“I plan on it.”
“Ask me what?” Zack asked as Takashi quietly left the room.
Roger stroked Zack’s back slowly. “Takashi and I were discussing when I should strike. My place in the coven seems on solid ground, but is four weeks enough information?”
“It is.” Zack slipped off Roger’s lap and pulled out a notebook from under the bed.
“How many of those do you have?” Roger asked.
“Never enough.” Zack flipped open to the pages of timetables he’d been creating over the last week. He had marked locations, events, and what nights they took place. Along with that, he’d thrown in the average attendance for the location and any key players he was pretty sure would show. “Honestly, you could do it any night.”
“No.” Roger sprawled atop the bed and drew Zack’s notebook closer. He examined the data. “Slipping your dagger and Cal’s knife through the security of any location will be difficult.”
“We don’t need Cal’s.”
“Two silver blades are better than one. Contingency.”
“Fine. Then any night we go to the Chateau. Candide’s on our side, right? She’d help us get them through.”
“If it doesn’t put her in danger, yes,” Roger replied. “She doesn’t want to compromise her position inside the coven.”
“Coward,” Zack grumbled.
“We didn’t live this long by being brave.” Roger ran his fingers over the coarse ink. “We want witnesses, but not ones that will interfere.”
“Can’t you just challenge him?” Zack asked.
“That gives him warning, and he’ll cheat. I’ve seen him do it before, though no one’s dared to try in over a century. Besides, in one-on-one, I wouldn’t have you. A stealthy, witnessed assassination is our best shot.”
“You’re not wrong.” Zack sighed as he sat on the bed. “But a straight-out assassination would be so much easier.”
“We can’t leave any questions about who killed him. With four hundred vampires in the coven, Ihaveto make my claim clear to as many as possible.”
“Then what about the Winter’s Grand Ball?” Zack asked. “It’s at the Chateau, lots of guests.”
“Too many.” Roger tapped to the list of Unseelie Court members Zack had identified on the guest list. That had taken a bit of fishing around on Night Deets to find and plenty of listening to rumors. “One of these bastards might be the one to put me in a coma. No one’s made another attempt, but we’ll need to be careful ourselves.”
“Then New Year’s,” Zack suggested. “The party’s happening at the Chateau, though it seems to be Seamus’s event. He’s made silver part of the color scheme. That should give us some kind of advantage, right?”
“So long as the blade doesn’t glow,” Roger remarked. “Why does it do that, by the way?”
“Magic,” Zack replied.
“Yes, but sometimes it’s bright, and others, it’s rather dim.”
Zack closed the notebook and rolled it into his hands. The enchanted blades of the Wright family were one of the close-guarded secrets. In truth, the blades responded to the threattheir owners felt while in the presence of a supernatural. Zack’s had dimmed around Roger because he wasn’t a danger to him.
But giving away such a secret wasn’t his place.
But the family had disowned him while Roger had been with him every step.
But how much would his family would forgive him?
Would they ever?
Zack released the notebook. The world was too much, and he couldn’t take on thinking through every consequence. “I’ll tell you. Some night. Just … not right now.”
“All right,” Roger said softly.
