“Would you think less of me if I said I don’t?”
“No. I wouldn’t either, in your position.”
“But I have to,” she concluded.
“For David?”
“And for me. I have to believe I’m here for a reason, Deven . . . as many times as I’ve come close to dying, as much as I’ve lost, there has to be a point to it all. There’s something I’m here to do . . . and if I have to do it alone, I’ll just have to figure out a way to keep walking.”
The Prime sighed. “I hope you’re right. I hope there’s meaning in all of this. But whether there is or not, Miranda, you’re not alone.”
She smiled and kissed him on the forehead. “Thank you.”
Miranda turned back to the piano, her hands moving down onto the keys. Deven started to rise and leave her to her communion, but she looked up at him, and the pain in her eyes made him stay, remaining at her side on the bench while she sang softly, the weight of her sadness drawing tears from his eyes as well.
Till my body is dust and my soul is no more
I will love you . . . love you . . .
* * *
Jonathan hung up the phone with a sigh and leaned on the pasture fence, looking out toward Isis and Osiris, who were grazing contentedly, happy to be back home like everyone else. He wasn’t really sure where the horses had been during the lockdown, though he would guess that their groom had taken them to a safe house—or safe stable in this case—until the recall was sent. What was supposed to happen to them in the event of the Pair’s death? he wondered. Would the groom simply keep them, or did David have a will stashed somewhere that designated a new owner as well as the fate of his various research projects, labs, and foundations?
Normally these kinds of questions were moot. The new Prime would take over everything he could get his hands on and get rid of whatever he didn’t want, including servants, Elite, horses . . . everything that David had built in his tenure could be tossed out like garbage. If the next Signet was friendly to David’s allies, he would offer them access to some things, but more often than not, the post was taken by whoever killed his predecessor, and that meant a total blank slate.
He turned from the pasture and made his way back to the main building, feeling heart-heavy. He wasn’t looking forward to this conversation . . . but then, lately every conversation with Deven had been hard, and most ended in arguments.
This time, though, Jonathan had to be the bad guy—it was time for them to go back to California. Thomas had reported a sharp rise in vampire-on-human crime in the territory this past week, and while they had a handle on it, it was clear that the word had gotten out: California was without its Signet, and every night they were away things got worse.
The truth was there wasn’t much more they could do here, anyway. Miranda was as ready as she would ever be to assume full control; grief aside, she was perfectly capable of ruling on her own. She would eventually need a new Second, but for now things were as settled as they were going to get. Deven and Jonathan were only a phone call—or a few hours by plane—away, but they couldn’t stay here any longer.
Jonathan didn’t want to drag Deven away, not like this. He and Miranda had forged a new kind of relationship that Jonathan was loath to interfere with—he’d never seen Deven so open with anyone, as if their shared tragedy had gotten through the Prime’s armor and let the Queen see what Jonathan knew was underneath. He was almost jealous, seeing the warmth between them, but right now they needed each other. Even apart from their relationships with David, Jonathan had simply never lost a love that way; he often wondered, in fact, if he was the only vampire on earth who didn’t have massive piles of baggage to deal with. Deven had enough for them both.
He rehearsed what he was going to say all the way to the Haven, all the way down the hall, following his sense of Deven’s presence; the Prime was leaving the music room, headed for the suite they’d commandeered.
Jonathan reached the suite a moment after Deven did and took a deep breath as he opened the door, bracing himself for the fight he was sure was about to erupt between them.
But as soon as he saw Deven, he forgot everything.
The Prime had sunk down in front of the fireplace, knees drawn up to his chest. He held David’s broken Signet in one hand, the setting dangling in the firelight.
He was crying.
Jonathan all but Misted to his side and pulled the Prime into his arms, tucking Deven’s head under his chin. He felt Dev’s hands clench in his shirt, shaking.
For a long time, Jonathan just held him, letting his emotions work themselves out from the tangled, confused knot that had tightened around the Prime’s heart since the moment they had found David dead on the roof. It wasn’t just that loss, Jonathan realized; Deven blamed himself for every tear Miranda had shed, and the guilt was killing him as much as the grief: guilt over Miranda, over David, over Faith, over Eladra . . . the list kept going, stretching back hundreds of years until the heaviness was simply too much even for a Prime to bear.
