“I also told him I’d support another alpha taking over his territory if he didn’t start playing by my rules.”
Surprise flashed through his eyes.“You do have a death wish then.”
“I don’t,” I replied.“I also don’t want to endanger anyone else.If I’d taken someone with me, it would have looked like a threat.Lehr doesn’t find anything threatening about a single human.”
“Yet you continue to test his patience.You should not have gone.”
“Lehr needs to see me as someone with authority, not someone who’s too weak or too scared to stand on her own.”
“So you make yourself prey.Brilliant.”
I grabbed the two tiny remaining stacks of paper.Held them up.“For this to happen, I have to stand on my own.I have to face the threats.”
His mouth opened.He closed it without speaking and just stared at me.I held his gaze, hoping my words got through to him.Over time, we’d gone from conflict to cooperation.I definitely preferred the latter relationship.
He huffed out a breath.“Why are you telling me this?”
“To apologize.And to set an expectation for the future.Sometimes I’m going to do things you disagree with.I’ll do some things that aren’t safe.”
“You setthatexpectation months ago.”
I smiled.“Then my leaving shouldn’t have been a surprise.”
His lips tightened into a sour twist.
“We were watching your windows and the lobby,” he admitted.“How did you get past us?”
I leaned back against the couch cushions, the knot in my stomach loosening some.“I’m keeping a few secrets still.”
He snorted.“Of course you are.”
We decided Sullens would start calling references while I reached out to Jenny, the alpha of the Cincinnati pack whom I’d met when Blake and I drove there in search of Astrid.I’d also get in touch with Deagan, assuming he was alive and well.I hadn’t seen him since his dark house.Jared hadn’t called for an update though, so I assumed Deagan was with him.
I’d considered consulting with Jared directly, but I trusted Deagan more than him.Deagan owed me, and I had a feeling he’d share his opinions much more openly than his master.He’d written meticulous notes on the paranorms he’d encountered during his long life.I’d bet he had hundreds of other names floating around in his head too.
I picked up my phone to call him but didn’t tap on his name.I looked toward my bedroom—myoldbedroom.I hadn’t yet had a chance to sit down and go through Deagan’s dossier more thoroughly.I should start there.In addition to possibly having entries on some of the individuals in the emails, he might have information on Canyon, on Lehr, or on any number of other paranorms I should know.
I set my phone aside, then walked down the short hallway to the almost-empty bedroom.Melissa, Astrid, and their helpers had stacked a few boxes in the corner.I spotted Mom’s jewelry box on top of one of them, and a wave of trepidation rolled through my stomach.
Was nulling the token the right thing to do?If it hurt Garion, I didn’t know how I’d deal with it.If it didn’t work at all, I didn’t know how I’d deal with Canyon.Murder?Despite everything I’d been through and all that I’d done, that felt like the wrong choice.Some not-so-small part of me believed I should be able to work something out with the fey king.I just needed to understand him first.Find some common ground.
But that had always been one of my weaknesses, believing I could reason with unreasonable people.That’s why I’d risked helping the unsanctioned years ago.I’d figured if I was caught, I could show Lehr and Arcuro, show my parents, that helping the paranorms hadn’t hurt anything or anyone, that I’d already done it so many times without negative consequences.I thought they’dunderstand.
I’d been so incredibly naive.But not anymore.Now I knew human logic and compassion wouldn’t convince the paranorms to change their ways.I had to stand on my own.Take action without their support.
Feeling slightly more confident, I knelt beneath the bedroom window.The carpet looked the same there as it did everywhere else, but I’d already pulled it up once today when I’d smuggled Deagan’s dossier upstairs.I’d created the perfect hidey-hole underneath it after Jasmine was murdered outside my door.She’d left behind a bloodstain I couldn’t scrub away.I’d pulled up the hall carpet and found hardwood floors beneath it.Nice hardwood floors that only needed a little sanding and restaining to be a huge improvement over the old carpet.
Then I’d come to my room, pulled up a corner to confirm it, too, had hardwood floors.Prying up a few boards had seemed perfectly logical because I’d wanted a secure place to store the treaty.Yes, I’d later realized storing things in The Rain’s safe was probably, er, safer, but ever since Shelli pretended to be my mom and texted me the safe’s combination, I couldn’t bring myself to use it.
I grabbed the heavy journal from the hole, leaving behind Garion’s token, which I’d placed in a small box.I’d return for it in a few hours.Then, at midnight, I’d learn if the spell was the solution to both my problems and Garion’s.
Less than an hour later, I sat on the couch and tried to rub away a headache.My brain had blocked out the memory of how difficult the dossier was to read.Deagan’s handwriting shrank over time, probably because he realized how many encounters he’d record and how verbose he was.
I was supposed to be looking for the paranorms Sullens and I had sorted into themaybepile, but almost immediately I found myself searching for other names.I’d found an additional entry for Satine.It was from a few years before she killed the other Heir and was written almost entirely in French.I’d grabbed my phone to translate it, but when the first paragraph ended up recounting a night Deagan had spent with her in far too much detail, I moved along.
I didn’t find anything on Garion or djinn, nothing on specific spells, and hardly any mention of witches, who were almost always dismissed as insignificant unless they were in a strong coven.Eventually, I did stumble over a few entries on fey, none of whom I’d heard of before, but I might want to come back to them in the future.
That’s when I realized I’d have to flip through the book all over again if I didn’t come up with a way to track the names and their pages.Would Deagan freak out if I highlighted the names?This was an ancient text, historical enough to be in a museum if it hadn’t revealed the existence of the paranormal world.It felt wrong to mark up the pages.
