Page 39 of Queen Takes Triune
“I’m trying to find information on a certain queen and any sibling arrangements she or her house has made in the last few centuries. I’m not having any luck, and I noticed that you were the database creator. Can you—”
“Already pulling up the back-end data,” he replied. “Just a sec… Okay, shoot. What’s the name?”
“Leonie Delafosse.”
“I can tell you without even searching that there’s nothing, but I’ll try… Yep. No matches, other than the original connection to House Valois through some distant queen. I couldn’t read the original ledger when I input the data into the tables.”
Gina let out a soft whistle. “Wait, you actually looked at all the old documents and put everything in manually? Yourself?”
“Yes. It actually didn’t take that long, even though it spanned several thousand years. There just aren’t that many queens left to worry about, and before Desideria Modron’s reign of terror, queens lived for basically forever and alliances didn’t change that often.”
Certainty burned inside me, a growing resonance that told me I was right. “So Keisha Skye never lodged any kind of sibling agreement with Leonie Delafosse, even though Keisha was setting herself up to betheAmerican queen. Even though Keisha wanted to make herself powerful enough to sway the goddesses into giving her a Triune seat. There has to be a reason that everyone left Leonie alone, even Keisha.”
“Maybe she just wasn’t that powerful…” Daire lifted his head from my lap. “Scratch that. Keisha had plenty of siblings who weren’t that powerful. We all knew about Leonie, but I couldn’t tell you anything about her, other than she’s in New Orleans.”
“Vampires were good for business,” Rik said slowly. “That’s all I can remember Keisha saying about Leonie. What business? Keisha didn’t give a fuck about any of her many businesses she owned. All she cared about was bringing more queens under her power.”
“It’s her,” I whispered. “The Dauphine. It has to be. She’s powerful enough to make everyone look the other way. Fuck, she’s basically hiding in plain sight, and no one ever thinks twice about an insignificant queen in New Orleans. How old is she? What are her powers? How big is her court?”
I looked around at my Blood and watched them shake their heads, shrug, or frown, trying to remember anything.
“A geas. She’s put a geas on everyone, the same as my mother. Only we can evidently talk about her, but only as an insignificant queen that no one cares about. She had to have done something to Keisha that made her look the other way. Some kind of nudge or secret agreement. Are there any other logs that we can search that aren’t official Triune logs? Like the visitor logs, or even phone records. Did Madeline ever call Leonie’s consiliarius? Did Keisha ever travel to New Orleans, or did Leonie ever go to New York?”
“I’ll look through everything Madeline Skye left in her office,” Kevin said immediately. “She kept meticulous records, so there could be some minor note or reference, even if no formal agreement was ever made. I’ll let you know what I find.”
“Great, thanks, Kevin. Hopefully you’ll know something by my visit.”
“I’ll get to work immediately, my queen.”
Gina disconnected the phone, but I still felt Gwen hovering quietly and unobtrusively in my mind. Before I could ask, she replied,:I never saw Leonie at the tower, or heard Keisha mention her. But I wasn’t one of Keisha’s friends or trusted confidantes. I probably wouldn’t have known her even if Leonie stayed in the tower. Would you like for me to ask some of our other siblings?:
:No.:I spoke the rest aloud so Gina and my Blood could hear too. “Let’s come at this from a different angle. Search the archives for any obscure or ancient ties of my other New York City siblings to House Valois instead of House Delafosse. I know one of the queens was basically a spy for Marne Ceresa, so it’s likely that the Dauphine has a contact inside the tower as well. Maybe even a queen who doesn’t have a clue that she’s working for anyone other than a minor New Orleans queen. So don’t ask anyone else anything. Let’s see what Kevin can dig up and go from there.”
Gwen pulled back from our bond and I allowed it to close. I still couldn’t shake the uncomfortable sensation that we were missing something. “Who is Leonie’s consiliarius?”
Frowning, Gina ran through her phone contacts. “I actually don’t know. I’ll have to look it up.”
“Another vampire database?”
She snorted and dialed another number. “I wish. Try a good old-fashioned phone book. Angela, I need the consiliari contact reference book. It’s in my desk in the Kansas City office. Yeah. Sounds good, thanks.”
She hung up. “Angela’s on her way. I hope you don’t mind, Nevarre, but we thought we’d use the helicopter for this kind of last-minute trip back and forth. It’s easier to get the helicopter up than the jet, especially since the nearest airport big enough to accommodate it is in Harrison.”
My raven Blood stepped closer. “Do you need a pilot?”
Eyebrow arched, Gina gave me a slightly wary look. “Would you mind? I wouldn’t dare send one of your Blood away on even a short mission without your approval. Otherwise, I’ll just hire someone from Harrison to make the trip for us in our helicopter.”
My gut instinct was to seize a handful of Nevarre’s hair in one hand and his kilt in the other. Other than the coordinated attack on Heliopolis, I’d never been parted from any of my Blood. Of course, they often were “away” on guard duty, but they were always close enough to return to me in minutes.
Nevarre was a powerful son of Morrigan who’d been alive hundreds of years. Surely he could survive a short helicopter trip to Kansas City and back. I refused to even think about the car accident that had killed him and his druid witch years ago. That had been Ra’s doing, and I’d handled the god of light.
Besides, Nevarrewantedto go. Desperately. Not to be away from me for even a heartbeat—but to do some small service for me. Something only he could do. To my knowledge, none of the other Blood could fly a helicopter or airplane.
“There’s no need to wait for a subpar substitute when you have a pilot here,” I finally said grudgingly. Though I did snag his hand and pull him down into a kiss.:How long will you be gone?:
:Only a few hours, my queen. I’ll be in constant contact.:
:Fly safely, my Shadow.:
