Reckoning

to draw, and I knew exactly what I’d draw. I’d try to capture the way the leaves held the sunlight, the red of the brake lights crimson dots, like fangmarks.

What I couldn’t draw was the way my heart finished cracking and fell, and the feeling that took its place in my chest. A kind of emptiness, like a church in the middle of the week, full of murmuring space.

Sometimes you do grow up in an instant. I think that was the first moment I started thinking like an adult.

And I hated it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Hiro laid a pair of my sneakers on the table right in front of me, his jaw set and his dark gaze level. His face might have been carved from caramel wood, and he winced a little if he moved too quickly.

I didn’t want to think about it.

“I don’t get it.” I sat, numb all over, in the high-backed wooden chair, my arms crossed defensively. “Why do I have to do this?”

“They’re envoys,” Bruce said again, patiently, his dark eyes worried. He magnanimously refused to note that my face was tear-streaked and I was visibly shaking. “The Maharaj wish to see you—”

“So they can have another crack at hexing me to death? Or poisoning me? I don’t think so.” I pulled more tightly into myself, leaning forward a little. The long mirror-shiny table in the Council room was just the same; the silver samovar glinting against the wall where food was usually arranged looked like an old friend. “Can’t you just talk to them? Like, you’re the one who’s really in charge. I’m just a figurehead.” And it’s probably a lot safer for everyone that way too. You know what the hell you’re doing. Mostly.

Bruce spread his hands. It was the first time I’d ever seen him in a white button-down that was less than perfectly pressed. His dark hair was messy, and his proud Middle Eastern face was about as close to haggard as a model-attractive djamphir could get. “They think you may be . . . one of theirs. Or related, somehow.”

“Great.” If I hugged myself any harder I was going to crack in half. “I don’t give a good goddamn what they—”

“Milady.” Hiro, softly and respectfully. But the single word cut through what I’d planned on saying. “Please. Listen.”

I wiped at my cheeks with the flat of my right hand. The rock in my throat didn’t get any smaller, no matter how many times I tried to force it down. “Fine.” I sounded ungracious, to say the least.

“Thank you.” He stood, slim and straight, his gray silk high-collared shirt unwrinkled and his eyes, as well, shadowed with exhaustion. It was the first time I’d seen that, either on him or on Bruce, and I suddenly wondered where the rest of the Council was. “Milady, you are able to do . . . certain things svetocha are not traditionally able to do. We were unsure where these talents came from; the djinni-children may believe you have some strain of their blood from your . . . human . . . side.” He took a deep breath, half-flinching again like his ribs pained him. “The Maharaj have severe prohibitions against harming a female who can use their particular sorceries. The fact that you were attacked, that you were harmed, creates a very large problem for them. A . . . debt, if you will. And that debt is a way we may pressure them into abandoning their former neutrality against, as well as their recent alliance with, the nosferat. This is an opportunity. One that is exceedingly rare, one we must press, and one we must ask you to accede to.”

I killed Sergej. Isn’t that enough? I shook my head. A single curl fell in my face, bounced. “I don’t want to talk to them.” Leave me alone. Jesus.

“You are the only one they will speak to, Milady. Especially since Reynard is . . .” A single shrug. Hiro was economical with his body language. Just one of those things that told you he was older, as djamphir go.

Way older.

“Christophe?” A sick thump in the pit of my stomach. I hadn’t even asked about him. “What’s wrong with Christophe?”

“Nothing.” Bruce almost twitched. “He’s simply resting. But he is unavailable.”

I fixed him with a glare. “What’s wrong with him? Did it . . . did I hurt him? The blood, did it—”

“He’s resting. He’s survived worse.” Bruce sighed. It wasn’t a Dylan-worthy sigh, but it was close. Dylan had been a world-champion patient-suffering sigh-er. “Milady. Dru. Please. A formal alliance with the Maharaj—not just a truce—will save lives. Djamphir lives, wulfen lives, and that means human lives as well. I know your loup-garou has left—”

It was like a pinch on a fresh bruise. “Don’t talk about him.” I gingerly uncurled my arms. Reached for my sneakers, suddenly glad it was Hiro who had gone up and gotten them. I didn’t feel like I could face Nat right now. “How come the Maharaj think I’m . . .” I let the question trail off. Two great Houses, Sergej hissed in my memory, and I shuddered.

Great. Djamphir were part sucker, and now they were thinking I was part something else. Where was the human part of me supposed to fit, I wondered?

“Because you killed one of your attackers with his own sorcery.” Bruce grasped the back of a chair—the one just to my left, the one Christophe sometimes sat in at Council meetings. When he wasn’t up pacing the room like a caged animal. “And later, something about a smokedog, a kuttee, sent to track you. I do not know the whole, Dru. They will not speak unless it is to you. You are our hope.”

I never asked for this. It was too late, though. This was what I had.

Everything inside me shifted sideways another little bit and settled unexpectedly. I wasn’t used to the whirling sensation fetching up against something, but it did. It held fast, like catching your jeans on a stubborn nail.

I killed Sergej. Yeah, Christophe helped . . . but I was the one that did it.

But it wasn’t just that. I’d bled to buy Dibs and Christophe some more time. I’d done the right thing. It was what Dad might’ve called “findin’ out where ya iron’s at” and Gran would have just nodded with the particular line to her mouth that meant she was pleased.

I had done that. The nail I fetched up against was knowing, without a doubt, that I’d done them proud.

The Council room was silent and breathless, no windows, just the door to the antechamber with its couches and fireplace. I always thought djamphir would want some light and air, until I figured out that it was too easy to take a shot or send a sucker through some plate glass.

My fingers fumbled with the laces. I could almost feel Hiro staring at me. My hair fell down, curtaining my face. I couldn’t hide forever, though, and when I had my shoes tied I looked up. “Sergej.” The name didn’t burn now. It was just a word. “He thought that, too. That I was maybe one of them, I think.”

They exchanged a Significant Look. Bruce’s shoulders hunched a little. “Hiro and I will be there.” He sounded, of all things, defensive. “There is nothing to fear. You won’t see Augustine, but he will be there too. There will be others, in Shadow. You’re safe now.”

“Until there is another to take Sergej’s place,” Hiro murmured.

I froze, staring at him. Well, it had to be too good to be true, didn’t it? That was the way adulthood rolled. I was beginning to get the idea.

“Yes,” he continued, pitiless. “There are always more, Milady. We have barely managed to hold them back. Now, with the nosferat confused and the Maharaj perhaps willing to come to an accord . . . we could do much more. You are young, and it is not right to ask, but we are asking.” He put his hands together, as if he was about to make one of those funny little bows of his. “We would even beg you,