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When Hart finally let me go, I breathed out in relief.

Finally, I looked at Jessing. “Let’s go to the main house. We can talk privately there.”

“We would like to meet your ancient ones,” Jessing said.

“Ya will, but the only one ya can talk to is Rasmus. Zara is a special case. She’s here for reasons I can’t explain to ya.”

“Your daughter already explained the female guardian’s presence to us. She is being punished by her people, and you volunteered to rehabilitate her.”

I shook my head. What else had my daughter shared with the world? “Fiona’s lips are as loose as ever, I see. The only secrets that child ever kept were ones about her father that she shouldn’t have.”

Hart and Jessing both laughed at my complaining. “Your child turned out well. Your mother is very proud of both of you,” Jessing said. “What manner of being has taken it on himself to magickly train her? His energy does not reveal his nature. Is he like your ancient one?”

“I want to answer yes. Others call him an angel.”

Given what I’d recently realized about fallen angels, it was safest to let them believe Tony was like Rasmus. They followed their own rules and found creative ways to bend them when necessary.

Dylan and I had both benefitted from Tony’s rule-bending efforts, but his far darrig family had disowned him. Because of that, I was still on the fence about whether Tony’s angel powers were a good thing or not.

Since the angel worked with my daughter and had saved my life, I wouldn’t let Jessing and Hart hassle Tony. The last thing I needed were two enforcer statues adorning my foyer, even if Henry and Gale would find it hilarious. I had already received mocking comments about the new statue of Ezra’s sister. Demons streamed by it and covered their mouths to hide their giggling.

To Henry’s credit, he hadn’t asked who’d done the honors of freezing the female who’d deceived him.

And speaking of the deceptive fairy...

My sigh was loud as we stopped at my front door. “So ya heard about the bowman who shot me with the arrow?”

“Yes,” they both said.

Jessing held up her hand. “The being was a product of a genetic human experiment which you attempted to thwart. You stopped some of them from being made, but not all. The details were in the report of the initial incident.”

If the owl shifter wanted to prove that she’d done her homework on me, she had succeeded. “Right. So, did ya also hear about the fairy who recently stabbed me?”

Hart and Jessing looked at each other before shaking their heads.

Hart reached out and patted my shoulder. “We were occupied with another task. Are you injured? Is that why you called for help?”

“No, I wasn’t injured, but only because my guardian intervened. He inserted himself and took the stabbing for me. I survived, buthewas injured. The fairy did not escape—or not completely.”

Jessing put a hand to her chest. “It is good she did not succeed in her murder attempt. Many stabbings are fatal. I heard that fairies are well-trained in close combat.”

“Yes, well, my fairy assassin is going to tell ya she did succeed. Her version of events was thwarted by powerful magick. I can’t even fully explain it, but the Dagda stone helped me heal. The bottom line is that she made a solid attempt but failed to kill me. As a result, we have tightened our wards and confined ourselves to the compound.”

Hart studied me. “We heard rumors of there being a kill-for-power contract on you. We have yet to confirm the rumors.”

I nodded. They knew little more than I did. “Do ya know if it was taken out by the Fairy Folk? Or by a particular fairy?”

“Are you referring to Ezra of Airing Dale?”

“Yes,” I said. “If I could repeat either of our battles over again, I would kill him when he tried to kill me. Ezra never deserved the mercy he received.”

“Why did you not take his head?” Jessing asked.

“Fiona’s angel stopped me from killing him the first time. The angel was the one who froze him. Until recently, Ezra was a statue decorating my foyer. I thawed him out, and he tried to kill me a second time. Instead of ending his life, I took most of his stored magick and weakened him. What happened was accidental, but it allowed me to stop him. Ya know the rest.”

“Then you sent him home to Ireland and hoped the fairies would take him back,” Hart said.

Jessing grunted as she turned to Hart. “I’m sure she did so to keep from killing him. His vicious tongue is as sharp as a blade.” She turned back to me. “Hart and I never liked him. Ezra was our supervisor for a time. We did not agree with his methods. He took great pleasure in cruelty and used excessive violence. We are willing to do what is necessary, but we do not get pleasure from the pain of others.”