Chapter 22 #2
I’d first met Heather as Callum’s assistant—a timid woman who could barely look me or anyone else in the eye.
But it had all been an act. In the end, she’d been responsible for betraying him to Blake, in exchange for the magic she’d been denied by her half-human ancestry.
And now she was back, clearly neck-deep in this plot to destabilize the city I called home.
Whatever she and Blake were up to, they’d taken it all the way to the human government, so this was obviously bigger than a few kidnapped teens and some inflammatory rhetoric.
I whirled to Angelica. “Can we establish a link between Heather and Greg?”
Her smile was a thing of pure evil. “If it exists, I’ll find it.
” She stood up, crossed the room to an empty desk, and pulled a computer out of a drawer.
“Heather left her laptop behind when she betrayed us the first time. She’d planted a program meant to wipe the drive when triggered remotely, but I’d already disconnected it from the network and gone through her files.
Nothing incriminating there, but her social network might be a different story. ”
I turned back to Callum as she went to work. “So where does this leave us? Assuming she finds the connection”—and I was certain she would—“how do all these pieces fit together?”
Callum glanced at Faris. “You want to tell her about Hector?”
My boss looked like he’d eaten something unpleasant.
“What about him?” I demanded, eyeing his expression with a growing sensation of dread.
“I released him,” Faris said, “in exchange for information. Remember when he let drop that little comment about being paid to strike back at the ones who’d shunned him?
We assumed he was talking about delivering your summons, but it turns out he was also paid to attack me, by a shifter woman he’s done regular business with.
One who—his words—smelled like a human.”
Blast it all anyway. Was there anything Blake didn’t have his hand in?
But how? How could Heather be in so many places in such a short time? How did Blake have this many connections, and how could he afford it?
“Where is he getting all his money?” We’d escaped the fae prison with nothing, but somehow Blake was now running a massive criminal enterprise, paying off assassins, and housing his army of magic-seeking humans.
“He’s selling magical artifacts.”
Everyone in the room turned to stare at Deverin in shock, and none of those stares were happy.
“You already knew?” Callum confronted his father, a hint of fury in his tone. “About the artifacts?”
Deverin’s pointed silence told us everything we needed to know.
“Did you also know what he can do with them?”
More silence.
“And does your human supervisor know?”
Deverin grimaced, and that was evidence enough for my heart to plummet like a lead brick. All of our efforts to hide the truth from humans, even Tairen’s willingness to sacrifice herself… useless.
“How long?” Callum growled. “How long has the Bureau been sitting on this information? I always knew they were worthless, but I also assumed it was humans running things. Now you’re saying you knew what Elayara was doing—what Blake is trying to repeat—and you did nothing?”
He shook his head incredulously. “You said you have connections in every enclave. So tell me why. Why didn’t you do anything about Elayara? Why did you allow what happened to her victims? If you knew so much, why didn’t you stop her from ruining so many lives?”
Deverin’s gaze softened, but he offered no apology, and his posture did not change.
“I didn’t know about Elayara,” he amended.
“Not until it was too late. Not until her remnants had already been dealt with. I knew she was a monster—everyone did—but not about the experiments. Later, we heard of a few seemingly magical objects surfacing, but I didn’t have any more information until I spoke with Tairen.
“She told me about the gem Elayara wore. About what it did. So, I went looking for answers and found listings of supposed magical artifacts. I bought some and realized they were the real thing, which was when I started down this trail—hunting for the one who was selling them.”
His eyes closed for a moment, and his lips pinched in what looked like regret. “You should also know that I have limited power to change the Bureau’s actions or policies. I have access to a lot of information, I can advise, and I’m in a position to influence, but that is all.”
And yet… It was a position he’d held for nearly forty years, and that had to be for a reason.
“If you’re helpless, why stay?” I asked quietly.
His expression smoothed over. “Does it matter?”
“It does.” If nothing else, it mattered to Callum, Ryker and Kira. Because no matter how much they shrugged it off and said this was just how things were, I knew they still wondered why he hadn’t been a part of their lives.
“I stayed,” he said roughly, “because I was the only one in a position to stand between Idrians and humans.”
We all absorbed that for a moment as we waited for him to continue.
“Decades ago, I foresaw a day when this peace between us would fracture, because it’s based on willful blindness.
We Idrians aren’t treated as citizens, we’re treated as refugees.
And we do nothing to change that. We huddle in our enclaves, we don’t even try to understand our human neighbors, and they return the favor.
And I knew that the moment our presence cost something the humans didn’t want to pay, they would turn on us. ”
He lifted his hands, palms up, in a gesture of helplessness. “I couldn’t abandon the trust I’d gained. Couldn’t take the risk that there would be no one to represent our people if the worst ever happened. No one who might know how to work towards peace. So… yes. Right or wrong, I stayed.”
He’d waited over forty years for a day when he could serve and protect his people. And that day, it seemed, was finally here.
