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“Or it’s a gift you were given so you can stay with him for as long as you should.” I knew how to turn this around. Strangely enough, Quinn had been the one to teach me how to turn what seemed like weaknesses into strength. “This soul of yours, that’s the part that speaks to Fenrir, the part that has likely loved him before. That soul is housed in a companion body, and a companion with regular vampire blood can live a long time. As long as a wolf.”
“I never thought about it that way. But it’s true. Companions on vampire blood can live up to one hundred and fifty years,” she mused. “Fenrir and I are almost the same age. My father’s blood means we could have a whole supernatural life together.”
“Your father’s blood is a gift. Don’t look at it like proof you’re not a wolf. Look at it as proof that the universe will give you the tools you need if you’re brave enough to use them.” It was time to give her one more tool. “And the next time your papa says something, tell him that. Tell him the universe gave you everything you needed to fulfill your destiny.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why would I say that?” Evan asked.
“Because it’s exactly the words he said to me when I didn’t believe in myself.”
Evan wiped away a single tear and smiled at me. “Excellent. It’s good to know my papa believes in fate. He’s going to have to believe in mine. I wanted to make sure you’re okay with me and Fen. I would have understood if you were worried.”
“Oh, I worry. I’ll likely worry every day for the rest of my life, but for you, not about you, Evangeline,” I assured the young woman who would someday be my daughter-in-law. “Now tell me what you know about the witches we’re going to talk to.”
She straightened up as though I’d said some magical words that turned her from lovestruck teen to soldier. “Relda is the older of the two. She’s in her forties, I think. Jade is twenty-two. Relda led a coven in the Seattle area until she refused to swear fealty to Myrddin. He slaughtered half her coven, but she made it out.”
“He’s been killing witches?” I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was. I suppose I thought he had some decency.
“Yes,” Evan replied. “He kills anyone who gets in his way. He killed Jade’s mother. They lived in the Council House in Dallas, and from what I understand her mom worked with Myrddin in the beginning. Until she saw what he was doing and started to fight back. Sasha says she fed the academics information for a while and then Myrddin caught her. She was burned at the stake. Jade was forced to watch, and then she was supposed to be ‘reeducated,’ as Myrddin calls it. My grandma got her out.”
“The queen?” I thought the queen of the Seelie Fae had chosen to stay out of this war. I knew she’d refused my son entrance when they’d sought refuge. The Seelies had wanted Rhys and Evan, but they wouldn’t allow Fenrir and Lee in. Or Sasha and Trent.
Evan’s head shook. “My human grandmother. My grandfather’s wife. You know my family isn’t one of mere blood. Like you and Fen. Christine didn’t need blood to be loyal to us. I’m hoping she can come home now. She’s lived in the Council House for years.”
I looked around to make sure no one was listening. “Evan, maybe we should…”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a talisman. “Kelsey, I’m not a newbie. Lily makes sure we have a steady supply of these. No one can hear me talking unless I can physically see them. To normal people it would seem like I’m whispering and they can’t quite catch what I say. They won’t be able to hear you either. Unless I’m looking at them. Then they hear us quite well. Didn’t you notice how Fenrir and I walked into the room and made eye contact with everyone? We wanted to make sure we didn’t leave anyone out. I have to activate it. I wouldn’t want it to suppress my voice all the time, but there are creatures here who have especially sensitive ears.”
“How do you activate it?” I wanted one.
“Blood, of course.” She slid the talisman back into her pocket. “Or tears. Like I just did before I talked about something I would never talk about in the open. I would never mention my grandma’s name. Even here. But you’re the Nex Apparatus. You’re Kelsey. I trust you the way I would my own parents.”
That got me a little teary, and I didn’t even need tears to prime some talisman that made it so I could talk around potential enemies. “Well, thank you. I’m glad you’re here with me. But if one witch knows about Christine Wharton, we have to worry that they all do.”
“Oh, no. Grandma is way sneakier than that.” Evan started walking again. “She smuggled Jade out, but not before giving her a whammy. Jade was languishing at the reconditioning school one day and in the back of a van the next, and she didn’t know anything except that she trusted the people driving her. That was part of the whammy. Jade didn’t know a lot about her powers until she came here. Relda taught her most of what she knows. Myrddin wouldn’t allow her to be trained until she’d proven her loyalty.”
“Were either of them close to Alvis?”
“Everyone knew him, but I’m not sure how close they were,” Evan admitted. “I’ve stayed in Frelsi most of the time for the last two years. We’ve run raids from there. Since we started actively fucking with Myrddin, we’ve stayed away as much as we can.”
“But Trent was here when we got back.”
“Well,” she began.
I knew the kids and the adults had a disagreement about when we would potentially return. They’d needed an enormous amount of magic to break into the Coven House, and storing it up had taken them years. They’d had three dates, and Sasha and Trent had agreed to expend all of their magic on one.
Not the one Rhys Donovan-Quinn had decided was the right one.
Sasha would have been easy to handle. He spent his days in a vampiric coma. It was Trent they had to deal with. If they waylaid Trent, Lee could easily steal what they needed, and Eddie would take them anywhere. Especially if they presented it to him as a life or death, no time to think scenario.
“How did you get rid of Trent?” I couldn’t be mad at them. They’d been right. If Sasha and Trent had their way, we would probably be in a cage somewhere in Dallas being tortured by my old bestie. So my questions were strictly out of curiosity. There would be no lectures from me about respecting authority.
She stopped before we reached the end of the hallway. This section of the nest looked like I was walking into a soothing spa. There was a rock wall to our left, and water flowed down it, the sound rhythmic. Dark green ivy sprouted all around, and we walked on a carpet of perfectly kept grass.
“Rhys had the gnomes tell Rufus there was a serious problem. Sometimes the gnomes hear things from the grapevine.”
“Grapevine?”
“Yes. It’s not literally a grapevine, but it is a vine,” she allowed. “It’s how the gnomes communicate on this plane. All underground. Like an earth-friendly telephone. So the gnomes said they heard a rumor about Myrddin preparing a raid on one of the safe houses, but they wouldn’t talk until Trent got there.”
