Chapter 6

6

I sat in my authority, nerves tightening my chest. This conversation would be hard to navigate to say the least. I’d spouted some bullshit in my time, but this would take the prize. “A warm welcome to Ruby and Huxley, who have accepted the position of advisor to join our team.”

The others threw them smiles and murmured hellos.

I’d donned the relic robes again today as a symbol. The advisors had their black robes, and it seemed important that I distinguish myself. Sven would be proud of me.

I surveyed their ranks. “We have a lot to do, and first I’d like to hear where you believe we should start.”

Opal said immediately, “Demon defense. They’re the immediate threat.”

Barrow voiced his agreement.

Varden countered. “Coven unity. A demon’s magic feeds off division.”

The other advisors, barring Wild and Huxley, turned to look at him.

“How do you know that?” Winona asked.

“There’s reference to this in texts that our project team has come across,” Huxley replied.

There was likely no such thing, but I was glad Varden and he had ripped that bandage off. “This project team has put together information that will prove invaluable in the coming weeks. We know that any division—having different teams within a coven, for instance—feeds a demon, along with negative emotion. A strong demon can leave their realm to enter this realm.”

“You’re implying that Caves has strengthened the demons’ magic?” Delta said. Her doubt was evident. “For how long? We’d been playing for three hundred years.”

“I don’t know if the demons were there at the origin or if they came later,” I hedged. I did. When Ryzika died, the demons had carpe diemed the shit out of the uncertainty in the leaderless coven.

“Surely later,” Ruby spoke for the first time.

I regarded them. “What’s the motive of a demon?”

“To gain territory,” Wild answered.

I nodded, then waved my hand, sending a burst of energy down my apothecary affinity. A map rolled out on the table. I cast forth four bobbing balls of blue magic. “We occupy the south, here, in the Buried Knolls. Vissimo?—”

“What’s a Vissimo?” Ruby asked.

“A vampire,” Varden told her.

She colored, but I’d imagine others sitting at this table hadn’t recalled that either.

“The Vissimo occupy the west territory in Bluff City. Luthers—werewolves—occupy the eastern land in Deception Valley.” My focus shifted. “And then the demon territory is in the north mountains.”

“How do you know this?” Winona asked. “We know they’re out there, but not specifically where.”

In this, I didn’t need to lie. “I was raised outside of the coven. The whereabouts and turfs of supernaturals is common knowledge beyond the confines of the Buried Knolls.”

Opal made a sound of surprise.

“Beyond the north mountains,” I continued, “is the ocean. If a demon’s motive is territory—in that claiming a territory and enslaving the people in it creates a constant food source for their magic—then heading farther north isn’t an option, and the only territories to claim?—”

“—are the territories of other supernatural species,” Wild finished.

We were so in sync. Cute.

I rested back on my authority. Must get a fucking cushion. “What would you think if I told you that two other games like Caves had existed, each lasting a century or longer? That one of the games was played by Vissimo, and another by Luthers?”

A deep silence followed my words.

“I would say that too much coincidence is no coincidence at all,” Delta said. I was glad Wild, Huxley, and Varden hadn’t been the first to break that quiet.

“You’re implying that demons have infiltrated each species via a game. But,” she added, “that’s impossible. How would everyone fail to notice?”

Winona replied, “Demons attacked our coven a week ago, walking out of an entrance within our barrier, Delta. Most of us had no idea.”

And even if their gate had been outside our barrier, they would have marched through it. Only a four-affinity barrier seemed to make them pause, and I was willing to bet the stronger demons could get through that too.

Eyes turned to me again.

Barrow was the one to voice the question. “You knew there were gates.”

How did I answer?

I’d known there were gates because I’d followed an echo of my mother into a ravine and happened to discover the truth. But how did I reveal this without revealing all? If my mother discovered the gates, then how did she do so when a magus couldn’t see them? And why would she never have passed that on to the council? Why had she run? That line of questioning led to what she’d had to hide, and the only answer to that was her children.

I was taking too long to reply. I had to say something.

In his mild voice, Varden said, “I knew there were gates.”

The attention cut from me to the old grimoire across the table. He met their regard. “I was first to greet the demons at the battle, as you know. Keeping this knowledge was a betrayal of the council’s trust, I’m aware, and I have known about the demons for some time, since the grandfather of our high esteemed suddenly died.”

“Caradoc?” Opal blurted. “That was years ago.”

Ruby glanced around the table. “What happened to him?”

“The reason we gave the coven for his death,” Varden said, ignoring a sharp look from Barrow, “was that he’d undertaken an experiment which drew too much of his magic at once. The truth is that we had no idea. For all intents and purposes, it appeared as though Caradoc had been murdered.”

Ruby gasped.