If he could have stepped back from the situation, Jonathan might have been flabbergasted. Not once in all their time together had he ever seen Deven break down like this. Never. It was frightening.
But all he could do was hold him, and rock him gently back and forth, until the wave of emotion passed, and Deven grew quiet again.
Finally, sounding like he had completely given up on strength, on distance, on everything that had held him together as well as holding him apart from the rest of the world, the Prime whispered, “Take me home.”
Five
The Queen watched the car pull away and stood there on the front steps of the Haven for a while after it was gone, a broken Signet in her hand, a broken heart limping around in her chest.
Her other hand held David’s wedding ring; she had his phone now, too, tucked in her pocket, but the ring she couldn’t seem to let go of. She tried slipping it on her middle finger, then her thumb, but it was way too big—funny, she’d never thought of him as having large fingers. They’d always seemed so nimble and deft, whether attaching a circuit to a bunch of wires or tracing circles on her skin.
She took a deep breath and turned back toward the Haven, where two servants held the doors open for her as she passed. She felt the weight of her own Signet around her neck as if it had doubled just crossing the threshold.
How had David done this on his own for fifteen years? How had Jacob managed for so long without Cora?
She paused. Was that why Hart was such a bastard, underneath it all? Or was he alone because he was a bastard? If he’d had a Queen, would he have been so full of hate he needed to lash out?
Miranda was surprised at herself; in that moment, she didn’t feel any real hatred for Hart, only something like pity. If ruling alone felt like this, he had to be in pain every day, the pain of knowing he was only half complete.
But no . . . David had managed to lead without becoming a monster. So had Jacob. Even the ache of longing for something he’d never had was no excuse for what Hart had done.
Still, she couldn’t summon any anger. She knew she should. Deven had offered, quite seriously, to have Hart killed; Dev had always avoided using the Red Shadow for Signet business, to help keep his two worlds separate, but it had finally come to such a pass that, knowing Hart had fully intended Jeremy to kill both David and Miranda, if it was war Hart was after, war he would get.
Miranda told Deven not to make a move on Hart. Surely that was what Hart wanted—he got the South destroyed, and one of David’s allies would declare war, giving Hart a chance to rally other Primes against them in Council. Wait, she said . . . wait . . . just a little longer.
She wasn’t sure why, but she knew Hart’s time was coming. Whoever would take his head . . . it was important that it be the right person at the right time.
Knowing that didn’t make it better.
She wondered if Jeremy had gotten his daughter back. That much, Dev’s agents had discovered: Hart had Amelia Hayes, had imprisoned her in his harem to force Jeremy to do his bidding. Why Jeremy was so important to Hart, they still didn’t know, but it had something to do with Australia, and they suspected McMannis was involved as well.
That was another reason why Miranda cautioned against Dev having Hart killed. She wanted to know more about what the hell was going on. There had to be more than just a personal vendetta at stake, or David’s death was all for nothing . . . and so was Faith’s.
Miranda found herself close to tears again, but this time for Faith. Brave, wonderful Faith, who had given her life to save them—even though she had loved David, whom she could never have, she had freely died for Miranda . . . because she loved Miranda, too, as a friend and a Queen. It was the kind of death Faith would have wanted if she couldn’t die in battle at her Prime’s side.
As much as Miranda felt David’s absence in every room of the Haven, she felt Faith’s, too. The Second had been as much a part of her daily life as the Prime. Not a night had gone by in Miranda’s entire tenure without talking to Faith, training with Faith, running patrols with Faith—and she knew that the entire Elite felt the same way. They had all settled into their new division of labor without complaint, but Miranda could feel what they felt, their confusion, their missing her. And there was no one to replace her . . . not even Jonathan had seen a suitable candidate among the remaining Elite. It was going to take time.
Time . . . time was all she had now. She had lost Faith, lost David . . . Kat had left . . . Miranda looked forward into her future, into every possible fate that could befall her, and she saw nothing but years stretching out, endless, as she wandered the Haven alone, anchored to the South and to her duty as Queen, forever . . . until some assassin got lucky, or she simply gave up and walked out into the sunlight.
