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“It wasn’tstupid,” Ky broke in, but his face was even paler than usual, the flecks of his freckles standing out against his pallor. It was both his consort and his brother out there.
“They’ve got to be okay,” I said quickly. “Alive, at least. The bond we formed with that second consorting—wewouldn’t still be here if they weren’t, right?”
My appeal to facts seemed to ground Kyler. He nodded, his chest rising and falling with a short breath. “Right. They’re okay.”
For now, none of us needed to add.
“Fuck,” Damon muttered. “That thing is in the city—is it coming this way? Maybe it wants the assholes who messed with it and its kind for all those years.”
“I don’t know,” I said. My stomach sank even lower, until I felt as if it were sitting on my feet. What the hell did I know about anything that was any use to us right now? Maybe the witches’ dismissal hadn’t been unprovoked. “This was the closest major city. It might have nothing to do with the witching community here.”
Damon let out a sputter of a laugh. “Just wait. I’ll bet a hundred dollars it’s making a beeline for this fucking building right here. They wouldn’t listen to us, they wouldn’t listen to Rose, not when they should have, and now we’re all screwed.”
“They’re already trying to figure out what to do next,” I said, but that statement sounded weak to my own ears. I didn’t have a huge amount of faith in the ruling body of Rose’s witching Assembly either. “Rose must be on her way back with the enforcers and whoever else was out there. She saw firsthand what went down.”
“No.” Damon’s tone turned abruptly flat. He strode across the hall to the room we’d spent our first few nights in and started grabbing the scattered things we’d left there. I followed him, Ky coming up behind me.
“What are you doing?” I said.
He stuffed the clothes Rose had discarded earlier into a bag. “We should get over to the hotel suite, grab everything we want to keep from there, and get the car ready. Find that cousin of Rose’s, maybe—she’ll probably help. She’s not an idiot.”
“Get the car ready forwhat?” Ky said, crossing his arms. “We’re not taking on that thing alone.”
Damon’s laugh was totally raw now. “Of course we’re not. We’re getting the hell out of town. There’s putting up a good fight and there’s knowing when you’re beat. That monster has gotten enough chances at killing us—at killing Rose—already. It’s in the city? Then we’re getting out of here.”
I stared at him. “You think Rose is going to agree to just abandon everyone here?”
“I think we can convince her. I think I’d be willing to haul her off under protest if that’s what I have to do. What have these fuckers done this whole time except sneer at us and then use us whenever they have the opportunity? This is their problem. Let them fix it. We’re nobodies’ lackeys.”
“But the whole city,” Ky said quietly. “All the people here…” From his expression, I could tell he was doing the same calculations I was trying to. How many regular people who could never have imagined that anything like a demon existed had already been slaughtered by that fiend as it made its way into the city? How many more would die in just the next few hours?
“…are total strangers,” Damon filled in for Ky. He glowered at us. “What aboutourpeople? Our families, back home? What if this thing doesn’t stop here? We’ve got to get to them and be ready to take care ofthemif we have to. We look after our own. That’s what matters.”
“That’s not how Rose is going to see it,” I said.
Damon stepped right up to me, his eyes flashing. I’d thought, in those moments when we’d made Rose sigh and whimper between us just this afternoon, that we’d come to some kind of peace. It couldn’t be more obvious from his expression now that his anger toward me hadn’t gone anywhere.
“What the hell do you know about what’s best for Rose?” he demanded. “Who made you grand lord over everything we do? At least I’m doingsomething. What’s your great plan?”
I groped for an answer, feeling momentarily unbalanced. I’d come back to this sort of family, I’d promised I’d be here for these guys as much as for Rose, but how could I say that if I couldn’t offer anything more right now than those nervous figures in the hall?Let’s just wait to get word.
Fuck that. “I don’t know yet, but I’m going to work something out,” I said. “I’ll find the Northcotts or whoever and figure out what we can do. But I know for sure that you’re never going to convince Rose to leave here, and you’re sure as hell not hauling her away unless you’re thinking you’ll chain her up like those assholes in the prison did.”
Damon flinched. “She’ll see,” he said. “When we talk to her, when she realizes we’re ready to go, she’ll see.” But he didn’t sound so confident now.
He was scared. Maybe terrified. Why wouldn’t he be? I raked my hand through my hair.
“Okay. Do whatever you’ve got to do. But—just stay close, all right? We don’t know when Rose is going to make it back. We should be here when she does. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can, and I’ll have better answers then.”
I didn’t wait to see if he’d agree. The appeal to being here for Rose should do the trick. I loped down the hall and up the stairs to the higher offices.
Lady and Mr. Northcott were both on their respective phones at opposite ends of their office, talking in strained voices. I didn’t see any sign of the meeting the lesser officials seemed to have assumed was happening. I might have stayed put to wait for their attention, but the secretary hustled me out with a glare and a shove of magic when I hesitated.
“Leave them be,” she said. “They’re trying to save us all.”
So am I, I thought, but I bit back the words.
Gwen Remington swept past me in the hall. “Lady Remington,” I called after her, but before I could make any sort of appeal, she dismissed me with a jerk of her hand. The lock to her office thudded into place the second the door had closed behind her.
