Adam decided that he’d offered enough. If Bonarata wanted to know more, he could ask. This time it wasn’t a dominance thing, a power play. This was for keeps. If Bonarata asked the questions he needed answers to, he was more likely to believe what he heard. The sooner he understood how their safe zone worked and why, the sooner Adam could get into the plane and fly to Prague.

“Explain it to me, then,” gritted Bonarata, “who is hampered by being old and European. Explain to me how a single Alpha werewolf can dictate behavior to the Gray Lords. To Beauclaire, who has the power to level cities. To the children of Danu, who were worshipped as gods.”

“Oh, that one is simple,” Adam said. “They made me do it.”

Silence.

“He’s not lying,” Marsilia said. “I rather enjoyed the show.”

Adam tipped his water glass at her. “I’ll remember that.” Then he dropped his indolent air and sat forward, all business. “When they made their dramatic exodus, the fae expected to be able to retreat to the reservations and never deal with humans again. Three thousand years ago they could have done that, retreated to Underhill and lived happily for as long as they cared to do so. But that Underhill fell and closed her doors to the fae, forcing them to make their peace with the humans, who reproduce so very quickly and love the cold iron that is the doom of most of the fae.

“Moving to the New World was a desperate move, revealing themselves to mankind again was a desperate move, creating the reservations was an even more desperate move. The latter paid off, or so they thought. In the wilds of western North America, where cold iron doesn’t have the weight of history that it has here, they were able to reopen the ways to Underhill in the territories they controlled. Places where cold iron and Christianity had no hold. So they flipped the bird at the humans and retreated, expecting that they could run from this world.”

Arrested, Bonarata absorbed that. When Adam started to speak, the vampire held up a hand. “I had not heard . . . a moment, please.”

Adam went back to eating. Maybe if he weren’t hungry, if he hadn’t been a soldier, the tension in the room would have ruined his appetite. Maybe.

“They opened the old ways,” Bonarata said, “but they did not find what they expected.”

Adam nodded. “Exactly. Underhill wasn’t happy with them—wasn’t entirely sane—and had no intention of allowing them to return and reign in their old, arrogant fashion.”

“Leaving the fae trapped in a cage of their own making,” the vampire said.

Adam nodded. “They had some choices. One of them was to go out fighting. Even a hundred years ago, they might have won a war with the humans, though I doubt it. They have the power, but the fae just don’t have the numbers—and a fair percentage of them would rather kill other fae first, then go kill the humans. Now? With modern weapons? I don’t think it is a fight they can win, and neither do most of them. But the fae still have the kind of power that could make it a war with no winners.” He brought his fists up together, made a quiet explosive sound, and opened his fists like fireworks. “Everybody dies. Some of the fae find this a very attractive option, death in the glory of battle.”