“I see.” Eric leaned back in his chair and shared a glance with Caro, who said nothing at all. “I understand.”
Stephan nodded. “Then you’ll do it?”
Eric took a deep breath. “Are you sure you don’t want to discuss this with Estelle?”
He’d rather cut off his own fingers with a butter knife. Eric must have seen it in his face, because he held up his hand. “It’s official. You’re no longer ambassador to Wavena’s court. Caro will do the honors until we can find a proper replacement.”
“Thank you.” Although he had no doubt Eric would do as he asked, Stephan was relieved he wasn’t going to force some sort of talk or reconciliation. What Estelle had done was unforgivable.
“I don’t want to defend her actions but it sounds as if she was trying to save your life,” said Caro. “She tried to protect you so she could get to Yangzei. She did bring back Tom.”
That was the only positive benefit of this whole mess. Tom was recovering in Orlando, where Eric and Wavena decided to keep him until he was stronger. He didn’t remember anything of his captivity and although Wavena had offered Estelle’s services to delve into his memories, they’d been immediately rejected. Tom insisted on isolation as he healed and apart from a brief conversation, they’d given him solitude.
“That wasn’t her decision to make.” He stared at her. “She broke a fucking promise. The only reason I didn’t ask her to do a blood oath was that I trusted her. She knew what she was doing and she knew how important it was to me.” He would have rather taken a bullet than endure being nothing but a puppet. Even now, reliving that experience and how she’d moved his arms and legs against his will, was torture.
After what had happened on the beach and in the room later, this was intolerable to him. She knew what he’d gone through.
She didn’t care. All she cared about was controlling him, like so many others had. That she had tried to justify it by pointing out Yangzei had done the same thing was truly hitting a low bar.
Caro looked down at her hands, which lay on her lap. “I know.” She sounded tired.
Eric sighed. “Estelle might not be in place much longer herself.”
Stephan tried not to let this bother him. A huge amount of work had gone into covering any evidence from the humans in Cancun after the attack. Estelle’s ill-advised decision to go after her brother had been the first step in escalated Dawning attacks that were becoming harder to hide. Eric was unhappy with the timing—he wanted more recon before committing—and Wavena was furious at what she saw as Estelle’s dereliction of duty and her poor judgement. Agata’s actions had been excused as the lithu doing the best she could. Estelle had borne the brunt of Wavena’s rage.
He wanted to believe it was well-deserved. It was. “It’s time Estelle dealt with the consequences of her actions.”
“Stephan,” said Caro in a low voice. That was all she said but it was enough.
He was getting petty and it wasn’t a good feeling. Stephan nodded at them both and stood to go. He knew how Caro felt because under the anger and sadness, he had the same bone-weariness that he heard in her voice. It had taken him a week before he’d come back to Toronto to see Eric. After Orlando, he’d bought a ticket for the next flight out; it didn’t matter where. That’s how he ended up in Des Moines. He’d called Eric and left a message that he was fine and would be back soon. Oh, and that the vampires had Tom, they’d taken out one of the Dawning’s compounds and Madden was dead.
He’d found a Holiday Inn and hadn’t left the room. Instead, he lay on the bed for so long that his back had gone numb and body creaked when he finally rose to have a shower. He’d bought earphones from the front desk and plugged them into the TV at a deafening volume, trying to drown out the chorus of multitude voices that came from all around him now. One evening he’d turned the sound down to listen to what they were saying, but the babble had left him as wrung out as an old rag. He’d only heard words here and there but the forsaken tones made him feel even worse.
The only thing he bothered about was the injury to his arm, which he’d had stitched up when he arrived. Other than changing the dressings, he did nothing but eat room-service burgers and drink the entire minibar multiple times over. Refilling it was the only thing he let the maid do in the room.
Between fastidiously emptying tiny containers of vodka into plastic glasses and downing the contents, he’d stared at the phone. The understanding had come to him slowly—he both wanted to call Estelle and simultaneously have nothing to do with her. Well, he only wanted to call her once, just once, to tell her what he thought of her.
