Carrick sits in one of the chairs opposite me, and Zaid goes to a love seat. Rainey and Myles are on a couch while Maddox chooses to remain standing.
“I went to see Kymaris tonight,” Carrick said. Out of all the dangerous things I thought he might be out there doing, I never once thought he would do that.
“You what?” I exclaim, straightening in my chair. “Why?”
“Because you wanted me to do something about the human sacrifices,” he reminds me.
Mouth dropping open, I stare at him in a mixture of amazement and guilt. Yes, I’d made him promise he’d do something, but that was in the heat of the moment. I’d been in shock and disgusted by what Boral had said was going on when he called yesterday, and I’d demanded justice, but I hadn’t expected Carrick to move on it so quickly.
“What did you do?” I ask hesitantly.
“Well, to stop the human sacrifices, I blew her house up with TNT,” he says, his eyes twinkling just slightly at making such an ostentatious statement.
“Whoa,” Myles murmurs in appreciation. “Badass.”
“She was in it, along with a daemon, but no humans. She won’t die, but it will slow her down for a few days as she’ll have to find more accommodations.”
“Thank you,” I whisper gratefully.
Carrick’s smile is tender as he regards me from across the table. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”
My heart flip-flops and my skin warms at the overt display of love and affection. It feels good that he doesn’t care who is watching or listening.
“There’s something else,” he says, his expression hardening a little bit, and the sweet flutters in my heart stop as my stomach clenches. “I had a talk with Kymaris before we blew the house up.”
“You what?” I exclaim again, shocked he would confront her. “Why?”
“Mainly, I wanted to get in her house and ensure I couldn’t sense any humans there, but I also wanted to see if she’d open up about anything. I was banking on her over-inflated ego wanting to share her plans with me.”
“And did she?” Rainey asks.
Carrick spares her a short glance and nods. “She offered to let me rule by her side, and she very happily told me how she’d take over the world once the veil comes down.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t a tempting offer,” I quip with a mirthless laugh.
Carrick actually cracks a smile. “I have what I want.”
“What else did you learn then?”
A glimmer of anger fires in Carrick’s eyes as his smile disappears. “It appears that Kymaris knows we have the Blood Stone.”
“Shit,” I hiss. I sink back down into the chair, but my eyes dart over to Zaid, who is bent over, elbows to knees and gaze pinned to the floor.
I don’t need to say it out loud. It had to be Boral.
“We have to leave,” Carrick announces, and all our heads except Zaid’s snaps his way. Maddox swallows another bite, then ignores the rest of his sandwich. “Now that she knows we have it, nothing will prevent her from conducting an all-out assault on this condo to get it.”
“But you have protections in place,” Rainey reminds him.
“Good ones, too,” Carrick agrees, but his tone is grim. “But Kymaris is powerful. If she has her Dark Fae—to whom she’s been funneling power—help her, they could bring the protections down. She could use her army of daemons to storm the place. She wouldn’t care about anyone else in this building being collateral damage. She won’t care about revealing herself to the world. The bottom line is that we are not safe here, but we also need to make sure we don’t give her any reason to go public. It would cause panic and chaos.”
“Just like in the Avengers when Loki brought the Chitauri into New York,” Myles says in horror.
“Carrick,” I say softly, prompted by my gut instinct telling me that we shouldn’t leave the safety of the condo. “Surely with you, Maddox, and me, our collective powers would outweigh what she could bring.”
“But it might not,” he counters. “And a one-percent risk is too great a risk. But regardless, her attempt to break through would cause havoc among humans. They’re ignorant of immortal creatures, magic, and the Underworld. To keep the peace, we need to leave.”
“Then we bring the fight to her now,” I say adamantly, anger welling within me. This is all moving way too fast. “We find her, and we tear that bitch apart with iron.”
“You’re not ready,” Carrick says in a low voice.
“I might not have full control of my abilities, but I know how to use them,” I point out. “Besides… it’s the whole team that will take her down, not just me.”
Carrick scrubs his hands over his face, clearly frustrated with something. When he looks at me, his jaw is locked tight. “No, it won’t be the entire team. You’re the key to thwarting it, which means you’re the key to thwarting Kymaris.”
“Well, yeah… that’s right, but y’all will be at my back,” I say hesitantly, confused why this is so bothersome to him right now.
Carrick growls with impatience. “We might be at your back, but it is you who has to kill Kymaris. You alone, and you are not ready to do that.”
It goes deadly quiet. Such a heaviness hanging in the air that it’s me—puny human—against the Queen of the Underworld. It’s literally going to be my powers against hers. My strength against hers. My determination against hers. Everyone else will have a front-row seat.
At least according to the prophecy as relayed by the gods and confirmed by Onyx.
“You’re just not ready,” Carrick reiterates. “So, we’ll obviously keep training to get you ready. Until then, our best bet is to go into hiding and wait it out until we can get past the new moon.”
“And then what?” Myles asks, sounding incredibly frustrated. “Surely there will be another new moon she can use. Do we stay in hiding forever?”
“No,” Carrick replies grimly. “We’ll have to find a way to end it, and Finley will be the one to carry it out.”
My head is slightly spinning at everything he’s laid down before us. I had assumed we’d take the next few weeks to just chill here in the cocooned safety of the condo. We’d practice my magic, eat good food, and laugh at Kymaris not being able to get the Blood Stone. Now we have to run, and it’s not sitting right with me.
“Rainey and Myles are going to have to go somewhere safe outside the city,” Carrick says.
“I know a place,” Maddox says, his sandwich apparently forgotten. “I have a friend upstate, and I have another idea, too.”
“What’s that?” Carrick asks.
“We get two daemons or Light Fae to glamour as Myles and Rainey, and we let them go about their regular business on the Fantasia and at work. Maybe it will throw Kymaris off, and we’ll be able to gauge if she goes after them for information.”
“And you happen to know some daemon or fae who are willing to risk their lives like that?” I ask with distaste.
“Favors are always owed,” Maddox replies with a wink.
Carrick nods at his brother, a gleam of pride in his eyes. “That’s a great idea. You handle that and getting them relocated.”