“She is,” Myra said, “but what she’s leaving out is we don’t have the scope of what we’re up against. At this point, it’s a pretty tight spell. We don’t know the consequences of breaking it.”
“Of course we don’t,” he said. “So what’s our move?” That was directed at me.
“You,” Myra said, “take Delaney home and keep an eye on her. She left the dragon pig with Amy at the other jail.”
“Amy?” Ryder frowned. “She our demon?”
“Avnas. Bathin’s uncle,” I said.
“Brother to the King of the Underworld?”
“Yeah, I don’t like it either,” I said. “Jean, you and I are going to go—”
“Nope,” Jean said. “You missed your very special dinner. I can’t believe I didn’t know about it, Ryder. You promised.”
His expression didn’t change. Really, if everyone in the room hadn’t gone completely silent, I wouldn’t have even noticed anything weird about that comment. My sisters were always butting into my business.
“Oh-kay,” I said, studying Ryder’s non-reaction. “Why was dinner something Jean needs to know about?”
“It wasn’t.”
“Ha-ha,” Jean fake laughed. “You know me. I love it when you two go on dates and stuff. I even write it in my diary. If you two are going out for something fancy enough for your man to smell so good, I need to be in the know.”
Ryder just gave me a long-suffering look. “She’s your sister,” he said.
I smiled, because it was cute how much he was pretending she annoyed him.
“I like Myra’s idea,” Jean said. “Go home with Ryder. I’ll deal with the pony demon. Make sure she stays where she’s supposed to stay so Bathin can help Myra with her research. Do you even know what was in the spell?”
Suddenly I remembered Jean hadn’t heard all this, nor did she know what I’d locked inside the safe.
I stepped all the way out of Ryder’s arms and faced my sisters, who were both standing.
“Yes. Bertie’s Feather and the Wolfe’s Heartwood.”
No one moved. Well, Myra blinked.
“Really,” Jean said. “Were they destroyed?”
“No.” Time to fess up. I’d committed a crime: theft. If Bertie or the Wolfes wanted to press charges, it was within their rights to do so.
“I stole them.”
“You stole them.” Jean tugged on one of her ponytails. “Want to run that back around the track again?”
“I don’t remember stealing them, just flashes that add up to me knowing I was the one who took them. The components for the spell were a Valkyrie’s Feather, the Heartwood of a werewolf clan, the sweat of Death’s brow.”
“You stole something from Death?” Jean’s eyes were huge.
“Yes? Than has a cold. I touched his forehead to see if he was running a fever and wiped my hand on a tissue. Sweat. Brow. I guess it was enough.”
“Wait,” Jean said, holding up one finger. “This is important. I want to see the pictures of the inside of Than’s house.”
I blinked, having forgotten I hadn’t told her about it yet. “I didn’t get pictures.”
“What? No! You promised.”
“It’s modern,” Myra said. “Clean and no weird stuff, or so she told me. Okay? Let’s stay on track here. Where are the Feather and the Heartwood?” Myra asked.