It wasn’t flattering.
Had he really been in love with her? That’s what kept him up at night despite the vodka. The loyal, smart, kind woman he thought he’d loved had been less real than a masque. Had she primed him to fall in love through those mental nudges that she’d promised never to use? He didn’t know. Maybe what they had was true and she’d made a mistake. Even if it was, what was to say that she wouldn’t make another, and then another? He couldn’t trust her. He couldn’t trust his judgement of her.
All he could do was lay on the bed and think about Estelle while trying not to think about her.
When the maid finally refused to refill the mini-fridge, he knew it was time to go. He forced himself into the shower, where he stood until he felt as though he’d sloughed off his skin. Eric had met him at the airport and Stephan had told him most of the story on the way home.
Now here he was. Back in Toronto. Hurting so bad he could barely breathe. Nothing to keep him busy because Eric insisted he get some rest.
Stephan left the war room and went to the kitchen. Food wasn’t a cure for everything but it would do in a pinch. Cynthia patted his shoulder and quietly put a platter of sandwiches in front of him. As if drawn by the smell, Minh came in a few minutes later. His eyes lit up at the sight of the food and Stephan pushed the rest of them over. The human crammed three in his mouth.
They sat in companionable silence eating and then drinking the milkshakes Cynthia put down with a flourish. Minh twirled the glass in admiration before taking a sip. His eyes nearly rolled back in his head. “There must be a pint of ice cream in this,” he said.
Cynthia brought her own drink to the table along with a bottle of Kahlua that she cracked open and passed around. “I went to see Jimmy,” she said.
The missing masquerada security officer had been found in the west pavilion. Stephan discovered that Lucas had been found safe as well, recovering in the infirmary from blood loss.
“How is he?”
Cynthia smiled. “Doing very well. He’s grateful to you and Estelle. By the way, your vampire friend is arriving tomorrow.”
Stephan choked. Estelle? Here? He’d be packed and gone before he had to see her. He wasn’t ready.
“The librarian,” she clarified.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Me.” Caro came in. “Raoul wanted to meet.”
That was only a bit better. Stephan had no desire to see him either. “Why?” He pulled hard on the straw. It was a thick shake.
Caro sighed. “The Ancients. We’ve been corresponding. He’s a very intelligent man and an excellent researcher.”
“Will you meet with Isindle? Talk about the…” he tried to remember. “Hulu? Humian?”
“Huiniun,” she corrected. “Isindle’s coming with me to fetch him from the airport.”
Minh leaned forward. “What’s a huiniun?”
“Jail for an Ancient,” Stephan said. That was close enough.
“Raoul may be able to help us,” said Caro.
Stephan stood up from the table and paced around the kitchen. He was doing a lot of aimless strolling these days. It helped clear his head. “Why does he want to help us?”
Caro raised her dark eyebrows. “To rid the world of a great evil?”
“Maybe but this is a man who met with the Dawning, for Christ’s sake.” Even though he protested he was only an innocent bystander. “His aunt is a Madden supporter.” Or was, since there was no Madden left to support.
“You don’t trust him,” said Caro.
“I think I might but not enough to let you go without security.” Eric would slaughter him if anything happened to his consort.
“I’ll go,” offered Minh.
Caro agreed before Stephan could get a word out. It wasn’t that he doubted Minh but when all was said and done, he was a human and Raoul was a vampire. A cunning one at that. He sighed. “I should probably come too,” he said. “It’s only polite, especially since he hasn’t met either of you.”
Minh gave him a cynical smile that said he knew exactly what Stephan was up to but simply took another sandwich. It was unfair of Stephan to direct his anger at Estelle toward Raoul anyway—Raoul had enough traits for Stephan to dislike him on his own merits. This would be a good chance to find out more about the Ancients. Despite the situation with Estelle, Stephan couldn’t simply pretend the war had stopped because his feelings have been hurt. He might not be the ambassador to Queen Wavena anymore, but he was Eric’s deputy and he had a role to play in the fight against the Dawning.
He pushed away the empty glass. Looked like he was back on the job.