Uh-oh. Any announcement starting out with I hate this couldn’t be good. “What’s up?” I said quietly.
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, then pulled a parchment scroll out of his pocket and showed us the seal. Queen Tanaquar. Shit. But why was the elfin ambassador delivering one of the Fae Queen’s official documents?
Breaking the seal, he unrolled it and cleared his throat.
“I, Trenyth Vesalya, ambassador for the Queen of Elqaneve—Her Highness Asteria—have been dutifully entrusted by the Crown to deliver an official notice from Queen Tanaquar, friend and ally of the Elfin Throne.”
We remained silent, waiting for him to continue.
“Her Majesty, Queen Tanaquar, sends a royal decree to Camille Sepharial te Maria, also known as Camille D’Artigo, daughter of Ambassador Sephreh ob Tanu. She shall hold fast to the terms of this decree.”
He paused.
I sat up straight. This was targeted directly at Camille, not at all of us, but that didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it made me feel worse. We handled things better as a team. We were unbreakable together, or at least pretty damned intimidating.
Camille, pale and looking terribly vulnerable, forced herself to lean forward. “Please, continue. Just . . . get it over with. Whatever it is.”
Trenyth did something I’d never seen him do before. He reached out and took her hand in his, then lifted it to his lips and softly pressed a kiss against her skin. “Very well, my lady.”
As she slowly withdrew her hand, he unrolled the scroll again.
“Camille te Maria, be it known that if you go forward with your intentions to pledge yourself to the Court of Aeval, the Queen of Darkness, you shall be ostracized from Y’Elestrial, considered pariah unless you recant your change in allegiance. You are to continue in your position of OIA agent inasmuch as the task at hand relates to the spirit seals only.
“Unless this ban is lifted, you may never again set foot within the city limits of Y’Elestrial, nor within the home of Sephreh ob Tanu. You will report to Delilah and Menolly D’Artigo, and they will report to the OIA headquarters. You will follow all orders precisely. You may not contact any member of the Court and Crown on your own, including Sephreh ob Tanu. Nor will the Court and Crown contact you except through an emissary. As a punishment for turning your back on your allegiance, you no longer exist in the Court’s eyes.”
He put down the parchment and looked at Camille. “And I’ve one other message, my dear. Again . . . I am so, so sorry. Your father asked me to give you this.” He handed her an envelope.
Shaking, she took it. After a moment, she ripped it open and pulled out the single sheet of paper and scanned it.
“Oh!” With a little cry, she dropped it, her hand flying to press against her lips. She was trying not to cry, trying to be strong, but the tears slowly spilled over.
I picked up the paper and read aloud:“Camille. I’m sorry to have to do this, but duty has always come first with me, and I thought you followed in my foot-steps. Apparently I was wrong. If you align yourself with Aeval, you are no longer my daughter. I will disown you. Choose wisely. Your future within the family depends on your actions. You have already proven your lack of loyalty to the Court and Crown by even contemplating such a move. Stay well. I will always love you, but I cannot be your father if you persist in this.”
Crumpling the page, I knelt by her side, and she threw herself into my arms, sobbing, as I patted her back.
“Motherfucking peons!” Menolly pounded the table. “I knew better than to trust his conciliatory tone. So you’re good enough to find the spirit seals but not good enough to set foot in town? Fuck the bitch and her Court. Tanaquar’s likely little better than Lethesanar, and that was to be expected. But after all Camille has done for this family, for Father, to see him treat her like this. I disown him!”
Trenyth stared at us for a moment, then stood and slowly disengaged Camille from my arms. He turned her to face him, holding her firmly by the shoulders, chucking her chin when she tried to evade his gaze.
“Look at me, Camille. Look me in the eye. I reassure you that Queen Asteria makes no such judgment. You are well-respected in Elqaneve, and you are always welcome in our city. You are welcome in the Queen’s chambers. And . . . you are welcome in my home.”
“Thank you.” She spoke so quietly I could barely hear her.
