“And they’ll tell Lilith we’ve gone,” Glenna added.
“She’ll know where. When we go to Geall, we take her there.” Moira’s hand tightened on Larkin’s shoulder. “I’d bring that plague to my people.”
“It can’t be helped,” Blair began.
“You say that because you’ve grown used to living with this. I want to go home,” Moira said. “I want to go home more than I can say, but to bring something so evil with me. What if the battle didn’t take place? If we found her portal, sealed it off somehow. We could change destiny.”
Destiny, in Blair’s opinion, wasn’t something you messed around with. “Then the battle takes place here, where it’s not meant to. And I’d have to say our chances of winning drop.”
“Moira.” Larkin rose, moving around the couch until he faced her. “I don’t love Geall less than you, but this is the way. It’s what was asked of you, and what you asked of me.”
“Larkin.”
“The plague you speak of has already infested Geall. It took your mother. Would you ask me to leave my own now, to break this trust. To risk all?”
“No. I’m sorry. I’m not afraid for myself, not any more. But I see the faces of those people in cages, and they take on the faces of those I know, from home. And I’m afraid.”
She steadied herself. “It’s more than Geall, I know. We’ll go, in one week.”
“Once we’re there we’ll raise an army.” Hoyt looked at Moira. “You’ll ask your people to fight, to unify under this circle.”
“They’ll fight.”
“It’s going to involve a lot of training,” Blair pointed out. “And it’s going to be more complicated than what we’ve been doing. We’re just six. We’d better be able to pull together hundreds, and it’s not just putting a stake in their hands. It’s teaching them how to kill vampires.”
“With one exception.” Cian lifted his glass in half salute.
“No one will lay hands on you,” Moira told him, and he answered with a lazy smile.
“Little queen, if I thought otherwise, I’d toss some confetti and wish you all bon voyage.”
“Okay, here’s another thing.” Blair passed by the windows again, just to see if any vampires had chanced coming toward the house. “For all we know Lilith may be on the move, too. She may even get there before we do. Anyway, can we rig up the circle—some spell—so we’ll know if it’s been used to…open the door?”
“There should be.” Glenna looked at Hoyt. “Yes, I think we can work that.”
“You wouldn’t have to. She can’t use the Dance of the Gods.” Larkin reached for his beer again. “Didn’t you say, Moira, when we came through that a demon couldn’t enter the circle?”
“It’s pure,” she agreed. “What they are can’t enter the ring, much less use it to go between worlds.”
“Okay, bigger problem.”
Cian acknowledged Blair’s comment with another lift of his glass. “Looks like I’ll be tossing that confetti after all.”
“That’s a kick in the arse, isn’t it. I’d forgotten.” Larkin pursed his lips before drinking again. “So we’ll find a way around it. As I understand it, we six must go, so there must be a way to do it. We just need to find it.”
“We go together,” Hoyt said and set his tea aside, “or we don’t go at all.”
“Aye.” Larkin nodded in agreement. “We leave no one behind. And we’re taking the horse this time.” He remembered himself, smiled easily at Cian. “If it’s all the same to you.”
“We work the problem. Any magical solutions spring to mind?” Blair asked Hoyt.
“The goddess must intercede. She must. If we attempt, Glenna and I, to open this ourselves to let Cian through, we could change it all, disrupt the power, close it altogether so no one gets through—or out again.”
“Every time you change the nature of something,” Glenna explained, “you risk repercussions. Magic has a lot in common with physics, really. The circle is a holy place, sacred ground, and we can’t mess with that. But at the same time, Cian’s meant to go, and at the goddess’s behest. So we’ll work on the loophole.”
“If there’s another way, another portal that Lilith needs to use, maybe Cian’s supposed to use that.” Blair frowned at him. “It’d be my second choice. I don’t like separating, especially on moving day.”
“Added to the fact,” he reminded her, “that I don’t know where in the bloody hell that portal or window might be.”