go.
Way older.
“Christophe?” A sick thump in the pit of my stomach. I hadn’t even asked about him. “What’s wrong with Christophe?”
“Nothing.” Bruce almost twitched. “He’s simply resting. But he is unavailable.”
I fixed him with a glare. “What’s wrong with him? Did it . . . did I hurt him? The blood, did it—”
“He’s resting. He’s survived worse.” Bruce sighed. It wasn’t a Dylan-worthy sigh, but it was close. Dylan had been a world-champion patient-suffering sigh-er. “Milady. Dru. Please. A formal alliance with the Maharaj—not just a truce—will save lives. Djamphir lives, wulfen lives, and that means human lives as well. I know your loup-garou has left—”
It was like a pinch on a fresh bruise. “Don’t talk about him.” I gingerly uncurled my arms. Reached for my sneakers, suddenly glad it was Hiro who had gone up and gotten them. I didn’t feel like I could face Nat right now. “How come the Maharaj think I’m . . .” I let the question trail off. Two great Houses, Sergej hissed in my memory, and I shuddered.
Great. Djamphir were part sucker, and now they were thinking I was part something else. Where was the human part of me supposed to fit, I wondered?
“Because you killed one of your attackers with his own sorcery.” Bruce grasped the back of a chair—the one just to my left, the one Christophe sometimes sat in at Council meetings. When he wasn’t up pacing the room like a caged animal. “And later, something about a smokedog, a kuttee, sent to track you. I do not know the whole, Dru. They will not speak unless it is to you. You are our hope.”
I never asked for this. It was too late, though. This was what I had.
Everything inside me shifted sideways another little bit and settled unexpectedly. I wasn’t used to the whirling sensation fetching up against something, but it did. It held fast, like catching your jeans on a stubborn nail.
I killed Sergej. Yeah, Christophe helped . . . but I was the one that did it.
But it wasn’t just that. I’d bled to buy Dibs and Christophe some more time. I’d done the right thing. It was what Dad might’ve called “findin’ out where ya iron’s at” and Gran would have just nodded with the particular line to her mouth that meant she was pleased.
I had done that. The nail I fetched up against was knowing, without a doubt, that I’d done them proud.
The Council room was silent and breathless, no windows, just the door to the antechamber with its couches and fireplace. I always thought djamphir would want some light and air, until I figured out that it was too easy to take a shot or send a sucker through some plate glass.
My fingers fumbled with the laces. I could almost feel Hiro staring at me. My hair fell down, curtaining my face. I couldn’t hide forever, though, and when I had my shoes tied I looked up. “Sergej.” The name didn’t burn now. It was just a word. “He thought that, too. That I was maybe one of them, I think.”
They exchanged a Significant Look. Bruce’s shoulders hunched a little. “Hiro and I will be there.” He sounded, of all things, defensive. “There is nothing to fear. You won’t see Augustine, but he will be there too. There will be others, in Shadow. You’re safe now.”
“Until there is another to take Sergej’s place,” Hiro murmured.
I froze, staring at him. Well, it had to be too good to be true, didn’t it? That was the way adulthood rolled. I was beginning to get the idea.
“Yes,” he continued, pitiless. “There are always more, Milady. We have barely managed to hold them back. Now, with the nosferat confused and the Maharaj perhaps willing to come to an accord . . . we could do much more. You are young, and it is not right to ask, but we are asking.” He put his hands together, as if he was about to make one of those funny little bows of his. “We would even beg you, svetocha. Help us.”
My head dropped forward. I stared at my hands. My fingernails were bitten down, just like my mother’s. I smelled cinnamon, a thread of warm perfume drifting up from my skin, and I wondered if they smelled it too. The touch brushed inside my head, soft feathers. “Where’s the rest of the Council? Alton and Ezra?”
Bruce let out a short, pained breath. “Alton was in Houston. Ezra was coordinating in