She’d blushed slightly. “Look, it’s been crazy here the last couple of days.”
“Since my parents got back,” Evan prompted.
“Everyone is excited,” Relda promised.
Evan’s head shook. “I don’t need you to protect me. I understand the upheaval this will cause. It’s better to know what we’re facing than to be surprised by it. I assure you, my fathers have gone over every scenario possible and they’re preparing for them all. They won’t protect my mom from the truth, and while they might try to pretend they can put me back in a bubble, it popped long ago, and I prefer reality.”
Relda seemed to come to a decision. “It’s a complex situation, Princess.”
“Yes, because we’ve been in a holding pattern for years, and there’s some odd comfort in that,” Evan allowed.
“You weren’t in a holding pattern. You’ve had to fight to survive for years.” Jade sat up straighter.
“And we’ve given her shelter when she needed it,” Relda pointed out.
“But we didn’t fight with her.” Jade seemed determined to argue with her mentor.
I approved, but I needed to cut through the obvious tension between the two to get to the truth. “I understand that our reappearance upends what has been a somewhat peaceful time, but you have to know Myrddin’s been plotting and planning. He intends to close the door to the Heaven plane and allow demons to run wild right here on the Earth plane.”
Relda’s eyes went wide. “But the humans would know.”
“Yes. I think they’ll notice when the doors to Hell open and billions of demons run out looking to party,” I replied. “Myrddin doesn’t care. Myrddin believes he’ll be the king of the entire Earth plane then. There will be a war that will make any human war look like a tea party. The humans will likely employ every weapon they have, decimating the planet.”
“But we can’t live that way.” Relda had paled. “We need our plants and herbs and… We need balance. There can be no balance with demons.”
Had she genuinely thought Myrddin wouldn’t blow it all up? I understood that many people would think that way, but she’d been living in the Under for years.
Maybe that was part of the problem. They were somewhat insulated here, having formed their own community since they couldn’t pass in society the way other vampires and supernatural creatures could. They’d been forced underground, and for the most part the supernatural world left them alone.
They couldn’t stay out of this war. “No. There will be no balance with demons, and I believe Myrddin is underestimating his control over them. They’re using the wizard, and once they’re in power, they’ll get rid of him and his witches. So I need to know what’s going on down here. I’m sure there’s a faction that thinks it can stay neutral and survive, but that’s not true. There will be no neutral positions in this war. Have you thought about the fact that you’re physically close to one of the entrances to the Hell plane? Do you think they’ll leave that door closed if you don’t declare for the royals?”
“Why would they need to come here?” Relda’s voice had gotten quiet, as though she was afraid to even ask the question.
“Because they’ll conquer everything.” I felt for her. No one wants war, but sometimes we don’t get a choice. Sometimes it came no matter what we wanted or how much diplomacy we tried. “Myrddin is in a position where he cannot back down. He made a deal with the demons to back him as the head of the Council.”
“The Council doesn’t exist anymore,” Relda argued.
“It does,” Jade countered. “It simply isn’t located in Dallas. It’s being forced to operate on the run, and they’ve been weak for a decade. We’ve fallen back into old fights, but the king is here and he united us once. He can do it again. He must do it again. You’ve heard the rumors about what Myrddin wants to do.”
Relda shook her head. “I did not think they were logical.”
“He’s not logical. He’s power hungry, and that means his logic is off.” I needed these witches on my side, and that meant sharing some information with them. I wasn’t sharing anything that wasn’t out there in the world, but I was confirming. “He’s been apart from his grimoire for years.”
Jade grinned. “Hah. I knew that was true. I heard the queen stole the grimoire and she intended to bury it somewhere in the outer planes where he can never find it again.”
Well, I knew that was wrong, but I was only going to give them so much. “The grimoire is gone, and the loss is playing into Myrddin’s desperation.”
He needed that grimoire to close the door to Heaven. He also apparently needed my sword. Gladys wouldn’t help him. Even if he could find her.
Relda seemed to come to a decision. “I’ve heard that some of the primals aren’t as interested in helping the king as the rest are. They think aiding the king will turn Myrddin’s eye toward our nest. They believe the king and the royals didn’t do much for us.”
Was Relda one of those? “What did the king need to do?”
A slim shoulder shrugged. “I wasn’t here before. I lived with a coven in Seattle. I hate the wizard. He killed my sweet friends when they wouldn’t do as he demanded.”
I needed to know her story to determine how she would react to her world potentially shaking. “What did he demand?”
“Fealty, and proof of it.” Relda’s hands shook slightly as she put the cup and saucer down. “Each witch had to prove our mettle, as he put it. And that proof came in our willingness to torture and kill for him. He wanted us to kill his enemies and take our places at the Coven House or in the houses he approved of.”