She waited a few seconds as their brows furrowed, processing what she said, then Ty stroked his beard a few times before nodding slowly.
“Absolutely that makes sense. Ena…” he said, meeting her gaze, a handsome smile breaking across his face. “That’s brilliant.”
Ena couldn’t help but smile at his praise. “This is a huge step forward,” she continued, blabbering out of excitement now. “Now that I know the components of the amulet, I can narrow down what kind of spellwords I need to look for to explain the spell I heard in my vision, and that’s the last piece we need to understand.”
“Nice job, Ena,” Turner said, clapping her on the shoulder. “I knew Ty wasn’t lying about you being smart.”
Ena rolled her eyes at his friendly teasing.
“Impressive,” Steig said, giving her a nod of recognition.
She’d take it. At least it wasn’t outright contempt. She was making progress all over the place!
“And I thought,” she continued, “this will give you something to tell Cole tomorrow. You can tell him we found evidence that Wiccan and daemonic magics have been combined in the past, so it bodes well for Imbuing objects with Wiccan Gifts.”
“Fuck yeah,” Turner said, smiling widely. “He’ll eat that right up.”
Ty smiled at his friend, before looking at Ena again. “That is surprising—that daemonic and Wiccan magic can be used together, or at least borrowed from one another. I never thought that was possible,” he said, his own excitement now palpable.
“Me neither,” Ena agreed.
But it got her thinking…if witches used daemonic rune magic to power the amulet, what had that been like for daemons? Whathad it felt like for every daemon in existence to suddenly lose their connection to Gaia, and how was it possible that they didn’t know about the amulet that had caused it? And the one daemon whose blood had been used as a part of the spell…what was her fate?
Ena was still pondering all this as Steig thanked her again briefly before hurrying off to help Lara, and Turner bid them good night, leaving to do whatever it was he did when he wasn’t with her or helping Ty.
Ty went to the bathing chamber to clean up from his time in the mines and the forge, but Ena followed him, her eyes casually roaming over him as he filled up the bathtub and got in.
Ty sighed as he sank down into the water, his arms spread on either side of the tub.
He looked over at Ena where she watched him. “What is it?” he asked. “I can tell there’s something else on your mind.”
“You mean besides the obvious,” she said, looking pointedly down at where his cock was under the water.
“Yeah, besides that,” he said, winking at her.
Ena laughed, feeling warmth fill her at their light teasing. “I was just wondering…what did daemons think happened, when the witches bound them to Iblis? I know they were shunned and forced to move to the Underworld, but how did they not know about the amulet and what witches did? I would have thought the daemon woman…the one who survived, would have told others.”
Ty shrugged, the movement drawing her eye to his large, cut shoulders. They were beautiful to look at, yes, but she never realized how much they carried too.
“I’m not sure what happened to her, or why we were never told what happened. We were always taught that Gaia abandoned us. That at some point, around the time we were demonized by witches and mortals and forced into the Underworld, that Gaiadeemed us unworthy of her magic and unfit to carry out her will, so she removed our ability to interpret it, and so we turned towards Iblis, and embraced him instead. He became our one true Master.”
“That’s tragic,” Ena said, her sadness at the thought entering her voice.
“I agree,” Ty said sincerely. “But, I think you’d be the first to admit that witches have in many ways swung too far to the other side. As much as they embrace Gaia, they’ve shunned and demonized Iblis more than necessary.”
Ena paused, thinking about the many chaotic, but necessary, things she’d done over the last month, especially with her Gift—fighting the bandits who’d attacked, breaking Ty out of Occidens, learning to fight with daggers. “Yes, I will admit that,” she said, feeling that truth in her bones.
“So maybe,” Ty began, looking at her seriously, “when this is all said and done, we can forge a new path…one that doesn’t just worship Gaia or Iblis, but both—the way it was meant to be.”
Ty looked up at her questioningly as he spoke, as if judging her reaction. Did he think the idea would scare her off? Daemons and witches coming together, worshipping Iblis and Gaia in equal measure?
She pondered the idea… What would that look like? She wasn’t quite sure yet but…the idea of forging a new, unknown path with this man—this daemon who was hers—was quite possibly the best dream for her future that she’d ever had.
“Yes,” she admitted, smiling at him. “I think I’d like that.”
Chapter Sixteen
Ty
