"Heed this, bloodletters," Claudia said. "There was no enchantment. The sky was not turned because someone wished it. Because someone spel ed it for revenge or love or power. If you look to the sky, you see the symptom, not the effect."
"Then what caused this symptom?" Jonah asked.
"That would be a question for those who did it, aye?"
As I'd seen with the guards, Jonah was kind, but not especial y patient, so I stepped in. "Do you have any idea who that might have been? The humans are growing restless, and the mayor seeks to punish us for transgressions that aren't our own."
"The punishment of bloodletters is no interest of mine."
"More than vampires are affected," Jonah persisted. "The lake pul ed magic from others in the city. From the nymphs.
From the sorcerers. It was dangerous and created trouble for everyone."
"I am Queen of the Fae, bloodletter, not a waif who seeks the blood of others to survive. I have knowledge of sky and mastery over it. I have legions of fae at my command and Valkyrie to ride with them. Do not dare to tel me what is and is not dangerous."
She sighed and strol ed back to the table, where she took a seat. "The sky has not been burned by me or mine.
There is magic on the wind. Old magic. Ancient magic. And we wil not stand aside while that magic destroys the world."
My heart began to beat again; that was a clue I could work with.
"Meaning?" Jonah asked.
Claudia smiled grimly. "Meaning we would destroy meadow and field ourselves before al owing for its piecemeal destruction."
"You can't destroy the city because you don't like the direction it's taking."
"If we destroy the city, it is only because that destruction is inevitable and we seek a merciful inferno over a moldering decay. Leave now," she said, rising from the table and walking back to her bed and sitting upon it. "I have tired of you."
The guards moved toward us, malice in their eyes. I had offended their queen, and it was time to pay up. But Claudia spoke again before we could move.
"Vampires."
We looked back.
"The city is unbalanced," she said. "Water and sky reveal that imbalance. If you are to save it, you must do this. Find the il ness, and return the balance." Her eyes turned cold and dark again. "For if you do not, then we must. And I submit you wil {ubm"l not like our cure."
I had no doubt she was right.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DEAR JOHN
We made it out the door and down the steps, my head pounding, but the body ache nearly gone. Some nights it did pay to be a quickly healing vampire, fairy angst notwithstanding.
The bloodred sky was now dotted with angry storm clouds, and lightning stil flashed in great, glowing arcs. Not thril ed about being its target, we decided to debrief in my car.
We walked through chil air and damp grass and back to my Volvo. We moved silently, the air between us charged by what he'd done, and my mixed feelings about it. It was definitely good to be alive, but I had a bad track record with self-sacrifice. Ethan had stepped in front of a stake meant for me because he'd had feelings for me; had Jonah done the same?
I decided to focus on my dangerous actions instead of his heroic ones.
"I am so sorry," I told him when we climbed inside.
"Frank's rationing blood. But even beyond that, the hunger was overpowering. I've never felt anything that strong." Even my First Hunger, during which I'd launched myself at Ethan, hadn't been that bad. The guard had come a lot closer to being fang-marked.
"The receiver cut back on your blood supplies? Is he trying to incite riots?"
"Or make us go crazy and attack the first supernaturals in sight."
"Mission accomplished," Jonah said.
"If vampires have always reacted that way to fairy blood, it explains why fairies don't like us any more than humans."
"It does," he agreed. "And it explains why they keep their distance and why we have to pay them so much to guard the House. That kind of power is dangerous. Unfortunately, it doesn't real y help us with the bigger issue."
"Figuring out what the hel 's going on?"
"That's the one. Claudia mentioned a couple of times that she didn't think this was about the sky or water per se, but that they were symptoms of a larger problem."
I nodded. "And I think she had something there. She accused the guards of not tel ing her about elemental magic. What if she meant it literal y?"
"What do you mean?"
"So far, we've seen water and sky affected. Water and air," I repeated, and watched understanding dawn in his expression.
"Water. Air. Earth. Fire," he said. "The four elements."
"Exactly. We've seen two so far. If she was right about these things being symptoms - "
"Then someone is working magic with elemental effects,"
Jonah finished.
I wasn't entirely sure what that meant or who might be doing it, but my gut told me we were on the right track. And after the week we'd had, I'd take any victory I could get.
"She also blamed ancient magic," Jonah said. "Old magic. Any theories on who that might be?"
"Actual y, yeah. What do you know about Tate?"
"Seth Tate?" He shrugged. "I know it's believed he has magic - that you've felt it before - but that no one knows what magic it is. Why?"
"Because when I visited him, I had a sense of something old. A different kind of magic. Closer to what I felt from Claudia than what I've seen of vampires."
"Okay, but this is the third time we've approached a supernatural group thinking they might have initiated the problem. We've been wrong al three times."
"I know. Our batting average sucks. But like she said, we've been looking at the symptoms, not the cause.
Besides, we have to try something. If we can't tie this to a supernatural working magic, then what else would there be?"
"Radiation? A new kind of weapon? Global warming? Or if no sups are doing this on purpose, is it accidental magic of some kind?"
I thought about Lorelei's prediction that too many shifters in town were doing just that - accidental y throwing off the world's balance. On the other hand, she'd blamed shifters when the water had been the only problem. This time we had water and air.
"If Claudia's right," he said, "and this is about some deeper imbalance in the city, maybe the key isn't the who.
It's the what. What kind of magic would be powerful enough to screw up both water and air? Sorcerers?"