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I’d never been sure whether his incubus had subconsciously recognized her for the danger she was and used the first opportunity to remove her, or whether it had been an accident, as he claimed.Either way, it had devastated Pritkin and set him on the path he’d only finished recently when he separated himself from his other half using a Pythian spell he wasn’t even supposed to know.And, I strongly suspected, he did not want it back.

“My point,” Mircea continued to Pritkin, “is that your unfortunate stint in the hells after your father returned to Earth to claim you made you loath to use the other half of your abilities.And what happened to your wife—”

“Enough!”Pritkin said, but Mircea didn’t stop.

“—sealed the deal.As a result, your demon was woefully unskilled for one of its kind, to the point that it couldn’t help you with the power that you and Cassie generated.And once you abandoned it, shifting to the future with no warning, it was left like a zoo animal, finally freed from its cage but with no idea how to hunt.It was afraid to use its powers for fear of bringing attention to itself, for it knew that Zeus coveted its abilities.And it also thought of itself as useless without you, for you had always been the dominant partner—”

“How do you know all this?”I asked before a fight broke out.Pritkin had flushed darkly enough that I could see it even in the low light, and his fists were clenched.

“Partly from flashes into its mind that I’ve experienced over the years, likely due to the bond we all share.And the rest from deduction.It’s the only possible answer for what we just witnessed.The incubus must have learned a few things since you’ve been gone and decided to help—”

“Absurd!”Pritkin said.“He is a selfish son of a—”

“But in that case, why was I out of control?”I asked.“I didn’t burn up, but I wasn’t clear-headed.I wasn’tsane, Mircea!”

“My point exactly,” he said, those eyes flashing amber again, which alone would have told me that we’d reached the crux of this.“Our link is faulty.It was damaged when Mage Pritkin separated the two parts of his nature into two separate men.That was not how the spell was laid, and any tinkering with the components of a spell can be enough to break it.This one didn’t completely shatter, as one of the needed elements was simply missing, but it shut down until the two of you returned.And now it is active but damaged and unstable, with four people currently in a link designed for three.”

I just stared at him because I was belatedly catching on to where he was going, and...damn.

“As it is, the spell comes and goes,” Mircea added.“And we cannot risk the faulty connection happening in Vegas.You must have full control, and for that, our triumvirate must be restored to its original form.”

What Pritkin might have said to that, I didn’t know because he abruptly turned around and strode off while I just gazed at Mircea.“You sound sure.”

“I am.Mage Pritkin’s incubus possesses the power to absorb essentially unlimited energy without having it tear him apart—or influence him.To him, it is food, nothing more.He has the control you need, and he is the only one who does.”

“But...we could recast the spell,” I said, trying to think while shock reverberated through me.Because Pritkin and his other half loathed each other, and that was before one of them abandoned the other to die.Not that Pritkin had meant for that to happen, but his incubus, left to fend for itself for fifty years in a place worse than most hells, probably didn’t see it that way.

This wasn’t going to be good.

“We could make it accommodate four,” I said desperately.“Take off the faulty spell and reapply it—”

“I already thought of that,” Mircea said, “and discussed it with Rosier.But the spell was based on a bastardized version of incubus magic designed to be used on humans and vampires.It won’t hold one of the very creatures its power derives from.It would be like one incubus trying to enthrall another.”

“Which doesn’t work,” I said, feeling ill.

Mircea shook his head.“Rosier suspects that it only took in Mage Pritkin’s case because he was part human at the time it was laid, which his incubus no longer is.And if we remove the faulty spell and attempt to recast it now, and it doesn’t work—”

“Then we have nothing.”

He nodded.“The only choice is to repair the spell.”

“Which requires me rejoining that thing!”Pritkin said, suddenly coming back.

I hadn’t heard him, but I guessed Mircea had, as he didn’t so much as flinch even with an irate war mage at his back.“You may hate your father’s people,” he said mildly, not bothering to turn around.“I am not overly fond of them myself.But I will work with them, and so will you—”

“Oh, will I?”Pritkin began heatedly, but Mircea cut him off.And it looked like his diplomacy might have taken a beating in the last half century, after all, because the usual suave courtier was suddenly nowhere to be seen.

“Yes, and for the same reason!”he said, turning to face him.“If we do not, Cassie dies.Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow.But she was right earlier.Zeus knows she has returned, and he feels...oh, hefeels.He remembers the sensation of Artemis’ power, draining him dry, knows the fear she once instilled in him that no other could, and experienced that again when he faced her daughter in battle...and ran.

“He will kill her, and he will do it soon, not in honorable combat, but by sending a multitude to tear her apart as we saw today.And they will come, even if they do not want to help him, for they fear her, too.

“Fear is perhaps the greatest motivator, save one, and their kind does not seem capable of love.But you are.So, I suppose the question we must ask is, do you love herenough?”

“Mircea—” I said urgently, but he wasn’t done.

“You expect—we all do—for Cassie to risk everything to save us.Can we risk any less for her?”

“And by we, you mean me,” Pritkin said, but his voice sounded hollow, as if Mircea’s words had landed like a punch to the gut.