“Not long after Caradoc’s death, his son came to me. What he had to say was extraordinary. He said that his father had a theory that demons were infiltrating our coven. That there was a gate to their realm in his father’s old room, the room his son now occupied.” Varden paused. “His words were hard to believe, and yet… I had seen Caradoc’s body with my own eyes. When I assessed the room later, I could detect no demon presence, but Fyre was adamant. He showed me a map that his father had developed. One that showed the surrounding ravines where Caradoc believed other gates to exist. Fyre told me that the gates weren’t stationary. That they moved closer to the knolls as the demons’ power grew.”

“How did Caradoc locate the gates?” Opal asked.

“He’d come across a weapon that warmed when demons were near.”

Varden. You. Genius. “The dagger I held at the start of the battle,” I told her. “I don’t know when my uncle banished the blade to my grandmother for safekeeping, but she gave it to me shortly before she died.”

“If Rowaness and Hazeluna knew of this, why did they leave?” Winona was watching me closely.

“I don’t believe they did know of it. To them, this may just have been a blade.” I’d have to make sure no one ever touched it. The demon blade would burn them. Or I’d have to figure out Grandmother’s trick and attempt to coat the hilt in a charm.

Winona shifted her focus to Varden. “Why did Fyre not give the blade to you? You moved into the same room after hisdeath.” She tilted her head. “You were attacked recently in the room. It was demons too.”

The mood in the room turned accusatory. Varden had known about the demons and never said a thing. We’d been attacked. In the eyes of Winona and the others, things could have ended much differently. The only reason Varden might survive this was because no one had died a week ago. I appreciated him taking the heat for this, even if I wished there was another alternative where I could admit my part.

“The blade burns most who touch it,” Huxley said. “Out of our group, only Corentines can touch it unscathed.”

Varden didn’t so much as flicker an eyelid before running with that. “I couldn’t wield it. If I was the next to die guarding that gate, we had to ensure the blade wouldn’t be lost.”

“If you had died, then no one would have known the gate was there,” Delta exploded.

I’d sensed it coming.

She pounded the stone table with a closed fist. “That was foolhardy to say the least, Varden. Why would you make light of such a threat?”

The old grimoire took in her anger. “What could I do with such information, Delta? Should I have told Fertim or Vero?”

“The council,” she snarled.

“The Fertim members of council or the Vero members of council?” he asked her next.

“Just the council.” Delta’s gaze sparked with her fury, and she wasn’t alone in it.

Varden lowered his voice. “You know as well as I that the council has not operated as a unified council in a long time. Not just us, but those before us, and those before them. The game had been allowed to permeate our decision-making. Would we, for instance, have halted the game to face the threat of the demons? Who would have decided the best approach? If Fertim had suggested an idea, Vero would have countered it, and vice versa. You know this as well as I. My decisions may not have been perfect—I am not arrogant enough as to believe that so—but I was sure of the coven’s inability to unite. I feared, as Caradoc and Fyre had before me, that revealing what I knew would secure the coven’s demise rather than their survival.”

Delta’s shoulders were taut to snapping point, but she didn’t say anything further.

Opal slid him a look. “That’s why you hated Caves all of a sudden.”

Ruby’s eyes were wide. She was getting a crash course on how much went on behind the scenes.

“Yes,” Varden replied. “Particularly after Fyre’s death, I couldn’t ignore the importance of that room. Or what may be within. With that admission came everything else. The demons were spreading through our midst. Yet I was incapacitated by the game and by my inability to find the gates too. Had they moved closer as the division in our coven worsened? When might they attack? Was any of this true? I hoped not.”

Wild glanced at him. “When I proposed the group project on supernaturals, you were particularly vocal in your approval.”

Varden dipped his head. “I saw the benefit of that, yes. And then Miss Tempest Corentine joined us, and with her, the blade returned. Though she did not understand its importance.”

That much was true.

“Why didn’t Fyre give the blade to Rooke?” Barrow interrupted.

“I cannot say for certain. His wife was dead, and I wonder if he wanted to protect Rooke. Or did Rowaness know the truth of the blade? Being safe outside of the coven, she could divulge everything to our high esteemed at the right time, whereas Fyre could not be sure how long he’d live to pass on the truth to his daughter. I only have theories.”

I blew out a breath. “If Grandmother knew anything, she didn’t get a chance to tell me. Not long after I joined the coven, Varden told me all.”

Winona’s eyes narrowed. “And yet he voted against you joining the coven.”

Shit. I dipped my head. “And off the back of that, for a time, Varden was the only member of the council I trusted. None of you told me about Caves, if you recollect. Varden had been the only one who seemed to feel the subterfuge wasn’t right, even if he had his own agenda too.”

