Grayson didn’t answer.
Natividad leaned her cheek against his knee, as she had done for Alejandro when he’d been exhausted and angustiado with grief and anger after their parents’ murder. At least then they had found their parents’ bodies, at least they had been able to bury them in proper graves and pray for peace for their souls. This time, there were not even bodies. That was worse.
She turned her hands palm up and breathed quietly, long slow breaths, breathing in the rage and bitter grief that clung to Grayson, breathing out peace and acceptance of loss. She was afraid that Grayson would be angry if she sketched a pentagram in the air, if she called aloud for peace: he would not be ready to surrender the grief that is the just tribute the living pay to the dead. She understood that. So, she closed her eyes and made her wish silently to the dark behind her eyelids.
After a while, Grayson said, “Those people from Lewis…”
“Rooms, food, warnings to stay away from wolves, all taken care of.”
“Ah.” There was another silence, and then the Dimilioc Master began again, “Some of those people must be able to shoot…”
“Miguel is already figuring out which ones can hit what they aim at, and I’m sure Sheriff Pearson will help us figure out which of them can be trusted to aim at our enemies.”
“Good,” said Grayson, and was quiet once more. But now it was a quiet filled with thought as well as with grief. Natividad folded her hands in her lap and sat quietly next to his chair.
“I want Ezekiel,” Grayson said abruptly. “He’ll be asleep. You had better be the one to wake him.”
Natividad, momentarily disoriented, blinked. “But... wasn’t he hurt?”
“That won’t matter,” Grayson said, and though he didn’t look at her, she could tell it was the Dimilioc Master speaking. “I want him here. Immediately.” He put a bite to that last word.
Natividad stared at him for a second. She wanted to ask: “Don’t you care about Ezekiel at all?” But that wasn’t a question she could ask, and anyway she knew perfectly well that no one cared more about every Dimilioc wolf than the Master. She remembered, too late, that she shouldn’t stare – but of course Grayson Lanning was way too powerful to worry about a girl’s impudence.
Jumping to her feet, she gave the Master a slight bow to show she was obeying, backed up two steps, turned, and went to the door. She did not actually run. But she didn’t stroll, either.
Natividad had not previously had any reason to find Ezekiel’s rooms, which turned out to comprise a suite on the third floor of the main wing, above the front door. High enough, Natividad realized, to prevent any enemy from leaping to its window, but low enough that Ezekiel would be able to leap down to the balcony of the room below and from there to the open ground. If there was trouble, the kind of trouble where enemies came arrogantly to the front door, Ezekiel’s sudden appearance among them must cause almost as much consternation as a vat of boiling oil.
When this thought occurred to her, Natividad concluded that life had definitely been much too exciting lately.
The problem was that she couldn’t help but wonder, while studying Ezekiel’s closed door, whether he might mistake anybody who woke him for one of those not-hypothetical-enough enemies.
The Dimilioc executioner was suffering from the lingering effects of silver injury, after all. Painful and slow to heal: exactly the sort of wound that would drive a black dog into a killing rage, and he would be embarrassed that he’d been cut, too. Then he had driven across Chicago, flown a plane halfway across los Estados Unidos, driven from Newport to Dimilioc, run eight miles across country, and then fought not only in the battle – he’d also personally fought Vonhausel. And lost.
That last was the worst. Natividad knew all about black dog vanity. And Ezekiel was a lot more arrogant than most other black dogs. He was going to be really pissed off about losing that fight – and it would be much worse because everybody had seen him lose, and watched afterwards when he’d been forced to ride on top of a bus because he couldn’t run the distance back from Lewis to Dimilioc.
And now Grayson said he wanted to see Ezekiel. Immediately. Right. No wonder he’d sent Natividad to fetch his executioner. Probably Ezekiel would tear anybody else who disturbed him into little tiny pieces. Like confetti, only messier.
He wouldn’t tear Natividad into bits, though. She was pretty sure.
On the other hand, if anybody else had turned up and volunteered to go wake Ezekiel up instead, Natividad’s feelings wouldn’t have been hurt at all.