“You’re a sneaky bitch.”
My grin widened. “Thank you.”
Kyla reached over and squeezed my hand. “You did it Danica. No one thought you could, but you did it.”
My eyes were hot, and for a single moment, I let myself revel in all that we’d managed to do. “I couldn’t have done it without you. So thank you.”
She grinned at me, but her face grew somber as she studied me. “You’re welcome. You looked surprised when you saw the ring—why?”
Kyla missed nothing.
“I could be wrong, but there’s something about it that seems familiar. I’ve seen it somewhere. I need to do a little research, but I think it might be Angelica’s ring.”
Her head angled, her eyes sharpened, and I couldn’t help but grin.
“You’ve heard the story.”
“Yeah. Joel was into history, and mythology and shit like that.” Her face darkened, and then turned blank, curiosity lighting her eyes. “It was an Italian epic poem, right?”
“Yeah. Orlando Innamorato. To sum it up, Angelica is the daughter of the king, and all the men fall in love with her. A bunch of them fight each other—blah blah. The original poem was never finished, but another poet stepped in with the Orlando Furioso.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Edward–the man who trained me–was obsessed with the epics. All of them. His theory was that there were elements of truth within many of the myths, and that some of them were retellings of history and interactions with paranormals. From what we’ve learned about Beowulf, I would say his theory holds.”
“It sure does. So what did the poem say?”
I took a left onto Chapel Hill Road, scowling at the line of traffic. Some asshole behind me began laying on his horn. As if that would help.
I tuned the sound out and frowned, attempting to remember the key details. “This knight, Orlando, was scarily obsessed with Angelica. She went off and had adventures around the world, while he basically stalked her. Eventually, she ended up chained to a rock, about to be sacrificed to a sea monster.
“Luckily, this other knight had her back. His name was Ruggiero, and he gave her a ring.” Edward had been obsessed with the idea of Angelica’s ring, spending two years, and a solid chunk of cash, researching everything he could about it. If he had any inkling that it had ended up inmyhands, he’d lose his mind.
But thanks to all that research, I had a pretty good idea of what that ring could do.
“The ring removes enchantments. That much, Edward was sure of. According to the poem, it also contains a spell of invisibility when you put it in your mouth. That’s how Angelica escaped the sea monster. And now we know that its resistance to enchantment means it’s a key part of the Spell of Three.”
“No wonder Taraghlan wants it back.”
“Yeah.”
A howl announced we were driving into wolf territory and Kyla sighed. “It’s good to be home.”
We parked outside Nathaniel’s and walked past his house, down the dirt path and toward the clearing that held Samael’s cabin.
Nathaniel had obviously decided the griffin could stay, because he was sniffing at the forest near Liam, who was in human form. Liam nodded at me, and I waved back. Several demons were gathered outside the cabin, all of them watching the griffin incredulously.
I hid my smile.
“I wish you could see this. The demons don’t know what to make of the griffin. Meanwhile, the wolves are mostly ignoring him.”
No reply. My hands wanted to shake, but I forced myself to take several deep breaths. He was fine.
The demons parted, allowing me to walk into the cabin. I went straight to Samael’s room, Kyla trailing behind me.
Samael was little more than a husk. I turned and rushed for the bathroom, vomiting up what little I’d eaten. Kyla found a washcloth and wet it, rung it out, and handed it to me. I wiped my mouth.
“Thanks.”
