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I looked at Dylan. “Show it to him.”

Dylan said nothing as he pulled the relic from a pocket. He set it on the table near Ezra. Making a strangled sound, Ezra jumped up from his chair to stand.

After he stood two feet away from the table, Ezra looked around and seemed embarrassed by his reaction.

Clearing his throat, Ezra pointed at the relic. “I can’t touch what an angel once touched. Angel magick is one of the few kinds that fairies fear. Their magick is unpredictable.” He looked at Dylan. “Put that back in yer pocket. Ya should have left it in the trash.”

Shrugging, Dylan picked it up and tucked it away.

I stared at Ezra as he sat back down. “I didn’t know that about angel magick.”

He nodded to Dylan before looking at me. “My ancestors learned that lesson the hard way. There was a time when my people felt they had the right to take power from the human realm. They didn’t think humans deserved to benefit from it.”

“Are ya saying fairies stole angel power?”

Ezra chuckled. “They tried, but things did not go well. Angel magick only responds to certain people—human people typically. I have no idea why angels intervene in humanity when they hate humans even more than demons do.”

When I felt Conn stiffen, I turned to look at him. Ezra knew better than to insult Conn. The fairy knew what my relationship with Conn was like. I’d never hid it from him.

“Demons don’t hate humans,” Conn said with an edge in voice. “Demons fear humans massing together in numbers large enough to overwhelm an entire demon caste. Once my kind moves beyond that fear, humans and demons get along quite well.”

“Only because demons have the advantage of beingmagickal,” Ezra insisted. “Humans lack the power to control their destinies. They are weak as a people. That has never changed.”

To say I was surprised by his attitude would be an understatement. Ezra’s blatant disrespect for humanity nearly mirrored what Zara said all guardians felt. I didn’t think a few hundred years among humans was enough time for Ezra to be passing that sort of judgment. I didn’t think a few thousand years were enough for the guardians to be doing it, either.

At least guardians compared humans to all the other species who’d ever occupied the planet. They were, as Rasmus so often reminded me, fairly neutral about us. I’m sure sometimes they saw us as naïve versions of themselves.

Until Ezra’s rant, I’d had no idea fairy folk held humanity in such low regard. Why did his people send their children to serve here for hundreds of years? It made no sense.

I thought of Fiona and the powerful, sentient ring she now guarded—the ring Da had watched over. Two mostly human members of my family were the rightful caretakers of King Solomon’s ring, which I still believed was an angelic relic. What would Ezra think if he knew about Fiona and the ring?

I narrowed my gaze as I looked at Ezra. I no longer trusted him enough to tell him about my daughter, but he could use a bit of education about me.

“Angel relics are sentient and make their own choices. I ended up wearing one for a brief time. The best I can say is that the angel relic tolerated me having it. I suspect that tolerance was because I made sure it landed in the proper hands. Some relics talk to ya when they want to make their preferences known. They project words into yer head.”

Surprising me, Ezra laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far, Aran, but I agree their magickal influence is strong. What ya considered magickal telepathy was merely its ability tomakeya think what ya alreadywantedto think.”

I found his denial of relic sentience interesting and made a mental note to dig deeper later. But witnessing the fairy’s odd reaction to the dead relic, while interesting, wasn’t the reason I called him here. I had bigger concerns today than species politics.

“If Hisser absorbed the energy of Dylan’s relic, the snake shifter’s power to control animals could be a bigger challenge than my small team can handle. It took Conn and I both to defeat the one snake hydra we fought. What if Hisser has an army of those? The snake hydra can be killed with magickal fire, but it was not stopped with other weapons. I’m going to need a crew armed with Greek Fire dispensers. Plus, we’ll probably be facing Hisser’s crazed followers. Ya know how fond he is of recruiting witches.”

“This is all conjecture, Aran,” Ezra pointed out. “Do ya expect me to mobilize yer Greek fire army and keep them on standby until ya call for them?”

Yes, thatwaswhat I wanted. “Why is finding me the help I need a problem? Ya’re the boss while Ben’s away.”

Ezra smirked. “Ben doesn’t have Greek fire in stock nor the manpower to use it. His stock of weaponry is sorely lacking. Magickals who live here are not rushing forward to sign up as agents. Most of the people Ben is hiring are coming from other countries. So let me clarify my reasons.” He counted on his fingers. “No weapons. No men. No way to confront him safely.”

I slowly released a breath and worked not to scream at Ezra for not even trying to help me.

“Okay. Can ya help me personally then? Maybe yer powers have grown enough for ya to use yer fairy influence on Hisser’s followers. That would at least even the odds a bit. Ya could take out his followers while my team deals with the snake.”

Ezra sighed. “I suppose I could do that for ya if necessary.”

“I hear the reluctance in yer answer, Ezra. Why did ya travel all the way over here from Ireland to warn me of Hisser escaping prison if ya didn’t mean to help me catch him?”

Ezra shrugged. “Because I want to go home with all my body parts intact more than ya do. My time is up here. My family will demand my presence among my people the moment I land on Irish soil again. Despite not being keen about returning, I’d like to still be alive when I get there. Fairies live a long time, but then they die, just like humans.”

I sat back and crossed my arms. “So ya’re saying that my team and I are on our own fighting Hisser.”