“I daresay,” she agreed. “What is it you want?”
“Answers.”
She smiled. It was a real smile, a warm smile—the sort of smile that would have normally tugged a response from my lips. But there was something off-kilter about her, about the look in her eyes. Not to mention the edge of wariness that swirled across the clearing, mingling with the wood sparks and stirring the leaves of the nearby trees.
“The vampire council sent you?”
I hesitated. “In a sense. But I am not an assassin.”
“If I thought you were, you would already be dead.” She cocked her head and studied me for a moment. “I must admit, you intrigue me. I cannot determine exactly what you are.”
“I’m a half-breed, but that’s neither here nor there. And its not what I’m here to discuss.”
“Obviously,” she said. “I suppose you want to know whether I am responsible for the rise of the Maniae?”
“I do.”
She nodded and returned her gaze to the flames again. “I did not expect the Brindle to help the council, I must admit.”
“They’re not helping the council. They’re helping me.”
“A minor difference when you are here as a representative of the council.”
She might have considered it minor, but I doubted the Brindle would. “So you did raise the Maniae?”
“Of course.” She glanced at me. “Why else would I access the spell?”
She was, I thought uneasily, extremely chatty about her deeds. And that was never a good thing when it came to bad guys—or so Aunt Riley claimed—because it usually meant they had something devious planned. “Then my next question has to be, why?”
“Ah, that is far more complex.”
“I have all night.”
She smiled again—and this time there was nothing real or warm about it. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
I resisted the urge to rub my arms and said, “Why did you raise the Maniae?”
“Because they killed my master.”
It took a moment for her words to hit. Shit, she was one of Whitfield’s fledglings! One they’d obviously missed during the cull.
“Which master are we talking about?”
She gave me a long look. “You know which master. You are not stupid, young woman.”
“Then we are talking about Robert Whitfield?”
“Of course! How many others has the council allowed to be drained and killed recently?”
“To be honest, who the fuck knows? It’s not like the council actually advertises their business.”
“That’s true.” She crossed her arms and studied the fire for a moment.
As the silence stretched on, I said, “Why wait so long for your revenge, then?”
“Because while I have merely undergone the blood ceremony and not the conversion, Robert’s death was almost my death. It took a toll on my strength and my will.” She looked at me again, her face bitter and suddenly gaunt. “But I could have survived that. I could have survived his death and moved on with my life, had it not been for one discovery.”
I raised an eyebrow, and she continued almost savagely. “By killing Robert and declaring that his entire nest be erased, they have sentenced me to madness when my death finally comes and the conversion takes place.”