I couldn’t say if that was true or if Varden was upholding my grandmother’s wishes of removing me from the coven.

Ruby looked at me. “When you were told the truth, you found the gates again.”

“And they were much closer,” Huxley said.

“The four of you knew also,” Opal said, referring to the quad.

“Yes,” Wild said, and the answer was echoed by Huxley. Wild added, “Tempest convinced Varden that more coven members should be told—Rooke definitely, as she may be able to touch the blade, if anything happened to Tempest. And myself and my three friends due to our deeper knowledge about other supernaturals.”

We were managing to get through this conversation with our mix of truth and lies. Yet… I really had drawn close to the best people to figure all this out. Or been pushed toward them.

I said, “The gates were closer as Huxley says. I—and the others—agreed with Varden’s assessment. That telling the council and coven was as likely to hinder as help. The game was in the way.”

“And so you won the game,” Ruby said in awe.

“We intended to.”

Opal glanced at Varden and Wild. “We?”

“Our high esteemed had no help from Fertim,” Varden stated.

“I have a rather unusual outlet for my magic,” I told her. “One that the Vero team leaders are aware of. I call it a quipu. It’s a method of storing information. My magic shows me connections and pathways between the information in a way I don’t understand, but I used this to place Vero in a winning position on the gameboard. If I’d joined Fertim, I would have done the same for that team. I wasn’t interested in who won, just that Caves ended, so we could focus on the real threat.”

Opal looked to Winona, Delta, and Barrow, who nodded.

“I’d like to see this quipu sometime.”

“Of course,” I said. “As it turned out, the game was ended through other means. I gained a fourth affinity on the night of the battle against the demons. And while I’m still trying to understand how and why this happened, I am grateful for what it has given the coven.”

“An end to Caves?” Winona prompted.

“Yes, and protection from the demons we didn’t have.” I glanced at my robes. “The four relics proved more effective than any measure.”

“As did the blade you’d wielded prior,” she noted.

“And that’s another mystery to be solved.” Did Winona and the others believe me? Enough to keep quiet for now. “Now you have more information, we must decide upon a starting point.”

Opal slumped in her chair, looking frazzled. “Part of me doesn’t believe what I’ve been told, and yet—like Varden long ago—I can’t deny some things. Demons did attack. Caradoc and Fyre were lost in that room where Varden was attacked also. The army came out of nowhere one week ago. The relics seemed to choose you in a moment of peril—as though you were needed to save us.” She exhaled long and hard. “This will take time for me to fathom, but at the heart of the matter, I see that we have division fueling the demons’ strength. The answer is to work on unity. On giving the coven new direction. On healing old wounds.”

“We can’t leave the gates without defense,” Delta said. It was the first time she’d spoken since Varden’s confession. She was still pissed.

“We need to develop the best defenses before we can put them in place,” Wild said. “That should be an area of focus.”

Huxley said, “We already have a lot to go on.”

To me, the way had been clear. I’d just needed everyone on a similar page. “The answer seems to be both. I agree with Opal. There should be efforts with the coven itself. We are in a position to start this immediately while other information is gathered on defenses. Huxley, I’m placing you and Spyne in charge of that information process. Get together a team of grimoires and find everything you can on demons.”

Huxley nodded.

“Wild,” I said next. “You and Ruby are to organize the sentry schedule.”

Wild was a great teacher, and Ruby would do well under his wing.

“Of course,” he replied for show, having accepted the role yesterday.

“Delta,” I said next. “Once Huxley’s team has gathered information, we’ll begin training for demon-specific combat. You’ll be in charge of this. Barrow, Opal, and Winona, we need to assess our stores and external support from other covens. I have received a stack of letters that I will pass into your care. I’d like you to be our representatives with the covens who have voiced their support to see what they can offer against the demons. I’d like you to open dialogue with covens who don’t wish to support us too. We need all the help we can get. Support from others may include further knowledge on the demons, so make sure to press for this, too, and please loop in Huxley and Spyne with that side of the process.”

The trio nodded.

“Varden,” I said. “Now the game is over, I am able to swap rooms with you. I’m moving in tonight.”

“I’ve told you that an old man doesn’t have as much to lose.”

I didn’t smile. “That is an order as your high esteemed.”

His lips curved. “Then, of course, I will vacate the quarters.”

Wild didn’t like my decision, but I was the best defense against the demons. The gate had to be well guarded.

“I’m also placing you in charge of rolling out strategies for establishing the new norm in this coven,” I told him. Then said to the others, “And that is where we turn our minds to next. Our magus identify as Vero or Fertim, not as members of the Buried Knolls coven. They have been split for three hundred years.”

I paused to allow my words to sink in because that was a long, long time. “How do we change that?”