you love him. You care what happens to him.”
I shook my head again, but my eyes stung. She pursed her lips together and stared at me for a long moment. Then she left. And my eyes burned hotter. I do care. I do love him. No matter what. Besides, he was the father of my son. Even if I no longer cared about the Amadis or their future, I did need to hear Martin’s decision about Tristan.
I hurried down the corridor to the grand room, which sounded as though an angry mob filled it. Rina and Mom were just entering, and I slid into step behind Mom. People shouted accusations and questions, not noticing as the three of us came inside and took our seats.
“The Ames women must lead us!”
“We’re nothing without them! We’ll collapse!”
“Ms. Katerina, why did you step down? How could you abandon us?”
“How can you rule, Martin? You aren’t of Amadis blood! You’re not ordained to rule!”
“We are here for the trial of Tristan Knight, not Katerina Ames or this council,” Solomon said over the crowd, somewhat quieting them. “We will finish this trial, then we will discuss the future of the Amadis.”
“Get this over with! We should be out there fighting!”
“Yeah! We should be fighting Daemoni, not each other!”
“But we have no future without a matriarch!”
I didn’t know where to take my gaze. I avoided the front of the room, definitely not wanting to see the council. I didn’t want to look into the faces of the angry crowd either. My eyes kept pulling toward Tristan, but I knew looking at him would only bring more tears. So I looked up, over the crowd’s heads to stare at a point on the wall. Across the room from us, a little higher than the rest of the heads, bobbed a familiar blond one.
Owen’s eyes caught mine for a second, then he looked away, as if unable to bear the sight of me. He stood against the wall with a woman on each side of him, one blue-haired and the other purple—Jessica and Lisa, the faeries. Is this his defense? Trying to show he’s already in love with someone else—two somebody elses? He couldn’t believe that would work. It would only be infatuation, the fae creating lust, not love. Everyone would see that.
Not that he looked in love. The crowd must have diluted the faeries’ influence because he didn’t have the same expression as he’d had at their cottage in the Tennessee woods. Instead, he looked composed and . . . calculating. As if he had something up his sleeve and simply waited for the right time to reveal it. Did Rina send him after the faeries? But why?
I followed Owen’s gaze to the old woman who’d cared for Lilith, sitting not too far from Owen and the faeries. Her face was drawn tight, making her look older. I didn’t remember her presence earlier and wondered why they’d brought her in. I could only figure that after Tristan’s trial, they planned to question her about Lilith—their relationship, why she was raising her, what she might know about Lilith’s mother. That thought made me physically cringe. Did I want to stay for that? I might learn something that would help me to believe Tristan . . . or I might not and instead subject myself to even more agony.
Nona, as Lilith had called her, was the only person sitting in the room, besides the council members and us. Everyone else stood, and as I finally looked at the crowd, I found a variety of expressions, all of them full of passion. Their spirits animated with the desire to fight or to protect, with rage or with worry, with hate or with love. Some had pointy ears and extra facial hair, as if they were about to lose control over their human forms. Others’ fangs showed, brought out by the anger and fear in the room.
“What about the Daemoni?” someone called out, the voice spiked with terror.
“Yeah! They’re attacking right now, and we’re doing nothing. They’ll win!” A voice agitated with the desire to fight.
“What about our children?”
“They have no future now,” a woman wailed. “What will happen to them?”
“What about the unprotected humans? The innocents?” Owen yelled louder than anyone, and many shouts rallied with him.
I saw then what Mom must have seen years ago, what council members now realized. Owen could become a great leader. He might try to push things a little too far, as Rina had