Seth Tate could have passed for an accountant, but he still smelled like freshly baked cookies.
“Nice disguise,” I said.
He nodded. “They’ll have the building warded, so I had to go old-school.”
Headlights appeared in the darkness, and a golf cart pulled up to the gate. A young, fit woman in a black uniform climbed out and walked to the gate.
“Caroline Merit and John Smith?”
I waved a little bit. “That’s us.”
She nodded officially, unlocked the gate, and held it open for us.
“Mind the gap,” she said, gesturing toward the bench on the back of the cart.
“John Smith?” Seth murmured as he took a seat beside me.
“The alias wasn’t really the key component of the plan,” I said, as the guard accelerated and we bobbled down the gravel road. The factory was actually a set of several large buildings used to mold and fire bricks during wartime. Seth had been held in a small stand-alone building, but we passed it as we headed toward a long single-story building on the other side of the compound.
“Are you nervous?” I quietly asked, as his gaze settled on his former prison cell.
“A little,” he admitted. “I’ve never had a niece before. Or a relative of any kind other than Dominic. And I’m not sure he counted.”
“More a supernatural parasite.”
“And yet he was sentient enough to control me. To connect with a woman and father a child.”
But Dominic had been a lover in his time. He’d seduced Claudia, the queen of the fairies. It had been her love that bound Dominic to Seth and kept him out of the Maleficium.
The guard stopped in front of the entrance and escorted us into the building. It was a large empty space but for the series of small square rooms that dotted the concrete floor. Guards were stationed here and there, and they had the look of well-seasoned military types.
The mayor wasn’t taking any chances with Regan. And she now had a facility to hold a small supernatural army. Not a comforting thought.
“She’s in the first one,” the guard said, gesturing us forward. The rooms were made of concrete, with a window and door on the front side. “You can go ahead.”
We walked toward the window, peered inside.
Regan sat at an aluminum table, and she’d exchanged her designer clothes for an orange jumpsuit. She moved nervously in her chair, kept nervously touching her hair. She might have been a badass in her element, but here she looked small and insecure.
I glanced at Seth.
He watched her, head angled, eyes wide, for a long moment. “There’s more of him in her than I’d have imagined,” he finally said.
“Is that good or bad?”
“I’m not certain.”
“All things considered, I don’t know if she’s capable of contrition. But maybe you can give her peace. Maybe you can ensure she doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
Seth nodded. There weren’t many times I’d seen him nervous. But here, facing the family he hadn’t known he had, he looked absolutely bewildered.
“You can do this,” I said. “And right now, I don’t think you even have to be good at it. You just have to be there.”
He squeezed my hand. “You are wise beyond your years, Ballerina.”
“Immortality tends to do that,” I murmured.
Seth blew out a breath, put a hand on the door, and walked inside.
Regan looked up as Seth walked in and sat down in the chair across from her.
“What’s going on in there?” the guard asked, moving closer to the door.
“A family reunion.”
Maybe a little family would do them both some good.
• • •
They talked for nearly an hour, which was all the time Jacobs could eke out of the mayor considering the multiple charges against Regan.
I stood by watching from the window with the guard until Seth’s hour was up and the guard knocked on the door again.
Seth squeezed Regan’s hand, rose, and came to the door.
When he stepped outside, his gaze found mine. There was a disconcertingly familiar intensity in his eyes that scared me to the bone. Had I made a mistake, bringing him here? Putting the two of them together?
“You’re all right?”
He nodded, and a smile blossomed. “I can’t thank you enough for this. For arranging this reunion after everything that’s happened.”
I hadn’t expected thanks, and it flustered me. “You’re welcome. It went okay?”
“It did,” he said, scratching his head nervously. “She’s got issues. Many of them involve Dominic; others, magic. But I think there’s a chance for her, Merit.”
I glanced back at Regan and thought about what Gabe had said at Lupercalia, there with Mallory in front of the totem before things had gone so wrong. About those brave enough to crawl back from their wrongs and try to make things better.
“The supernaturals in her menagerie were well cared for. She told me she thought of them as family. Maybe that’s what she needs now. Maybe she is capable of contrition; maybe she isn’t. But she’s yours, and you deserve the chance to help her try.”
“Oh, I intend to,” he said, and before I could respond, he pulled off his wig and the plastic that had covered his nose. He ran a hand through his dark hair, smiled at the guard.
The guard, whom Tate had finally managed to shake, swallowed hard. “You’re—you’re the mayor.”
“Former,” Seth said with a soft smile. “Now I’m just a man, and I believe you’ll find there are warrants out for my arrest. I’ve been avoiding my punishment. But I’ll take it now.”
The guard looked at him for a moment, then back at me, clearly unsure what to do. It couldn’t have been every day that she was faced with a felon who offered himself up to incarceration.
“It’s no trick,” Seth said. “I’m just finally—after too long—doing the right thing. I’d like to serve my time honorably.”
Another moment passed, but the guard relented. “All right, then,” she said, gesturing two more guards forward. While they watched Tate with weapons drawn, she cuffed his wrists with zip strips she’d pulled from a pouch on her belt.
“You have a right to talk to a lawyer,” she said, putting a hand on his arm.
“No need,” he said. “But you might want to call the mayor.”
When the guard gestured toward the second room, Seth looked back at me and smiled magnanimously.
“What are you doing?” I asked, still completely dumbfounded.
“Neither Dominic nor I protected her before. But if I’m here, I can protect her now. At least in some way.”
And he let the guard lead him away.
• • •
The House cafeteria was located in the back of the first floor, the large windows looking out over the beautiful grounds that surrounded the House. Snow still glistened magically there. It was between meals, so the cafeteria was empty but for the bustle of staff who worked to prepare the next round of meals for the vampires.
Ethan wasn’t yet done with Lakshmi, so I sat at a wooden table in a wooden chair beside one of the windows and stared out across the lawn at the banks of trees and hillocks of undisturbed snow. A rabbit darted into view, paused and looked around for predators, then dashed away to safety again.
At the sound of footsteps, I looked up. Ethan walked into the room, then over to a glass-doored cooler on the opposite wall. He grabbed two bottles of Blood4You, brought them to the table.
“You all right?” he asked, popping the tops on both and handing one to me.
“Having some quiet time. I don’t get that often.”
“No,” he agreed. “You do not. Seth?”
“Incarcerated,” I said. “Turned himself in so he’d be in prison with Regan.”
Ethan’s eyes widened. “He’s made quite a turnaround.”