Anastasia whispered, “I remember holding my mother’s hand when we went to your temple to light offerings and pray to you. I have tried to remember her, to honor her—”
“She knows.”
“Is her spirit safe? Contented?”
“She is,” Xiwangmu said.
Anastasia bowed her head and finally, after all this time, tears fell. “My spirit will never join with my ancestors. No one will ever light offerings at my grave.”
“You have a different path,” Xiwangmu said. Anastasia—Li Hua—nodded. She had probably known that from the beginning.
Grace stood and tentatively went to the vampire and touched her arm, a brief offering of comfort. I held my breath, waiting for Anastasia to turn her back, isolate herself. But she took Grace’s hand and squeezed it before letting it go.
Xiwangmu straightened, shifting moods, tones—no longer a matron telling a story, she became a queen making a pronouncement.
“The Dragon’s Pearl is gone. Now, we must decide how to build defenses against the one who has taken it. How to oppose one with so much power.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, and I could see Grace and Anastasia both flinch. “That’s it? What about trying to get it back? What about getting Henry back?”
“Do we know that Roman is just going to leave town now that he has it?” Cormac said. “Not come back and try to finish you off?” He nodded at me and Anastasia. Finishing us off—it was what Cormac would have done.
“Be quiet,” Grace hissed. “Let Queen Mother speak!”
Xiwangmu had cocked her head, listening, turning her gaze to me. “How would you oppose the Roman?”
I swallowed a lump in my throat at the sudden, intent scrutiny. I hadn’t thought about the how of it, just that it needed to be done.
“There has to be a way to find him,” I said finally. “Trace him, track him, something. Grace said he has to have a guide in the tunnels, someone who’s been helping him. Maybe we find who that is, and from there find Henry and the pearl.”
“Henry is gone, Kitty,” Anastasia said softly.
“I don’t want to have to tell Boss that,” I countered.
“I’ll tell him,” she said.
Xiwangmu raised a hand, and Anastasia settled. “This guide, the one who is helping Gaius Albinus. I think you are right, and that we should discover who this is. For our own protection, if nothing else.” She folded her hands before her and narrowed her eyes in thought. After a moment, she glanced at Sun, who was leaning on his staff, looking back.
“Do you have any ideas?” she asked.
“I do. You won’t like it, though,” he said.
“Yes, indeed.” Sighing, she said, “To oppose us, it would have to be one of us.”
“One of you?” I said. “What does that even mean? You’re not vampires, you’re not demons or spirits. What are you?”
Sun laughed. “What, is this so you can go home and look us up in your encyclopedia? Check another category off in your supernatural guidebook?”
I flushed. I was usually the one taking the piss out of everything. “I just want to know.”
“Of course you do—you’re a nosy American.”
I rolled my eyes.
Behind me, Ben said close to my ear, “You’re never going to get a straight answer.”
I never did.
Sun came over to me, planted his staff in front of me, leaned heavily on it, and grinned. “Surely you can guess what we are, can’t you? You must have some idea.”