Page 120 of Ballad of Nightmares

“Maybe you should,” Sam said, annoyance in his tone.

Millie sat up in the chair and stared at him. “Something you’d like to say?”

“You know your precious Cordelia sold Ana a dagger with the enchantment in it, don’t you?” Sam blurted, growing tired of stepping around it.

“What?” Millie stiffened.

Sam lifted his shirt, revealing the still healing wound he’d received from Ana that night, then craned his neck to show her the slice across his throat.

“Ana tried to kill me with the same substance as the one in those demons’ wounds in Firemoor,” Sam said. “I figured it out when I could still feel the wound an hour after. Rolfe had seen her going into the shop on Third a few times.” He straightened, watching Millie process it all. “You want to continue defending them now?”

“Cordelia hasn’t used it on me,” Millie argued.

“Maybe she hasn’t felt the need to yet.”

“Sam—“

“Milliscent,” he snapped. “You say they do not mean us any harm, and I want to believe you. I have left them alone in this realm because I know what would be done to them in any other. But I need you to see this as I do, too.”

Tears lined Millie’s eyes, tears that broke his fucking heart. He sighed heavily and pressed his hands into the back of his chair.

“Just be careful,” he said softly. “Please,” he begged. “I have never had to fear losing you or Rolfe, but this… And with whatever lullaby they taught Ana while she was in Icemyer… I am scared,” he admitted. He stared at the desk for a moment, collecting his thoughts and trying to put them into words. “Watching those demons tortured like that… I can’t take seeing that happen to either of you. At least the ones Ana killed here were mere ghosts of themselves from the graveyard.”

“Do you think that song will work on a thriving demon?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But that substance… whatever magik the witches found… It hurtme. I could still feel it burning an hour after.”

“Drain her, Samarius,” Millie blurted out. “She wants revenge as we do. You have to drain her. You have to bind Ana to your existence.”

Sam glanced back to the television. “Soon,” he repeated.

“You—“

“The Firemoor extraction won’t take long,” he said, cutting her off with a glare. “We get in and out. No lingering. Rolfe will stay here to make sure Ana doesn’t try anything. You and I are going in.”

Millie seemed to drop her argument about Ana with this, and she crossed one leg over the other. “What’s the plan?”

Sam stepped around the desk and settled on the front. “One great thing about these three being so near their ends is that I’ll be able to shadow them once we’re close enough. I can send them back here without ever having to step into that fucking capital.”

“How close is close enough?”

His eyes met hers, jaw twisting. “We’ll have to go across the border. Across the Spine and into Firemoor.”

“Fuck,” Millie said, drawing the word out as she slumped back.

But Sam just stared at her with a glitter of nostalgia in his eyes. “Days like this, I miss only being a shadow.”

Millie looked like she might chuckle but thought better of it. “Don’t be stupid, Samarius,” she said. “Your shadow didn’t have that nice dick you like getting wet so much.”

Sam chuckled breathily, happy that he had eased her mood a little. “We leave at dusk tomorrow. Get some rest.”

Millie shook her head. “I’ll make some calls. We’ll need help.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

SAM SAT IN his office for as long as he could stand it that next day.

He stared at the television, at his demons, and fantasized about what he would have to do that night. He went through every scenario of what could go wrong, trying to make plans for every sore thought.