“Need I remind you your daughter—an adult—is involved in a war,” David went on. “These people will do everything they can to defeat us, up to and including attacking Stella. She remains involved purely by her own will and is aware of the danger. Now then: the shooters have been dealt with. We were unable to apprehend one for questioning but I really don’t think it’s necessary. It’s obvious they were staking out anywhere they thought she would go and came after her the first chance they got. They failed.”
Maguire glared at him for just a second longer, then sagged back into himself, defeated. “So they’re all dead? Good,” he muttered. “What are you people doing to me? I used to believe in due process.”
“Human justice is useless here,” David said, tone a little chilly. Paradoxically Miranda had observed over the years that the coldness he affected in times like these tended to comfort those in distress.
“How did you miss those people coming in on the grid?” Maguire wanted to know, at least a little more calmly. “I thought you could track these enhanced humans.”
“I can. But last time I checked vampires don’t usually have to worry about a goddamned drive-by. The system isn’t programmed to respond to people traveling at vehicular speeds.”
The anger leaking out around the edges of David’s voice made the Detective think better about any more questions for the moment.
A moment later Nico emerged stiffly from the curtained bay, with Deven holding him up. Deven had had the presence of mind to bring a change of clothes from the car when they arrived, so at least the Elf didn’t have to leave the hospital in a coat cut to ribbons by bullets or a set of scrubs.
Maguire regarded the Elf. “You saved my daughter,” he said, and offered his hand. “Thank you.”
Nico shook his hand wordlessly, just nodding.
Stella returned from the ladies’ room; she’d washed her face but her eyes were still red. “Nico, are you okay?” she asked tearfully. “You were shot—”
“I am fine,” he told her gently. “I’m sorry…about Lark.”
Stella moved away from Maguire and into Nico’s arms, crying again, and Nico held onto her for a while, tears trailing from his eyes as he murmured comfort to the Witch.
“We need to go,” David said quietly to the Queen, “before the press gets wind that you’re here. I know at least one of the ER techs recognized you. The last thing Stella needs is cameras in her face.”
“Yeah.” Miranda turned to Maguire. “Mike, come stay with us for the day, maybe longer—you’re probably not in danger but Stella needs you.”
For once, the Detective didn’t argue, and didn’t try to protest Stella returning to the Haven. He knew it was the safest place for her, but that didn’t mean he thought it was safe; she knew he was torn between wanting to end Morningstar and wanting to drag his only child as far from Austin as he could.
For the millionth time, Miranda was thankful she didn’t have kids. Having her own family, thousands of vampires, and by extension the entire human population to worry about was more than enough worry and heartache and she had a feeling it was way easier than being an actual parent.
Nico rode back with Stella and Maguire; Deven joined her and David in the front car to talk strategy with the Prime.
David rubbed his face with one hand, sounding deflated. “Whatever it is we’re waiting for from this Solstice thing had better be worth being stuck in a holding pattern this long. I don’t know how Morningstar knows so much but I’m done being in the dark.”
“I hope Stella can still do the ritual.” Miranda watched the city turn to countryside out the window.
“Oh, she will,” Deven told her. “She can’t fight with a sword. She isn’t preternaturally fast or strong. But she’s got magic, and she’ll marshal every iota of power she can to get back at those bastards no matter what the cost. You can see it in her eyes.”
“It’s the cost that worries me,” Miranda replied. She leaned sideways into David’s shoulder, reaching over to thread her fingers through Dev’s, and let out a long breath. They both gave her a squeeze.
She closed her eyes for a minute listening to them discuss alterations to the sensor network that could compensate for acceleration and velocity; mostly David wanted a sounding board, but while he wasn’t a programmer, Deven knew a surprising amount about physics, and he had a few insights. Really at this point nothing either of them spouted off with should ever surprise her; between Dev’s age and David’s brain they knew practically everything in the universe…except perhaps what to do about Morningstar itself.
