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“Get in line. But anyway, maybe she’s too busy preparing to move her front to bother harassing us right now.”
“Very likely.”
“I’m going to head down to the war room. We need to work out the fine details of the traps we want to set.”
“Will it make a difference?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been thinking about it, all of it. What we’ve done, what they’ve done.” Glenna rubbed a hand over the top of her chest. “But the time and the place are set. Nothing we do will change that time, that place.”
“No, Morrigan made that clear in our last little chat. But what we do, how we handle the time between now and then will set the tone for that time and place. She was saying that, too. Hey, pal, it’s okay to be nervous.”
“Good.” With brisk efficiency, Glenna set vials she’d replenished back in her healing case. “I called my parents today. I told them I’d probably be out of touch for a few weeks. Told them what an incredible time I’m having. I couldn’t tell them about any of this, of course. I haven’t even told them about Hoyt yet because it’s too hard to explain.”
She closed the case and turned. “It’s not that I’m not afraid to die. I am, of course—maybe more now than I was when this began. I have more to lose now.”
“Hoyt, and happy ever.”
“Exactly. But I’m prepared to die if that’s what it takes. Maybe more now than when this began, for those exact reasons.”
“Love sure can twist you up.”
“Oh boy,” was Glenna’s heartfelt agreement. “And I wouldn’t change a single moment since I met him. Still, it’s so hard, Blair. I have no way of telling my family how or why if I don’t make it through this. They’ll never know what happened to me. And that weighs on me.”
“Then don’t die.”
Glenna gave a half laugh. “A better idea.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make light of it.”
“No, it’s kind of bolstering, actually. But…if anything happens to me, would you take this to my family?” She held out an envelope. “I know it’s a lot to ask,” she began when Blair hesitated.
“No, but…Why me?”
“You and Cian have the best chance of coming through this. I can’t ask him to do it. They won’t understand, even with this, but at least they won’t spend the rest of their lives wondering if I’m alive or dead. I don’t want to put them through that.”
Blair studied the envelope, the artistic flare of the handwriting forming her parents’ names and address. “I tried to contact my father, twice, since this started. E-mail, because I don’t actually know where he is. He hasn’t answered me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. He must be out of reach for—”
“No, probably not. He just doesn’t answer me, that’s fairly typical. And I really need to get over it. It isn’t that he wouldn’t care. Big vamp war—he’d care. And if I died, he’d be sorry. Because he trained me not to, and going down would be a reflection on him.”
“That sounds harsh.”
“He is.” She looked into Glenna’s face, clear-eyed. “And he doesn’t love me.”
“Oh, Blair.”
“Time to suck that up, too. Past time. You’ve got something else here.” She tapped the letter. “And it’s important.”
“It is,” Glenna agreed. “But they’re not my only family.”
“I get that. What we’ve got, the six of us? It’s one of the good things I’ve picked up along the way.”
With a nod, Blair tucked the envelope into the back pocket of her jeans. “I’ll give this back to you, November first.”
“That’d be good.”
