Drink Deep - Chloe Neill [72]
We walked through chill 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 really help us with the bigger issue.”
“Figuring out what the hell’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 telling her about elemental magic. What if she meant it literally?”
“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?”
“Actually, 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 all 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—accidentally 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?”
“I can vouch for Catcher and Mallory. He’s exhausted from working on this problem, and she’s wrapped up in her exams. Besides, even asking them about it would make them both go ballistic.” And I did not need any more ballistic right now.
“I was actually thinking about the only Order-sanctioned sorcerer in town.”
“You’re talking about Simon?” I asked. “To tell you the truth, when I asked him about the water, he seemed to be in denial about