring, and I pulled it out, checked the screen as Ethan did the same. There were alerts from Jeff and the House about the weather—and the wards that were screaming across the city.
Sorcha’s wards had been breached, which meant this was Sorcha’s magic—and she’d somehow managed to control the weather.
That was Official Big Bad territory.
“Let’s get moving,” Ethan grimly said, and we headed to City Hall.
• • •
The Loop’s sidewalks were busy with people who’d come out to wonder at the weather, catch snowflakes on their tongues, or take videos to share for the shock and awe of it.
City Hall looked like a lot of government buildings in the US—square, with granite, symmetrical rectangular windows, and lots of ribbed columns. The doors were edged in brass that gleamed like gold, and the lobby was marble, with towering vaulted ceilings and elevators covered by more lustrous brass.
Catcher and my grandfather stood in the lobby, just past the security area, waiting for us. My grandfather had exchanged his usual brown sport coat for a dark suit that was a little baggy in the arms, the trousers a smidge too long. I found both of those things almost stupidly endearing. Catcher wore jeans and a black T-shirt without a smart-ass comment, which was practically business wear as far as he was concerned.
“Good evening,” Ethan said.
My grandfather nodded, his expression somber.
“She’s in the city?” Ethan asked.
“There’s been no report of her yet,” Catcher said.
“If she isn’t here yet,” my grandfather said, “she’ll be here soon.” He glanced back at the snow falling outside. “She’ll want to see this.”
