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I hurried farther down, peering past doors left open into empty meeting rooms and offices. Up ahead, another door burst open with a squeal of its hinges, and Justin Brimsey stalked out.

“If it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with,” he snapped at whoever he’d been arguing with. He shoved the door shut. His expression hardened when he saw me.

“I don’t have time for this,” he said, moving to march past me. His dislike for me—for all Rose’s consorts, I was pretty sure—simmered closer to the surface than I’d ever seen it before.

Maybe that abhorrence should have made me falter. But at the same time I remembered who this guy was: the head of the Unsparked Relations division. The person who made the final call when it came to any clash between witching and unsparked interests.

A demon his community had unleashed was currently tearing apart one of the biggest cities on this side of the country. Maybe I couldn’t blame him for being abrupt. But he might also be the person in the best position to get something done to save this city.

“Mr. Brimsey,” I said, moving to intercept him. “We’ve got to get a plan together, fast. Someone has to step up and let everyone know how we’re dealing with this.”

He stopped, his glare nearly burning a hole in my forehead. “And do you think that person will be you?” he said with a disgusted curl of his lip. “Let us witching folk deal with our witching business.”

My hackles rose, but at the same time a hot flush of shame washed over me. Iwastrying to take the lead, wasn’t I? They were all scrambling to find a solution in their own way, these people who’d never have looked at me twice until I’d shown up at Rose’s side. Why should they look tomefor real guidance?

Or at least, for some kind of leader. There were other things I could offer, if I let myself.

Brimsey had started to brush past me. “Wait!” I said, grabbing his arm as carefully as I could. “Rose is witching folk. Rose can get things done.”

His eyes narrowed. “Your consort seems to prefer to do whatever she pleases without much concern for what the rest of us think is the best course.”

I didn’t think that was a fair assessment, but this didn’t feel like the right time to point that out.

“You have ideas the others aren’t listening to?” I asked, tipping my head toward the room he’d come out of. “I want to hear them. I’ll bring them to Rose. Workwithus, and you can be calling the shots. Take the lead and we’ll stand behind you. Just give us a chance. All we want is to see that demon gone and the city still standing.”

Brimsey hesitated, still eyeing me. “Why should I think calling the shots with you is going to do me any good?”

I gave him a crooked smile. “We’re running out of time and running out of options. You’ve got an idea we haven’t tried yet? I can’t promise Rose will listen to you, but she’ll listen to me. And you know how much she’s capable of.”

He did. I could see him fighting with himself between the hope that I might be able to deliver what I was offering and his distrust of me and what my presence here at all meant to his ideas about witching kind. After a moment, his shoulders eased down.

“Come here,” he said brusquely. “I’ll show you what we need.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Rose

Ihadn’t found any of the major officials yet when Gabriel came upon me in one of the halls. His gaze took in the dirt and the smears of blood on my clothes in one swift sweep, and then he was tugging me to him, his arms tight around me, his head bent next to mine.

“Sprout,” he said hoarsely, as if we were ten years old again, and by the Spark how much I wished we could go back to that time when the biggest problem we’d encountered was how to climb to the top of some tree Damon was set on scaling.

I hugged Gabriel back, giving myself permission to stop racing around and bury my face in the mossy-sweet scent of his shirt for a moment. I felt rather than saw his head rise again.

“Where’s Seth?” he asked.

“Wounded but awake now,” Jin said before I had to. “The witch medics are looking after him.”

“The demon is already in the city,” I said. “I can’t— I need to find the Northcotts, or someone—we have to come up with some other way to push it back…”

Gabriel eased away from me and looked into my eyes, his own bright blue ones more serious than usual. “I might be able to help with that. But I don’t think you’re going to be happy about this strategy.”

I knit my brow as I stared back at him. “Why? What do you mean?”

He glanced at the floor and back up again. “From the moment we heard your force had retreated, I’ve been trying to talk to the officials about next steps. I couldn’t get anyone to speak with me except Brimsey—and I had to convince him that we’d follow his lead if we agreed with his route. He has an idea, one we could probably convince the rest of the Assembly of—if you support him and help make it work.”

Justin Brimsey had agreed to ally himself with one of my unsparked consorts? I supposed that wasn’t the strangest thing that had happened in the last week, or even the last twenty-four hours. “What is the idea? Why do you think I won’t like it?”

Gabriel grimaced. “He thinks we need to involve the witches who are still recovering from the way the faction used them. I know you’ve wanted to protect them and keep them out of this conflict as much as possible… but he made a pretty compelling case. And nothing we’ve tried without them has worked so far.”

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