Blackbird Crowned (The Witch King's Crown #3) - Keri Arthur Page 0,78
there were any gates that weren’t decorated by the ‘bad’ images.”
“There aren’t, as far as I’m aware,” Luc said.
“What about the Kendal gate? Is it decorated?” I asked.
“To be honest, I can’t say,” Mo said. “It’s been centuries since I’ve been near it—as gates go, the Kendal one has always been fairly inactive. It might be worth Luc heading up to Carlisle first to check the two there.”
He nodded. “Are we meeting back here?”
Mo shook her head. “Southport. We’ll need Barney’s help coordinating with the various councils—he’s got the contacts, I haven’t.”
“For checking the various gates, or for hunting Winter’s clones?” I asked.
“The clones need to be our task,” Luc said. “It’s dangerous enough outsourcing the gate check, given we have no idea how widespread wraith infections are. We can’t risk word getting out about our hunt for Winter.”
“Oh, no one else but us was ever going to go after those bastards,” I growled. “I very much intend to make all variations of him pay for the part they played in Max’s slide into darkness.”
“Kill one, and the rest will be aware that we’re after them,” Luc commented. “There’s no spell that can stop the sort of connection they have.”
“So we shoot all but one, and use him to trap Max.”
“Shooting them isn’t much better—it’ll create a dead connection that’ll tell the rest something is wrong.”
“Yes, but they won’t know what, which gives us the chance to track them all down.”
“As much as I hate to say anything good about your brother,” Luc said, “he’s not stupid enough to fall for such a trap.”
“Max married Winter,” I said. “He wouldn’t take that step unless he truly cared.”
“Unless,” Mo said, “marriage was another part of the bargain he made for Darkside’s help.”
I frowned. “Why would Darkside want that?”
“To claim the throne,” she replied. “It wouldn’t be the first time a consort has plotted to overthrow a king and rule in his stead.”
“I seriously doubt ruling us is what they have in mind,” Luc said.
“And what would be the point of it, anyway?” I wondered. “Winter’s obviously half demon—no one is going to accept him.”
She raised an eyebrow. “If it ever did get to that point, do you think any of us would actually have the choice of disapproval or resistance?”
I sighed. “Of course not.”
And it wasn’t as if our world didn’t have a history of people doing whatever was necessary to survive tyrants and dictators. Dark elves might be far worse than any homegrown evil our world had ever experienced, but there would always be some who’d willingly work with Darkside against the rest of humanity in order to ingratiate themselves and survive.
“Let’s worry about the details after we get the DNA,” Mo said. “We won’t know if hunting the various Winter incarnations is even possible until then.”
“If you have one annoying fault, that’s it. You’re just too sensible.” I paused and narrowed my eyes. “Well, that and your habit of working on a ‘as needed’ mode when it comes to information.”
She laughed and patted my shoulder. “After a few hundred years, you too will learn both are requisites for a happy life.”
“Oh, trust me, the latter is a lesson she’s already learned very well,” Luc said, laughter crinkling the corners of his eyes.
I chucked a bit of crust at him. He laughed and ducked. “It’s nothing but the truth, and you know it.”
I smiled and didn’t deny it. Once I’d finished the rest of my breakfast, I went upstairs to clean my teeth and wash my face, then headed into Mo’s room and stripped off.
She carefully examined me for anything to suggest I had a bug aboard, but thankfully didn’t find anything. I got dressed and then plonked down on her bed. “I have a question.”
“About what?”
“The gray space—did any of the other witch kings step into it to do anything more than draw on its energies to lock down the gates?”
“Not that I know of—why?”
I half shrugged. “It’s never going to come down to a battle between only Max and me. He’ll always have the demons at hand—he might not believe I could ever best him, but he won’t take the chance of it happening, either. Not now that he knows I can draw down lightning. But if I can draw him into the gray—”
“The gray is nothing more than the emptiness between our world and Darkside,” she cut in. “No one has ever successfully managed to enter it beyond the witch kings, and only then because of Elysian.”