In a rush, he continued, “I feel like you girls have become my foster daughters. I’ve never had children, never been married. I’m truly wed to my duty to serve the Crown. But I’ve watched the three of you bravely face what would cow greater men. I’ve watched you push through fear and worry to complete your duties as best as you can. I honor that. So I’m offering you my guest rooms, if you ever need a place to stay in Otherworld. And my hospitality and gratitude for what you are doing to save both of these worlds.”
And in that moment, the wisdom in his eyes fell away to show compassion, concern, and love. I truly believed he meant everything he said.
Apparently, so did Menolly. “You’re all right, Trenyth.” She kicked the cupboard, but I could tell her heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t leave a gaping hole in the wood. “We should all just quit. Tell them to fuck themselves. I knew Father wouldn’t follow through with his supposedly new tolerant attitude. And if he lied about tolerating Trillian, then he’s lying when he says he accepts me now. If he disowns one of us, he disowns all of us.”
Camille dashed aside the tears. She was still shaking, and I knew her heart was broken, but she forced herself to straighten her shoulders. “Will you take a message to Ambassador Sephreh ob Tanu for me, and to the Queen of Y’Elestrial?”
Trenyth nodded. “Of course. Do you wish to write it down?”
“No, you can just tell them to their faces. I trust your memory. Tell Queen Tanaquar I will fulfill my duties as asked. I will report to my sisters. And tell Her Majesty she needn’t bother to pay me if I’m such a disappointment. I’ll fight against the demons for free if I have to; I care that much about this war.”
“And to your father?”
I held my breath, waiting. Menolly’s gaze was glued on her.
“Tell him . . . tell the ambassador that I’m sorry he’s lost a daughter. Tell him that Camille D’Artigo said: The calling of the Moon Mother is stronger than the power of his approval. And that . . .” her voice broke, but she caught herself. “And that . . . that my duty is to my Goddess, first and foremost. I wish him a long and happy life. Apparently, I shall not be there to share it with him.”
And then she turned and walked down the hall toward the bathroom.
Menolly and I looked at each other.
After a pause, I said, “I guess that’s it. Tell Father that Menolly and I are pissed as hell and he’d better not contact us in anything but an official capacity for a while. I’d tell him myself through the Whispering Mirror, but I’m too angry and I’d probably shift if I tried to confront him.”
“I, myself, have nothing to say to him,” Menolly added. “Other than this: I don’t need him. I don’t want him in my life. But Trenyth, we aren’t mad at you. You just got stuck with a crappy job tonight.”
He ducked his head, his cheeks burning. “I wish I hadn’t been the one assigned. I was dreading this. And yet, better me than some officious ass.” Gathering his robes, he added, “I’d better return now. Please, take care of her. I can’t imagine what she must be feeling.”
“We will.” I saw him out the back door and watched as he crossed the yard. Oh yeah, this was shaping up to be a lovely autumn, all right.
As Menolly went to help Camille, I called everybody back in the kitchen and gestured for them to keep quiet. “I’ll tell you about it later, but right now, I think we need to just let sleeping dogs lie.” And give my sister a chance to lick her wounds, I thought but didn’t say.
Menolly and Camille returned. It was obvious that Camille had been crying, but Menolly shot a look around the room that warned, Bac
k off, and nobody took a chance on crossing her. Smoky glowered, Trillian and Morio looked worried, but she gave them a small shake of the head, and they kept quiet.
Roz quickly jumped to get everybody’s attention off of her. “Yo, Wilbur,” he said. “You want anything to eat?”
Wilbur cleared his throat as he plunked down into a chair. “Coffee if you got it, black, strong. And something sweet would not be amiss,” he added, staring at Menolly.
She let out an audible hiss. “Hands to yourself, big boy. I told you that on the way here.”
“Damn wench smacked me a good one,” he said, rubbing his jaw and laughing. “All right, all right, I’ll back off. Looks like you’ve got cookies there—I wouldn’t be averse to a couple of those.”
I handed him the plate, thinking that if he had his way, all three of us girls would be his personal cookie jar. But none of us were interested. Wilbur was too coarse for our tastes. He bit into the cookie as Roz poured him a cup of tea.
Wilbur glanced at Camille, frowned, then sniffed the air. “Wolf Briar. I can smell it on you. Jangled your senses, didn’t it, girl?”
