“Why?”

“The fey had made some bad decisions in their own world and were trying to correct them.” He waved it off like a minor detail.

“Don’t be vague, Menessos. I have a war to stop. What bad decisions did they make?”

“Truly, it does not matter.” The vampire began to pace. “Una and her lovers agreed to let the fairy-kind into this world—but, in return, they wanted their curse broken. The fey did not know how to take the curse off, but promised to teach the trio higher magic, sorcery. As part of the bargain, the fairies also agreed to protect their magic rites. The four fey royals were bound to Una and her lovers personally—the most powerful protecting the most powerful—until such time as they discovered a way to break the curse.”

That ancient “curse” had actually resulted in a pair of highly infectious viruses—vampire and waerewolf. The science stole the story’s mystical flavor. I said, “And there is no cure so . . .”

“The irony of it all,” Menessos said, continuing with the story, “is that Una and her lovers also had a secret. It was unbeknownst even to them. They were not aware of the full extent of their curses; they only came to know as the years passed. You see, the fey believed their binding to the three would end when the mortals died . . . but one of them was no longer mortal.”

“The vampire,” I said.

The elusive explanation hit me. The question that had surrounded him since we’d met, was answered. I gaped blankly at him, thunderstruck.

Menessos was able to perform sorcery. He didn’t stink like other vampires. Xerxadrea hadn’t used the ley to rouse him when he should be “dead” while the sun was up.

“You.” I breathed the word more than said it.

His foot scraped along the cement floor as he shifted his stance, but he said nothing.

“You were there? You let them in, you—” I could hardly breathe, and my heart was pounding in my chest. “You were the first! And you never . . . never died.”

Menessos was still alive.

“Thousands and thousands have given their lives to share my curse with me, but none among them know what the two of you now know,” Menessos said.

It was incomprehensible. Almost. Xerxadrea had said he’d worn the fabric of this world until it was threadbare. She’d said eons. I hadn’t taken it literally.

“The fairies who were bound to me are their royalty, Persephone. They have sought to break their ties to me as eagerly as I once sought to break my curse. When the witches agreed to use elementals as their magical protectors instead with the Concordat of Munus forty years ago I vowed not to call on them myself. The Concordat had no bearing on me but my promise was a gesture . . . It helped keep peace.” Menessos looked at Xerxadrea. Something unspoken passed between them.

Peace. Balance. What I—as the Lustrata—was supposed to bring. One way or another my role was to act as the catalyst through which humans, witches, waeres, and vampires would learn to accept each other and coexist in peace. Not that anyone had told me specifically how I was supposed to do this.

Destiny sucks.

Menessos turned to me. “I kept my vow, Persephone, until the night I joined your magic circle to save your friend Theodora. They would have sensed my use of sorcery. They mistakenly assumed it meant I would start calling them again. Now they will stop at nothing to break their binding to me.”

“So you’re confirming our suspicions that these fairy royals are devious geniuses. They did all this—invading witch turf, kidnapping Beverley, trying to steal the handkerchief—in order to involve the witches. Why?”

“To get them to hand me over. If the witches don’t comply, the fairies will start a war.”

“Why would they need the hanky, too? I mean, the other actions were enough to ensure their warmongering.”

“If they couldn’t succeed through their outwardly manipulative ways, then”—Menessos spread his arms then let them fall—“with enough of my blood, they could try to succeed through covertly manipulative ways.”

Xerxadrea cocked her head oddly. “Or perhaps it was simply opportunity. The hanky . . . the fairy attacked me searching for it.”

“True,” I said. I’d witnessed it.

“Oh my. He didn’t attack me and accidentally find something he could take advantage of. He was actively hunting for that hanky. He knew it existed.”

My breath caught.

The fairies shouldn’t have even known.

“How?” Menessos demanded, voice tight with rage.

“Someone at the Eximium must have told the fairies,” she said. “Among the contestants or Elders, there is someone in contact with them, someone we can no longer trust.” She made a fist. “We need to find out who. We cannot afford an inside menace.”

“Xerxadrea, we weren’t to speak of the details of the Eximium. Blood was taken from each contestant to seal the spell. That can be used to find out who is talking about it.”

“That I will do.” Xerxadrea’s mouth formed a thin, hard line.

“I will have Goliath investigate, as well,” Menessos interjected. “He will find out who has betrayed us and silence them permanently.”

“Hold on, Menessos,” I said. “Let the witches handle this. They have the means to do so through the blood seals. Goliath doesn’t.” Goliath Kline was, among other things, Menessos’s second in command and head of security.

“She is correct, Menessos,” Xerxadrea said. “Moreover, with the bloody cloth gone, that threat to you is destroyed. The threat remaining within our ranks is to Persephone . . . and to those she must protect.”

Beverley. Nana.

Menessos tilted his head and raised one walnut-hued brow. “If the threat to her is in your ranks, perhaps she’d be better off in mine.”

Xerxadrea considered it for a moment and then started nodding her head. “Now there’s an idea.”

Uneasy, I looked first at one then the other. “What?”

“Erus Veneficus,” Menessos said.

I knew “Erus Veneficus” meant “Master’s Witch.” Some witches became servants of vampires, but doing so didn’t go over well with WEC because their loyalties were indisputably divided.

“Yes,” Xerxadrea repeated. “It would force the council to cut her off.” That sounded like a very bad thing to me. “And it would reinforce the idea that you are the master, not her.”

Menessos shot me a surprised look.

“Yeah, I told her.” Then I asked Xerxadrea, “Why is it important to reinforce that?”

Though I asked Xerxadrea, Menessos answered. “If we show the world that you serve me, and make even the fairies believe it, they will think I commanded you to kill Cerebrosus and blame me.”

“Okay. Not that I’m not grateful to have them pointing their little fingers at you instead of me, but what difference does that make?”

“To kill any fairy royalty is punishable by torture and death.”

“Torture and death?” Cerebrosus was bound to Menessos. He was a royal. I killed him! “Oh, hell.” My gut went so cold.

“Exactly.”

“Going after you, Persephone, doesn’t give them what they truly want, but they’ve already used you once to put WEC in the middle,” Xerxadrea said. “If we use you, too, then the negotiations will go much easier for the witches.”

“How so?” I didn’t like being used once, let alone willingly signing up for a second go-round.

“What they want is me, truly dead, in order to release them from their bonds,” Menessos said. “They’ll jump on the chance to demand that WEC turn me over to them.”

“And WEC can pressure her to deliver you in order to gain the council’s favor as the Lustrata.” Xerxadrea’s expression was delighted. “This will work.”

“Hold on,” I said to the Eldrenne. “I’m not going to deliver Menessos to fairies who will kill him!” I turned to the vampire. “Hell, Menessos, just let them loose. Sever the binding and let all this be done!”