As she drifted off, parts of the talk seeped into her waking dreams, and thoughts about the way things moved and the math behind it all gave way to the Web behind her closed eyes; without any urgent need to lay hands on it, she just watched the endlessly shifting strands twine and unwind, and she found herself wishing she knew more about how it all worked—she’d been more of a blunt instrument than a Weaver so far, but…if she just relaxed, didn’t try to do anything but let it dance, it all made an intuitive sort of sense.
The longer she watched it, though, the more she began to feel something was…as if…if she tried to focus it disappeared, but when she let go, she could almost see something moving underneath the strands of light, like a Web beneath the Web, made out of something subtler, darker. These strands, which were the same color and luminosity as some of the ones she’d seen in her own part of the Web—the threads that made the Tetrad Thirdborn—reached gently toward her, beckoning. She supposed an Elven Weaver might find them frightening, assuming they’d admit such a thing could exist at all, but to her they were familiar, stretching closer, almost tickling her feet.
She smiled, and followed the threads around her into sleep.
*****
I will kill you. All of you.
I will rip open your throat with my teeth…no, my hands…and watch your blood rain down on the filthy ground of this city until you shrivel and dry out like a dead leaf. I will stand there, watching you die, licking your blood from my fingers and smiling. I will watch your lifeless body burn, breathe in the ashes, draw strength from the memory of your pain.
I will snap every finger you’ve laid upon me and mine and—
Sharp pain sang through his face, and Nico snarled, snapping back into the room, to the chair he’d been sitting in with his fingernails digging into the arms until the fabric split. His vision was red, and he nearly lunged at the hand that had slapped him, but just in time, he registered violet-black eyes fixed on his, and the bloody loop in his mind faltered and broke.
Distantly he heard a series of small objects clattering to the ground.
He stared up at his Prime. Deven stared back.
“Did you slap me?” Nico asked quietly.
A quirked eyebrow. “You weren’t listening to me.”
Again, the anger curled up through him like a dragon’s foreclaws around his throat. “Do not hit me again.”
In response, Deven grabbed him by the head and forced him to look at the room. “Do you see this?”
Nico noticed the overturned lamp, fallen artwork, and stacks of books that he had apparently upset with his mind. The whole room had a strange, ozone-tang to the air, like lightning about to strike. He knew he could start fires the way Cora did…another minute and the whole room might have gone up in flames.
“Now you listen to me,” Deven said in a deathly quiet, steely voice, holding his chin so he couldn’t look away. “You are going to get control of this, channel it into something useful. Don’t give me that ‘Elves aren’t warriors’ crap—Elves don’t turn people into soup, either. You’re not like the others anymore and it’s time you faced up to it. If you keep losing control you’re going to wind up chained with a broken neck again, surrounded by bodies. Is that what you want?”
The memory of those days was one of the great horrors of his life, and he shuddered. “No.”
The bloodlust was fading, leaving in its place a quaking fear
like he’d only rarely known. He felt himself start shaking. His entire body hurt—he’d been clenching his muscles as he sat there seething.
He finally let himself think about what he had done tonight. He hadn’t seen the aftermath…thank Theia…but he had felt the rage rise up to claim him, reached through the night, taken hold of those humans and…
Nico put his hands over his face. “This is what the Prophet wanted,” he whispered. “For me to become a monster, for all my power to turn to blood and leave me useless to all of you, just an animal to be caged. I used to be this noble creature of light and compassion. I am a ruin of what I was.”
Deven knelt in front of his chair. “Perhaps you are,” he said, gently drawing Nico’s hands from his face and gripping them tightly. “What will you build in the ruins, then?”
“I have nothing to build with.”
“Nonsense.” One hand slid up to curve around Nico’s face, and he leaned into the palm, helpless tears escaping for a moment. They were both silent, the warmth of the fireplace and the warmth of the touch helping ease the ache in Nico’s chest.
Finally Deven said, wiping Nico’s face with the corner of a throw blanket, “I’m sorry I slapped you. I was afraid to let it go on any longer but I couldn’t get through to you.”
