Page 21

The next morning, I sat at breakfast with Rebecca, pouring over a map of the city through one of her tablets, as she called it.

“There are hundreds of warehouses in the city,” Rebecca began, tapping on something that made red dots appear all over the map. “Where did Zane say that it was?”

I sipped from my tea cup and sighed, “It’s the demon, not Zane. I’m not sure Zane even knows what’s going on though, if Gage caught me last night, I’m sure he will be more than delighted to let Zane know all the horrors I’d been doing.”

Rebecca peered up at me silently.

I sniffed and glanced away. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s not like I took advantage of him. I’m simply using what’s at my disposal.”

Rebecca arched her brow.

I sat my cup down with a loud clunk and huffed. “Fine, yes, I feel guilty about using Zane to get to his demon. But I didn’t have much of a choice. Adam wouldn’t listen to me, and the rest of them all do whatever it is Adam does.”

“I’m not judging.” Rebecca held her hands up in defense. “I’ve done all that and more to get where I am today, sitting in front of you.”

Rubbing between my brows, I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. My insides were all mixed up. The old me wouldn’t have thought twice about using Zane to get information. The sweet innocent Eva would have balked at it. Since I was now somewhere in between, I did what I had to do, but it came along with a heavy dose of guilt.

Breathing in deeply, I blew it out and turned back to the map. “He didn’t say which warehouse, only that it was on the outskirts of town.”

“Alright.” Rebecca pressed something, and the red dots disappeared so only those around the city were visible. “I’m assuming it won’t be so easy as to find the warehouse owned by Cleric Jetta?”

“I doubt it. He will likely use an alias to cover his tracks with human experimentation being illegal. He wouldn’t want it tracked back to him.”

My mind drew up the image of the Cleric from the last time I’d seen him. Back then, I was just scared, memoryless Eva, cowering before the mage council like they had my life in the palm of their hands. Cleric Jetta had looked at me like he wanted to know what I looked like on the inside. I wasn’t a person to him. I was something to cut apart and put back together as he saw fit.

No doubt he had many humans locked up in his warehouse of horrors.

“Well, I’ll gather the list of warehouses and have my people do a deep dive into who owns which. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to find the bastard.”

My ears peaked at her words. “Your people? You keep mentioning having people. Are these rebels, mages, humans? Can you trust them?”

Rebecca stood as the doorbell rang somewhere in the house. “A combination of the three. Some are rebels, some are just sympathetic to our cause. Many of them want to see the world become better, not worse, and know you are the only way to do it.”

“So they know about me?” I wasn’t so sure that was a good thing. The more people who knew about me, the more likely someone would find where I was hiding and try to stop me.

“Yes, but only the minimum amount of information. Hold on.” She rushed off in a flurry of skirts toward the increasingly obnoxious ringing of a bell.

My fingernail tapped on the glass table while I waited for her to return. If these rebels or sympathizers knew about me, maybe it was time to meet who was working with me? If I planned to take the ruling position here in Neo New York, I should know my people and what they wanted, right?

I ignored the nagging part of me asking if I even wanted to rule. The aspect of ruling over everyone seemed taxing, and I’d been fighting for so long. I just wanted revenge for my mother and freedom for the humans. Did that mean that I had to be queen or whatever the equivalent it would be now?

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to think about it. Rebecca approached with four familiar figures behind her. I shoved to my feet, the tea sloshing over the sides of its cup at my sudden movement. My hands flexed by my sides, unsure if I would be attacked or not by the visitors.

“What are you doing here?” I tried to keep my voice neutral as I surveyed Luke, Blake, and Zane. Hidden behind the three of them was a surprising person, Sentinel Nickolai. The young dark-haired mage kept his expression unreadable as he lingered behind the other three.

Rebecca took her place by my side, clearly drawing a line between us and them. “They claim they’re here to talk, and that’s it. They wouldn’t tell me how they found you.”

I nodded, lacing my fingers in front of me to calm the jitters in my hands. “So? How did you find me?”

Luke gave a sheepish grin. His hand dashed through his messy mop of white hair. “Uh... Gage put a tracker on you last night.”

My brows furrowed. “A tracker?” I swept my magic over myself, finding no trace of a magical tracking device.

“An electronic one,” Blake clarified, his furry little sidekick nowhere to be seen today. It didn’t bode well for how this meeting was going to go.

At my puzzled expression, Rebecca huffed. “I’ll be right back.” She hustled out of the room, tossing me a wary look over her shoulder.

I let my gaze move over them, not having seen any of them since the time we had been intimate. The twins didn’t seem any worse for wear. If anything, they were standing stronger than ever. A small part of me hoped it was my doing.

When my gaze bounced over Zane, I swallowed thickly. I couldn’t meet his piercing hazel eyes behind his eye wear. I had the urge to wrap my arms around my waist and hug myself but, with the council member present, I couldn’t show weakness. “What do you want?”

It was Zane who spoke this time. His voice soft, like a caress against the side of my face. “Gage wanted to come himself, but we convinced him not to.”

“Why?” I finally forced myself to look the Cleric in the eyes. The judgement and accusation I thought I would see in those eyes was nowhere to be found. They crinkled slightly at the edges, his lips lifting on one side.

“We had a better idea. One that Adam and Gage don’t necessarily agree with.” Zane stepped up to the table, a hand on the back of a chair. “May we?”

I shrugged, settling back in my own chair. I swiped my napkin across the table, cleaning up the spilled tea from before. “I’d offer you some tea, but I’m not sure you would take it.” My eyes were on the council member and not on the three men who had touched and claimed my body not too long ago.

Sentinel Nickolai smiled, tilting his head slightly like a cat might do. “You don’t seem the type to poison someone to get what you wanted.”

Once again, I shrugged. “I’m not a hundred percent sure what’s off the table at the moment. I’m having to rely on more aggressive measures to get events moving the way I want them to.”

The council member inclined his head, a solemn look on his face. “That’s what I’m here about.”

This time, I let my lips spread into a wide grin, mischief filled my face. “Do you wish to be the next of my victims, council member? I never thought one of you would come to me for a house call. I thought I’d have to chase you all down like strays.”

Nickolai laughed. “No, no. I’m not here to fight you. I... we...” He gave a pointed look at the twins and Zane. “We agree with you. While Arch Mage Adam has good intentions, he’s an idealist. He thinks that we can just talk it out and reach a willing compromise. Push this bill here, pass this proposal there, and get what we all want.”

“And what is that?” My gaze stared at him from over my tea cup lip. “What do we want?”

“The humans freed, of course.”

I studied the council member for a moment. Nickolai had been the one voice of reason among the four other members. He’d been the one who spat on Cleric Jetta when he talked about his experiments. Something inside of me told me I could trust him.

My eyes wandered to the twins for a moment, watching them for any sign that what the mage before me said was false. Blake only stared at the table, while Luke gave me an encouraging thumbs up. I resisted the urge to smile back at him, when I searched out Zane’s gaze.

I needed to talk to him. Not just about this, but about what Gage had surely told him I was doing with his demon. Zane pulled his long red braid over his shoulder and inclined his head toward me as if to say it's my choice.

Nice to know someone thought I got one.

Clearing my throat, I focused my attention back on the council member. “Alright, Nickolai, tell me what you think I should do?”