And she couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t. She would go on.
Miranda checked her own phone, where the patrol reports were now routed: situation normal. Austin was still eerily quiet. She didn’t really blame the Shadow District for reeling under the news that she was alive; she was reeling a bit herself. Everyone knew she should be dead. The fact that she wasn’t was scaring a lot of people. There were whispers all over the territory that the Queen could not be killed.
She made her way back to their—her—wing of the Haven, and thought about Stella for the first time that night. She hadn’t heard much from the girl, and hadn’t heard from Maguire and the police, either. Stella must be going out of her mind with either anxiety or plain boredom.
Miranda stopped off at the study and raided the ice cream stash, then headed to Stella’s room, which now had a guard at the door.
“Anything to report?” she asked.
“No, my Lady,” he replied with a smile. “She’s no trouble at all.”
Miranda knocked, heard a welcome, and walked in, not sure what she’d find.
The Queen was a little taken aback. Stella had rearranged the entire room—she’d pushed the bed off to the side, rolled up the rug, and moved armchair and side tables out of the way, leaving a large swath of floor bare in front of the fireplace. Stranger still, there were drawings in chalk all over the floor—both in a circle in front of the fire and right under Miranda’s feet at the door . . . and under the windows.
As Miranda passed into the room, she felt like she was suddenly walking through water, and she realized what was going on.
Stella had shielded the room. Heavily. She had in a matter of days put so much protection on the space that it was as strongly warded as the training room where Miranda worked with her telekinesis. Nothing could pass through the door or the windows without Stella knowing, and Miranda imagined if someone were to try with ill intent toward the Witch, they would get a lot more than the feeling of walking through water.
On the far side of the barrier, the room felt pretty normal, though there was a lot of energy moving around in it.
“Sorry,” Stella said from the bed. “I wasn’t taking any chances.”
Miranda smiled. “You are a wise Witch . . . and even stronger than I thought.”
“That’s the thing . . .” Stella was sitting on the bed cross-legged, a thick leather volume in her lap, her cat curled up against her leg kneading the comforter. “I’m stronger than I was a few days ago. Ever since you did whatever you did to me . . . it’s like you leveled me up or something.”
Miranda’s eyebrow lifted. “How could I do that?”
“I have no idea. Whatever weirdness you were channeling—”
“Channeling?”
“Yeah, didn’t you feel it? After you freaked out, and I almost got lost in it, you sent all this power into me, but you were drawing it from some other source, not just yourself. Whatever it was, it was immense. And now I’m . . . I don’t know how to explain it.”
“You don’t have to.” Miranda went over to the bed. “How are you doing, other than that?”
“Bored,” she said. “Although your guy did let me go to the library—it’s pretty awesome. I . . .” Stella blushed. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you this week. We had to get things in order.”
“You and your . . . friends?”
Miranda smiled. “I didn’t think you met them.”
“I didn’t. But I could sure as hell feel them. I’m guessing those are other Signets?”
“Yes . . . old friends of ours, from the West. They went home tonight.”
“They just left you by yourself?”
Miranda shrugged. “They had to . . . they’d been away from their Haven for nearly three weeks, and that’s asking for trouble. There were some things they had to deal with, and it was time I stood on my own two feet again.”
Stella held her eyes for a moment, then asked, quietly, “What can I do to help you?”
Miranda couldn’t help but smile at the girl. “Stella, you’ve been through more than enough because of me. I just want to get you back to your life.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Stella asked, shaking her head. “You really have no idea how much you mean to us—to your fans, I mean. To me. I don’t really know what you see yourself as . . . how much your music matters to you compared to all of this.” She gestured around at the generalized grandeur of the Haven. “But you should know . . . the week I bought your CD I was going to kill myself. My dad had thrown me out, and I had never felt so alone in my life. I felt like there was something wrong with me, because I was different . . . like I was cursed. I thought, what’s the point? Nobody will miss me. And this is gonna sound stupid, but . . . I was on my way to meet a guy who was selling me a bottle of sleeping pills, and the bus was late, and I ended up walking past Waterloo Records, and there you were—your poster—in the front display.”