Chapter 7
SEVEN
Nadi had expected to walk into some grand hall. The venerated and sacred realm of the fae elders. To feel like she had finally, once and for all, come home. It wasn’t as though she had expected opulence. She knew quite well her people were still hurting, dwindling, and starving.
But she hadn’t expected a derelict building with a ceiling that was half-caved in.
Puddles on the floor revealed that it was actively leaking water from the cave structures overhead.
But it wasn’t just the fact that the building was in ill-repair that was the problem. She could have overlooked that.
It was the piles of garbage that joined the dried leaves, detritus, and chaff along the walls.
The room smelled vaguely of stale food waste.
Humans and a few rare fae sat hunched in corners, most clearly in various stages of drug highs, judging by the dark marks on their arms and the needles she saw strewn about on the ground in the flickering firelight.
It was a drug den.
The elders’ gathering place at the Grove had become a drug den.
“How… resplendent,” Raziel muttered under his breath from beside her.
“Shut up,” she bit back through her teeth. “This is the fault of your people.”
“Mmh.” It was clear he was holding back a laugh. “I see.”
Kalo shot a look at them over his shoulder.
It was clear he heard their exchange. But he had the good sense, or at least the tact, not to say anything.
He led them deeper into the building, through winding hallways and past room after room of soggy, moldering furniture or crates whose contents had long since wasted away into unrecognizable mush.
With each step her heart grew heavier. With each step she regretted coming here at all. To the Grove, yes. But now? To the Wild at all. She knew this was only the beginning of what she was going to learn.
The elders’ chamber should have been something wonderful, something at the base of the roots of the great, twisting, carefully maintained set of vines that had been grown into a careful pattern.
They should have met around a pool or a lake as black as glass.
It should have been a place of veneration.
Instead, the door that Kalo opened looked like it went to a rotted-out storeroom. Giant wine casks lined the walls. Most of them were in various states of collapse, and the ones that weren’t had clearly been emptied of their contents long ago.
A balcony lined the room around them, the rusty frame supporting a patchwork of grating. Standing on it were guards—mostly human, although some were fae. All were armed to the teeth with rifles, pistols, daggers, and probably more she couldn’t see.
None of them were pointed at them. Yet.
A large, circular, dingy table sat in the middle of the room. The planks of wood that made up its surface were long exposed to moisture and had split from their neighbors, the hard grain lifting and the rest sinking and growing soft.
Sitting alone, opposite the door at the table, was an old fae woman who Nadi presumed was Grandmother Ebiti. Her skin had the texture of tree bark, and her hair was white as bone, braided with beads. Her eyes were the deep green of old leaves. And they fixed instantly on Raziel beside her.
“So. The Serpent finally arrives.” Her voice was scratchy and raw, but hard.
Nadi tried not to feel slighted.
Raziel stayed silent for a moment before answering. “If you are unhappy at the speed of my arrival, bring it up with my escort, not I.”
The old woman leaned back in her thin-spoked wood chair. “Do you know who I am, vuampi?”
He shrugged. “I can only make assumptions. And you are assuming I care.”
“I am Grandmother Ebiti, keeper of the Eastern Routes, guardian of the Old Laws.” She leaned forward. “And I remember when that fi’ti Lilivra crawled out of her stone crypt, thinking herself mistress of the paiidi world.”
Raziel’s expression didn’t shift. “It seems she did not ‘think’ it, she ‘is’ it, if you are here, and she is there. But I do not think you brought me here to argue semantics, did you?”
“No.” Ebiti’s gaze flicked to Nadi. “And you. The last fae Iltani. Killer of her own kind.” She spat on the ground beside her. “I should kill you both where you stand.”
Well, that settled the question of if they knew.
The only other question was how. But she wasn’t in a position where she could ask and expect an answer to that.
The only thing she could expect an answer to was something far more obvious.
Something that Ebiti would likely tell them anyway.
“Then why are we still alive? What purpose do we serve?”
“War.” Ebiti grinned. Her teeth were all sharpened to points, yellowed and stained as they were. “War with those bastard bloodsuckers up above. They have gone too far. Taken too much. It is time for us to rise up and take back the surface.”
Nadi stared in shock.
Raziel burst out in laughter. “You must be kidding! You want to go to war? With the vampires? You will all be slaughtered! A paltry pack of humans and a few fae with… what? Guns? Against them? Against Mael, Lana, all the power the Nostroms have amassed, and now the Rosovs as well? You will be wiped out of existence!”
Wait.
Wasn’t that their plan?
To do exactly that?
What the fuck was he suddenly playing at?
She kept silent.
“Not with you.” Ebiti grimaced. “You know them.” She pointed a gnarled finger at him. “You can tell us where to pick them apart. Find their weaknesses. Tell us how to dismantle them from the inside.”
“And why in the name of the void would I do that? To save my own skin?” Raziel huffed a laugh. “I have no reason to trust you. The moment I told you what you needed to know, I’d be as good as dead. We both would be.”
Ah. Now it was clicking into place.
His enemy wanted the same thing he did. So now he had to pretend he didn’t want it. He had to be coy. Switch his seeming motivation to something else. So that his opponent had to give up ground for things he was going to ask for anyway.
It was painfully clever. And Nadi hated him for it.
