Dust

LI

The next morning when I'm brought up to Hersch's room, I'm ready.

As soon as the door is open and Santos has positioned me in a seat, I smile in Hersch's direction. She looks at me over the rim of her wine glass, which is filled with a rosé, eyes expectant and cold. "You look oddly enthusiastic, considering the loss of your friend," Hersch observes, adjusting a few strands of her hair. "Perhaps you didn't like him much?"

"I loved Shi," I say. "He's the only reason I'm alive right now."

"Too bad it's not the same case for him."

I manage a ghost of a bitter chuckle, trying to smile to hide both my sorrow at Shi's death and my anger at Hersch's incessant need to rub salt in my open wound. "Look," I begin, "let's just get this over with. You want to know what's happening with the missing citizens? Very well. I'll tell you."

Hersch sets her rosé down. "I'm listening."

So I tell her. I tell her everything, from that seemingly tiny moment when Gael knocked me to the ground in his hurry to escape, to his vague memories just now renewed. I tell her about the clues acquired through both chance and effort. I make sure she knows about Meredith, about the Commission, about the link between the two. Then, when it comes time to, I tell her the final conclusion, that all the missing humans taken from Revlin were taken by the four vampire brothers—and that all except Gael are no longer human and don't remember a time when they ever were.

By the time I've finished, I'm out of breath because of talking so much. "I even have a vampire friend back home, Damien. I don't even want to think about the look on his face when I tell him all of this—"

"Let me get this straight," begins President Hersch, and I look up at the bitterness in her voice. Her face is slowly turning red, her trembling fingers rattling against the glass she has picked up again. "My daughter is now a vampire, and even if I found her, she wouldn't remember me?"

For some reason the fact that, yes, Hersch's daughter would see her own mother as nothing but a stranger, had not crossed my mind in the slightest. There's a twinge at my heart—sympathy? For this villain of a woman? "That's right. She wouldn't. So you should just give it up—"

Hersch jumps to her feet. "I will not," she announces abruptly, then steps forward, seizing the collar of my shirt and pulling me up. Her gelid eyes search my face, and even with my words to Gael that spoke of my certainty I'd keep my life, as I look into the enraged face of a mother suffering from the loss of her child, my heartbeat can't help but accelerate. "Listen. You will lead me to Maris and you will watch as I burn it to the ground. Do you understand? Those idiot vampires are going to pay for what they've done."

Nimbly, I pluck her grip from my shirt. "About that. What if I told you I don't have to lead you anywhere at all; you can take your army and go by yourself?"

Hersch blinks long eyelashes at me. "What's the purpose of that? You almost sound as if you're consenting to me destroying your home."

"No," I say, with a cocky smile, "I'm consenting to letting you try." There is no way she is defeating a nation of faeries, shapeshifters, werewolves, vampires, wielders of magic, healers, and even a few creative hybrid mixes—we all have something against the humans' petty skills. Hersch may deny it, but she doesn't stand a chance.

Maris should be feared, and right now, it feels quite pleasurable to be able to credibly say that.

I pull the map Gael had dropped by to give me earlier from my pocket, unfold it, and hand it to Hersch. Hersch's eyes narrow as she examines it. "This was Meredith's; it's the route she took from Maris to Revlin to do her job with the Commission. You follow the trail marked through the forest, and it will land you right there. I don't have to tell you anything."