“What about the council meeting?”
Alex shook his head. “I’ll have to get a subpoena for Truman Capote. That should liven things up.”
I tried to imagine Capote testifying, and couldn’t. Jean’s alibi was his problem, however. I’d done my part. I felt guilty for lying by omission, but not that guilty.
“There’s something else we need to talk about,” Alex said, and my senses picked up his elevating tension. “Eugenie.”
I snorted. “You mean Eugenia? Or would that be Eugenita? Zrakovi can’t even remember her name.”
“It’s not funny.” Alex raked a hand through his hair, a sure sign he was stressed.
This was why he’d been calling me, then. My heart began a steadily growing thud that pounded in my ears. Alex usually had better control over his emotions, but he was stressing like mad. “What’s happened?”
“Zrakovi had been trying to get in touch with you and, when he couldn’t, he finally put it on me to tell you.” Alex looked into the living room, then at the light fixture. He wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“You’re scaring me. What does he want?”
“He wants her to get rid of the baby. Well, he wants you to do it, actually, with a potion that he’s authorizing as First Elder. He’d like it done before the meeting tomorrow, but I told him that wasn’t possible. I tried to buy you some time.” Alex finally looked at me, and I could tell he was miserable, and maybe a little afraid. “I’m sorry, DJ. I think he’s wrong, but he’s convinced it’s the best solution for everyone.”
I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that Zrakovi would even think I’d go along with such a plan. “It’s not the best solution for Eugenie. She’ll never agree to it.” Even if she agreed to it, I didn’t. I wouldn’t make a killing potion for my best friend’s unborn child, even if its father was a scheming elf.
Alex cleared his throat. God, there was more.
“What?” My hand gripped the soda bottle so fiercely that I almost knocked it over.
“Zrakovi said if Eugenie didn’t agree to it, you were to do it anyway.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the Winter Prince of Faery raced across my scalp. “By ‘do it,’ you mean kill that baby? Using a potion? Without Eugenie’s consent?”
“Pretty much.”
I searched Alex’s face for any sign that he agreed with Zrakovi, but he looked miserable. “Alex, I can’t do it. I won’t.”
He took a deep breath. “I don’t like it either, DJ. Eugenie’s in way over her head and it’s not her fault. But Zrakovi wants Quince Randolph focused on council matters, and Mace Banyan sees the baby as a threat—a new generation of elves with no loyalty to his clan.”
My voice was calm, but the rest of me grew angrier by the second. “Did Rand do something to change Zrakovi’s mind? I thought we’d all agreed that an elven midwife would take care of Eugenie at her house, and once the baby came, we’d deal with it.”
Alex shook his head. “Randolph’s insisting that the council give him formal assurances tomorrow that he will get custody of the child. Mace will be livid, so Zrakovi wants it to be a non-issue by then, or at least soon afterward. Of course, it should go without saying that Randolph can’t know anything about this.”
I fumbled in my pocket for my cell phone. “I want to talk to Zrakovi.”
Alex hesitated a few seconds, but then nodded. “He has a new cell number. I’ll text it to you. But DJ, it isn’t going to change his mind. I really did try.”
I had no doubt that he had tried, nor that Zrakovi wouldn’t budge. But I wanted to hear the order directly from the First Elder. This wasn’t Alex’s fight, and he didn’t deserve to be stuck as the messenger. In fact, I thought less of Zrakovi for trying to put Alex in the middle.
“Hello, DJ.” He’d answered in very short order. “Is it done?”
I gripped the phone hard enough to crush it. “No, and I’d like to talk to you about it, sir.” I’d be respectful as long as I could. “I know Eugenie and Rand better than anyone, and they will be able to work this out. We can do damage control with Mace Banyan. There’s no need to take this step.”
The sound of pouring liquid and rattling ice cubes filled the silence on Zrakovi’s end of the call. “This isn’t up for discussion,” he said, finally. “The full Council of Elders has agreed that it’s the best course to take. We must ensure that the alliance of wizards and elves is not threatened, and the presence of this child threatens it.” He paused. “It’s after ten p.m. I suggest you proceed.”
