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be freshly stocked with blood. Seats up to eighty-five. The plane will be there in three hours. Have them ready.”
    “Thank you, Minerva,” Adam said. “This will be extremely helpful.”
    “Gather your vampires. Have Ianto, Rhys, and Liz go with them.”
    “But—” I began to protest, but Gigi cut me off.
    “No, child, I know they’ve blood-bonded to you, but you need to be lean and agile now. They will best serve you guarding the rest of your people. The four of you will have more than enough to worry about. Let them help where they’re needed most.”
    I couldn’t argue, even though I wanted them here. They were mine, damn it. But she was right. As much as I could use the support, tying Rhys, Ianto, and Liz here would accomplish what exactly? Waiting and pondering in some lakeside condo somewhere? They’d be just as reachable via phone if they were in the UK. Hell, for that matter, we could set up several computerswith Skype and do video conferencing if we needed to. “Gigi, what else can you tell us about the Challenge? What do we need to do?”
    Dead silence for a moment stretched into more, then finally, “I wish I knew, Keira,” she said. I heard something in her voice that I’d never heard before—defeat. She’d no more been able to interpret the rest of the Challenge than we had. “You already know much of the basic information. The Challenge seems to suggest that you need to tie the land to you. There are many ways to do this in lore. You’ve already established residence. You’ve given blood and sweat and tears. You’ve consummated your joining and have pledged to care for your people. They’ve pledged fealty to you in return. This, however, this puzzles me. The only thing left is true sacrifice. At least, in my own interpretation of such things.”
    I did not like the way this was going. Though my knowledge of Faery lore was less than expert, I still knew many of the basic tales and too damned many of them required sacrifice—of an actual person. Yes, oftentimes in modern days, that sacrifice had evolved to something more symbolic, but I’d read that parchment and the language was about as modern as Atlantis—the actual city, not any movie or TV show. “I’m not letting anyone here—”
    “Of course not,” Gigi interrupted. “That’s insanity. Gideon may be a fox, but he’s not a lunatic. He knows you’d not go that far. He’s counting on it, more than likely. Though, that said, I doubt he’d be willing to stick his own neck out quite that far. In most Challenges, what is required of one party is required of the other.”
    “Then no, you’re right. He’s probably counting on us reneging.” I’d finally clicked into the overall picture. Yeah, well, I was a little slow, mostly because I wasn’t sure why. If Gideon gained the Wild Moon, gained permanent access to our door to Faery, I had absolutely no doubt that his first act would be to banish us. But with him being riven from the Kelly clan and disinherited from the Unseelie, effectively unblooded, I wasn’t sure what him gaining the land would mean. Gods and goddesses, I hated Sidhe politics. It was always like this, hidden, mysterious, double-edged, and triple-tongued. Nothing was straightforward—oh yeah, kind of like my own fucking family. I had accepted my role as Kelly heir, if not gladly, with practicality. I mean, what else could I do?
    After we’d learned that Gideon, too, had Changed, had become heir, something that was supposedly impossible, Minerva had granted me, with Adam as my consort, the rule/oversight of the lands in Texas and the Southwest. A trial, of sorts, and a learning experience. She had no plans to abdicate anytime in the near future, which for her, could mean centuries. In the meantime, Adam and I could set up camp, set up our own small fiefdom and learn how to rule without being my great-great-granny. Gideon, spawn of fucking Satan (if that particular construct really existed outside of