“There are only three of us, you know.” I dropped a kiss on his cheek, then snagged a slice of toast and slathered it with butter.
“And at least two of us have very healthy appetites.”
“Make that three,” Mo said as she appeared. “Especially if we’re not talking about food.”
“We are,” I said dryly. “Mind out of the gutter and all that.”
“Ha. When you get to my age, you’ve won the right to do and say what you want.”
A point I couldn’t argue with. “Has anyone had an update on the situation in London?”
Luc nodded. “The palace is holding, but London is burning.”
“How badly?”
“Westminster is the worst hit.”
No surprise, given Westminster was where both the House of Lords and the House of Commons were.
“Many casualties?”
“Hundreds, from what’s been said on the news, but there’s not that much getting out. Greater London has been entirely locked down in an effort to contain the bastards.”
“I hope it works.”
“It should,” Mo said. “It has before.”
“It still feels very wrong for us not to be there.” I held up a hand, stopping the comment Mo was undoubtedly about to make. “And yes, I understand and agree with the reason, but that doesn’t alter the fact I think we should be there.”
Didn’t alter the certainty that our path would lead us there, and sooner rather than later.
Mo patted my arm, then perched on one of the stools. I did the same, then leaned on my arms and distracted myself by watching Luc. There was something very sexy about a man who knew his way around a kitchen. “Did you manage to get any sleep last night?”
“Some.”
There was a slight edge in his voice that had my eyebrows rising. “Was there a problem?”
“Something was sniffing around.”
“A demon something?” I asked, alarmed.
“Hecate was flickering, so yes. But the presence was distant, and it might just have been a juvenile out on its nightly hunt.”
“Did you go out and check?” Mo asked.
He shook his head. “Figured it might have been bait.”
“They couldn’t have known we were here.”
“Unless they placed a tracker on Gwen,” Luc said.
“There’s nothing magical—I would have seen that.”
“Which doesn’t discount the possibility of a regular old tracker.”
“They’re generally distance limited, though,” Mo said, nose wrinkling, “and it’s highly unlikely they would have found us so quickly, given they have no idea which direction we fled in.”
“Unlikely doesn’t mean impossible.” Luc motioned me to stand and then drew Hecate and walked around the kitchen counter. He ran the flat of her blade down my body, front and back, then grunted. “She’s not reacting, which means there’s nothing even remotely related to Darkside on you or embedded in your flesh.”
“Surely I’d feel it if something had been shoved into my skin?”
But even as I said that, I remembered the burrowing whisperers and shuddered. Maybe pain wasn’t all they’d intended or done.
“Depends on the size,” Luc said. “Trackers are miniscule these days.”
“Maybe we should check, then,” I said. “It might be safer.”
“After breakfast,” Mo said. “The sun’s risen, and we’re leaving this morning anyway.”
Luc immediately dished up the mountain of food and motioned us to help ourselves. “Did Jackie get anything out of Riona last night?”
Mo nodded. “She said there were no bad pictures on the gate they were taken to, just lots of thorns and angry faces.”
I grabbed a plate and loaded it up. Luc was right—I did indeed have a very healthy appetite, especially after last night’s efforts. “I didn’t think there were any gates that weren’t decorated by the ‘bad’ images.”
“There aren’t, as far as I’m aware,” Luc said.
“What about the Kendal gate? Is it decorated?” I asked.
“To be honest, I can’t say,” Mo said. “It’s been centuries since I’ve been near it—as gates go, the Kendal one has always been fairly inactive. It might be worth Luc heading up to Carlisle first to check the two there.”
He nodded. “Are we meeting back here?”
Mo shook her head. “Southport. We’ll need Barney’s help coordinating with the various councils—he’s got the contacts, I haven’t.”
“For checking the various gates, or for hunting Winter’s clones?” I asked.
“The clones need to be our task,” Luc said. “It’s dangerous enough outsourcing the gate check, given we have no idea how widespread wraith infections are. We can’t risk word getting out about our hunt for Winter.”
“Oh, no one else but us was ever going to go after those bastards,” I growled. “I very much intend to make all variations of him pay for the part they played in Max’s slide into darkness.”
“Kill one, and the rest will be aware that we’re after them,” Luc commented. “There’s no spell that can stop the sort of connection they have.”
“So we shoot all but one, and use him to trap Max.”
“Shooting them isn’t much better—it’ll create a dead connection that’ll tell the rest something is wrong.”
“Yes, but they won’t know what, which gives us the chance to track them all down.”
“As much as I hate to say anything good about your brother,” Luc said, “he’s not stupid enough to fall for such a trap.”
“Max married Winter,” I said. “He wouldn’t take that step unless he truly cared.”
“Unless,” Mo said, “marriage was another part of the bargain he made for Darkside’s help.”
I frowned. “Why would Darkside want that?”
“To claim the throne,” she replied. “It wouldn’t be the first time a consort has plotted to overthrow a king and rule in his stead.”
“I seriously doubt ruling us is what they have in mind,” Luc said.
“And what would be the point of it, anyway?” I wondered. “Winter’s obviously half demon—no one is going to accept him.”
She raised an eyebrow. “If it ever did get to that point, do you think any of us would actually have the choice of disapproval or resistance?”
I sighed. “Of course not.”
And it wasn’t as if our world didn’t have a history of people doing whatever was necessary to survive tyrants and dictators. Dark elves might be far worse than any homegrown evil our world had ever experienced, but there would always be some who’d willingly work with Darkside against the rest of humanity in order to ingratiate themselves and survive.
“Let’s worry about the details after we get the DNA,” Mo said. “We won’t know if hunting the various Winter incarnations is even possible until then.”
“If you have one annoying fault, that’s it. You’re just too sensible.” I paused and narrowed my eyes. “Well, that and your habit of working on a ‘as needed’ mode when it comes to information.”