Scowling, she tilted her head to speak to Aeron in Welsh. “What’s a Legolas and is he meaning to be insulting?”
“Nae, he’s attempting to be charming. Not so much with Legolas, but even that’s more teasing than mean. Though he be the Malachai, he’s not a cruel beast. He’s truly trying to come to an understanding of what you really are. And speaking of, as the Malachai, he understands your Welsh so it does you no good to switch to it in front of him, as he knows every word we be saying.”
“Oh…” Vawn turned back to study Nick for a minute. “That’s the Malachai, is it?”
Nick feigned a deep chest wound at the way Vawn said that. “Now who’s insulting who?”
Vawn held her hands up. “No insult meant … exactly. You’re just not what comes to me mind with that word. At all.”
“Especially given the animals where we’ve been kept.”
Nick went over to Zavid and held his hand out to him. “You’ve no idea how worried I’ve been since they told me what happened to you. I’m so sorry.”
“Aeron told me.” Gratitude glowed in his eyes. “Thank you.” Zavid looked around at everyone in the room. “All of you. I didn’t think I’d ever get away from Noir.”
Caleb approached him and pulled the collar back from his black shirt to examine his neck. For what, Nick had no idea. But it was obvious, he was hunting for something in particular on Zavid’s skin. “How did he get ahold of you to begin with?”
“Livia. Bitch threw me to him. I was protecting her one minute and the next.…” His eyes flashed red. “If I ever get the chance to return the favor, I will open her throat and bathe in her blood.”
Nick felt awful for him. He could only imagine how badly they’d mistreated him, especially given the horrors he’d seen Zavid suffer while held in Hel proper. “Why didn’t your sister tell us where you were?”
“They destroyed her soul.” Tears gathered in his eyes. “For that I will kill Grim one day. This is now a personal war for me. And I won’t rest until I make sure he feels my full wrath.”
Caleb clapped him on the back and stepped away.
Xev arched his brow at him.
His gaze sincere, Caleb inclined his head. “He’s clean and telling the truth. Our father got him away without a mark. He’s ours again, free of their powers.”
Zavid gaped at them. “Verlyn’s your father?”
“Yeah.”
Vawn winced. “I hated to leave that one behind, I did. Never did I think to feel sorry for one of his ilk. But we owe him everything. He put himself to the hazard for us and fell back to take the full brunt of punishment from Y Tywyllwch.”
“Tho?” Kody asked.
“The Mavromino,” Nick answered absently, though how he knew … well, he knew how he knew, it just still stunned him whenever his powers allowed him to comprehend languages he’d never studied before. “Is there any way to free him?”
They shook their heads in unison.
Caleb clapped him on the shoulder. “There are some problems not even the great Malachai can solve.”
“Not helping.”
Neither was the fact that Menyara repaired her door by holding her hand out, muttering in the primal language, and it reassembled as if nothing had happened to it.
Oh to be able to command the elements like that.
Nick pouted at her. “You could have done that before the monsters gave your favorite Boo a cardiac arrest, Aunt Mennie.”
Cupping his chin in her hand, she snorted at him. “There is much here that isn’t right.”
“You think it could be tied to the deaths of the Squires?”
Menyara froze at Nick’s question. “What deaths?”
“Ash and Kyrian were talking about it. There’s been a bad outbreak in Squire deaths. They assumed it was from Daimon attacks.”
“Or something worse.” Menyara held her hand out. An old book came flying off her shelves to hover in the air before her. Using her powers, she flipped through it. “I think we’re dealing with a D?v.”
Caleb let out a nervous laugh. “They’re extinct.”
“Supposedly,” Menyara mumbled.
Nick was sure he had the same look of tasting bile on his face that Xev, Kody, and Caleb wore. “Aunt Men, I think I can speak for the whole group here when I say we don’t like that word. Not that I know what a D?v is, but your tone says that whatever it is, it sucks to be human whenever one’s around.”
“Nice summation. And also very true.” Caleb stepped closer to the book. “But it would make sense. A D?v would drain your powers. Require human flesh to sustain itself…”
“And would have imprisoned me in the same realm their leaders were once banished to.”
Nick’s jaw went slack. “You were banished with them?”
She nodded slowly as Xev cursed.
They all looked at him.
“The body in the store that didn’t decay? The one we fed to Simi? If that was a D?v…”
Caleb turned pale. “We didn’t destroy his soul. It would be intact wherever he had it hidden.”