Oh, and he’d been sure to mention that I was the only hope for his people, which meant they were all doomed.
“You need to address the demons,” Ag said. I ignored that. What the hell was I supposed to tell them? I’d fucked up, and within a week or two—at most—Samael and I would likely both be gone?
My voice sounded far away when I forced myself to speak. “Explain to me how I’m keeping him alive.”
I needed to understand it fully, so I had the best chance of bringing Samael back to me.
Ag gave one glance at Samael, and it was only because I was looking at him that I caught it. Pure, unadulterated grief flashed through his eyes. When he looked back at me, those eyes were blank, his face carefully neutral.
“It was half luck, half sheer stupidity,” he said.
Vas cleared his throat and Ag ignored him, keeping his gaze on my face.
“Samael had a bond with Scylla,” he said.
His dragon.
I narrowed my eyes at Ag. “Keep talking about Samael in the past tense and I’ll kill you.”
Silence claimed the room. Kyla took a step closer to me, likely ready to go furry at a moment’s notice. Ag just gave me a look that told me I was welcome to try.
“When you cemented the bond between you and Samael, you created a three-way bond. You, Samael, and Scylla. The simplest explanation is that Scylla holds his body, and you hold his soul.”
His tone made it clear that I wouldn’t understand the complicated explanation. With Samael out of action, the cold war between Ag and me was heating up.
“Both can only be held for a limited time,” Ag said. “Eventually, you’ll become weaker, have difficulty accessing your power. The drain will kill the dragon, and then it will kill you.”
So whatever I did, I needed to do it soon. I didn’t have time to sit here feeling sorry for myself.
“There must be some way to counter a Spell of Three.”
There were very few spells in existence with no way out. It was the nature of magic—especially witch and fae magic—to have some kind of loophole.
Bael shifted. “There are rumors—” he started, and Ag shook his head.
“This spell has been in existence for centuries. Do you not think if there was a solution, we would know about it?”
I ignored that, my gaze on Vas. Ag strode toward the door.
“I will address your people,” he said. “Since you are obviously not in the right frame of mind.”
The ‘your people’ was an effort to piss me off. He knew just how I felt about the idea of being in charge, even in the short term.
“You do that.” I sent him a sweet smile and he stalked out of the room.
I didn’t blame him for refusing to hope. I couldn’t imagine all of the loss he’d seen over the centuries, and since I was directly responsible for this situation, he likely couldn’t entertain the idea that I could fix it.
That was fine. I didn’t need his belief.
“Tell me,” I ordered Bael.
Now that Ag had left the room, some of the tension dissipated. Kyla plopped into the seat next to me, Vas leaned against the wall, and Bael took the chair on the other side of Samael’s bed.
“Like I said, they’re only rumors,” he warned. “It’s been said over the centuries that the seelie king has access to something that counteracts a Spell of Three. No one knows what it is, or if the rumors are true, but the king has ruthlessly shut down any suggestion that he has such a thing over the years.”
I thought about that. If he didn’t have it, the rumors that he did only made him appear more powerful, since no one else had access to it. If hedidhave it, and he wanted to keep that knowledge to himself because he had a limited supply, it made sense for him to quash those rumors.
Kyla shifted in her seat beside me, and it was clear from the intent expression on her face that she’d come to the same conclusion.
