“Aine needs to go into the mask,” I said.
“What?” Dave’s voice, its tone telling me I’d just leaped into Ludicrous Land.
Every vampire in the Trust began to protest. Loudly.
I began to speak. But the words weren’t ones I recognized. Not English, certainly. Just ones Octavia begged me to repeat. The vampires recognized it at once.
“What’s she doing?” Dave demanded. I felt him grab me around the waist. It jarred my collarbone, sending a brain-blowing shaft of pain through my chest and arms.
“Trayton, don’t let him pull me off the mask!” I gasped.
I heard the entire pack growl, lifting every hair on my body, and he let go. I kept talking, the words coming awkwardly off my tongue. Would anyone understand? Octavia, speak up! Slow down! I can’t—what was that word?
Trayton’s hand, gentle under my good elbow now, bore me up. His immense trust calmed me, focused me. Octavia’s voice came clearer. I repeated her speech exactly.
“What’s she saying?” Cole demanded.
Niall’s voice, distant and oddly lilting. “Because Hamon was murdered. Because Vayl is unwilling and Disa is undeserving, Octavia can reverse the power of the mask. If Aine wears it now, instead of it consuming her, it will pour all the partners’ knowledge into her. She will be able to lead alone for the first time since the Trust was formed.”
Leaving Vayl off the hook!
I dropped my hand and, still leaning on Trayton, turned to the vampire holding Admes’s arm. “Aine?” I asked. “Are you willing to risk it?”
After a tense, quiet moment when I swore I could hear my own breath moving in and out of my lungs, Aine stepped forward and held out her hands. Yes!
By now every vestige of Disa had disappeared into the mask. Cam and Cole picked it up one more time. They walked it to where Aine stood with her arms outstretched as if to give them each a big hug. When her hands contacted wood, she clutched at it, helping them lift the mask and then lower it slowly over her head.
For a minute nothing happened. And then Aine began clawing at the outside of the mask, her fingernails leaving tiny furrows in the wood as they moved from the rounded cheeks to the closed heart-door and off. Still she stood, apparently in one piece. Except for the scratching, which continued pretty much uninterrupted for the next five minutes. Until, suddenly, she screamed.
Admes lunged forward, reaching out for the mask. Cam shoved his crossbow into the warrior’s chest. “I wouldn’t,” he said mildly.
“She’s dying in there!”
“She’s screaming,” I told him. “But she has no means of making music on her. I’d say that’s a pretty significant development, wouldn’t you?”
“Admes,” said a smooth, silky baritone that I’d begun to think I might never hear again. “Tell me you are not threatening my son.” Admes raised his hands and backed away as Vayl lifted himself off the floor, using the sword sheath we’d laid across his chest to help him balance as he leaned forward.
I went to my knees beside him, Trayton making sure the move didn’t jar my shoulder. “Vayl.” I reached out, hesitated, touched the tips of my fingers to his cheek. So cold. He’d need blood soon. And this time I’d make sure it came from me.
I slipped my hand behind his neck. “I thought . . .” I stopped. Gawd. This is about to be one of those moments. I backed away. And then, Aw, screw it. “Don’t ever do that to me again, you hear me?” I swung my leg over both of his, wrapped my good arm around his neck, and gave his luscious lips the attention they’d been begging for from the moment I’d laid eyes on them.
When I finally pulled back Vayl said, “We really must do this more often.” He looked over my head. “But perhaps without the audience?”
“Agreed. And, uh, about the son thing?” I flipped his collar up and down until he captured my hand in his. “Sorry. Maybe I’ve developed a new nervous habit. Anyway”—I squeezed his fingers, hoping it would comfort him a little—“we’re pretty sure they’re not. According to Cassandra, Erilynn couldn’t have seen either one of them. And they both seem to have been manipulated to that place by Disa. I doubt she has any contacts in the Agency or the military, so she was probably just pushing her Trust’s weight around, which she seemed to be better at than any of us gave her credit for. We underestimated her, Vayl.”
He went absolutely still, his face draining of expression. I suddenly felt like I was cuddling with one of those statues you occasionally see perched on park benches. After a moment he moved, but the only sign of disappointment was the slight drop of his chin, the downturn of his lips. “I must stand,” he said.
“Of course.” Trayton’s hand was the one that reached out to lift me off his lap, that continued to hold mine when Vayl rose without looking at or touching me, as much in his own world as the lover in that god-awful poem Eryx liked so much. He stood in his tattered clothes, soaked as a bad surfer, his deep purple eyes taking turns studying Cole and Cam.
Trayton leaned in. “Look at me.”
I turned my head, couldn’t help but smile a bit as I found myself searching for his gleaming eyes between strands of fine black hair. “What is it?” I asked.
“He’s not going to be an easy one to love,” Trayton said, with a sideways nod at my boss.
“How can you tell?”
“Because I have a complicated partner myself.” He winked at Phoebe, who seemed poised to tear my hair from its roots the moment Krios gave her permission to ditch her post.
Would you chill? I mouthed to her. She looked pointedly at my hand, still entwined with Trayton’s. I pulled it free on the pretext of settling Cirilai more firmly on my finger.
Vayl moved closer to me. “What is happening?” he asked, nodding to Aine, who still struggled inside the mask.
I explained as Jack shoved his nose into my thigh, looking for his share of affection. Since he was sitting on my left between Vayl and me, my sverhamin helped us both out, crouching down to give the dog a thorough petting.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I finished the story. “I knew it wasn’t what you wanted. But I couldn’t think of any other way to save your life.”
When Vayl looked up I felt his power reach out to me as never before. And though he didn’t move to touch me, the soft breeze of it caressed me like a cool winter wind. I nearly closed my eyes, the sensation overtook me so completely. But I couldn’t relax. Because our work wasn’t finished yet.
We were reminded of this when Aine finally stopped moaning, fighting, scrabbling at the mask and stood perfectly still. Blood sprang from the corners of the mask’s eyes, ran down its face, and caught in the furrows that Vayl had thought the carver meant as whiskers. It spread outward to the edges of the mask and farther, taking new routes no artist had drawn for it, until lines of red covered it from top to bottom. The mask shivered. Cracked. And fell into pieces at Aine’s feet.
Collective gasp as every single creature in the room, human and other, discovered that the mask had given Aine a new face. She might have been Disa’s cousin. The eyes were Octavia’s. Maybe the heart and spine belonged, at least partially, to Hamon’s former mate as well. But the rest of the face had definitely been Disa’s.
Aine stepped forward. The voice I didn’t recognize. Maybe it was hers, given wings now that she had a mouth and a nose to do the work her keyboard had taken over after her injury. “Words of thanks are so inadequate. We are forever in your debt.” She wasn’t being queenly. When she said we, she motioned to everyone in the Trust. I wasn’t sure Genti and his bunch would agree with her, but I was willing to rise above if they could keep their mouths shut.