Nico shook his head. “I am glad you did. If…do not hesitate, if it happens again, to do what you must. Please…promise me you won’t let me hurt anyone else.”
Their eyes met. “I promise,” Deven replied with a nod. “But you must promise me you won’t give up. I know you’re afraid. But I’m with you now. As long as we’re together we’ll find a way.”
He returned the nod, and the words: “I promise.”
A soft smile. “Come on, then…let’s get some rest. You’re worn out…do you need more blood?”
“No.” Nico let himself be drawn up out of the chair and over to the bed, where the Prime set to undressing him, his practiced hands strong and reassuring.
It wasn’t until they were tucked into bed, Deven’s arms around him and his breath at Nico’s ear, that the comfort of skin to skin and the temple-like quiet of the room helped him to truly feel like himself again, whatever that even meant now.
“I don’t know what to do,” Nico said softly.
“Go to sleep, my love. We’ll figure out the next step tomorrow. I have a few ideas…just let me mull them over a bit.”
Nico sighed, burrowing closer. Deven will think of something. You don’t have to do this alone. You don’t have to do anything alone, now, ever again. “I love you.”
“Is tú mo chuisle,” Deven murmured, lightly nipping his ear. “Just rest, and have no fear.”
Chapter Four
A low, protracted growl brought Nico out of his reading just in time to catch sight of Stella’s cat Pywacket racing into the room and under the bed, Miranda’s cat Jean Grey in hot pursuit. A few seconds later Pywacket streaked out from the other side of the bed and careened around the room to hide behind Stella’s chair. As soon as Jean Grey barreled after him, however, a jet of ice-cold water hit her squarely in the face.
Nico looked over at Stella, who lowered the squirt gun and rolled her eyes. “Goddamn cat’s a menace,” she muttered.
Jean Grey, obviously affronted, sat down under the bedside table and started licking herself, ignoring them all. Meanwhile Py climbed up the chair and into Stella’s lap, kneading the blanket over the Witch’s thighs and purring, Nico suspected purely to spite the other cat.
Nico held out a hand and Jean Grey bolted over to him and began to rub his hand with her head. He picked her up—without being clawed in the face as were most people who tried to do the same—and sat her down on the book in his lap. “All right,” he told the cat sternly. “You must be kind to Pywacket, Jean Grey. He is a good cat and you are bringing shame to yourself and your two-leggeds by behaving like a savage.”
The cat glared up into his eyes, tail twitching.
“Or to put it as your Queen would,” he concluded, “Don’t be a dick.”
He deposited her back on the floor. She shot him a dirty look but folded herself into a loaf and pretended to sleep, all the while giving Py a periodic side-eye.
Stella giggled. “Do Elves have some kind of animal magic?”
He smiled. “We can all communicate with the natural world, but it’s more of a communion than a language. Plants and stones lack a nervous system, so they do not think and feel the way animals do. They communicate in energy. But a particular subset of telepathy allows some of us to speak to animals directly and understand them in return. You can usually spot those with that gift because they are constantly covered in animal hair and they tend to have messy houses.”
“Sounds familiar.” Stella nudged Py off her lap and smiled, though the expression didn’t quite touch her eyes; she looked tired, and her usual sparkle was subdued.
“We don’t have to do this tonight,” Nico said.
“Yes, we do. I’m with the others—I’m tired of waiting around. I can’t do anything else useful. I’m not going to let everyone down with the one thing I can do.”
“You have been invaluable to all of us,” he insisted, taking her hands. “Don’t forget it was your magic that led the others to rescue me. I certainly haven’t forgotten.”
She met his eyes, tears gathering in hers. “I know. I just…Lark was my best friend, Nico. The only real friend I had outside this place, and…I feel like I’ve lost my anchor to the world.”
He smiled a little. “Believe me, I know how you feel.”
There was movement in the doorway, and they both glanced up at once to see the Queen waiting there, unwilling to barge in without leave.
Stella managed a smile for her. “Hey,” she said. “Come in.”
