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I rubbed my chest when the stone rested inside me. It vibrated against my fingers.

“If the two of ya can work on transporting Ezra here, I’ll see if the Wu Shaman can thaw out the fairy princess. That will take me most of the day because I have to get Conn to pay attention.”

Jessing clicked her tongue in sympathy. “The poor Wu Shaman needs tea to prevent her sick stomach. I’ll work on fetching the wicked fairy and Hart can brew the tea for her. You must work on demon king who will freak when he discovers his secret baby.”

“Yes to all that, but first I must work on getting the Wu Shaman herself to own what is happening to her. Right now, she’s blaming her shaman staff for everything. That’s not fair.”

Hart and Jessing each patted one of my shoulders. They were both so large that I felt like a child standing between them. Mulan had seemed like a child to me when I found her curled around her toilet and too sick to care for herself.

My sigh of dread over what I had to do was loud and made both enforcers laugh. I would rather fight Ezra to the death again than have to mediate between Mulan and Conn.

“Will ya do me one more favor? I would normally send Conn but that won’t work today. I need ya to get a message to Murray. I understand he works with yer office.”

Hart nodded. “We like Murray but don’t know what he does.”

That made me laugh. “Tell him to call or come see me. The wards won’t stop him. It needs to be today because I want him to make sure the rest of the royal family will not pop up with more magickal daggers in their hands. I know Murray has their ear.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Jessing said, bobbing her large owl head.

I leftHart and Jessing sitting by my firepit watching dappled sunlight stream down as it filtered through the leaves of the surrounding trees. They were already on their phones using modern human magick to arrange things.

Heading back to the house, I walked slowly and let myself enjoy a moment of peaceful solitude before the chaos started again.

I wanted Rasmus to be my backup referee, but I’d have to tell him about the baby and explain why it was important to get it all out in the open today.

It might not be easy to talk the nephilim child into releasing Lulutha from her prison. I still had the spell to drain off the power, but I had no talisman to put it in. Zenos had made the last one and the jiangshi had absorbed it during his conversation.

Where was I going to get another one by the end of the day?

I got to the doorstep of the main house and glanced up at the sky. No man-made guardians hovered there with bows aimed at me. However, that didn’t stop my panic as I stood outside in the open all by myself.

Some of my worry was that I still hadn’t confirmed Ben’s problem and mine were related. Rasmus said they were, but I wanted a second opinion.

Maybe the military and their scientists had discovered the Shadow Breakers were in town.

Maybe Ben had hired one of them without knowing who and what the person was. Stranger things had happened.

There was also a good possibility that Ezra had ratted Ben out after hearing the story of his past. Had Ben gone to one of the military scientists who worked on him for help?

Ben said Ezra arranged his trip. But he hadn’t revealed where he’d gone while Ezra ran things in his absence. Dylan had found several locations where others from Ben’s old unit seemed to be hidden from view.

I blew out a breath and tried to stop thinking about Ben. His problem with his creators wanting to capture him would have to wait until the Ezra issue got resolved. I couldn’t go chasing down his tormentors while fighting off assassins all day long. It was too much to expect us to do daily, even for a solid team like Conn and me.

Luckily, Ben wasn't still running around in his beast form, trying to hide in trees. It was a very fortunate thing that Ben’s witch wife, Felicity, had made that extra control charm for him. She’d used her magick to destroy the stolen one and power the second.

As I stood there thinking about Ben, the answer to all my problems suddenly dawned on me. I even knew what I would do if the Caribbean witch hadn’t created a third talisman I could use as bait. The only big unknown was how the nephilim powercurrently restraining Princess Lulutha might affect the talisman Ben wore if I had to use it instead.

Well, that, and what kind of being the spell we’d used on the jiangshi might end up turning Ben into.

Chapter Seventeen

Rasmus leaned in the doorway of Conn and Mulan’s master bedroom. I didn’t know if he’d put the puzzle together yet, but he didn’t seem to mind tagging along with me for this confrontation. He was as anxious as I was to deal with the fairy contract on me. Keeping me alive strained his guardian ethics more than either of us was comfortable with.

“Tell him. Conn needs to know,” I said to Mulan. “He’s missed every hint that’s been dropped. He’s too distracted to figure it out on his own. Ya mess with his mind, so ya need to bite the proverbial bullet and speak it aloud.”

“Figure out what? I’m not missing anything, ” Conn said.

The demon king paced in front of us while I sat quietly next to Mulan. She had her hand wrapped in a panicked grip around her staff. I had wrapped my hand over hers for support. There would be no escape for any of us until the truth was spoken.