“Oh, Rafael, it is so good to hear your voice!” Nicolai exclaimed, raising his hands as if he were praying to the sky. “Please tell us you got out of Manchester safely?”
“I did,” Rafael replied. “We have coaches headed your way now. I got as many Daemons and allies out as possible, and sent a message to my trusted colleagues across the counties to sendall Daemons in their areas to you. I hope you’ve got enough room, Xander. There’s a lot of families with me.”
“We will make room,” Xander firmly said. “Anyone who needs sanctuary is welcome here.”
“Good, they’re going to need it.”
Xander breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of distant laughter coming through the line. He knew Rafael would never have left Manchester until he’d gathered as many Daemonium families and anyone else at risk, so it wasn’t a surprise that he was clearly sitting in a coach full of escapees rather than in his own vehicle.
Rafael was a rare breed of politician, the kind who genuinely saw leadership not as a platform for glory, but as a heavy mantle of responsibility that he carried with pride. He commanded respect without ever needing to raise his voice, much like Katie had, and he valued those who supported him. In a nation rife with self-serving figures and the looming threat of civil war, Rafael wasn’t just vital for the future of the country, but for all of Daemonium.
“The country will fall under the Liberators’ control, there is no doubt about it,” Rafael continued. “None of us knew the extent to which Rook’s numbers had progressed. He has an army, what remains of the government, and he has the public too terrified to disobey his dictatorship. Plus, we are severely outnumbered. So, I will ask the World Court again to send aid and help us take back our country, but we can’t count on their support. We all know what happened to America, they will see this as exactly the same.”
“I can help you,” Kadeem spoke up. “I’ve made fairly strong relationships with many of the mortal leaders and the Daemons that assist their governments. I can help plead our case. Even if it is just sanctuary they offer, it’s better than nothing.”
Xander nodded as Rafael’s voice crackled out the radio again. “Very well. I need to contact my colleagues from Parliament, check in to make sure they got out of the cities safely, too. I think we will be arriving with you by early morning, we’re hoping to pick some more people up along the way. You can update me on anything else tomorrow.”
“Be safe,” Xander said, just before the radio cut out.
“Manchester has the largest Daemon population in any city across the country,” Adriana quietly said. “It’s one of the reasons we moved there, it’s easy to blend in when a huge portion of the community are Daemons. There will be others who need help, Rafael won’t have been able to get them all out.”
Cassandra nodded in agreement. “I suspect Daemons living in smaller towns will be able to go into hiding, but we need to reach any others from the biggest cities before the Liberators reach their full reign. I can use my power to try to find them.”
“I’ll help,” Nicolai offered. “I can portal us there and back, it’ll be much quicker and safer for them than risking the roads.”
Cassandra didn’t reply, she just let her gaze linger on Nicolai’s smile a little longer before she turned back to the table, her face flushed.
Xander raised his eyebrows at them, noticing the smirk Adriana tried to hide, but agreed. “Thank you, Cassandra. Your Vanticini gifts would be a huge help to us all.”
“We still need to think about the other threat,” Deion said. “We can’t forget Caligo’s Umbranimae. We need to know how to defeat them.”
“You can’t,” Adriana responded, her hands fidgeting under the table. “Only Xander and I can destroy them.”
The smell of the blood under Adriana’s nails reached Xander before he saw Cassandra place a hand on top of hers, forcing her to stop nervously picking and scratching herself. He listened to her thoughts, sensing her worries about using her Luciferuslight after Lilith had used it against her. But he’d seen what she’d done, he’d seen the true power of her magic and the promise it held.
“Excuse me,” Dylan quietly said, his hand politely raised.
Xander struggled to mask his surprise at Dylan speaking up. He was a nervous boy at only nineteen years old, far too young to sit on the Court, but the only living descendant from Rhys after his family were wiped out several months ago by a Liberator attack. Dylan had been the one to find them. He’d returned home to find his house burnt to ashes, his family merely charred corpses, and his father hanging from a tree. His body had been mutilated, the flesh of his chest carved to represent a flaming willow tree, the mark of the Liberators.
Ade had taken him in immediately, and expressed his concern to Niamh and Xander over recruiting him to sit on the Court, offering to leave the seat empty. But Dylan had signed his name the next day, declared himself a leader of the Lupus Court, and stepped up to his role with efficiency. Xander was truly in awe of him. To lose so much in such a short space of time and still be able to neglect all hatred and anger—especially at the age of nineteen—was astounding.
“I know we can’t destroy them ourselves, but maybe we can learn to hold them off,” Dylan continued, as he turned to the Lamia Court leaders. “We fought them yesterday in London, when their shadows were controlled. You guys were much better at it then we were, though.”
Ade nodded in agreement with him. “We didn’t fight them well, but we could if you trained us properly. If we learnt how to fight shadows, we could fight the Umbranimae.”
“We could train all the Lupi,” Niamh said. “There’s already dozens of families outside, and there will be far more joining soon.”
Deion gave her a smile of encouragement. “We can train everyone, I’ll help you.”
They continued to discuss their plans for training, pitching ideas of Adriana and Xander creating impressions of Umbranimae with their shadows to teach the Daemons. It wouldn’t be the same, but it would give them some sort of understanding to know what to expect. The Courts had moved away from combat training ever since the formation of the World Court, instead focusing on the political aspects of their roles. But now, with the country on the brink of collapse, war was inevitably coming. They needed to fight the old way.
Xander noticed Adriana remained quiet, only nodding along if anyone asked her a question and offering small smiles to anyone who spoke to her, but she wasn’t listening, not really. As his Manipuli power reached out, he felt the wounds within mind. She was strong, but she was still healing from Lilith’s control, from everything.
She had spent so long ignoring her feelings, so long ignoring the dark thoughts in her head, and now she had been made to face it all over the last few days. Everything that she felt for Xander, everything she felt about herself, everything she had been through in her previous and current life. It exhausted her, understandably, and she was so tired of it all.
I know the feeling, Xander spoke in her mind.
She drifted her gaze up to find him watching her, her eyes widening slightly. He knew she didn’t want anyone to know how she felt, she’d always preferred to keep her real thoughts and feelings to herself.
