“Wanna come?” Lazriel asked me, noticing my interest.
“I’ll follow. Just gonna grab a drink.”
“Sure.” With that, he took off.
Sylas gave my shoulder a squeeze, then headed out down one of the hallways.
And, yeah, I followed. Tailed him, whatever you wanna call it.
He slipped out through the front door, and I stuck to the shadows on the porch once he’d cleared the steps.
Winter was just a few feet in the distance, half around a corner but still visible. He was standing with Kai and having what looked like an intense discussion.
I discreetly cast anauditory enhancementspell and listened in right as Sylas burst onto the scene with urgent strides.
Win jolted when he saw him. “Dad,” he choked. Then he swung his head back to Kai. “You… mind-linked him?”
“Yes. He needed to be made aware of this.”
“So that’s my answer, then? You won’t collaborate with me on the spellwork?”
“I haven’t said that.”
“It would take more time, but I can see to it on my own.” His eyes hardened. At Kai fucking Hunter.Oof.That was hardcore. “To be clear,” he then rumbled.
Kai scrubbed his hand over his face, then looked out at Sylas. “This is you right here.”
“Please. I held back with the out-of-the-box, pushing-the-limits spellwork because Winter wasn’t comfortable with Necromancy until recently. This is you and Cassius, all that you taught him.”
“Dad, I can see to this.”
“A spell of this complexity and magnitude isn’t all I’m concerned about. Nor what I’m even actually focused on. What you want to do here, offering Temperance—and the supernatural world as a whole—this additional fail-safe isn’t necessary. Note the word‘additional’.You and I are already working on a solution to forever prevent Risen Reckoning from being used on the living. That’s their number-one fear, especially when it comes to you, a truly immortal being who can’t be… eliminated.”
“It might be their number-one fear, but it isn’t the only one. Not when it comes to me.”
“Concessions have already been made,” Kai reminded him. “With the Risen Reckoning fail-safe, we’re beyond even that. If we do this, you’ll essentially be bound by a leash, Winter.”
“I’m well aware.”
Sylas cursed and shoved a hand through his hair. “Win, fuck.”
“Tell me you could stop me if I really fucking lost control and went all out with my power.”
“Win—”
“I’m talking absolute certainty, Dad. Not the slightest doubt present.”
Sylas hesitated, and I saw Kai looking startled and tossing him a questioning look.
Sylas averted his eyes, then addressed Win, “If this is about what you said in the Veil when—”
“It’s not,” Winter insisted. He shoved a hand through his hair and took a breath, his voice softening a little as he said, “I know now, despite Ruxnoth getting into my head for a bit there. I know, thanks to some reframing I’ve been able to do, and help from my loves, that I could never become what they fear. I haven’t been twisted or tainted. My ruthlessness is purely directed at Ruxnoth. The threat that he is. But, Dad, I’m a threat of that magnitude to them, to Temperance, and a lot of people out there. Right now public opinion is in my favor for once, but one mistake, or time just marching on, and that could shift. With this fail-safe, it nullifies all of that. That fear of me and what I am can’t take root again.”
He sighed with so much heaviness that it had my gut twisting for him.
Because he was right.
He needed this. He needed to do this. It would bring him a lot of comfort, as screwed up as it was that it even needed to be this way at all. But itwasthis way, and we just needed to do what we always did—work around what others didn’t understand while still unapologetically being who we were. Things weren’t perfect and they never would be. That was just a fact of life, embedded deep into reality. So we just had to roll with it and work things in a way that fit us.
