Page 95 of What Fools These Immortals Be
“You need our help.”
“I can’t have it.”
“You—”
“Grant,” Vlad says, somewhere behind me, and I don’t turn to look.
If anything, Grant looks more stubborn than he did before. I don’t envy what Vlad has to deal with after I leave. But then, it is his own fault. He chose to turn Grant, after all.
“Do you at least have your phone?” Grant says.
I dig it out of my pocket, scowling when he snatches it out of my hand. “Hey!”
“I’m just making sure it’s charged and you still have all our numbers,” he says, and I can’t see what he’s doing, but he’s pressing a bunch of different things on the screen. “You’ve got me, Vlad, Asher, Paxton…”
I snort. “No Jeremiah?”
Grant levels me with a stern look. “He’s literally worse with a phone than you are.”
I want to laugh, but I don’t because I am going to miss them all, aren’t I? Vlad knows the same thing I do—I’m not going to call them. Even if I end up in mortal peril, I won’t call because the Huntsman told me not to, and I have no doubt what the next step after removing my fae blessing will be.
I accept my phone when Grant hands it back and put it in my pocket again. Maybe he’ll send me messages still. Is Grant even technically part of the Hunt? I’ve never asked and now doesn’t seem like the time.
“Be careful,” Grant says, and I reach out and mess up his hair before I can think twice about it. He squawks in annoyance. I laugh. Vlad is still a looming presence somewhere behind me, but I don’t want to look back at him.
“I’ll be fine,” I reply. “I’ve always done just fine on my own.”
Grant’s gaze sharpens at that, but he doesn’t say anything else, and when I gesture at the door again, he finally slips aside.
“Maurice,” Vlad says as my hand lands on the doorknob.
“Yes?”
I’m angry with him, even though I know I shouldn’t be. He could havewarnedme that the Huntsman was here. He could have argued for me.
But he has Grant. Losing my magic hurts, but it is not aperson, and I don’t think Vlad was lying—they’re not lovers—but the connection between them must be something profound for Vlad to have turned him. He follows the rules. Always.
“I am sorry,” he says, and he means it, I know.
“Yeah.” I glance back, once. He doesn’t look upset. Doesn’t mean he can’t feel it. I know him better than that, for the little I know him at all. “So am I.”
I leave the house before I hear his answer and walk out towards the road. All right, so I am no longer a member of the Wild Hunt. I can survive that. There are plenty of places I can still stay—I have my own money, and I have my own wits.
But Njáll… I want to find him. I’ll join the clan but only if he’s the head of it.
The clan might help, but I’m sure they have no better idea where he is than I do. In fact, even less of one because they probably know nothing of the attack on Spectra’s bar.
I find myself heading in the direction of the clan anyway before I can talk myself out of it. It will be a useful base, should they let me in, and I know where I need to go after.
The guards eye me warily before they let me into the building, and I head straight in the direction of Njáll’s office. I know he won’t be there, but it’s still disappointing to open the door and find the room empty, strangely cold despite the fact that summer days are warm and there still should be some heat trapped here.
“You don’t know where he is?” someone asks, and I turn to see Afsaneh standing in the doorway.
She, like Grant, looks as though she has not slept recently at all.
“No.”
“Are you going to find him?”
