“Great. We had a reporter we were developing, Brystol Chatterjee. She had figured out a great deal on her own, most likely too much. We talked with her, changed her opinion of us, brought her to our side. When we went into hiding, we had to leave her hanging. Nika kept teams on her both during daytime with our human security guys and at night with our Darkkin teams.”

“Who was Nika protecting her from?” Senka asked.

“Mostly you, but also some human elements. Foreign operatives.”

“You had to protect her from me?” Senka asked.

“Yes. In the old days, a member of media with that much knowledge would have disappeared or had an unfortunate accident. We couldn’t allow that.”

“I’m not saying whether you’re right or wrong there, but why couldn’t you allow it?”

“Technology has changed so much in the last ten years, let alone over the last fifty, sixty, even one hundred. Information is unstoppable. But it is, still, somewhat controllable. Computers, cell phones, cameras everywhere, all flowing data at electronic speeds. So you have to frame the information—or reframe it if it gets out ahead of you.”

“You’re talking about spin?” Senka said, looking at her audience of old vampires. Tanya marveled at how her grandmother had so thoroughly seized control of the proceedings.

“Yes, that’s one of the terms for it.”

“Why didn’t you defer to my orders?”

“You had manipulated my Chosen. And you would have killed that reporter, and that was the wrong way, for many reasons.”

“I always manipulate. That’s what I do,” Senka pointed out.

“I know, that’s my point,” Tanya said.

“You also lost a valuable and dangerous book,” Senka said.

“We didn’t lose it so much as it escaped. It was a dangerous, sentient book. It was seeking the most powerful witch it could find.”

“And it found your witch, right?”

“It did. It found its way to Declan and bonded with him.”

“So this super dangerous, sentient grimoire escaped your custody and sought out the witch you had befriended. The witch you created the school for?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your point with this, Elder Senka,” Tan asked.

“My point is that I was right to back off our pureblood and her mate. That she is right. I would have likely eliminated the reporter. And that the decisions about the witch that she and her Chris made were correct. That my decision to give up some control, allowing her to make her own decisions that turned out to be correct, was itself correct. Or am I wrong sister Elder,” Senka said, turning to Mausya.

The other elder opened her mouth to speak and froze as her brain visibly engaged. Then her lips closed and pressed together, a frown forming.

“Well? What is the probability that we would control the book if I had tried to crush my granddaughter’s organization?”

“Less than twenty percent,” Mausya finally admitted.