“It’s late. I’m busy. Tell him I just want to talk to him and I won’t have to go run and tell the Vipers to come shut your shit down.”
His jaw clenched even harder and he ground his teeth as he thought about what I’d said. Apparently deciding I wasn’t bluffing, he finally stepped aside and spoke to a tiny woman nearby without taking his eyes off of me.
“Get Wolf,” he growled.
Shaking like a bird, she sprinted off toward the stairs in the back of the room.
“Was that so hard?” I asked, crossing my arms and raising a brow.
“Watch your words, little miss,” he warned, stepping closer to me so I could smell the sharp scent of alcohol on his breath. “You’d be wise to remember there’s no love lost for you down here.”
I leaned away from him, shaking my head and making a show of just how unimpressed I was by his threat.
“Somewhere I can wait?” I asked instead, eyeing the various tables and chairs scattered around the room as if to give the appearance that this was actually some sort of reputable establishment.
“Pick a seat,” he snarled and then stormed away.
I headed to a corner near the front, closest to the door in case they actually did decide to take their chances and turn on me. I couldn’t be too sure about these people. They didn’t seem to strike without a plan, and certainly not at a known First Ringer, but they had bombed a trial and killed a handful of innocent witnesses just a few days ago. I couldn’t afford to underestimate them again.
He appeared at the base of the stairs moments later. Here in the light it was easier to make out his features. He was still tall and thin with clothes that seemed to be two sizes too big. He wore a leather coat that made an effort to bulk up his shoulders but was wrinkled so badly it gave him the appearance of having been crumpled and tossed aside. He had a long nose and a scar running down the left side of his chin. His eyes were dark, almost black, and his lips were thin and dry. Overall, he definitely wasn’t the most attractive man I’d ever seen. A hard life had withered him away so completely I couldn’t quite tell how old he was. If I had to guess, I’d say mid-thirties, but he looked older than that.
“I hope you aren’t here to waste my time,” he grumbled as he pulled out the chair across from me and sat.
“Very busy in the dead of night, are you?” I snapped back, lifting a brow.
He watched me for a moment, just glaring.
“Are you sleeping well with the blood of innocents on your hands?” I asked, unable to help myself. The way he was justsitting here, watching me, talking with me, as if we didn’t both know he’d organized a horrible crime less than forty eight hours ago, was vexing.
“Are you?”
“I didn’t–”
“Kill anyone? Not directly, no, but what do you think starving us eventually leads to?”
“I’m not here to discuss politics. I’m here to issue a warning. You don’t want to face the gathered might of the First Ring Houses.”
“You don’t have the gathered might of the First Ring Houses.”
I frowned as he leaned back in his chair and eyed me shrewdly.
“You put one of your own on trial,” he reminded me. “You’ve been at each other’s throats for months, looking for a reason to go to war with one another.”
“I imagine we’d put aside our differences for this,” I warned, glaring right back. “In fact, you might have given us cause for unification. Thank you for that.”
Anger flared through his dark eyes and he sat up, rigid.
“The Patriarch of one of your Houses beheaded a boy in front of three dozen witnesses and got away with it,” he growled.
“Because of you,” I barked, pointing at him. “Because you bombed his fucking trial.”
“He never would have gotten sentenced to anything more than a slap on the wrist and you know it. Meanwhile, that mother lost both of her sons and took her own life because of it.”
I reeled back, stunned.
“You didn’t know that, did you?” he snarled, lip curling as he leaned toward me. “Your kind ruins lives without a second thought. Cosmo doesn’t want us to worship the gods. He wants us to worshiphimand I’ll be damned if I get on my knees for a child murderer.”
“We are not Cosmo,” I argued, trying to return to the argument, trying to set aside the images of that woman weeping in a puddle of her own son’s blood, of Harrison at her side, just as angry as the others, of leaving that meat on her doorstep and thinking it would matter to her at all after what she’d lost. Maybe I was ignorant. Maybe I was foolish and didn’t have any answers either. Maybe I didn’t know how to heal the rift that had torn this city apart for millenia. But I knew someone who might. “Milo was Adrian’s friend. He’s made unprecedented moves toward unity. He’s invited her family to visit the First, invited them to his wedding, created friendships with minor houses, and even formed a new, expanded Tribunal to try a reigning Patriarch for abuse of power and homicide. He’s getting shit from all sides for doing those things but he’s still doing them. It isn’t perfect but it’s better than a fucking bomb.”
