Page 87 of Soulbound

"—master your will," he echoed, as if he hadn't heard it a thousand times before.

Bishop missed his next shot.

"It appears this round will be a tie, at best," Sebastian mused.

"There's also guilt," Bishop said, taking his time to set up for the fourth shot.

Guilt. He felt leaden. "That doesn't inspire me."

"The only reason you're here attempting to rescue our father is because you feel guilty," Bishop pointed out. "It took me a while to realize you even cared."

Sebastian headed for the brandy. This was not the sort of conversation one wanted to have whilst sober. Fuck. "I don't care for him. He's a stranger, and all he's ever meant to me was a windmill to tilt at. My mother's dreamed of Drake's downfall for years. I just.... I just want to know why he did it."

It plagued him at night. He drained his drink, poured another. "I mean, why would he sacrifice himself to the demon in my place? He had to know he might never escape its clutches. He had to know how horrible it would feel. It's been using him as a vessel for over a month, and I could barely handle a single day with it inside me."

Sometimes when he woke, he could still feel that vile thing inside him. His soul had been locked away deep within his own mind, passenger in a body he could no longer control, but he'd seen what it was doing. He'd felt it pressing in upon him, until it was a wonder he could stand to be in a dark room at all these days.

"And you never think about how he feels, with it inside him?" Bishop murmured. "You've been there. You know."

"Of course I bloody do." He drained another snifter of brandy, feeling the urge to pace.

Bishop turned back to the table. "Guilt," he pronounced.

It wasn't that fucking simple.

"I barely know the man." His voice rose. "He got my mother with child, then divorced her when he realized she'd poisoned his nephew. The only part he's played in my life has been a name my mother's cursed for years—the reason we're even here in this country to begin with. He was a target. Nothing more. What do you expect from me?"

"Drake thought you were dead. Your mother sent him a bloody rag and told him that was all that remained of the child she carried. He believed it. He mourned you for years."

"Then he didn't know my mother. Morgana doesn't cast aside a potential weapon, no matter how angry she is." Sebastian's lips thinned. Something had been plaguing him. "What happens if we can't get him back? I asked Lady Eberhardt but she said I should ask you."

Bishop's face blanked of all emotion, and he examined the billiards table with ruthless intensity. "That's not an option. We will get him back."

He sighted down the cue, but he didn't fool Sebastian.

Not this time.

Especially not when his next shot went wide, and he turned to the chalk as if it alone could save him.

"Everyone keeps saying Drake's the greatest sorcerer of this generation. And the demon within him isn't going to be so kind as to relinquish its hold." Sebastian could remember the feel of its claws raking through his mind, and swiftly swallowed the rest of his brandy with a shudder. "Not after it went to so much trouble to trap him into being its vessel. We have the Wand, and the Chalice, but not the Blade. Not the real one. And even if we do get our hands on it, can we vanquish a First Tier demon?"

"We will do whatever we must."

"What happens," Sebastian repeated softly, "if we fail?"

Bishop finally stopped chalking the cue, his voice turning to ice. "Then I have to kill him. I'm the only one who can."

Chapter 19

'Any seer has the ability to scry; to seek another's whereabouts. But there are ways to Veil against scrying, if one knows how. And ways to break through that Veil.'

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—Quentin Farshaw, 'Sidestep Through Time'

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING, Cleo reached for the map of London and her scrying crystal. She was still under orders not to engage her divination arts, but she needed to know.