Moreover, she hated that it was her own people being played because of it. The world would be so much better if they could all have just sat down and agreed that they all wanted the Nostroms dead and the vampires overthrown, so why not all just play nice and work together…
But she didn’t trust Ebiti either.
Because the fae had no reason to trust them.
“What do you want, vuampi? What are your goals? Do you want your siblings dead? Do you want to rule the metropolis?” Ebiti gestured a hand vaguely up at the surface.
“I do.” Raziel didn’t bother to lie at least.
“And what about you, little traitor? What do you want in all this?” Ebiti glared at her hard enough that Nadi had to fight to keep from taking a step back reflexively.
“I started off with the intent to kill the Nostroms.” She jerked her head toward Raziel.
“That got complicated. I’ll settle for making sure the other two, and Lilivra, suffer.
After that?” There wasn’t any point in denying her confusion over the situation either, she supposed. “I honestly have no clue anymore.”
Ebiti looked off, the disgust and hardness fading off her face, just slightly. Perhaps their honesty was enough. “We work together to end them. We will have guns on you at all times. You step out of line? You’re dead. You understand?”
“And what do we get out of this? What do we receive when we succeed?” Raziel kept his low opinion of the situation very clear. And exactly who he meant by “we.” And it didn’t include the fae that surrounded them.
Ebiti stared at them for a long moment of silence. “We work it out when the time comes.”
The meaning was clear.
They weren’t meant to survive.
Ebiti would see to it personally. Once Mael, Lana, and Lilivra were confirmed dead? The fae would turn on them instantly. They likely already had their orders.
Raziel grinned wide, flashing his dangerous fangs. “I agree. Why bother arguing about who will rule, when it is likely we will all fail and die horribly in the process? Nadi, you never told me your people were so wise.”
Nadi fought the urge to scream. Or to simply turn and leave the room. Or both.
If she had a gun, she’d probably shoot him. Or Ebiti. Or both.
If she had a knife, she’d probably stab him. Or herself. Or both.
She was very glad she wasn’t armed.
So she just stood there and shut her eyes and took a deep breath before letting it out slowly.
“Are we agreed?” It was clear Ebiti didn’t enjoy being openly mocked.
“What’s the play, then? It seems you have the desire to form a plan.” Raziel huffed a laugh. “I am not here to volunteer myself to stroll into the line of fire on your behalf.”
“But you came here for our help, didn’t you?” Ebiti smirked. “You need us, Serpent. Much more than we need you. You need manpower to overthrow your siblings. And we need your insight. So let us agree to work together, until the moment comes that it no longer benefits either of us.”
That was progress. Nadi wasn’t sure how she felt being left out of the conversation as much as she was, but there was little to be done about that. The issue with the Nostrom vampire standing in the room was far too large to ignore.
Raziel looked off thoughtfully. “What would you propose our first step would be?”
“And this is why she is still alive.” Ebiti spat on the ground beside her again. “The traitor still has a way she can serve her people. The Iltani clan must join the fold.” She huffed a sardonic laugh. “What remains of it.”
Nadi winced. “I know they’re at the dockyards.” Kalo had said as much.
“And that is where you will go. With him.” Ebiti gestured at Raziel dismissively. “To get them in line. To get them to agree to stand with the rest of us when we move against the vuampi. You are the last fae of that clan.”
“That doesn’t mean they’ll listen to me.” Nadi smiled sadly. “I doubt our old laws mean much to them. And why would they?” She gestured aimlessly at the room around them. “We’ve all fallen a long way, it seems.”
Ebiti’s lip curled in anger at the insult. “I trust you’ll manage.”
Letting out a long sigh, Nadi debated her choices. What choices? There wasn’t one. If she refused, they’d riddle them both full of bullets right where they stood. No, the only way forward was… to go to the dockyards. To see if she could convince what remained of her people to fight with them.
Fuck.
It wasn’t that she didn’t know this whole thing was going to get messy—it just hadn’t really sunk in how messy it was really going to be.
But here she was. Throwing up her hands, she took the only option in front of her.
Death had long since been ruled out as the coward’s choice. She was too far in to stop now. “Fine.”
“Good.” Ebiti gestured at Raziel. “Kalo. Keep a gun on you, in case you need to put the rabid dog down. But you can free him now.”
Kalo fished a key out of his pocket and moved to unlock Raziel’s wrists.
The vampire smiled. Just a little too wide. “No need.”
And with that, he exploded into a swarm of bats. Nadi ducked as black, fluttering wings filled her vision. Screeching joined the sounds of screams as the humans and few fae in the room panicked at the sudden presence of hundreds upon hundreds of bats in the enclosed space.
Claws and leathery wings smacked against her. One of the guards on the second level fired off his rifle once, twice, in his terror.
“Bal’ta! Hold your fire!” Ebiti shouted over the fray. It did little good to quell the fear.
Just as quickly as the bats had arrived, they disappeared. Nadi watched as they coalesced back into Raziel, standing right where he had been a moment before. She had never seen it happen. It was fascinating, she had to admit. He adjusted his coat, and ran a hand through his hair.
The chains were at his feet, still linked together by the padlock they had used to bind him. He was still smiling, calmly and proudly, at Ebiti.
All the guns were pointed at him now, but it didn’t matter. And they all knew it.
His point had been made.
“So.” He tucked his hands casually into his pockets. “When do we leave?”