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His sigh of resignation was loud—so very loud. “Okay... she’s not calm enough yet.” Tony waved a hand at Fiona until she froze again.

Then he turned and looked sadly at me. “Your father was such a calm, easy person. His training took only a month of human time. Your daughter’s training is going to takeyears... or evendecades. I was so surprised by her caustic personality that I double-checked whether or not she was the one. But the ring adores her. I have no idea why. I don’t understand why it had to be her.”

He sounded so generally confused that my smile remained even while I used my new dagger to burn the slime off Conn and Mulan. Flames melted the goo off their bodies but never harmed them. It made me wonder else the dagger could do.

Tony instructed me not to worry about the remaining witches. He said he and Fiona would free them from fairy influence. It would be, he assured me, a valuable training exercise for her.

Tony smirked at me while Conn in demon form carried a frozen Ezra out of the cave like a football. A still-mad Fiona chose to exit with Mulan who was still reeling from what she’d gone through. The Wu Shaman wasn’t used to enemies who slimed her. She looked pale and like she needed a cup of her special tea.

Dealing with Ezra was a bigger decision than I could make alone. Absorbing power by itself wasn’t a magickal crime. It was what ya did with it that mattered to those keeping the balance. Even after all Ezra had done, I still wondered if he’d truly been bad the whole time I knew him, or if something had flipped a switch inside him.

As Tony and I walked out of the cave together, the not-so-angelic Tony put his hand on my arm. “Not outright condemning the fairy to death after he tried to kill you is very Abrahamic, Aran. Do pagans believe in turning the other cheek too?”

I tried to give his question some real thought. Then he laughed and I realized my soft heart did nothing other than amuse him.

Goddess, I hoped Henry found me that teacher soon. The parade of people walking through my mind was starting to annoy me.

After meeting Tony, I was never telling Father Lieberman what angels were really like. It would break Peter’s heart to know angels weren’t perfect and that they needed as much redemption as humans.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Isat on a plastic outdoor storage box on Fiona’s back porch enjoying the late afternoon breeze and soft rain. In the distance, I saw a green tent covering my new fire pit. The color of the tent faded into the greenery of its surroundings.

Nearby, someone had painted the ends of sticks in bright orange and used them to outline what I assumed would one day be a greenhouse.

Tony hadn’t allowed Fiona to even walk into her new house. Once he’d seen a frozen Ezra safely stashed in the foyer, he’d dragged resistant Fiona back outside. Before ya could say, “Bob’s yer uncle,” or “Fanny’s yer aunt,” he’d popped out a set of shiny silver wings, snatched Fiona up in his arms, and off they’d flown to fix the witches that Hisser didn’t eat.

I’d run outside after them and watched the two disappear in the sky.

It hit me hard that this was the moment I had to accept my daughter was truly not a child any longer. After Fiona’s timely intervention today, worrying about her relationship with her angelic trainer was beyond me. I hadn’t even waved goodbye because I knew in my heart she’d be back. Tony wouldn’t let anything hurt her. He’d proven that.

I was a truly blessed woman. That hit me too when I realized that Henry and Gale hadn’t even blinked at me making a frozen Ezra part of our foyer furniture so I could keep an eye on him. They’d even followed me outside when I’d chased after Tony and Fiona to see what the wicked angel was planning to do with my only child.

Henry made a sound of disgust as we all stared at the sky. “Is that irreverent being truly an angel? He doesn’t act like one.”

I turned to Henry and smiled. “Have ya met many?”

Gale giggled before confessing. “Henry knows because he dated an angel once.”

“Stop,” Henry said to her. “I told you that Seraphina and I were just friends. Angels are asexual.”

I remembered the lustful look Tony had given my attractive daughter. “Yes, well, I don’t think Tony is an asexual kind of angel. We need to keep an eye on him when he visits.”

Henry huffed. “You have to know thatTonyis not his real name.”

I grinned and chuckled. “Yes, I know, Henry. But that’s what he wants us to be called. What else can I do? Tony will be training Fiona to use the magick she inherited from my father. There’s magick on both sides of my family, but only a few of my relatives got it.”

“Your daughter’s type of magick is called apotropaic.”

I had turned him and blinked. “It’s called what?”

Henry rolled his eyes. “Your education is sorely lacking. Apotropaic means she has access to protector magick, but not all the time. Most of the time she will energetically read as a very non-magickal human.”

“She does read human, but Conn and I have always known Fiona was magickal. Ya can feel it when ya spend time with her.”

Henry frowned at me. “Apotropaic magickals usually end up protecting a powerful relic. The most famous was probably King Solomon’s ring. That relic—and its twin—can evoke an ancient contract with demonkind. The Abrahamic overseers refuse to risk letting it fall into the wrong hands. The responsibility tends to be inherited, but once in a while, it changes to others outside the family of the protector. Oddly, they choose non-Abrahamic magickals. No one knows why.”

I studied his serious face and tried not to think of Da’s ring. I didn’t want Henry or anyone else to know the truth. “Are there books on that in the house library? Or are those books in there just for show? Because I would love to read that kind of book. Humans don’t have many good books about angels.”