Miranda bowed slightly and then crossed the threshold. Stella’s wards on the room were used to her by now, and Nico watched with his Sight, admiring how the Witch’s magic—which according to many Elven elders was primitive and weak compared to their own—melded seamlessly with the Web, recognizing the Queen and parting to admit her exactly as would any Elven protective barrier. Now that Stella could work more directly with the Web her abilities were much more precise and focused, but she had always been powerful, and there was a kind of earthy elegance to her work that was satisfying in a way that rarefied Elven threads of light were not. The fact that she could work with the Web without even being able to see it…who could call that weak?
“Sorry I’m late,” Miranda said, joining them around the coffee table. Jean Grey padded over to her chair and took up position sitting Sphinx-like at her mistress’s feet. “I had to take a call from my manager.”
Stella spread a scarf over the table and started setting out the components of the Speaking Stone spell—there were few, just the Stone itself, a knife, a small bowl, and the little vial of French white dittany that had somehow survived the attack on the shop. Her hand shook a little as she took out the bottle.
“Let me take that,” Nico said gently.
“No,” the Witch said shortly, then shook her head. “Sorry. I’ve got it. It’s okay.”
Miranda took a breath and asked, “What do you need me to do besides bleed?”
“It would be best if you did the talking when it comes time to send the message,” Nico told her. “You’re the one we need them to trust.”
She nodded, unsurprised. “Just tell me when.”
“Where are the boys tonight?” Stella asked, perhaps to distract herself as she finished arranging things.
“Thursday is Date Night,” Miranda replied. “They’re off in town doing whatever it is they do before they do that other thing they do.”
The Witch chuckled in spite of herself. “You guys are so weird. I can barely manage my own drama, let alone adding three other people’s.”
“Right now it’s the only part of our lives that isn’t a mess,” Miranda said.
Nico nodded in agreement. “I have observed many polyamorous r
elationships in my time, and many have worked beautifully, but up until now I would have agreed with you, Stella. I’ve had more than one lover at once but never more than one beloved. But then, I never had a mystical soul-bond either, so we are hardly a textbook case.”
“Of anything,” Miranda added.
“What about you two?” Stella looked from Nico to the Queen. “Does that mean it’s your Date Night too?”
Nico felt his ears burning, and Miranda cleared her throat and looked away pointedly.
Stella blushed crimson. “You haven’t even broached the subject yet, have you,” she said, mortified. “Sorry.”
Seeing the look on her face, it was the Queen’s turn to laugh, and Nico couldn’t help but do the same. “It’s all right,” Miranda reassured her. “It hasn’t really come up—we haven’t had a lot of time alone so far.” She offered Nico a smile. “I wouldn’t be averse to the idea but I didn’t want to make assumptions.”
He smiled back, and their eyes held for a second before he had to lower his to avoid making things awkward with Stella in the room. “Nor would I, nor did I. But…perhaps that’s best left for later…Stella?”
Stella was still pink and trying not to giggle at how girlishly rattled they both suddenly were. “Let’s get started,” she said. At least she seemed to have lightened somewhat, given something more entertaining to think on for a moment. “Miranda, if you’ll get the lights.”
Miranda glanced at the light switch, and it flipped; meanwhile Stella lit the central candle on the table. Nico echoed Miranda’s motion, concentrating on the wicks of the candles in the wall sconces, and after a beat, they lit as well.
“Nicely done,” Miranda told him. “Firestarting takes a lot of effort for me—I’m going to ask Cora for some pointers when they get here for the Solstice. Jacob says she’s becoming kind of a badass.”
Stella lit a stick of incense, and as the smoke laddered up toward the ceiling, they all fell silent, waiting. They’d elected not to cast a full Circle for something as relatively simple and safe as sending a message; Stella simply uncorked the vial of dittany and poured it into a tiny stone bowl. She held her hand over the bowl, and he sensed her using her own energy to awaken the power of the herb and align it with their purpose. Then, she gave Nico a slight nod.
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