Sam comes to a sudden stop. He’s still well within his wards, and I resist the urge to probe at them. There’s a weakness there, and I don’t want to alert him to the fact I know it.
“Help?” Sam asks.
“Yes, uh—” I glance at Spectra and Sparrow, then back at Sam again. “Can we come inside the wards?”
Anger darkens his features, and he crosses his arms over his chest. “No.”
“Okay. Well, look, something happened and—”
“We were attacked,” Spectra says. She’s not looking at Sam. Her eyes map out the curve of Sam’s wards, the way they stretch around the entire building. “You were, too.”
A muscle in Sam’s jaw twitches. “We were.”
“By who?” I ask and regret it when he turns that gaze on me. Why didn’t the Huntsman recruithim? He seems even less sociable than me.
“That fucking vampire who’s after Quinn.”
I frown. That doesn’t make sense. Augustine is an old vampire, sure, but not as old as even Njáll, and he wouldn’t be able to walk through these wards if Sam didn’t want him to. He doesn’t have magic. Iknow. I would have been able to sense it.
I stare up at the wards myself, focusing in on the hastily patched-up hole that I felt as we walked up. “May I?” I ask Sam, and he nods, some interest in his expression.
Of course he’s probably not met another vampire who can wield magic before. And I’d imagine my magic is not all that different to his; my fae blessing was given to me directly, but we both have one.
I don’t know that his can be removed, and I feel a stab of envy for that.
It’s easy enough to push that aside, to use my magic to dig around and see what I can feel. I’m not all that surprised at what I find. It’s the same magic that trapped me and Njáll, the same magic that obliterated the wards and Spectra’s bar.
“It’s the high fae,” I say, and she nods. She feels it too.
“Which one?” Sam asks. He isn’t standing any closer, and he hasn’t invited us inside the wards, but he seems a little less on edge.
“Not the Huntsman,” I say because I’m sure Sam knows of him. “Another. One who came through the veil not long ago.”
“One who’s already caused trouble for the Hunt?” Sam says sarcastically, eyes moving from me to Spectra and Sparrow, then back again. “I thought you all were supposed to be good at your jobs?”
No point fighting him on this; I need him more than he needs me, and he might not have realised that yet, but he soon will. “So did I.”
Sam stares at me again for a second before he turns on his heel and walks back into the building. Sparrow scowls after him. “He’s not going to help us.”
I open my mouth, but Spectra answers before I do. “Yes, he will,” she says. “They both will.”
“What makes you think that?” I ask.
She shrugs. “We keep track of what the wolves and vampires are up to, even if they don’t really think we’re real anymore. His pack is different, isn’t it?”
Considering it contains not only wolves but vampires, mages, and the odd human, I’d say yes. Spectra’s smile turns smug.
“They’ll help us,” she says, “and in return, I’ll help boost their wards.”
“Are you supposed to do that?” Sparrow asks, tone still a little mulish.
Spectra shrugs and looks at me. “I don’t know. Am I?”
The Huntsman would probably find some reason for her not to do it, and so could I if I thought about it hard enough, but… What’s the harm? Sam’s wards already keep the other wolves and vampires and hunters out. And it’s not like I think he andKieran will decide they need to take over the city or anything silly and use Spectra to do it.
“Do what you want,” I mutter, shoving my hands into my pockets. The door swings open again, and this time Kieran walks out first, though Sam is right on his heels. “But this is the safest place for you.”
“Hopefully,” Sparrow mutters, but I magnanimously elect to ignore them.
