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“The fairy didn’t harm me personally and I don’t think he ever intended to. Ezra’s big plan was to get someone else to kill me before he carved the Dagda stone from my chest. He told me he feared losing an honest fight with me but I don’t think he was serious. Mulan said his power was as great as what Conn stores. I’m sure Ezra knew that was the case.”

Rasmus blinked at that announcement. “I think I’ll take some tea after all.”

I waved to the cart. “Help yerself. I’m sure it’s on there for ya because Henry knows I don’t drink tea this early in the day.”

Rasmus turned over a mug, added honey to it, and poured tea from a small ceramic pot.

I refilled my cup while he stirred and quietly fumed. I was going to have to go over all this again with Ben. My irritation with Rasmus was not small.

“Ezra had stolen an artifact from the far darrig family that guarded it and used it to turn Hisser into a full-blown Naga assassin. He was even bigger than that giant snake we fought at the Troll Shaman’s cave. Hisser used his venom to stop Conn and Mulan. When the Dagda stone got involved with helping me, it gave me a special dagger and some snakeskin of my own to protect me.”

Rasmus set down his tea and scrubbed his face.

My grunt was soft and disgusted. “To make a long story as short as possible, I defeated Hisser but then Ezra drew anenergy sword out of thin air to kill me after all. I know he would have struck me down with it if Fiona hadn’t drawn his attention to her. When Ezra went after Fiona, Tony froze him because he’s obligated to protect her.”

Rasmus frowned deeply. “Why did you not call an energy sword for yourself?”

“Because Conn is the source of my warrior powers.”

“Not all of them, though, since it’s obvious you survived,” Rasmus corrected.

“I learned fairies come to the human realm to collect power, which they take back across the veil to their people. Helping humans—a species they consider inferior to themselves—is the alleged price they pay for it. All fairies do this but most are far more discreet about it than Ezra.”

“The veil is a time slip location.”

I shrugged a shoulder at his comment. I considered it magick, not science.

“All I know is that Goddess Danu created the veil as a place for theTuatha de Danannto live after the Great War’s pact of peace was signed. I’ve never been there and never intend to go. Nor do I consider myself a living battery they can drain for their benefit.”

Rasmus kept his gaze on me as he drank tea. “Did Conn and Mulan survive?”

“Oh, yes,” I said as I refilled my large mug. Gale was a great believer in substantial cups of coffee and tea—Goddess bless her. “Conn wove a spell to protect them both but the effort took most of his energy. If I’d died, he would have died as well because no one would have saved him. The difference is that he would have eventually returned as himself. Mulan and I would reincarnate as different people. I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”

Rasmus leaned forward and once again rubbed his face with both hands. “I didn’t mean to be gone so long. Working on Zarain my human form took longer than it would have if I’d been a full guardian.”

I shrugged at the news. “Is that why ya had all those light beings helping ya fix her?”

Rasmus straightened in his chair. “How do you know about them?”

“Magick,” I said, snorting a bit as I lowered my cup. “But I guess ya got her sorted out in the end, right? Because now I have to deal with her for the next five years.”

“You will not bear the burden alone.”

My smile was weak. “Before he left yesterday, Orlin said he’d be monitoring Zara’s progress. He said he was going to bring her some books she could study that might speed up her learning.”

“We reset Zara to who she was at the beginning of her service to this planet.”

“It will be interesting to see what Zara was like as a female guardian before the male versions of herself forced her into survival mode. Humans can’t be their best when all they can think about is staying alive. They turn primal and want to kill things. That’s how she was when we first met.”

“My science specialty was entity biological regeneration and transmutation. Zara’s specialty was force physics, which is the study of controlling the energy surrounding all objects.

I stared at him over my nearly empty cup. “Witches could call force physics a form of magick. Maybe Zara will come to think of herself as being a practitioner like me. Practicing magick will be something we have in common.”

Rasmus lowered his head and it stayed bent for a long time. I picked up the coffee carafe and shook it before pouring the rest into my cup. I sipped at it while I waited for the guardian to tell me something else significant. But he didn’t say another word.

Instead, Rasmus rose from his chair and left. That male had an uncanny knack for making my worst nightmares about abandonment come true. He hadn’t been there to help when I fought Hisser and Ezra. Now he wasn’t able to hear my story out before bolting.

What had been so Goddess blessed important that he had to leave in that instant?