Page 25

Everything felt so utterly amazing and strange.

I couldn’t believe how happy I was.

Maybe Iwasdrunk. After all, we still had tons of problems to deal with.

“Does everyone know?” I asked aloud. “About us? About what happened?”

I realized I was just standing there, looking out over the crowd of seers and humans. Black had woven his fingers into mine. He kissed my fingers after I spoke, watching the crowd with me, still pressing his body against mine. I watched him smile as he fingered the wedding ring he’d hand designed for me back in New York, the one that matched his.

“No,” he told me simply. “Not everyone. Only a few people.”

I nodded, still watching all of our friends.

I felt nothing but love for all of them, too.

Then I noticed Ace and Mika kissing near the pool.

“Jeez,” I said without thought. “About time.”

Black laughed. There was so much happiness in that laugh, I squeezed his hand tightly in mine, grinning up at him. He leaned down, kissing me on the cheek.

“Right?” he said. “Aboutfuckingtime, really. All of us have been telling Ace he’s a moron for months now.”

Black paused then, looking down at me with more serious eyes.

“As to your other question, I haven’t told most of our people. Not all of it. Some might not even know all of Charles’ seers have gone… but I told Jem and Yarli they could share that with whoever they wanted, in whatever way they wanted.”

He leaned down, kissing my neck, and more of his light and pain slid into mine.

I gripped his fingers tighter.

“…Most of the seers would have felt it, obviously. Even if they don’t know the details, they would feel the change in the Barrier. They’d feel the loss of those lights.”

He raised his voice slightly so I’d hear him over the increasing noise of the crowd. He also leaned closer so we wouldn’t be overheard.

“I haven’t told most of them about us,” he added. “About the dragon thing being gone. About you losing the ability to hop dimensions. The only ones who know about that are the inner circle folks. Dalejem, Nick, Yarli, Kiko, Jax, Cowboy, Angel, Manny. We were going to talk about the potential ramifications of making that whole thing public. Right now, it’s giving us some space… if only because the humans are more afraid of us than they are of regular seers. We were going to talk about whether we should use that. If it’s more of a help than a hindrance.”

“Does Brick know? The vampires?”

Black shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t tell them. I don’t know what they heard or figured out that night. It’s easy to forget sometimes… they don’t have seer’s sight. They wouldn’t notice changes in ouraleimi.And those structures were so high up, most seers wouldn’t see the difference, frankly. Brick might know, though. You know how he is.”

I nodded, feeling my jaw harden.

Black hesitated, then added, “I want to tell Dex. I was going to tonight… I decided to wait. It seemed better to not confuse things before we get a chance to talk about the rest of it. After all, a lot of his issue with me was the supernatural stuff.”

I frowned, remembering Dex wasn’t with us tonight.

Dex was still under guard in that suite upstairs.

After he tried to murder Nick, no one fully trusted him at the party.

The thought made me sad.

“Me too, doc,” Black murmured.

He stroked my bare arms under the sleeves of my dress.