Page 14 of What Fools These Immortals Be
“What’s it to be tonight, Maurice?” he asks, tone light. He closes the book and sets it aside, then huffs in amusement when he realises the library is, aside from us, now empty. “You always leave me in such silence.”
“It’s hardly my fault.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” I say and try not to fidget in my chair. The matter of the suspected fae is something I can—and will—deal with alone.
Njáll’s calendar is another matter altogether.
“Then what is it?”
“Do you have a phone?”
“A…” Bel smiles and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a device that looks like the one Njáll was holding earlier. “Yes, I have a phone.”
“Can you call Asher?”
“Asher?”
“The… He is watching over the alpha.”
“Alpha Deacon?” Bel frowns when I nod. “I don’t have numbers for any of them. I can probably email Alpha Deacon, or call the Hunters’ Council, but…”
I sigh. I will have to visit Vlad, I suppose, though I know I’ve been putting that off. “Thank you,” I say and get to my feet.
Bel nods as though he expected no less, and something about that makes me linger once I’m standing.
“Do you know,” I begin and hesitate.
“Do I know what?”
“Nj—The crai. He does not seem to be feeding often.”
Bel’s gaze softens in sympathy. “He was like Vasile,” he says, once he’s certain we’re alone. “He only seemed to have one donor at a time.”
I nod, understanding. “They died?”
“Njáll had sent her to the clan house to keep her safe.” Guilt creeps into his expression. “The night Tamesis came, we were sent back to the donors’ wing. Some of them knew that the door wouldn’t hold, so they took whatever would work as a weapon and said they’d hold them off. She was one of them.”
They all died, the ones who were out in the hall. The donor whose body Rook and Saide absconded with was amongst them. “Thank you for telling me.”
Bel only nods in response. I can’t ease his guilt. Only he knows the decision he made, and there’s no shame in having allowed the others to protect him. If he hadn’t, he’d be dead, too.
“See you tomorrow, Maurice,” he calls as I reach the door.
I toss him a smile over my shoulder. “Tomorrow,” I agree because of course we both know I will seek him out at some point.
Still, now it is time for me to leave the clan house. Only for a few hours, and I am careful to exit the building discreetly, so word is less likely to get back to the crai that I have left at all. Njáll is not likely to leave if he believes I am lurking around outside his bedroom door.
As if. I have other, more interesting things to do.
The London base for the Wild Hunt is in Kensington, in the same place it has always been, though this building, like the others around it, has never looked better. The other townhouses on this street have plaques out front declaring them to be the business addresses of accountants or solicitors or dentists, but this one is non-descript, though there is no magic upon it.
I lean against the iron railings and stare up at the door. Not a lick of magic, now that I reach for it. I suppose that would only draw attention. And if we cannot protect ourselves from a threat, what business do we have pretending to protect others?
Once I am certain I can put it off no longer, I drag myself up the steps and to the glossy black door. Vladimir will be here, I hope. Perhaps Asher will, too, though I would prefer not. Jeremiah? It depends where the Huntsman has sent him and Paxton; they have no need to be trailing wolf packs around anymore.
I rap on the door and then take a step back, pushing my hands into the pockets of my trousers. They’re too heavy for these summer nights, but I like the thick green fabric and the way they look on me.
