I’d arrived, I climbed back inside and closed the window behind me.
It was gonna be a long night.
I’d just opened my door when Margot came rushing down the hallway, a worried expression on her face. She still wore chef’s whites stained with vegetal green, and a vibrant scarf covered her hair. Whatever brought her up to the third floor, she’d left in a hurry.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ethan and Malik just went in to talk to Darius, but someone is here. You need to come downstairs.”
“Who is it?”
“I’m…not entirely sure.”
Without waiting for me to agree, she turned and headed toward the stairs. I followed her, and I was just panicked enough that the trip seemed to take twice as long as usual. Wasn’t that always the way? Maybe it was anticipation that stretched out the seconds, much in the same way that a trip to some exotic destination seemed to take twice as long as the return voyage.
We took the stairs at a trot and found a protective net of vampires between the stairs and the front door. They split to make room for me, and I stepped between them, my eyes widening at the dark-haired figure at the door.
“See?” Margot whispered.
I nodded, my brain reeling as I tried to figure out what to do.
“Hello, Ballerina,” he said, and I whipped my sword from its sheath.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
YOU TAKE THE GOOD,
YOU TAKE THE BAD
He looked tired. Tall, handsome, and exhausted. And he’d traded in the Armani suit for a long black cassock, the dresslike garment worn by priests. He was a Tate, to be sure. But I didn’t know whether he was Dominic or Seth, or what Seth was in any event, so I wasn’t going to take chances.
“Can we talk?” he asked, gaze on me.
Lindsey and Juliet stepped beside me, swords bared.
“You have three seconds to turn around and leave this House or meet the business end of my steel,” Lindsey said.
“Wait,” I said, putting out a hand, my gaze tracing the lines of guilt carved into Tate’s face. Guilt wasn’t exactly Dominic’s type of emotion.
“Identify yourself,” I said.
“I’m Seth Tate,” he said. “The former mayor. An angel, in your parlance.”
The foyer went silent.
I was stunned and confused…and then a little more stunned. If Dominic was essentially a demon, how could Seth be an angel? They’d split apart from the same person—from Seth when he touched the Maleficium.
How were things getting even more confusing?
“You’re a messenger?” I asked.
He visibly relaxed, perhaps relieved that someone had figured out the truth. “Yes, Merit. A messenger. That’s why the fairies let me in.”
It hadn’t even occurred to me that he’d gotten past the fairies.
“We don’t know that,” Lindsey said. “This could be a ruse.”
It could have been, but as we stood there, I came to realize an important difference between Seth and Dominic.
“I can tell them apart,” I said. Everyone looked at me. “They smell different,” I sheepishly added.
Seth smiled a little, but the vampires’ reactions weren’t encouraging.
“They smell different?” Lindsey asked. “You want us to trust him because he smells different?”
“Seth smells like lemon and sugar. He always has. When Dominic unfurled his wings, he smelled like sulfur. Sulfur and smoke.” I looked at Seth. “Right?”
“It’s the wings. They darkened, much like his aura. His soul.”
“He could be making this up,” Lindsey said, her sword still tipped at Seth’s neck, but I shook my head and pulled my little secret weapon from my pocket—the worry wood.
I held it up for all to see. “This is worry wood. It works against old magic. The powerful stuff. Add it to my natural resistance to glamour, and there’s not much chance he could put something over on me.”
The crowd’s murmurs were a little more supportive but still not convinced. I had one more weapon in the arsenal. I looked at Lindsey. “You’re the empath. What’s he feeling right now?”
She shook her head. “He’s a blank canvas to me. I have no idea.”
That might have been true psychically, but not physically. There was no doubting the grief and guilt etched into his face. He was still handsome, but he looked like he’d aged a few years in the last few days.
“I swear on all the deep dish, red hots, and rib-eyes in Chicago that this isn’t Dominic. And believe me, I would know better than anyone.”
No need to get into the gory deets of what he’d put me through, but having been around both of them, I now had a pretty good sense I could pick them out.