Because now that I knew about Deverin, I was pretty sure I knew what Blake was after, and it was possible we were already too far behind to stop him.
“When is the march?” I asked abruptly.
“Thursday.”
That gave us two days to catch up. When Blake probably already had his people in place.
His contingency plans at the ready. He even controlled the Bureau, which meant he essentially had Tairen as a hostage—the only hostage who could potentially be used both to limit our actions, and to prevent any repercussions from within the government.
What he didn’t have?
A family.
Blake had a cult. People he controlled through promises of power or protection.
Which meant—I hoped—that we still had a chance.
But first, I was going to have to change the subject and hope no one decided I was crazy. “Faris, have you heard anything on your fae prisoners?”
He grunted an affirmative. “Turns out one of them is nephew to Lysarian Galavor, the leading contender for the throne. Pointy-eared bastard wants his nephew back, so he might be willing to negotiate.”
Lysarian Galavor… The fae who’d tried to kidnap Kira. We knew he was Elayara’s cousin, and I was certain I’d heard his name before this week. Add in the timing of the attack on Callum…
None of it was a coincidence.
I locked eyes with Faris. “Promise Lysarian we’ll return his people if he tells us who paid him to kill Callum.”
The room went dead silent. Shock seemed to hold everyone frozen in place until Callum shattered the tension with a question.
“Hunch or theory?” he asked steadily.
“I don’t know if it’s magic, but I do know it’s the truth.”
Faris eyed me with considerable skepticism. “You really think Lysarian will offer that much information for such a measly reward? Fae aren’t known for the strength of their family bonds.”
“If he refuses, tell him you’ll publicly announce that he betrayed his court by allying with the shifters. And you have proof.”
“And do we actually have proof?” Faris inquired, almost casually.
I turned to Callum. “Naga venom. What are the symptoms?”
He went still. “Hallucinations, coma, and a fifty-fifty chance of death for a non-shifter. For a shifter, if they survive, the venom attacks their shifting ability, leaving them helpless. Easy prey.”
“I think,” I told him softly, “that the assassin was using naga venom. It’s rare enough no one would guess, and deadly enough they’d have a solid shot at killing Rath, while also taking you out of the picture.”
Everyone else looked a little stunned, but I wasn’t finished.
“It honestly made no sense to me that either the Fae Court or the Shapeshifter Court would want Callum dead. The Fae Court has its own problems right now, and the last thing they’re going to want is a war with the shapeshifters.
Plus, none of the Shapeshifter Council members seemed that upset to find out the assassination attempt had failed.
So if it wasn’t them, who else benefits from Callum’s death? ”
I never would have made the connection without uncovering Heather’s involvement. Never would have realized how intricate Blake’s plan really was.
“Hector’s confession was the final piece of the puzzle.
He said he did regular business with Heather, which means Blake has used him before.
And Hector also mentioned he’s the last of his kind, so there is no other source for naga venom.
But why choose a dubiously effective poison if Rath was the only target?
” I shook my head. “No, the attack on Callum was deliberate, so if the Fae Court didn’t directly benefit from it, someone must have provided outside motivation for them to kill him… and I think that someone was Blake.”
I locked eyes with Callum. “I think it’s possible Blake and Lysarian had a past relationship of some kind. We know Lysarian is Elayara’s cousin, and Blake had the run of the facility back when we were her prisoners. They may have met while Elayara was still alive.”
Far-fetched? Maybe. But I knew I was right.
“And the beauty of it is, taking out both Callum and Rath at the same time would have ended up benefitting both Lysarian and Blake. It would have muddied the pool of possible suspects, and even if the truth about the poison came to light, the nature of it throws blame on the shapeshifters instead of the fae.”
Which was exactly what had almost happened. We’d tried to blame the shifters and nearly missed the truth. Not to mention, we’d all been thrown into a heightened state of worry and turmoil—exactly as Blake needed us to be.
The plan was brilliant. It was diabolical. And it might not have entirely failed.
But before we addressed what this would mean for our efforts to undermine Blake, I had just one question.
“Would someone please tell me there’s an antivenom?”
No one rushed to speak up.
“Tell me we can fix this,” I pleaded.
It was Callum, of all people, who reached out to me with comfort. Callum, who had just realized there was no antidote for the poison that might be killing him.
“Raine, we already knew there might not be an answer.”
“I can’t accept that,” I choked out. “I won’t.”
“And I won’t quit trying either,” he promised, threading his fingers through my hair and cradling my face gently.
“It hasn’t killed me yet. It’s possible that I can beat it, and if, in the end, all it takes is my magic, I’ll still have a lifetime with you.
And that’s enough. Raine, I swear to you—it’s enough. ”
His familiar amber eyes glimmered down at me, filled not with magic, but with certainty and love. He was telling the truth, so I shut my eyes, clasped his wrist, and fought to hold back the tears.
“Okay,” I whispered. “But if I ever see Hector Ademar again…”
I didn’t care how deadly or dangerous he was.
I was going to end him.