I needed time to think. “This is a direct order? There’s no room for discussion?”
“None.” Zrakovi’s voice was flat. “And it is a direct order. Take care of the child.”
“You mean kill the child.” I wanted him to say those words.
He barely missed a beat. “Good night, DJ. I’ll expect to hear the sad news at tomorrow’s council meeting.”
I ended the call, but kept staring at the cell phone’s screen as if it might offer up some answers.
Alex didn’t ask what Zrakovi had said; there was no need. He looked at his watch. “You might be able to get Eugenie tonight; that would be better than putting it off. You can at least broach the subject with her.”
“No.” I was getting pretty good at using my sharp, icy voice.
Alex thrummed his fingers on the table. “Look, DJ, I know this isn’t something you want to do. It’s not fair to Eugenie. But it’s—”
“It’s wrong.” I fought to keep my voice steady. “It’s not fair to Eugenie, and it’s not fair to Rand. It’s sure as hell not fair to that baby. And it’s not fair to me, damn it. I’ll tell Eugenie that this is what the wizard leaders want, but that’s as far as I step into it. If she wants to abort her child, I will help her find someone to do it. But it’s her decision. Not mine, not yours, not Zrakovi’s, not Mace Banyan’s. Not even Rand’s.”
My voice had grown steadily louder, and from my messenger bag on the table, the end of the elven staff shot out a spew of sparks without my touching it. Charlie agreed with me.
Alex raised his voice to match mine. “DJ, I agree with you, but it’s out of our hands. This is bigger than us and what we think is right or wrong. What if the fae get their hands on Eugenie and use that baby as a bargaining tool? Or the vampires, or the other elves?” He dropped his voice. I hadn’t done a grounding ritual in a while, and I felt his absolute misery. He was torn in half over this. I tried to feel sorry for him, but pity couldn’t escape its blanket of anger.
“Alex, I know it’s your job to do what the Elders tell you, and I know you take it seriously. I know this is tearing you up inside.” I had to try getting through to him. Like it or not, Zrakovi would listen to Alex before he’d listen to me. “Zrakovi is probably right that this baby is going to cause problems, but this isn’t the answer. You know it’s wrong. Somebody has to stand up for Eugenie in all of this, and we’re all she has.”
He closed his eyes. “We can’t win this fight, DJ. If we don’t do it, Zrakovi’ll find someone else who will. Someone who doesn’t give a damn about Eugenie at all. And who knows, it might be better for Eugenie in the long run.”
I’m a snarky person, I’ll admit it. I could be downright cranky. But true, bone-deep anger? I didn’t feel it often, but I recognized it. My veins heated like fire, and my voice burned with it. Alex could tell himself that little lie all night long to make himself feel better, but that wouldn’t make it true. “I seriously doubt Eugenie would feel that way.”
Alex rubbed his eyes; the strain showed in every movement. “I repeat: It’s going to happen, whether you or I approve or not. Zrakovi said it himself when I was trying to change his mind; you aren’t the only Green Congress wizard in town. I thought you’d rather it be you doing it than a stranger.”
“I see.” I saw far, far too much. I had prayed for clarity, and now I had it. The thing that finally turned my world black and white wasn’t what I did or didn’t tell Alex, or how I did o
r didn’t feel about Jean Lafitte. It was Eugenie, and our friendship, and her baby, and my own sense of right and wrong. It was what I could live with at the end of the day, and what I couldn’t.
I pushed my chair back. “I’m sorry you got pulled in the middle of this, Alex. I know you care about Eugenie.” Those things were true; the next part wasn’t. I planted my imaginary staff on the Khazad-dûm of Magazine Street and took my stand against the Balrog of political bullying. “I better go and talk to her now. This news is better coming from me.”
The relief rolled off Alex thick enough to choke me, but I didn’t tell him his trust was misplaced. If he thought about it hard enough, he should realize I would never agree this easily. He was desperate to avoid a conflict, however, and I couldn’t blame him.
