“And volunteered nothing, even when you saw how few Dimilioc wolves remain,” Grayson said, his tone still grim.
Zachariah leaned back in his chair, ostentatiously relaxed, deliberately breaking the gathering tension. “Malvern Vonhausel,” he said thoughtfully. “He was a strong black wolf. Not so personally strong as to be a threat, as I recall. He couldn’t have forced so many strays to follow him. Not then. But he was ambitious. I remember that. Ambitious to find a way to harness black dog magic, codify it… make it useful, as Pure magic is useful. He wanted to work out a far more aggressive kind of magic. He quarreled with Edward about that, because he wanted to use the Pure in his studies. Just one or two, he said: a reasonable sacrifice if we could gain a better understanding of demonic magic. Edward was vehemently opposed, but Thos was interested, James, do you remember?”
“That whole thing was before my time, a bit,” James Mallory said. “You and Harrison were Vonhausel’s contemporaries, not me. I remember the quarrel, but the reason for it, that’s something else, isn’t it?”
Zachariah smiled, without much humor. “Well, that’s it in a nutshell: Malvern wanted to work out a useful kind of demonic magic. Thos hoped he might find a way for black dogs to gain permanent ascendance over vampires and those damned blood kin of theirs. Thos didn’t mind breaking eggs, but Edward was dead against anything that would require sacrificing the Pure, and was damned vocal about it.”
“Indeed,” said Grayson. He tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the table. “Yes. I had forgotten the subject of that dispute, but I remember the quarrel.”
“Oh, yes,” Zachariah agreed. “Edward could match Vonhausel, but not Thos, of course. That’s the part you remember, I’m sure. There was a huge argument, but a very short fight. After that Edward had no choice but to lower his eyes and hold his tongue.”
“Edward Toland defied Thos, and lived?” Benedict asked, clearly incredulous. “Thos didn’t kill him?”
“He couldn’t. Remember, this was right after Thos first took the Mastery. He hadn’t yet gained the strength he had later.” Zachariah glanced briefly at Ezekiel. His nephew gazed back at him without expression. Zachariah went on, “Edward was popular in the house, especially with the Pure. He had strong support from plenty of black dogs, too. Thos didn’t dare kill him.”
“So, he exiled him,” James surmised. “But then, why exile Vonhausel too?”
“You’re getting ahead of the story. No, what happened next… The way Harrison and I put it together afterward, what happened was this: Malvern murdered Linda Hammond. You remember that, of course, Grayson, though probably not the story behind it. He murdered her and used her blood somehow to capture her magic… or something. Made something, or worked out something, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone ever knew exactly what he’d done. Except Thos, perhaps. He was apparently happy enough with whatever it was that he was willing to accept Linda’s murder. Edward wasn’t.”
“But Edward still couldn’t fight Thos,” said Benedict. “Right?”
“Exactly. He couldn’t. As had been so recently and vividly demonstrated for us all. But immediately afterward, Edward was gone.”
“Yes,” Grayson said slowly. “I remember that. Thos said he’d exiled Edward, and then he exiled Vonhausel as well, with some explanation or other no one believed – I don’t remember what. I thought most likely Vonhausel had killed Edward in defiance of Thos’s order, and Thos exiled him for that.”
“That’s right, that’s what everybody thought,” agreed James. “But even at the time, you know, it didn’t make sense. I always thought Thos himself murdered Edward, then put the blame on Vonhausel and exiled him to hide what he’d done. I was damned sorry about it.”
“But you didn’t dare challenge Thos over it,” said Zachariah, then quickly lifted a hand to forestall a hot response. “No, neither did I, and I thought the same, at first. But after Malvern left – left of his own will, mind you; he was gone before Thos gave the order of exile, and by all accounts he went in a rage and in a hurry – after that, Harrison and I came to believe that Edward had stolen something of his, and fled with it.” He glanced at Miguel, then at Alejandro. “We decided Malvern had gone after him, and Thos covered everything up after the fact with orders of exile so he’d look like he’d been in control all the time.”
Ezekiel lifted an ironic eyebrow. He had leaned back in his chair, his legs stretched out and ankles crossed, his hands in his pockets. He said nothing, as he had said nothing to any of this account, but Natividad thought he might be trying to make it all make sense in terms of the Thos Korte he’d known. She somehow thought he might be having trouble with that, though she wasn’t exactly sure why she thought so. She was having trouble imagining what in the world Vonhausel had done with that poor Pure woman’s magic when he murdered her. Or thought he’d done, or meant to do. It ought to be impossible for a black dog to make or do anything useful with his shadow magic – but if he hadn’t, then what had Papá stolen? However, if Papá had stolen something from Vonhausel, then Mamá must have known, too, and then why hadn’t Mamá ever told her about it?