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With all the spirits finally gone, the four of us trooped inside the safehouse. Jax kissed Mel’s forehead before going into the kitchen and starting to clank around.
I didn’t miss the way Nico’s eyes followed him, a look of longing on his face. Part of me understood Jax’s anger at him — Nico had plenty of chances to fix things over the years. But a larger part of me understood that this was finally their chance to reconcile, and that doing so would strengthen our entire coven.
Sooner or later, Jax would relent. I knew my brother. His heart ached for Nico, and now that Nico was finally ready, it was only a matter of time before Jax realized the only thing keeping them apart now was his pride.
Nico straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath, and turned toward me. “What are we going to tell the Wildes coven?”
“Everything,” I answered.
Chapter Fifteen
Mel
The next morning, I sat with Nimue in the back of our spy van, headed to DHA HQ, of all places. My coven-mates and I had just finished telling Nim everything about what we’d experienced inside the infernal realm.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me earlier about the spirits trapped in the infernal realm,” Nim said, shaking her head. “I spent years wondering what had happened to my mother, Mel. You should’ve told me she might be there.”
I knew she was angry, but hopefully in time, she’d forgive me. “They’re free now,” I pointed out. “All of them.”
“Hopefully I’ll see them at Samhain,” Nim said with resignation.
I felt bad that we’d gotten to see her coven-parents and she hadn’t. She’d rushed all the way to our safehouse for nothing, but Samhain wasn’t far off. This time we’d been across the threshold for a little over a month, and it was now mid-September.
My coven wasn’t enthusiastic about going to confront the directors on their home turf, but the Wildes coven had assured us that they and the Foster coven had our backs. It was time to finally tackle the foe that had been hiding in the shadows this whole time. Since Tempest refused to be left behind even when I explained we were heading into the lion’s den, a place filled with people dedicated to killing her kind, she was hidden inside my backpack.
Hudson had notified the OIB as well, and they were swooping in to provide backup… and to take in some of the top brass for questioning, I hoped.
When we reached the HQ, OIB vehicles were everywhere. It seemed we’d finally gotten them to intercede directly, at long last. My coven-mates surrounded me as Nimue’s surrounded her, and we headed for the front door. Small clusters of DHA agents loitered outside, including some we’d seen at the top of the containment wall the last time we’d crossed over to free my mother’s spirit.
We didn’t even make it inside, because two familiar figures burst out of the front doors. La Cora’s head whipped back and forth, his ponytail shorter than I’d remembered. When he took in both our covens with the OIB behind us, he visibly deflated.
Cyrene’s eyes instantly narrowed when they landed on me. “This is because of you.”
“Ah, excellent timing,” Demetri said as the rest of the directors filed outside.
I glanced around to see OIB agents not only surrounding all of us, but even circling around the HQ building. However, they didn’t close in. Not yet, anyway. This could still play out a lot of ways, and the OIB was nothing if not cautious of its image.
“I wondered how you knew before I did that Ty was alive,” I called to La Cora and Cyrene. “I never guessed it was because you were feeding him our own people!”
“Tell us what you know or it’ll go much worse for you,” Demetri said to both of them.
La Cora puffed himself up, clearly about to bluster and bullshit his way through. “Remember, Carmela Plata was on probation for years for lying to us! You can’t believe anything she says.”
Bao Preta pushed forward, coming to stand in between me and the two senior-most directors. He was shorter than everyone except me, but he radiated authority. And I grinned when I saw what was in his hands.
He handed two artifacts to La Cora and Cyrene. A spike of metal pierced each of the reddish rocks, the same type of truth-seeking artifact that had once burned me. La Cora glared at him, raising his chin as if he couldn’t believe he was being disrespected this way.
Preta cut straight to the point. “If the two of you willingly step down and submit to questioning, I’ll have you imprisoned instead. Understood?”
“Instead of what?” Cyrene crowed, as if she didn’t believe his threats.
“Instead of feeding you to the demons like you did to our own people!” Fox called.
La Cora began to bluster again, “Usurping us without the regs’ auth—”
“We can, and we will,” Circe Foster said, glaring at the both of them. “And we have OIB backing.”
OIB agents looked on, saying nothing, but I didn’t miss the fact that several of them had already drawn magic circles underfoot. I was willing to bet all of this was above their pay grade, and they wouldn’t intervene unless La Cora and Cyrene put up an actual fight.
