Nico stood a few feet to my left. I could feel him there without looking. Since the square, I’d tracked him by proximity because I didn’t entirely trust that he was real.
“There’s something else.” Val’s tone was strained.
I looked at him despite myself, and he was staring at the floor. A vampire who’d ripped his father’s heart out with his bare hands was apparently having trouble figuring out where to look.
I had a bad feeling.
He looked at me specifically, which made the bad feeling worse. “Taylor is alive.”
I heard it. I just did nothing with it for a moment.
The words landed somewhere in my head, but my mind refused to completely take hold of them.
Taylor.
My brother.
The brother I’d metaphorically buried.
The room was silent, waiting for me to become hysterical. To drop to the floor and sob. I could feel their eyes on me.
But I didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t even blink.
Taylor is alive.
The words should have cracked me open, but after centuries of grieving and moving on, I felt… blank.
“He’s b-been making the v-v-vacants.” Kage’s voice came from somewhere near the doorway.
I stared at the painting behind Val’s head. It was some kind of dark landscape with the moon reflecting off a pool of dark red.
Blood.
I didn’t say anything because there wasn’t anything to saythat wouldn’t come out wrong. My brother was alive and had been building an army of hollowed-out demons.
How? Why?
It was too much for one day. Too much for one lifetime.
It was Amari who finally broke the silence and got us moving again. “How long will it take Tony and Miles to get here?”
Val answered. Winston said something. There was talk of the forest roads and whether Val’s guards could be trusted. I let it wash over me and tried to remember how to breathe at a normal pace.
I was out of my element, but I also felt like I was right where I needed to be. The question was, did I want to be here? Did I want to return to this life where fathers died at their sons’ hands? Where a council full of men tried to silence a woman who had no physical power over them? Where men I cared about kept secrets?
Where my brother turned innocents into vacants?
But if I turned my back on everything, what would that mean for Inferna?
“We need to rest.” Nico moved closer to me, placing a hand on the small of my back. “Are the guest rooms upstairs?”
Val’s eyes fell to where Nico’s hand disappeared behind my back, lingering there with an unreadable expression before he looked at me. A muscle twitched in his jaw as he cleared his throat, the sound unnaturally loud in the tension-filled room. “Upstairs in the left wing. I’ll have my staff leave clean clothes and food outside the door.”
Nico waited until I started moving before he did. We went up the stairs without talking. There was too much to say, and neither of us was ready yet.
He checked three rooms before settling on one near theend of the hall. He disappeared inside without looking back at me.
Raphael stood behind me in the middle of the hallway, silent as ever. I turned to face him.
