The Rebel Queen (Outlaw #1) - Lexi Blake Page 0,115

about parents for a long time. See you at supper, Mom.”

He strode away. I watched from the big windows as he walked out the kitchen doors and toward Lily’s part of town. Rhys and Dev told me good-bye until supper as well. They were going to find Declan to discuss the situation in Faery in depth. I was left with Daniel.

“What are you thinking, baby?” Danny moved in behind me. His arms came around me, drawing me against him. “Note that I didn’t ask what were you thinking when you left the safety of the city with no other protection than Rhys, who didn’t like to use his powers. I know exactly what you were doing there.”

“I was trying to reach him.” I leaned back against his strength.

“You were trying to push him so he realized he could trust himself,” Danny whispered. “I should know. After all, I remember a woman who believed so much in me she jumped off a building to prove I could fly.”

Tears pierced my eyes because the memory was sweet now. Though at the time there had been a lot of screaming and praying I was right. It was one of those moments that seemed so far away, like it happened in another lifetime. “He was scared like you were.”

Danny’s lips brushed my head. “And you were right to push him. The same way you were right to push me.” He was silent for a moment. “Z, I don’t want you to do this job.”

I sighed, but his words didn’t upset me since they weren’t surprising. “You don’t ever want me to do a job.”

“I know, but I really don’t want you to do this one. I wish you and Harry had left us another way out. I don’t suppose Shy could do it.”

Now that suggestion did surprise me. I turned and faced him. “You would send a young woman like Shy in instead of me. That’s not fair of you, Danny. She’s done enough for our family, and Rhys would be devastated if anything happened to her. I think there’s something profound between them.”

Danny sighed and drew me back in. “I wasn’t thinking about her so much as Harry. Harry has more experience than anyone on the planet. Harry’s not still adjusting to this world. And Harry’s not pregnant.”

I wasn’t going to remind him that I’d pulled off another job while I was pregnant and I’d been surrounded by our enemies then, too. I didn’t need to. I was sure he remembered every day. “Unfortunately, Harry’s basically a ghost. He can’t bleed on the bag. Shy’s blood won’t work.”

I would have to give a drop of blood to open the bag, to bring it back into phase with our plane. No more than a prick of my finger would do it.

And that was when I knew Sarah had gone after the bag.

“Oh, shit.” I stepped back, tears in my eyes. “Sarah kept my blood on hand. She needed it for some of the wards she used. She warded certain spots in the building to keep people out but allow me and Neil in. It wasn’t a long-term spell, so she needed to redo it a couple of times a year. There were some other spells related to health and well-being she used my blood for. She could have found it. She could have tried to move it.”

Danny hugged me tight. “We can’t know that.”

“She knew how important it was to keep the grimoire away from him. She knew. We had just had a conversation about it. What if going for the bag cost her her life?”

“We can’t know that,” Danny repeated. His hands rubbed over my back. “Baby, we don’t know anything except Myrddin doesn’t have it, and if we can do this safely, he never will. I’m sorry. I was expressing my fear. I trust you to do this. And whatever did happen back then, it wasn’t your fault.”

I couldn’t help the guilt I felt. It weighed on me like a millstone, pressing on every aspect of my life. Watching Rhys come into his own had briefly allowed me to forget about the hell I found myself in.

“I want it all back. I want to take it all back,” I whispered against his chest. “I want to do this all over again. One moment in time shouldn’t ruin everyone’s lives. It shouldn’t ruin our family and everything we worked for.”

“But that’s how it works, Z. It’s literally how it works. One moment, one