I shot a look at Menolly, wondering if she’d told him about it, but she shook her head. “You can smell the stuff? What else do you know about it?”
He swallowed the mouthful of cookie before answering. “Wolf Briar—I learned about it down in the jungle when I was in Special Ops.” We’d recently learned that Wilbur’s stint in the military had included a tour in some special operating force, one so top secret it didn’t even have a name, though we knew it had been part of the marines.
“You have a lot of werewolves down in the rain forest?” I knew he’d been stationed down in South America, but he never told us just quite where.
“Yeah, actually, we did. There are tribes of shifters down there who make your kind look like puddy tats,” he said, motioning to me. “The Jaguar Warriors—deadly and swift, dangerous beyond belief. But they aren’t as bad as the canid clans. The Jungle Stalkers are Mexican gray werewolves, and they’re skilled hunters but deadly to intruders. But then the coyote shifters moved in from North America, and they’re far more unpredictable. They’d just as soon slit your throat as help you out. They used the Wolf Briar to take over some of the Jungle Stalkers clans.”
“The coyote shifters use Wolf Briar? But don’t they feel like they’re betraying their cousins?” I’d only met a couple coyote shifters before—one was Siobhan the selkie’s friend Marion, who owned the Supe-Urban Café. And she was one of the good guys. Just a few weeks ago, she’d helped Camille and our friend Siobhan escape a crazed stalker Siobhan was running from. I’d never think of her as trying to displace someone else.
“Wait—are coyote shifters technically Weres?” Roz asked.
“Yeah,” Wilbur said. “But they often used the term shifter instead. They’re a little different than a lot of other Weres. It’s said they originated from Great Coyote himself.”
“Hmm, a little like the werespiders we fought—they originated from Kyoka the shaman. They weren’t a normal adaptation, though.” I paused, then cleared my throat. “Coyotes are found in Arizona, right?”
“Just about every state, from what I know.” Wilbur frowned. “So, what do you want to know? Elvira here said it was something to do with sorcery shops?”
Menolly hissed at him, and he gave her the finger. Everybody froze. I slowly flickered my gaze toward her. She was staring him down. Not good. Oh—this could be so bad. But then she broke into laughter, startling me and everybody else, including Wilbur—I could see the sweat on his forehead—and I relaxed.
“Wilbur, do you know of any sorcerers who set up a shop in the area? Somebody who maybe could be producing Wolf Briar? It’s truly a matter of life and death.” Camille leaned forward, still looking shaken but doing what she always did: putting duty first. “Please, if you have any information, tell us.”
He eyed her slowly, his gaze running up her body, but for once he wasn’t ogling. “I know how bad that crap can be.” His voice was gruff, but I sensed a gentleness behind it that I’d never before heard. “Somebody hit me with a load of it once, and it wiped me out for days. Of course, I didn’t get no antidote either, but still . . . you look like you got the crap beaten out of you. Okay, babe. Give me a pen and paper. I’ll tell you what I know.”
I slid a notepad and pen across the table to him, and he jotted down a name and address.
Wilbur shoved the notepad back to me. “This dude, he came into town a few months ago. I heard he was opening up a shop and so decided to see what he had to offer. I was looking for a few rare spell components. But a few seconds through the door, and I nearly passed out.”
“What happened?” I met his eyes, thinking that maybe, beneath that rough exterior, Wilbur was okay.
“The energy was so thick in that joint I could barely breathe. Be cautious. Dude’s name is Van, and his partner’s name is Jaycee. As far as I can tell, they’re both sorcerers. I don’t know what tradition they follow, but I can tell you this: They’re dangerous and chaotic. I got out of there as soon as I could, and I’ve never been back. I assume the shop is still there.”
Crap. If Wilbur was afraid to go back, then they must be pretty damned nasty. Wilbur didn’t spook easily, and with his skill in necromancy, it would take a buttload of bad energy to scare him. I glanced at the notepad.
“Madame Pompey’s Magical Emporium. Wow, that sounds so . . . so . . . B-grade movie-ish.” Images of ’60s science fiction gypsy fortune-teller werewolf movies skittered through my head.
