were people around her instantly. They radiated with magic, distorting the ship around her so that it looked like the walls were twisted into curlicues, blurring everything beyond Deirdre’s arm’s reach.
She’d seen that aura too frequently to be able to mistake it.
The pair standing over her were seelie sidhe, members of the Summer Court. Both crackled with magic. One of them was Trevin, a member of the Summer Court who protected Rylie Gresham. Both looked like they were prepared to kill Deirdre.
“Don’t hurt her!” Rylie Gresham pushed past her guards to stand between them and Deirdre. Her hair was a mess and she only wore a slip and pantyhose. She must have still been getting dressed for the meeting at the UN building. And for the first time that Deirdre had ever seen, Rylie looked angry. “Don’t hurt her until we get a chance to talk.”
They didn’t dock with the United Nations building. The airship remained suspended a few hundred feet away, far enough that Deirdre wouldn’t have been able to leap the distance safely.
She was taken to a meeting room decorated with the sanctuary insignia. It was like sitting in a really nice hotel that just so happened to be hanging over New York City. If not for the soft hum of the engines and the gentle rocking of wind, Deirdre never would have known that they were in the air.
Trevin approached her with silver chains. “Hold still.”
Deirdre lifted her hands in a defensive gesture, though she wasn’t sure if she wanted to attempt to set fire to him or punch his seelie face. “What are you doing? You can’t tie me down.”
“Really?” Rylie asked, planting her hands on her hips. “You expect us to trust you after everything you’ve done?”
“You have my word that I’m not going to try to attack.” The seelie sidhe had taken Deirdre’s guns. Without silver bullets, she was no match for Rylie.
The seelie guards stood back against the walls, not so far that they couldn’t be on Deirdre in an instant if she moved. There were about a dozen OPA agents in their black suits, too. More than enough security to take down Deirdre. Maybe enough security to take down Stark himself.
She was being treated like a serious threat.
That was nothing new. Deirdre had always been a big question mark—someone that other shifters feared.
At least she had earned the reputation now.
But Deirdre definitely wasn’t going to try to attack against these kinds of odds.
“Can we talk alone?” Deirdre asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Rylie said. “You took something from my sanctuary. I trusted you, Deirdre.”
“I trusted you, too,” she said. “I thought that you were someone else, and now I’m thinking…” She glanced up at the OPA agents again. They were watching her closely, faces blank. “Are you sure you want to talk about this where other people can hear it?”
“What are we talking about?” Rylie asked. “I don’t think there’s anything left to discuss. You’ve made your allegiances clear, and you’ve left us with no option but to arrest you.”
“Arrest me? But you sent me to work with Stark.”
“I didn’t send you to help him kill people. Your allegiance is supposed to be to me.”
Deirdre searched Rylie’s face for any hint of guile.
Rylie had to know that Deirdre had figured her out. That finding the Ethereal Blade implicated her as the Godslayer. And that because the swords existed—because the Godslayer existed—it meant that everything else mythology said was true, including the part where Rylie would have killed the gods to make the world the way it was now.
It meant that Rylie was responsible for Deirdre losing her father.
“How could I ever give my allegiance to someone like you?” Deirdre asked. Her voice came out hoarser than she intended. It made her sound weak. “You never gave me what I asked for when I fulfilled my obligations to you. The least you can do is not arrest me.”
Rylie sank onto the chair across from her, massaging her temple with two fingertips. “Deirdre…” She sighed. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to talk to you about the election. You’ve set it up because of that last conversation we had. Didn’t you?”
“Not just because of you. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. The nature of my office, the responsibilities that I hold…” Rylie gazed out the window at the clouds, which were heavy with rain and the color of steel. “I was bitten by a werewolf when I was fifteen years old.