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“What about the Cryptos and the others?”
“The Dahnsburg Unicorns are sending a contingent of their warriors—unicorns and ogres and all who answer to King Uppala-Dahns. King Vodox sent soldiers to help their lighter brethren even though they, themselves, are under siege. And you know that your own city-state, Y’Elestrial, immediately dispatched a legion of soldiers. They are fighting alongside our warriors.”
“And the dark moon priestesses?” Camille looked uncomfortable. She’d only just recently found out some daunting news about her order.
“Derisa, the High Priestess, is sending them even as we speak. As far as the rest of Otherworld… they are waiting… and watching. Ceredream will still not take sides. Aladril is sequestered in debate over the matter now.”
Delilah cleared her throat. “How’s Sharah doing?”
Trenyth pressed his lips together. “As well as we can expect. The medications the healers have given her have dried up her milk, and her hormones are in a drastic flux as they return to normal.” At Delilah’s soft growl, he held up his hands. “If there had been another way, you know I would have taken it. But there wasn’t… we needed Sharah to step up to the crown. She has been rallying our people—what there are left of us.”
With that last statement, the finality of this mess hit home. The look on his face said it all. Kelvashan had been destroyed. The Elfin race was decimated. What had been a thriving culture now stood in smoking ruins, and the survivors were fighting for their lives.
“Can you bring the survivors—the women and children—over here?” Camille asked. “They’d be safe then.”
“But would they? How long do you think Earthside has? If Telazhar continues to wreak his havoc across this land, you are not safe either. The storm Telazhar’s sorcerers have conjured up can rip a mountain apart. Destroy a palace—you saw that firsthand, Camille. You know how deadly and devastating this creature is. I don’t know how they created it, it truly is a construct of some sorts, but the storm has consciousness and will, and malevolent thought. If they can do that… what else can they do?”
At that moment, a familiar face appeared behind him. Smoky!
Camille let out a little cry. “My love!”
Smoky, her dragon husband, was six foot four, and his silver hair coiled down around his ankles. He was dressed in white, as always, and his piercing eyes were frosty and glimmered with the light of his heritage.>Delilah sighed. “Speaking of our to-do list…”
“Please don’t and say we did.” Camille laughed, but there was a raw edge to her voice. We were all nerve-racked.
I cleared my throat. “You know, with all the chaos, I guess we should start having daily meetings to figure out where the hell we are in all of this. We can’t afford to slip up on anything.”
“Right.” Morio motioned to Hanna. “Fuel us with tea and cookies. We’re about to have a brainstorming session.”
“More like a bull session,” Camille grumbled. But she let out a long sigh. “Delilah, do you have our notes?”
Delilah jumped up. “I’ll get them. Meanwhile, fill up my plate with cookies and pour me a glass of milk.” She ran off into the living room, to retrieve her laptop.
“So where does this leave us?” Camille frowned at her cookie. It was piping hot and I could tell she was trying to decide how quickly she could dig into it without burning her mouth.
Delilah didn’t exercise as much restraint. She took a huge bite and immediately began fanning her mouth. “Hot! Hot!”
I snorted. “If you weren’t so impatient, you wouldn’t burn yourself.” I stared at the laptop’s screen, frowning. “You know, we are having one hell of a time prying information out of the cracks about Lowestar Radcliffe. We know he’s a daemon, we know he bought the Farantino Building, and we know he’s been involved with the Farantino family for a couple of hundred years, it looks like. But it’s not like we can just waltz in there and say, Excuse me, would you have a moment to answer some of our questions? Oh—and by the way, fucking get your ass out of Seattle, please.”
“So we need to go in under the radar.” Camille handed Delilah a napkin and began eating her own cookie, which had cooled down enough now so that it didn’t seem to leave a lasting impression.
“Right. And what’s the best way to find out about an organization? From the inside.” I glanced up at her.
Camille shook her head. “Oh no, not again! I was the guinea pig to ferret out Gulakah and I ended up locking heads with him in the Netherworld. I don’t want to go through that again.”
“I wasn’t suggesting it be you.” I frowned, looking over the list of facts we’d managed to accrue. “Violet used the Supernatural Matchups website, didn’t she?”
Delilah nodded, wiping her mouth and taking another cookie. “Right.”
“Then… suppose we create a fake persona? We go on there, see if we can get Lowestar’s notice, and then we… well… when he wants to meet, or his crony—the one who looks like they nabbed Violet—we send someone in undercover. We can worry about who that will be later.” The idea made sense to me. When you wanted to go fishing, you had to use bait, and if you were after a particular kind of fish, you used the bait they liked best.
Delilah and Camille stared at me. At first, I thought they were entertaining the idea.
But then Camille sputtered. “That’s fucking insane. He’d recognize us and no fucking way are we using anybody else for bait. And he’d know you, since we’re pretty sure he tried to buy you out and then kill you.”
Nerissa bit her lip. “I’ll do it.”
Horrified, I jumped up, hands on my hips. “Oh no you fucking won’t. You’re my wife and I won’t put you in danger like that.” I was deadly serious. There was no way I was going to allow Nerissa to get near that goddamn place.
