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“Yes.” We stopped close to Rasmus. “Bend down, guardian. I will heal your neck. Your blood is staining the floor.”

Rasmus looked at me and I nodded. He bent and she pushed his fingers away from the wound. “Grit your teeth to bear the pain,” she advised.

Seconds later, the smell of burning flesh filled the room. To Rasmus’s credit, all he did was grunt.

“Done,” she pronounced as she pulled her fingers away.

“Do ya know any more about the guardians?” I asked.

Lilith shrugged. “I hear some are like gods, but I don’t know the source of their power.”

I held her hand in both of mine. “Rasmus has at least one compulsion I wasn’t able to break. We need ya to free him from it, please.”

Lilith ignored my plea as she looked at Rasmus. “Remembering will not bring you what you seek, guardian. It will take everything peaceful about your life away.”

Rasmus frowned down at her. “Any knowledge is better than knowing nothing.”

Lilith snorted. “Your energy is different from the others. I don’t think you were ever fully one of them, but I only know what I was told. They did something to make you forget yourself. Aran’s ex-husband became your keeper.”

Jack being his keeper made a lot of sense to me, but I knew Rasmus still had trouble believing Jack had betrayed him.

“Free him,” Conn said.

When I looked at Conn, the guardian was hanging limp in his hands. “Did ya kill him? I thought we were going to question him.”

“He’s not dead—not yet. We don’t have a cage. This was easiest.”

I looked at Lilith. “We’ll take yer guardian spy with us, but they’ll probably send another to replace him once the word gets out.”

“Take him and I will do what you ask.”

I looked at Rasmus. “We want ya to remove the compulsions from him.”

Lilith looked at Conn. “Will you forgive me if I help the conflicted guardian?”

“My forgiveness is not a worthy goal for a demon queen. Do what you must,Lilithia of the Fir Bolg. You made your choice back then. Make a better one now.”

Lilith nodded. I could tell she got something out of what Conn said to her that went beyond his words. I would never ask for details and Conn would never tell me. This level of privacy is what I allowed him. I really did see him as part of my family. It was always about trust. That was something Jack never understood.

“I will remove the compulsions from the conflicted guardian, but not here. We need more room for it to happen. Meet me at Gallows Hill Park at nine. There are many demands on him and ripping them away will not be pleasant. There is also what his kind did to him and that I cannot undo. His mind’s survival is not certain.”

I looked to Rasmus for confirmation that he still wanted them removed and got a brief nod.

“We would appreciate it greatly,” I said to her.

Lilith found my eyes and held my gaze. “I mended my ways long before you were born, daughter of The Dagda. My people want to live in peace without the need for wars and regenerating. We serve humanity in exchange for being left alone. Is this not the kind of peace the gods wanted between us?”

“Yes. That’s what The Dagda wanted. It’s probably what the Goddess Danu wanted too.”

“But what do humans want?” Lilith asked me. She motioned the prone demons to get up and help her. “They have committed the kind of atrocities that make even demons wince.”

“If ya wanted to scare me, ya succeeded,” I told her because she wasn’t wrong.

“I don’t think you fear much,” she said.

“Is there an open demon portal?” I asked.

“There might have been if my child were truly half-human. The child is not.” She held out her arms to Conn. “Do you wish to check my words?”