Maybe the fear of me has some benefits. No one wants to piss me off.
Riley and I change into some lower-key clothes and set out about an hour later. The sun comes up today, and it makes Riley squint, but it's swallowed a few minutes later by a deck of winter clouds as we drive downhill and towards the main town of Moon's Peak, which spreads out below all the trees like a disorganized grid of lights. It's always a beautiful sight, and one I haven't gotten used to since leaving Chicago seemingly a lifetime ago.
We get into town and find Lily already pacing in front of the library, which is just a few minutes from opening. The librarian unlocks the door like a banker exactly at seven-thirty and disappears behind her counter as Lily waves us out of the car and out of the shelter of the tinted windows.
“So things are better with your parents?” I ask.
“Well, I've turned eighteen, so they know I can leave if I want,” Lily says. “It’s not that simple, of course, since I don't have that much money saved and would have to start over. But things have changed a bit since then and I have a bit more freedom.” She smiles and pulls out her phone. “I pay for this with my savings now.”
“Nice,” I say, glad her parents have lost a bit of power for her. I'm also angry that I had to miss her birthday, which she probably spent with only her family.
We go inside, and the librarian is nowhere as Riley produces his card and we go behind the counter. The heavy door labeled Private Collection clicks as a bolt slides back and we enter the small room of older, dusty books. Lily and I take the table while Riley scans the spines.
“Ah. The Convening, years thirteen seventy-two through nineteen fifty-one,” he says with a grimace, pulling a massive volume off the shelf. It definitely smells of dust, aging paper, and ink. My senses flare just enough for me to detect its age, and the many strata of ink. “I'll do the reading and see what we're in for.”
“Thank you,” I say.
Lily and I sit in silence and let Riley focus. He flips through the pages, scanning through the text. Some words are unreadable by ordinary humans without some kind of advanced scanning technology. “Okay,” he says at last. “The Convening hasn’t changed at all since the beginning. Hunters always attend, so that might be—”
“An advantage,” Lily says.
“Yes,” I say, glad that we might have some help in our corner for this.
“But they limit their numbers. Only three hunters from each coven's territory can go, and hunters don't vote. They just record what's happened and report back to their guilds. And there's one guild balancing out each Trueblood coven,” Riley says. “The Riveras have always watched the Beaumonts and used to fight them. I guess they monitor us now.”
“True,” Lily says. “It's been that way since Truebloods decided they needed some law and order. There hasn’t always been peace, of course.”
“Can you go?” I blurt before I can stop myself.
Lily bites her lip and frowns. “I don't know if the guild will let me.”
I shouldn't throw Lily under the bus like this. No, this is throwing her under the freight train. She, I know, won't be able to stand back if the Truebloods vote against us and decide to tear us apart, or whatever they do to execute covens that don't make the cut.
“But trust me, I'll try,” Lily says. “I can't let you two go on this by yourselves. How does the event usually go?” Now she faces Riley, who has already been reading for half an hour.
Riley runs his finger down the text. “Well, the Convening is always in a convention center since modern times started, and we should know which one soon. Once we do, we can study the layout of the place. All the covens within five hundred miles will be there. That's around thirty covens.”
“Thirty?” I ask, almost rising from the table.
“That, and the High Council,” Riley says with a frown.
Just the High Council itself will be enough. But thirty covens? “How many from each coven go?”
“Usually twelve. Magic number, or something,” Riley says. “That means all the Nightsides will need to go, including whoever is plotting against us.”
I gulp. “But they'll want to survive the Convening, too.”
“Yes,” Lily says. She fishes out not her Conspiracy Theory notebook from her backpack, but a black, leather-bound one that must have been a gift for her birthday, because I've never seen it before. It creaks with newness as she opens it, and I find a bunch of thick pages that are more meant for drawing instead of writing.
“That's a nice notebook,” I say.
“It was a birthday gift.” Lily confirms my suspicions with a smile. “My parents got this for me. Of course, it was to work on the tactical part of being a hunter, but it's nice all the same. I love notebooks.”
“They should've gotten you one with a college hunk on the cover,” I say.
“That would be distracting,” Lily says. “I'd be fanning myself instead of planning.” Then she frowns. I know that in a week, she hasn't gotten over Morton breaking up with her, and freaking out because she told him she was a vampire hunter. But right now, she's holding it together. “Now, I'll take some notes while you two talk about Trueblood law. I'll just be here in the corner, being quiet and quirky.”
Riley and I face each other while Lily scrolls and lifts her pen.
“We must take