I hoped he’d forgive me.
“This will take a while, so plan on seeing me at the meeting tomorrow morning. I’ll either transport from Eugenie’s or be back at the hotel. Is your transport still powered?”
“Sure, I’m good. Zrakovi was in and out a couple of times today.” He stopped me halfway across the living room. “Hey, don’t I get a good-bye kiss?”
I let him kiss me. I kissed him back like it might be my last chance, and it hurt like a knife wound to my chest. I didn’t want to lie to him, to let him think I was supporting him while I turned around and did just the opposite. But I also couldn’t put him in the middle. If I asked him to side with me against the Elders, he’d be a wreck no matter what decision he reached. Better to just let him be pissed off at me but at peace in knowing he’d done what he could.
Alex might reach his own crossroads later, but not tonight. Tonight, it was my turn.
I opened the door, and the snow hitting my face camouflaged the tears that had started up again. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Alex.”
When the troubles would really begin.
CHAPTER 20
I had very little time to make a decision.
Not about the baby. The clarity I’d been seeking all night had shone clearly on that issue. I wasn’t doing what they’d asked me to do. Period. What’s more, if I could prevent it, Zrakovi’s hired Green Congress wizard wouldn’t do it either. Eugenie had to be my first priority. Prete politics would come and go, but friends were more important.
So as I fought the wind and snowdrifts to make my way across the vacant lot where I once lived, and across the street to Eugenie’s house, my first thoughts were to make her disappear. She could go to Shreveport and visit her sister—if she could get out of New Orleans. Doubtful. Even if Christof called a halt to his winter storm this instant, the airport was closed. The bridges over Lake Pontchartrain were closed. There was no way out of town that wasn’t every bit as dangerous as a Green Congress wizard with a toxic potion.
The other quick solution would be getting Eugenie to the Beyond and setting her up in Old Orleans, or even in Barataria. I didn’t want Jean mixed up in this fight, however. He had his own tricky maneuvering to do, and Old Orleans was a wild, lawless border town between the modern world and the Beyond. An overly curious soul like Eugenie, with no experience in the prete world, could get into a heap of trouble very fast.
I’d been dithering on the first step to Eugenie’s porch, but now did an about-face and went back down to the sidewalk. I was going about this all wrong. Getting rid of Eugenie wasn’t the answer. I needed to go to Rand.
My limbs had already begun to move sluggishly, and I opened my mind wide to my non-husband and yelled: Rand! Come downstairs and let me in!
Somehow, he managed to convey a mental wince. Stop yelling. We need to work on your manners.
Yeah, well, when I had a spare moment. By the time I made it halfway across Magazine Street, my legs were barely shuffling. If there had been any traffic, I’d be a pancake.
The world turned upside down as I lost my footing. My sluggish thoughts registered how sad it was going to be when I was found either hibernating or frozen in the middle of Magazine Street come daylight. I seemed to still be moving, however, and it took a few seconds to filter through my iceberg of a brain that Rand had hustled out and thrown me over his shoulder.
* * *
Great, let him take care of things. I needed to sleep.
“Dru, wake up.” Something hot gushed down my chin, startling me awake. I was stretched out on the sofa in his upstairs sitting room, and Rand sat beside me, holding a mug. He’d been trying to give me hot liquids, I guess, but missed my mouth. I held out my hand and he placed the cup against my palm, hanging on to it until he was sure I had it in a firm grasp.
I sipped, and recognized the taste. Sort of like warm apple juice, but with some elven mojo stirred in to clear my mind. After Tish Newman had been murdered on my porch and Rand found me, he’d given me this same stuff. I needed all the mental help I could get, so I drank the rest of it.
“How long was I out?” We didn’t have time for me to waste hibernating.
“Not long. Less than a half hour, I’d say.” Rand took the mug and set it on the end table. “It’s just before eleven. What were you doing out there?”
