He couldn’t be serious. Strait-jackets maybe.
I. Hate. Angels.
He held out the cup again. “It’s good stuff. Adam always gets the best for his people.”
She let go of Mason, utterly bewildered, and took the cup. The warmth in her hands did feel good. Steadying.
“They’ll argue, but anyone who’s spent any time at Segue could tell you the decision they’ll come to. Each and every one of them would die for you before killing you. Including me, by the way.”
She couldn’t find a response to that.
Custo waited a beat, then said, “I understand you have something for me? A sample to analyze?”
He had to mean that bit of Lorelei Blake that Mason had scooped up. Cari hugged her purse closer. “I was going to turn it over to the mage Council.”
“The Order can identify any soul by the person’s DNA, and I hear both you and Mason think the plague came from someone with one. I swear, you’ll be the first to know our findings.”
He made sense. She handed him her purse, relieved to be rid of it. Everyone would want answers sooner than later anyway. Based on the raised voices in the kitchen, peace was deteriorating pretty quickly. Well . . . kinda.
Over by the sink, some other woman watched the argument with avid, almost happy interest while she dipped her finger into what looked like hot bun frosting and licked. She noticed Cari watching her and held out the platter of sweet rolls.
Cari shook her head to decline, then paused . . . This was familiar to her. Everyone arguing, but no real danger. In a weird way, this could be Dolan House.
“This is more like a rite of passage,” Custo was saying. “A welcome-to-the-family, as it were.”
“I have a family.” She wanted to get back to them. Immediately.
I can take you back. Ask me to take you back.
Cari was tempted to do just that. But she didn’t want to acquiesce to Maeve either. Mad Mab?
“Mason likes you,” Custo continued. “Which means everyone else here does too, including Shadowman. It’s a foregone conclusion. Tomorrow they’ll probably ask you to babysit.”
Shadow roiled around Khan. “You cannot mean to house her here!”
“Okay, maybe tomorrow afternoon,” Custo corrected.
Cari hugged her cup. “I don’t think so.”
Custo sighed heavily and murmured, “I’ll help them along; the buns are getting cold.” Then to the room, “If Khan would kindly remember that his Layla opened a gate to Hell . . .” It was strange how the angel’s voice carried.
The yelling dropped off for a second before Mason jabbed a finger at Death again. “Excellent point. The story I heard was that you and Layla were keen on filling the world up with devils. Didn’t the Order demand her death?”
And the commotion began again.
Custo chuckled and leaned in to Cari. “Might as well enjoy it. Good times come farther and farther apart these days.”
“This is a good time?” Cari wasn’t in the mood for laughing.
Cari would be the queen of the fae. Or related to her.
Mason dropped an assortment of loaned clothing on the sitting room table, and he took some for Cari into the bedroom and tossed the stuff on the bed. “You sleep in here; I’m used to the couch. I’d have taken a separate room for myself, but I don’t trust any of them anymore.”
Adam’s eyes had sparkled when Mason had declined.
Yeah, yeah. Funny man. Nothing happening here. She knew he was human.
But there was no way he was going to let Cari sleep alone. She or Khan would find a way to bring down Segue. Mason’s bet was on Cari—she’d just rattled a warded House.
“It’s fine.” Cari stood out of the way, by the fireplace. Her face looked drawn. Arms folded. Tough. Alone. Dolan proud.
Maybe they never should’ve come here. Queen Maeve? Mad Mab? The Shadow he’d sensed in Cari was in fact wild.
He turned slightly to ask her directly, “Did you know already?” Because that would’ve been just peachy. Not that it was any of his business. He was just the stray assigned to protect her during this plague business. What reason had he to demand answers or any kind of disclosure?
“Yes and no.” Her chin was stubbornly up. “She talks to me sometimes.”
“Is she as insane as Khan says she is?”
“She’s fae.”
“She’s hurting you.”
“I’m getting stronger, more able, every day. And besides, it’s not as if I can evict her.”
“What does she say is her relationship to you? Does she want you to somehow . . . birth her?” Khan had said that Mad Mab would want to come back into the world through Cari.
“She says she’s my mother.”
“That’s it?”
Cari looked away, toward the wall, toward nothing. “She might’ve also said she’s a god.”
Mason lifted his hands up in a sour hooray. “You’ve got yourself a faery godmother? Well, now we know this will end happily ever after.”
She dropped her arms and stalked toward the only bedroom. “I’m going to bed.”
He was being an ass, and he knew it.
He’d always called her princess. Had always thought of her as one. And here it was, in a twisted way, true. Descended from the faery queen herself. All magekind would look to Dolan.
“What did your father tell you?” Mason asked her back.
She cocked her head, but didn’t face him. “Nothing. He told me nothing. I discovered all this the day you and I went to re-examine his death.”
“What does your stepmother say? She has to know something.”
Cari shook her head. “She’s said nothing. And I haven’t told her. She’s not a Dolan.”
“I’m not a Dolan, and I know.”
“I don’t know what you are.”
“I’m pretty sure you do,” he shot back, “after that stunt you pulled at Blake House.”
She turned and looked at him a long minute. Mason waited while she was deciding his fate, and in so doing, Fletcher’s. Well, let’s have it then.
“You’re just Mason, same as ever.” She actually seemed a little sad, though he had no idea why she would be.
The answer was too ambiguous, and he could not tolerate any gray where his son was concerned. “Please don’t hurt Fletcher.” He’d beg if he had to.
She gave a short laugh. “Do you really think I could?”
“You come from a purist family.”
“I’m expanding Dolan horizons.”
That made no sense. “Why would you protect us? You could screw Brand with this information.” Brand had sent a human into their Houses while they grieved.
“Yeah, well, I’m your friend. There will be other opportunities to screw Brand.”
She couldn’t possibly be giving up this chance. “You’re my friend?” he repeated dumbly. What was her game? What new maneuver was this?
“Aren’t I?” She was so powerful, but now, strangely, vulnerable.
No game. She’d never been one to manipulate. He knew that.
He was a total shit. He’d stolen from her. And he knew that Webb was trying to undermine her in terrible ways—including the Lures. “I specifically told you not to trust me.”
“You’re probably the only person I can trust.”
He shook his head. He missed his kid, and he cared about this girl. When he looked at Cari, the woman she’d become, he saw flashes of her at seventeen, smiling up at him, waiting for that kiss. Back then he’d had to resist the urge to grab hold of her. Right now he wanted to grab hold of her just as badly. But to shake some sense into her. She had to know her enemies—this Queen Maeve and . . . him. Him especially.