“No. It’s too late for that. It’s what Xavier had been trying to prevent. What else haven’t you told us?”
Mason searched his mind, but as he was going lightheaded, he couldn’t think of anything. Oh. “Liv Walker.” How could he have forgotten?
“We heard about that, too. Walker House has petitioned the Council for your death and for Dolan to pay a settlement in lieu of talion for Livia’s life.” Talion, a death for a death.
“Groovy,” was all Mason could muster. He blew out his breath and lowered himself back into the chair. Point was . . . Cari couldn’t be hurt. Jack couldn’t hurt her.
“Besides,” Jack said. “Humanity stands to lose more lives if Cari doesn’t speak on Kaye’s behalf tomorrow. The other Houses will come armed to depose Brand and kill me. You must be prepared for bloodshed.”
“And here I thought it was a celebration in our honor.” Bloodshed had to be averted; Fletcher would be there.
Relief washed over Mason at the thought. Fletcher would be there. The ache in Mason’s belly eased.
“Is there anything else you haven’t told us?”
Mason shook his head. “The fae crossed. Cari spoke to her, tried to command her—”
“And?” Angel bastard actually seemed hopeful.
Mason popped that bubble. “The fae couldn’t be stopped.”
Bran was playing combat games on the big TV in the entertainment room, but Fletcher wasn’t going to play with him.
No way in Hell. Fletcher’s guts were tied up because of Bran. They were supposed to have been friends, but not anymore. Never ever again. Death first.
Last night Bran had started his story by saying Fletcher was going to grow up to be an assassin, just like his dad. Well, Fletcher now knew the first person he wanted to kilclass="underline" Bran, the person who’d reached inside him with a hand of Shadow. If all of Webb House’s stories came true, then the assassin one would, too. Fletcher wished it with all his heart. The assassin story had been told over the same candlefire as the story that he belonged to Webb. There’d also been something about the pale hand of a lady, but that just sounded creepy, plus girls were gross.
“Fletcher.”
He refused to look at Mr. Webb in the doorway. They could make him do some things, but for everything else, Fletcher would fight. He knew how to be mean.
Bran looked over at his dad though, and his character in the game was shot in the head with machine-gun fire. Blood and gray matter splattered. Good idea. Maybe that’s how Fletcher would kill him.
“Fletcher, you’ve been traded,” Mr. Webb said. “To Dolan House for business concessions. I have no idea what they’ll do with you there. I can’t have a traitor in my House, you see, though you will always and forever belong to Bran.”
Bran creeped his eyes over.
But Fletcher wouldn’t look at him either.
“Do you understand?”
Fletcher couldn’t speak anything against Webb House. He understood that much. And he understood that no one wanted him anymore, too.
But that didn’t mean he was going to answer Mr. Webb. Not a chance.
Mr. Webb clucked his tongue like a chicken. “I’ll be turning you over to Dolan this evening,” he said. “See that your things are packed.”
Cari had three gowns to her name. She almost went with a deep purple, just shy of black—classic, elegant lines—but ultimately opted for a silvery blue corseted sheath. Something about the way the shimmery cloth was tooled on the bodice reminded her of armor. And after all, she was going to war.
“Diamonds,” her stepmother said from the doorway. Her expression was as hard as the stones she spoke of.
Mason had opened the door and was standing two feet from his would-be mother-in-law. If he was worried about another surreptitious attack, his bland attitude didn’t show it. He was letting them both know that he was here for good.
Cari hoped her stepmother was paying attention.
“Thank you,” Scarlet said to Mason as she stepped inside, each word a precious pearl from her lips, and then crossed the room.
It was a start, so Cari lifted a velvet box for Scarlet’s inspection. The necklace within was a broad band of concentric white stones set in platinum. The earrings were short fat drops.
Appreciation bloomed over Scarlet’s features. “Yes, these will do nicely. May I?”
Cari nodded and her stepmother fixed the jewels around her neck. They both looked in the mirror together to study the effect. Mother and daughter. Almost.
“I only want what’s best for you,” Scarlet said.
“He is best.” Cari put the bobs in her ears.
A ripple of emotion crossed Scarlet’s face, quickly concealed. “If you love him, he must be.” She rounded on Mason, who stood ready in his tuxedo, off to the side, waiting for them to finish. “Home by midnight?”
His brow furrowed in consternation, lips parting to form what had to be a diplomatic reply.
But Scarlet stalked regally back to the door. “For pity’s sake, it was a joke.”
Mason’s mild smile at Scarlet’s turnabout faded as helicopter rotors chopped the air somewhere outside Dolan House, drowning out the cry of voices. “The mob is growing.” Television cameras were pinned on the house all the time now. Law enforcement couldn’t hold them all back, and Brand had argued against a military intervention. There was no way on or off the property anymore, except with Brand’s help. Dolan House was officially under siege.
“Can’t do anything about them now.” Cari wrapped silver gauze around her shoulders. “We need to settle the conflict over the Order first, so that the fae can get her due attention.”
“The fae queen isn’t just your problem anymore.” They were a couple.
“I brought her.” Cari’s guilt. She might be the only mage to have guilt. “The lives she’s taken are my responsibility. Thank God mages don’t go to Hell.”
Mages rarely invoked God, so Cari had to mean it. Mason wanted to argue that this wasn’t her fault. Blame belonged squarely to Xavier, who’d forced the issue when he’d tried to kill her. But then Cari would just argue back that Maeve would have found another way to get through her into the world. And that would start Cari contemplating her weaknesses, when she needed to be strong.
So Mason said simply, “One threat at a time. At least humanity has not yet found its power.”
“Just like you, they will.” The faint cries against Shadow filled the silence again. “Do you really want to bring Fletcher here?”
And have Cari for a wife and mother of his child? Yeah. He did. Besides, “No wards come stronger than Dolan’s. All of humanity might be screaming at your gates, and this is still the safest place in the world.”
The tone of the light in the room altered, magic flowering into a burst of Shadow that parted the veil between the mortal world and Twilight. Their ride to the ball. Marcell Lakatos must have been sick of his taxi service into and out of Twilight.
Cari wrung her hands, clearly nervous about her first transport.
But Mason was anxious to get going for another reason. His heart was bouncing with excitement. Fletcher was supposed to be waiting on the other side. “You’ll love him,” he said.
Cari knew exactly whom he was talking about and smiled. Something to look forward to. “Do you think he’ll like me?”
Chapter Seventeen
Cari was shaking with power when she crossed back into the mortal world. It throbbed, alive within her. The Otherworld was her domain, just as it was Maeve’s. The strangely toned music, the drugging scent of the air, the fluid brush of Shadow on her skin—it made her feel wild inside, so that when she emerged in Maya House, in a room with splendidly dressed people, she could only be disappointed by the dullness of the world.