“Oh, bite me,” Karl mutters.
“I would, only the spider beat me to it.” Zthane ducks Karl’s flying pencil. “Okay, okay. We can tease Karl for at least another hundred years about this if we’re lucky. Right now, I want to go over the latest Elder information we’ve acquired.” The room sobers instantly. “As many of you already know, two Magicals were killed this last week on the Elvin plane.” A red laser pointer circles the eastern edge of Gelandreigh, a city whose population hovers around three million. “Most of the attacks in the past have occurred in less densely populated areas. Therefore, it’s most likely safe to assume that with these latest attacks, the Elders are becoming more aggressive in their hunting.”
Kiah looks up from the agenda below her, where she’s been scribbling notes. “Who were the victims?”
“Micah Oleander, an Elemental, and Penny Yarrow, a Shaman.” Zthane hits a few keystrokes on his keyboard; the map disappears and images of the two Elves appear. “Oleander was on assignment at the time; the responding team who found his remains deduced that he’d been caught unaware just as he’d begun brewing his lightning storm.”
Micah Oleander looked nice. Like he was gentle. He was skinny, a bit hipster-ish, but his face radiated kindness.
Flashes of two backpacking Gnomes fill my mind.
“Yarrow was to merge in three months. She’d turned eighteen only weeks before.” A series of sighs fill the room. He rubs at his eyes. “She was Council-bound. Her parents are devastated.”
“Monsters,” is whispered from somewhere down the table.
Penny Yarrow’s delicate face smiles down at us. She looks extraordinarily young. Only a year younger than me, she could probably pass for fourteen.
Grief for her early death rocks me. Thanks to these . . . things . . . Penny will never get to discover the joys and challenges of her craft. If she hasn’t already, she’ll never fall in love with someone. She’ll never have a child, if that’s what she wanted. She’ll never know what it’s like to grow old.
“They need to be stopped,” Kiah says. Her voice is ragged.
“I doubt there is a Magical alive who doesn’t agree with that,” Zthane says. His fingers scrape against his day-old stubble. “Which brings me to my point. Battletracker sent out ten separate Trackers over the last month to try to discover the Elders’ whereabouts. Despite all our combined Magics, finding them has been frustratingly elusive. Seems like we’re always a few steps behind. But a couple of our guys think they might be able to track them after an orchestrated attack.”
Papers shifting against each other are the only sounds for a good five seconds. Then Giuliana says, “You’re talking live bait.”
Zthane nods slowly.
“It makes sense,” Karl says as we all digest this. “What better way to draw them out in the open than to offer up what they want most.”
Zthane slowly nods again.
And then Kellan growls between clenched teeth, “NO.”
My eyes fly to his face. He’s clearly pissed.
“Kellan—” Zthane tries, but Kellan cuts him off right away.
“You think Jonah is going to go for this?”
My heart trips. Jonah? They think they’re going to offer up Jonah as bait? Oh, hell no. I open my mouth to voice my dissent, too, but Zthane beats me to the punch.
“Of course we need Council blessing. I already planned on talking to Jonah after our meeting today. He knows what’s at stake. He’ll go for it if we make sure we—”
“Are you insane?” The papers in front of Kellan go flying as he shoves himself out of his seat. “He deposed Belladonna for simply saying something. Banished him for plotting that may or may not have been based in fact. And yet, you think he’ll just go along with you purposely sending Chloe out like a lamb to slaughter?”
Hold the phones. They’re talking about me?
“The Elders have only ever repeatedly targeted one Magical,” Zthane says calmly. “It serves to reason that Chloe would be our best option for attracting their attention.”
“You’re wrong.” Kellan leans down, palms flat against the table. “They’ve targeted me and my brother multiple times, too.”
“By association,” Zthane argues.
“Can you be absolutely certain of that?” Kellan asks. “Because it didn’t really feel that way any of the three times they’ve tried to kill me.”
Karl clears his throat. “They’ve gone after her five times.” Kellan glares at him when he holds up five fingers and begins to tick them off. “There was that first car chase, then the San Francisco fiasco.” He still holds this grudge, because I wince at his stern frown. “The battle here in Annar. The failed portal attempt. And then in India a few months back.”