“Everyone reviles the thing you need, but I don’t. I will only help if you swear an oath to me that you won’t harm it.”
“I’ve no desire to harm it,” I reply quietly.
“Speak the oath.”
I can hear Cathal warning me against giving someone a bargain to lord over me, but Cathal’s no longer at my side; he’s at another’s. Still I murmur, “No, General. Forgive me, but I will not give another male power over me.”
He climbs to his feet. “Then I regret—I regret—” He rubs at his chest, creating tracks in the fitted black velvet jacket. He mutters in Lucin under his breath.
I was careful when I called in our bargain to use specific wording so that he couldn’t leave here until she was found.
“Zendaya, you cannot keep me here indefinitely. Lorcan needs me.Luceneeds me. I cannot shirk my responsibilities?—”
“The Mahananda prompted me to call on you,” I murmur.
“That’s impossible. It only talks to its keeper.”
“Its keeper hasn’t been listening to it recently.”
He blinks. “It truly spoke to you?”
“Yes.”
His gaze swerves toward his daughter.
“If Daya says it did, it did, Pappa.”
His hand—the branded one—curls into a white-knuckled fist.
“You know where it is, don’t you, General?” Though I formulate it as a question, it’s not, for I can tell that he does.
His nostrils flare with the pain of keeping the truth from me. I consider swearing that my intent isn’t to harm Meriam, but decide against giving Justus Rossi power over me. Who knows how the Faerie will use it?
“General?”
“Yes,” he all but gasps. “Or at least, I knew. I heard it was moved after my unsuccessful attempt at breaking it out.”
“You tried to break it out?”
“The Akwale keep threatening to drain it. And they would’ve, were it not for Lorcan’s bargain.”
My head rears back. “Lorcan’s bargain?”
“Of keeping it alive. That’s why he relinquished it to Priya in the first place.”
Agrippina rakes in a breath that is so sudden and raucous that it steals my attention off her father. “Under Behati’s bed,” she breathes, her eyes shining with the light of a thousand stars. And then she’s blinking and rubbing her arms that are peppered with goosebumps.
A door clicks, making my heart skitter. I swing my gaze off my Serpent, expecting to find both Abrax and Ceres standing there, but Ceres is alone. I don’t know how she got rid of my guard but I’ve never been more grateful for his absence.
The glower Ceres pins Justus with scorches the air in time with her words.
What is your mother saying?
Verbatim: ‘Of course the whore witch didn’t release our daughter.’
Didn’t release you? From what?
She must repeat my question out loud, because Ceres’s mouth pinches while Justus’s softens around a sigh.
