Page 142 of Cold Curses

“None of us are strong enough to beat Jonathan Black alone, and probably not even together. But if I had a sword that was magically enhanced—not just by a sorcerer, but by a sorcerer even more powerful than him—I bet I could do it. And more important,itthinks it can beat Black.”

The room went very quiet. And the parents went very still.

“You want to reverse Humpty Dumpty the Egregore?” Uncle Catcher asked. “Absolutely not.”

“We aren’t going to let it loose,” Lulu said. Monster didn’t feel good about that, but understood that total freedom wasn’t on the table. “We’re going to reunite two parts of a creature that was created and then forcibly torn apart in the span of a week.”

“It tried to break Chicago,” Mom said.

“In fairness,” I said, “it didn’t try to break anything. A sorcerer did. The Egregore is just a creature. Not good. Not evil. But broken because of everything that happened then. And it doesn’t want out. It wants to go home.”

“Into the sword,” Dad said, and I nodded.

“It’s been protecting Elisa,” Lulu said, and told them the conclusion we’d reached the night before. “Including against Jonathan Black, who tried to take it from her last night.”

I gave her a Very Mean look.

“Excuse me?” my mother said, and looked angry enough to bite.

“He thinks he’s entitled to it because of Sorcha,” I said.

“Sorry,” Aunt Mallory said, “but why would Black think that?”

“He’s Sorcha Reed’s unacknowledged son,” Lulu said.

Aunt Mallory nearly spewed her coffee. “What?” she demanded, wiping away at chin dribble.

“Did I not tell you?” Mom asked, and when Aunt Mallory turned furious eyes on her, she added, “Guess not. I’m sorry. I honestly thought I had.” She ran a hand through her hair. “This week has been a lot.”

“Details,” Aunt Mallory said.

“We don’t have all of them,” I said, “but it sounds like Sorcha had an affair with an elf, and Black was the result. He grew up with a human family and didn’t know about his magic for a long time. Petra found the records. He had them unsealed with his adoptive parents’ support. But Sorcha was already gone. He was thirteen.” Then I told them about the arson.

“I remember the fire at the Reed house,” Dad said. “But I didn’t think much of it since the Reeds had been gone for years by then.”

“I thought it was just deserts,” Mom said. “And we think…what? He wants monster because it ‘belonged’ to his biological mother?”

“I think in part,” I said. “And maybe because he thinks it will fix his magic, which seems to be broken. Or was before he started eating demon and ley line magic.”

Mom and Dad sat down again. Mom crossed her arms, frowned as she considered what I’d said. Dad’s posture was pretty much the same. After spending more than twenty years together, some of their habits had merged.

“What are you thinking?” Aunt Mallory asked. Not a challenge but a serious query about magic.

“Elisa thinks it can rejoin itself in the sword. So we just have to get it out of her and then into the steel.”

Uncle Catcher scratched his chin. “You’re thinking a lure?”

“Trust me,” I said. “It doesn’t need a lure.”

“That’s why you were in the armory,” Dad said quietly.

The sadness in his eyes made my throat ache. But I knew I wasn’t the one to make him sad. Not really.

“Yeah. It’s been pesky in Cadogan House for a while. But it’s been louder since we brought the House back.”

“It doesn’t need a lure,” Lulu repeated. “But it needs a road. A magical path it can follow.”

“Preferably one-way,” Uncle Catcher said, “so it has only one potential destination.”