Page 94 of Dragon’s Rogue

“All I’m saying is, I think it’s worth a shot to try to sever Silas’s connection to the idol,” Tyr said. “By cutting off their conduit to the outside world, I think it’s likely we could send Corwyn and Vyrkos back to sleep. That would buy us time to find the other two Seals.”

“Or it could send the tomb magic into the critical zone, and they could break free,” Thorne said, without turning around. “We can’t risk it.”

“Better now than later,” Tyr argued. “The danger just keeps growing, the longer we wait.”

Zane interrupted the argument. “You can’t sever anything from Silas until you find the bastard,” he pointed out.

It was true. They’d spent some of their time the last few days trying to track down Silas, starting with the small enclave where the coven had lived during Blaze’s childhood. They’d found it in ruins; it seemed no one had lived there for years.

Dead? Or moved on? Blaze hadn’t been ready to know, though one day she would have to face it. How many had died, destroyed by the dark magic of the idol? How many still lived, still followed Silas? Was her father still alive?

But Silas had covered his tracks, and there was no trace of where he or the coven might be.

“There must be a reason he hasn’t faced us directly,” Blaze said now. “He sent Liriel and Jerome to fetch the idol, but he didn’t come himself. He worked through Jack—first as a projection, according to Rebel, and then with that puppet spell.”

That still gave her nightmares. That kind of magic burned up the host, sapping their life energy until they died. It was some of the worst of the dark magics.

Blaze had learned the theory, though she’d only tried it once—a few brief moments with a volunteer, under the tutelage of one of her less scrupulous teachers—before she realized where the energy for the spell was drawn from. He’d taught her other spells, too—spells where the backlash would kill you, unless you passed it on to some unwilling dupe to be killed in your place, or you’d bonded your soul to a demon willing to absorb it for you.

You had to be truly evil—or truly desperate—to work that kind of magic. She hoped she was never that desperate. Like she’d told Zane, just learning the spells had darkened her soul. She almost regretted learning them.

But not quite. Not if she could avenge her family. Or save them.

Thorne turned to her. “Why do you think he didn’t come himself?”

Blaze had been turning this over in her mind. “I can only think of two reasons,” she said. “One, is that he’s too weak. It’s possible that being without the idol this long weakened him to the point where he physically can’t leave wherever he is. At least, not until he has it.”

“And the second reason?”

“He’s so powerful that he doesn’t think he needs to come himself. He’s so sure of the coven’s superiority—his superiority—that he thinks he can afford to send minions to do this part of the job.”

“Which do you think it is?”

Blaze drummed her fingers on the table. She knew what she wanted it to be—weakness. But she had to be realistic.

“There’s no way to tell. And that being the case, we have to assume that it’s option number two. Power, not weakness. And that he’s going to be coming after us with everything he’s got.”

“So then we kill him,” Zane said. “That should sever him from the damn idol.”

“Yep,” Tyr said, making a note on his legal pad. “That would work.”

Blaze didn’t say anything.

“We’ll keep looking for him,” Thorne said finally. “At least that will give us more options.”

They worked for a while longer, until they were all exhausted. Zane didn’t accomplish much; he was too busy watching Blaze, making sure she didn’t overdo it.

She’d been so quiet since the discussion about Silas. As much as she’d told Zane when they first met that she’d kill Silas if he tried to take the idol, the idea of Zane and Tyr taking him out had seemed to upset her.

Maybe it was just reality setting in.

Finally, they put their papers aside and headed for their respective lairs—all except Thorne, who never seemed to sleep lately.

Zane took Blaze aside before she could get into the elevator, pulling her into his arms and kissing her gently. “You go on up,” he said. “I’ll be there in a bit. I have something to finish up here.”

She went, Bucephalus trotting after her. The cat had taken to hanging out in the Batcave with them, begging treats from Thorne and annoying him by walking across whichever keyboard he was using whenever the treats were not forthcoming.

Zane left the other two to their work and walked down the hall to the vault. The idol had become the focus of all his anger, all his fear for his mate.