“Trust me, we’re not talking B-grade anything. These folks are for real, and if there’s Wolf Briar being produced around the area, then my bets are on them. There’s bad, and then there’s bad. And those two . . . they walk on the dark side of the fence.” Wilbur let out a sharp breath and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. He shook his head. “I wonder . . .”
“What are you thinking?” Camille winced as she shifted position. “May I please have some more tea?”
Trillian scrambled to pour her another cup.
Wilbur ran his fingers through his beard. “Just . . . Once, down in the jungles, when I was on a mission, I ran across an old shaman from the Jaguar Warriors tribe. He’d wandered away during a vision quest and was a good ten miles from his village. I asked him why he was hiding, and he told me he’d accidentally crossed the borders into Koyanni territory—coyote shifters who made Wolf Briar. That old man could have easily killed almost every one of us with the flick of an eye-lash, but he was scared shitless of the Koyanni.”
“And?”
“Just this: I wonder if Van and Jaycee have anything to do with coyote shifters. I don’t know enough about them to know if they’re all like the ones I met when I was in the service, but . . .”
“But it’s a good thought to check up on,” I finished for him.
Camille cleared her throat. “We know not all of them are like that. Marion isn’t. But . . . we can ask her about others in the area, if there’s any connection between the shop and the shifters.”
“We’ll have to be delicate about it,” Menolly said. “And being so, it’s not a chore for me—I’m too blunt. Camille, tomorrow you and Delilah can take a trip over to the café and check it out. You think you’d be up for that?”
“Sure. I’ll be fine. Really.” She yawned, and I could tell she was about ready to faint from exhaustion and shock. “I should be good to go then. But for now, I just want to sleep. If anything happens tonight while you guys are checking out the two Weres, let me know. I’ll come help if you need—”
“You will not leave this house tonight.” Iris motioned to Smoky, who tossed Camille’s afghan over his shoulder. “Smoky, get her back up to bed.”
As the dragon gathered Camille up in his arms and headed toward the stairs, Trillian followed with a tea tray. Morio turned to me before heading after them. “You need us, the three of us will come help, but if you want your sister to be okay b
y tomorrow, she needs a full night’s sleep. The Wolf Briar really disrupted her system. More than you think.”
“It’s not just the Wolf Briar.” Menolly frowned. “Iris, you go with them. Ask her what Trenyth had to say. But be gentle, or I’ll rip out your throats.”
I glanced at Morio. “Do you think the Wolf Briar might have done permanent damage? Sharah said it should be out of her system by tomorrow.”
“Sharah’s an excellent medic, but she doesn’t work with magic. Not like Camille and myself.” Morio’s expression was grave. “I have the feeling Camille’s spells may be a little more off-kilter than usual for the next few days. I’m hoping no permanent damage was done, but knowing for sure is a matter of wait and see.” He scooted past the table and vanished up the stairs.
“I hope to hell he’s wrong and that it’s out of her system for good by tomorrow. But you can bet the news from our beloved father won’t be.” Menolly slowly descended to the floor, looking grim. “Shit like this Wolf Briar hurts the entire Supe Community, not just the intended targets. So, you ready? Let’s go check out your Weres. I don’t want to spend all night on a wild-goose chase. Nerissa and I get so little time together that we want to make the most of every minute.”
I grabbed my coat and glanced at the stairs. “I think we should leave the terrible trio with Camille. She needs all the support she can get. Vanzir—Roz? One of you willing to come with?”
Vanzir leapt up. “I will. Roz, you stay and see Wilbur home.” He grabbed a heavy denim jacket and followed us out to my Jeep. I insisted on driving. Menolly’s Jag was actually fairly uncomfortable for me since I was so tall, and while sports cars seemed like fun toys, it wasn’t up to the actual work my Jeep could do.
Menolly rode shotgun; Vanzir climbed in the back. As we headed out into the storm, I wondered how many rain-soaked nights we’d crept into the dark, knowing we were headed into danger, chipping away at the edge of our luck. One of these days it wasn’t going to hold.
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