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Her whole body trembled. She was crying silently, and he held her close and stroked her hair. After a while, she pulled herself up and wiped a hand across her face. Her expression hardened.

“I’ll kill him for this,” she said. “Whatever else happens tonight—Sardi will die.”

∞∞∞

Regan pushed open the door and slipped into the room. The two men didn’t even notice her, and she sank to the floor and sat cross-legged, watching them. Despite the different coloring, they were curiously similar. Both tall, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped. Tension radiated from them, but she was pleased to notice there was no sense of animosity between them.

“You need to let go of your issues. They’re clouding your ability to think straight.” Kael’s tone was exasperated, but he sounded friendly enough. “Free your mind.”

“I would,” Caleb replied. “But unfortunately, there’s rather a lot going on in there at the moment. Ask me tomorrow, and I’ll give you my undivided attention.”

“Tomorrow, in all likelihood, you’re going to be dead,” Regan called out, and both men turned to look at her.

“Thanks,” Caleb muttered. “Just the sort of comment I needed to focus my mind.” He stalked across the room and crouched down in front of her. “How are you?”

“Angry. Furious.” She thought about it. “Guilty that I lit that bloody bonfire.”

“You needed to know.”

“No, actually Iwantedto know, so I did it, and as usual someone else is paying the price.”

“We’ll get her back.”

“Maybe. Now you’d better get back to your lesson.”

Caleb glanced over his shoulder to where Kael stood, tapping his foot impatiently on the wooden floor.

“He’s trying to teach me to shift into something other than a wolf.”

Regan shrugged. “Could come in useful. When the going gets tough, you could shift into an amoeba and nobody would even see you.”

“I was thinking something bigger and scarier,” Caleb said. “But it seems to be irrelevant anyway. Maybe as a half-breed, I’m just not capable.”

“Caleb,” Kael called to him.

Caleb reached out a hand and stroked her cheek. “I’ve got to go.”

She nodded. “Is it okay if I stay and watch?”

“Of course. I can’t promise anything worth watching though.”

Regan leaned her back against the wall and made herself as comfortable as possible. She’d gone to pray again, then to the Council library to look for anything she could on Sardi. And found plenty. If she’d done that a long time ago, she would have realized that while his human form could be killed here, he would re-manifest in his own dimension. Weakened, but still very much in existence. Her mother hadn’t mentioned that bit.

Why?

Was it to make Regan feel safe? The truth was, she didn’t know, and until her mother deigned to put in an appearance, she wouldn’t find out. So they needed to destroy his mortal body, which would at least put him out of action for another thousand years or so.

But how?

He was far stronger than her, or even Caleb.

In the end, she needed the comfort of being in Caleb’s presence, so she had come in search of him and found him here.

“It’s easy,” Kael was saying. “Watch.”

He vanished and in his place was a small blue bird. It flew once around the room, alighted briefly on Regan’s shoulder, then flew back to Caleb. It landed on the floor and shifted back to human form.

“Now, you,” Kael said.