Page 39 of Elven Lies

Any privileged information she might share would lead to questions ofhowshe knew, and that would require her admitting that she’d known Harkennr once upon a time, back on the old world. So much of her knowledge about Shade’s new adversary was still intertwined with the part of Rebecca’s old story that involved the Bloodshadow Court and her escape from it.

Besides, she could argue none of that was relevant to their current situation. This was Chicago, not Agn’a Tha’ros, or even Ryngivát. Harkennr was their next-door neighbor, for all intents and purposes. His work here, endangering local magical civilians, was bad enough without bringing anything else into it.

So many pairs of eyes settling on her face, giving Rebecca their undivided attention, made it more difficult to begin than she’d imagined.

Finally, she cleared her throat and figured she had to start somewhere.

“Bottom line, for the purposes of this meeting, is that now that Hannigan and I have seen what we’ve seen inside Harkennr’s facility and made it out of there alive with Nyx, there’s no way we can just leave it at that. We can’t sit back, put our feet up, and let Harkennr continue what he’s doing with all his ‘test subjects.’”

“They’re not test subjects,” Rick muttered. Even with his black-and-red mottled skin, he looked pale after Maxwell’s account. “They’re victims.”

“Exactly The way I see it, Shade’s responsibility extends as much to Chicago’s civilians as it does to the other organizations we’ve allied with in the past, plus all of our previous and current contacts. I know we focus a lot on how to keep the really awful shit from happening in the first place, but when we can’t, we still owe it to those who can’t fix things themselves.”

When she finished, the same crushing silence settled around her council table again. She hoped it was from the shock and not that everyone else just didn’t understand what she was saying. Or worse, that they didn’t agree with her.

She forced a cough into her fist and added, “That’s my opinion on it, anyway. But you’re here because I want to hear yours too.”

“Well shit,” Zida piped up first. “You’ve got my vote, kid. Not that we’re actually voting, but there’s no two ways about this. We need to take him down.”

Slowly but surely, the others started to move again as if coming back to life, first with dazed nods and then with glances exchanged around the table.

“Exactly,” Whit said. “We go after Harkennr, and we break up his operation however we can. Every single bit of it.”

“That’s all very valiant and everything,” Bor interjected, “but if we go after thismúrgnow, unprovoked, and after he let Knox and Hannigan go,we’llbe the ones starting a war.”

“Harkennr already fired the first shot in that war onuswhen he took Nyx,” Rebecca said.

Bor stroked his hairless chin and glowered at her, but he didn’t argue.

Everyone else still looked more than eager to hear what else she had to say on that particular topic.

“Listen,” she said, “I know it seems like we’ve evened things out. Hannigan and I made a mess at the prison the first time we were there. I can admit that much, and it was entirely our mistake. Then Harkennr took Nyx, and we got her back. It looks like everything’s been settled. That we can go back to normal, and none of us the worse for it.

“But our visit with him today? Today was only a ceasefire, I promise.”

“He did invoke thevri-túl’akwith you at his table,” Zida muttered.

“Subtly and barely,” Bor grumbled. “But he did.”

“Exactly,” Rebecca said. “No one invokesvri-túl’akif they don’t intend to continue the battle afterward. Honestly, we were incredibly lucky to get Nyx out of there in one piece, saying nothing about the two of us.”

She gestured between herself and Maxwell. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the way things panned out today. But we can’t move forward expecting that to be the status quo. Otherwise, we might as well hand Harkennr all our weapons and defenses and even the keys to this compound right along with them.”

“Did he let anything slip about what he might do next?” Rick asked. “To us, I mean.”

Maxwell leaned back in his chair, the metal creaking beneath his weight, and folded his arms. “No. The bastard’s too slippery for that.”

“But I do expect him to make a move,” Rebecca added, “sooner rather than later. Whatever that might happen to be. Especially after all his efforts to lull us into complacency first with such a hospitable reception. Make us feel just comfortable enough that we won’t see him coming.”

“Absolutely his style,” Maxwell grumbled.

“You say all this like you have some kind of proof for it,” Zida said.

“No proof beyond what we saw in there today,” Rebecca replied.

“So then how do you know?” Whit asked.

Shit.

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