I hadn’t planned this far. I didn’t want to cast Zrakovi as the evil villain. He was not an inherently bad man, just an arrogant politician who thought the ends justified the means. Plus, if Jean’s assessment of the preternatural power breakdown proved true, the elves and wizards needed to be allies.
The stakes were high. Rand had to understand that he couldn’t bully his way through this one. He had to play it smart and with finesse.
“Just tell me, Dru. You know I can’t read your thoughts anymore.”
Which was a good reminder that he could read Zrakovi’s. He’d even done a little mental manipulation on the Elder in the past. I had to be straight with him. Seems like I was being honest with everyone tonight except the man I most needed to be honest with, but I’d think about that later.
“Okay, but you have to promise something first.” I gave him my fiercest look.
He smiled, and I thought he was going to make one of his outrageous, suggestive comments. He seemed to think better of it, and the smile faded. “Promise you what?”
“That you are going to be calm. That even though you aren’t going to like what I’m about to tell you, you’re going to talk it all through with me and not get on your high and mighty ‘I am Elf’ horse.”
He looked a little offended but, after an inner struggle, managed to stay off the horse. “I’ll try.”
“Okay, I need your help.” God, I needed Your help, too.
“You know I’ll help you when I can.” Translation: I’ll help you if it furthers my agenda. Rand, I understood very well.
“There are certain people in our world, both mine and yours, who do not want your baby with Eugenie to ever be born.”
He’d already started bristling, and I sat up. “I’m serious, Rand. You stay calm and talk this out with me or I will zap you.” Thankfully, those responsible for hibernation rescue had, so far, all thought to rescue my messenger bag and staff, including the elf sitting beside me.
“Who doesn’t want my baby to be born?”
I hesitated. Thinking about telling him, and actually telling him, were two different matters. But Rand wanted his son.
He grimaced. “You might as well tell me. I can bore into the minds of everyone in that council meeting tomorrow except yours and Mace Banyan’s. And I know Mace doesn’t give a damn about the baby because whether or not I have an heir doesn’t affect him.”
I thought he gave Mace way too much credit but, at least in this case, his Synod leader wasn’t the problem.
“It’s Zrakovi,” I said, God help me. “He wanted me to talk Eugenie into letting me abort the baby using my Green Congress magic, or do it without her permission if she didn’t agree.”
I felt a wide imaginary T for “traitor” etch its way across my forehead. So I talked faster. “You have to understand where he’s coming from, Rand. The whole prete world is in chaos, and he’s afraid
the baby will divide Elfheim and, ultimately, sever the alliance between the wizards and elves.” Even I thought that sounded cold and lame.
Rand’s inner glow had begun to spread across his face, and heat from his body radiated across the width of a sofa cushion. I still hadn’t quite figured out what that did for him other than make him look like a pretty Russian snow prince with a sunburn. It obviously didn’t prevent hibernation.
“Do not say a word.” I shook a finger at him. “Not. One. Word. You will listen to me.”
His jaw was clenched and his nod no more than a nano-dip of his chin, but it was a nod.
“The elves and wizards need each other,” I told him. At least this part of my argument was something I believed. “We need our people to be allies, and you and I can make that happen. We don’t know who the fae will side with, and the vampires are totally unreliable. We have to be smart about this.”
Rand blinked. “I’ve heard the people of Faery might oppose us, especially if Sabine dies and Florian takes over. He’s the Summer Prince, the eldest of Sabine’s nephews, but he’s a total fruitcake. It would be a disaster. Christof is a fruitcake, too, but Mace thinks he might be more reasonable.”
I didn’t know whether or not Christof was a fruitcake, but he was scary as frozen hell.
“But if Zrakovi does anything to my child,” Rand said, glowing again, “the elves will not align themselves with the wizards, no matter the consequences.”
“Are you sure?” I had to make him look at this without his emotions. “Think about it, Rand. Are you so sure Mace would support you with his air clan? Or Betony and the earth elves? Or Lily’s daughter with the water elves? Without the full Synod behind you, you can’t speak for the elves.”
Rand pondered this while he made more mugs of apple stuff.
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