“Cass!”
“But I’ll do it. I just have to pick the right moment.”
“Uh huh.”
“I will,” I insisted. “He has to know. Especially now.”
“Why now?”
“After what happened, all that power we shared, his demon half is probably stronger than ever. It keeps part of the energy we generate, you know?”
“That’s what I know. So, you are going to tell him.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Soon. I promise!”
Billy rolled his eyes. “I guess I can give you a break. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Not . . . not as much as you. Billy—”
“What about the third member of the triumvirate?” he asked, cutting me off again. “Has Mircea found his lady love?”
“No. Caedmon said he has some ideas; I didn’t get a lot of details. But I think he’s going to help him out. But, yeah, that’s what Mircea was doing in Romania when we all ended up there. Looking for clues—”
“In the eighteenth century?”
I shook my head. “That was Jonathan’s doing. He’d guessed what might happen if the three of us combined power, and wanted us out of the way—at least until the battle was over. So, he talked Aeslinn into releasing this creature they’d had in their dungeon for a while. It . . . I still don’t know what it was, but it helped Dorina when she was just a baby—”
“And it was still alive?”
“The Svarestri captured it shortly after Mircea and I saw it in Romania, and took it back to their realm. And you know time runs differently there. Plus, it’s fey, and they live longer.”
Billy frowned through a haze of smoke. “But how did Jonathan even know about this thing, much less that Mircea would go chasing it?”
“He’d made a mental connection with Mircea during questioning—or one of his creatures had—and realized that he was obsessed. Jonathan managed to plant the idea that the creature had all the answers Mircea needed, if he only shifted back to see him—”
“And the mad mage was waiting when he did.”
I nodded.
“But he didn’t kill him? Cause he could’ve removed the risk from your threesome—”
“Don’t call it that.”
He grinned, unrepentant. “—right there. Yet he left him alive?”
I shrugged. “I’m Pythia. Jonathan knew I’d have to chase down a time-traveling vampire, as long as said vampire stayed alive. And, of course, he wanted to capture me.”
“Huh.” Billy looked thoughtful. “Then Jonathon’s own obsession with you saved Mircea’s life.”
“No, you saved Mircea’s life. You saved all of us—”
“Cass—"
“Damn it, Billy! You know what I