Page 108 of The Reveal
Ariel’s eyes gleam. “A vampire king cannot inherit the crown, they must fight for it. The life of a traditional vampire king involves endless challenges from hopefuls.”
“You didn’t want to be challenged?” Samuel asks. He makes it sound like Ariel is too cowardly for that, and I’m not the only one who frowns at him. I think I hear Ty growl. “Makes sense you’d take off.”
“It wouldn’t be fair to them,” Ariel corrects him, with a certain menace I can feel beneath my own skin. “I have lost one fight in my entire life, living or dead. So I decided that, instead, I would find myself a remote spot of no particular interest to anyone, and any young hopefuls who came my way I would train, not kill. Because I would have the opportunity to talk to them outside the din and nonsense of court.”
“Of course,” I breathe. “That’s why you have the school. And you were a Spartan.”
“I am always a Spartan,” he says, correcting me this time, but with far less menace. “Since those days, I have studied every martial art there is.” He tosses a scathing look Samuel’s way. “I don’t have to fight.”
“Don’t you know?” Savi asks quietly, and while she seems to be speaking to me, I think her real target is Samuel. “Ariel did not seek the crown. The previous vampire king challenged him and in such a way that he couldn’t refuse.”
“I decided that I’ll be the last vampire king,” Ariel says, and I feel the cards hum, suggesting that what he’s saying carries far more weight than is evident here in the yard in the growing dark. “In the hundred and fifty years since, I have had no serious challengers.”
I can’t be the only one who hears the threat in that. The promise.
“I was born here,” Augie drawls from behind me. “Less exciting, I know.”
The fact that he’shereand sounds likehimand is now sitting on the steps of the porch looking like I dreamed him here—healthy and normal and him—makes me want to break down and sob.
I don’t have time for that. I smile at him, but then I look back out at the raggedy group of people in my front yard. Well. Maybe they’re not all that raggedy, but this is a far cry from any other gathering that’s ever taken place here.
“I don’t think it’s coincidental that the ritual happened here.” I see Augie’s gaze sharpen when I say that, but he doesn’t ask questions. I’m sure he’ll save them for later. My brother, when not high, was always a master of timing. One of those childhood trauma gifts that keeps on giving. “I think that if the goddess wasn’t nearby, the ritual wouldn’t have been here either.”
“Agreed,” Ty says impatiently. “Got any ideas? Or are you all headaches and fainting spells?” I’m pretty sure he mutters something like “weak-ass human” under his breath to his buddies, who growl low in obvious approval.
Luckily, I don’t care if Ty Ceridwen thinks I’m weak. Compared to him, I am.
“I think she’s here,” I say, but I don’t think it. I know it. I see it, clear as day, in my head. “I think they stuck her at the bottom of the deepest lake around, and I think that’s why she keeps reaching out, stirring shit up. She knows exactly where to go when she gets out. She’s practically in the neighborhood.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Samuel says then, sounding annoyed. Like I’ve lost it completely.
But if I don’t care what the wolf who hauled me up the steepest part of McLoughlin thinks, Ireallydon’t care what Samuel the Human thinks, so much so that not caring about him isn’t even a revelation.
I can hardly remember who the version of me was that did care about him.
Tonight my gaze is on Ariel. He nods, either because he’s come to the same conclusion I have, or because he trusts me.
Either one is heady enough.
“She’s in Crater Lake,” I tell the gathering. “I’m sure of it. What we have to do is keep her there.”
25.
After my announcement, Ty, Ariel, and Savi all look at each other.
No one else speaks.
Beside me, Gran nods her approval. It feels less like my grandmother supporting me and more like the blessing of a powerful oracle, and I think I’ll hold on to that. It feels like validation when I would have said I had no need of any such thing.
As the powerful staredown continues, I have the urge to leap in and defend myself, or make further arguments, but I don’t.
There’s no need to oversell this. Iknowwhere Vinca is the same way I know where I am right now. I am absolutely certain. Beyond any possible doubt.
When the three-way stare ends, I can feel the air seem to shift in the yard. I stand straighter. Maybe we all do.
Savi is the one who speaks, likely because she can make anything sound like a welcome speech in a spa retreat.
“After the Reveal,” she begins, and though she sounds as serene as ever, I also think she sounds careful. Maybe “diplomatic” is the word I mean. “After the first wave of it was over and there was a settling—”
