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“Wait!”Rhea screeched, seeing them at the same time I did.

Alphonse did not wait.I didn’t know where he’d come up with him, but the portly little bastard who had raised and tormented me in about equal measure was dangling by the neck from one of his former servant’s beefy hands, and if he hadn’t been a vampire, he’d have been sans a head right now.And then he was being beaten against anything and everything, as if he were a club that Alphonse had decided to use to wreck the room, and Mircea was telling him to stop, and he wasn’t stopping.

Because Alphonse didn’t care about a fist to the mouth.Alphonse didn’t care if he died for this.Alphonse had crossed worlds and great spans of time and almost died a dozen times for this moment, and he intended to enjoy it.

Maybe that was the real reason Tony wasn’t yet dead but was instead being slammed against the floor, the walls, and every piece of furniture Alphonse could find.It was fast turning the lovely decorating Tami had done into kindling that I was afraid was going to stake Tony before I could find out why Rhea was yelling.For some reason, she seemed to be against his imminent demise.

And then Mircea passed Zara off to Pritkin, grabbed his wayward grandson, and shook him.Which did nothing but shake Tony, too, because Alphonse wasn’t letting go.“Mine,” he snarled, and to my surprise, Mircea nodded.

“The offense was enough; he is yours.But not yet.”

“When?”It was an animalistic sound, deep and guttural and so full of rage that it was almost indecipherable, like the first word had been.And I realized something.

Alphonse might just hate Tony more than I did.

Which probably explained why he didn’t let him go, even when he sat him in the one chair that hadn’t already been wrecked, which happened to be Rhea’s.And stood behind him with a meaty hand on his shoulder while Tony stared at us.And then stared some more when the rest of our party popped back into real space, causing the fat man to screech a little.

“W-what is going on?”he demanded, his voice a little high.

“We have guests,” Rhea said, as if she couldn’t quite believe it, either.But she was back under control, tear-streaked face and all, her hair a little messy, but otherwise, the very image of a Pythia in a long, white lace dress of the type I thought she’d abandoned.But maybe, after everything, it had been a comfort to her, a reminder of better times.

I found myself wanting to hug her, so I did.

For a moment, she hugged me fiercely, as if she’d never let me go, her fingers digging into my back.But then she tore away, staring first at me and then at the rest of the blood-covered group.“That was you outside.I thought it was Father trying to reach me again, but it was you—”

“And we have a bunch of gods on our tail,” I told her.“I’m sorry; it wasn’t easy to get to you—”

“I don’t know how you managed it at all!Nobody else—but then, I don’t know why I’m surprised.I knew you’d find a way.I knew you’d come!”

“And it is wonderful to see you again,” Mircea said, breaking in smoothly.“But perhaps we can talk at a later time?”

“Yeah, we need to go,” I told Rhea.

“Go?You just arrived—”

“Did you miss the part about trailing a fuck ton of gods?”Alphonse demanded.“I just gotta kill this guy, then we can—”

“No!” Rhea and Tony said together, causing me to look back and forth between them in confusion.

“I can’t go beyond the threshold,” Rhea said shakily.“If I do, I die.”

“She bears a curse,” Pritkin confirmed before I asked.“Not one I’ve ever seen.”

He sounded astonished, probably because that was two new spells in one day.

“Can you remove it?”Mircea said tightly.

“Possibly.Eventually…”

Pritkin didn’t finish the thought, but he didn’t need to.We all knew the rest.We didn’t have eventually.

“What is he even doing here?”I asked, glaring at Tony.Who was wearing a nice, plush bathrobe and slippers and looked suspiciously comfy, other than for the blood stains from the beating Alphonse had been administering.“Do you know what hedid?”

“Yes,” Rhea said.“What I sent him to do.”

I just stared at her for a second.“Come again?”

She put a shaking hand to her forehead, and yeah, I knew the feeling.“I sent him back in time.To find you in Faerie.And bring you here,” she said, speaking slowly and distinctly so there could be no mistake.