Helen didn’t have the energy to smile. “No?”

  “Eh, it could work.” The Sphinx chuckled. “I guess she could work up to it, but how would anyone believe her?”

  Helen didn’t know, didn’t really know how communication worked over a console. “I need to get out there, to Remora Island where these humans might be hiding.”

  “These humans being the bomb-toting bastards circling our sanctuary?”

  “You don’t know that they have bombs.”

  The Sphinx rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure of their legitimacy, either, but I’m willing to place a bet. Helen, you’re not going out to fight them yourself.”

  Helen’s ego flared, a bit of anger left, after all. “I’m not helpless.”

  “Or bulletproof.”

  “We have weapons and defenses.”

  “That we should use from the cover of our island.”

  “Sphinx.” Helen rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to think and feel past the fatigue. “If we launch an attack from here, they’ll retaliate. I won’t give them an excuse to hurt anyone.”

  “Now you’re not even counting yourself as anyone?” The Sphinx frowned hard, though her body had gone as still as her namesake statue.

  “You know what I mean,” Helen said, loving her even while thoroughly irritated by her.

  “If you die, Hel—”

  With a groan, Helen pushed back into the cushions. “What will happen to the sanctuary? Sorry, that guilt trip is not going to work. I know you’re trying to protect me.”

  “Doesn’t make it any less true.” The Sphinx’s voice finally rose as she stood, cutting as imposing a figure as she had in ancient Thebes.

  But Helen was too tired to be anywhere near intimidated. “Please verify with Maera that the Remora Island tip is true. I’ll head over in the morning.” She held up a hand when the Sphinx took a deep breath. “Just to reconnoiter, I promise.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Well, I’ll need some help getting there.”

  The Sphinx settled again, a gleam in her eyes. “Of course.”

  Helen frowned. The Sphinx’s craftiness hadn’t deserted her any more than her ability to be impressive. “You have someone in mind.”

  “You’ll need to go by sea, stealthily, no Pegasus. Maera and a few nereids, perhaps Ligeia. Nothing beats the combination of strength and hypnotic powers.”

  It sounded reasonable. So far.

  “And a fey presence to keep you under the cover of glamour.”

  “Okay,” Helen said slowly. Invisible allies were always appreciated, but this sounded like more than she wanted. “Anyone else? Navy SEALS? Brass band?”

  “You need backup, or you can’t go. I will sit on you if I have to.”

  And she would. And the power remaining to Helen might not be enough to shift her. She would have to use that just to breathe. “Nereids, Ligeia, fey. Fine. They’re all very capable.”

  The Sphinx flashed a bright smile. “Capable enough to go without you.”

  “Not happening.” Helen narrowed her eyes. “I’ll sit on you, too.”

  The Sphinx returned her look. “Bring it on, sis.”

  Helen couldn’t help a smile. “Or I can cut off your weed supply.”

  “Oh, such an asshole move. And may I point out, my supply will also be cut off if you die.”

  “Aha, now I see what you’re worried about.”

  They both chuckled. Helen was full of shit, and the Sphinx knew it, just as Helen knew the same about her. Affection filled the air between them like the warmest blanket.

  “I’ll be careful,” Helen said softly. She’d never throw her life away.

  “You bet your ass you will.” The Sphinx smiled resignedly, clearly knowing that no lives would be thrown anywhere, but she also knew that Helen would sacrifice herself for the sanctuary if it came to that. And Helen would also do everything in her power to make sure it didn’t.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Damian seemed determined to prove his usefulness by giving an extremely detailed account of how he was summoned and what he could glean from the dark, haze-filled ritual. “I swear two of the voices were female. There may have been others, but no one else spoke.”

  “But you talked to someone over the phone who claimed to be a Lamia and told you some all-powerful person was at the heart of the orders?”

  “Most of that I overheard.” He perched on the edge of the tub, his human guise firmly in place, and his glamour clothing back on. Chloe found herself hoping it was real clothing even more now. Otherwise, his ass would be freezing.

  Not that she cared. She shook the thought away. “And you assumed this powerful person was…”

  “Dunno.” His gaze went far away. “It was warm where they first summoned me. Humid.”

  “Houston?”

  “No, no, I felt the magical shift in energies as they sent me there. The original place felt more…tropical. Closer to equatorial ley lines.”

  Leaning against the wall, arms crossed, Ramses scoffed. “What does a minor demon who’s never been summoned to this realm know of its climate or magical resonance?”

  Chloe repeated the question, though with a bit more tact.

  Still, Damian scowled at the bathroom as if sensing Ramses’s scorn. “Every demon studies this realm. One doesn’t acquire true power in Hell until one causes a bit of mischief up here.”

  “Mischief?” Ramses straightened, power flaring. He clearly hadn’t forgiven Damian for the whole Nefertari incident.

  Chloe held up a hand. “Settle down.”

  Damian’s wide-eyed gaze darted around the room this time. “What is it? What’s he doing?”

  “Just…shush,” Chloe told him. She gave Ramses a look, and his power slackened a little. She was skeptical of Damian’s info, too. After his tearful confession, his eagerness grated a little, and someone so obviously desperate to prove his worth might invent more than report. “You’re sure about this whole ley line thing?”

  “Definitely.”

  She waited.

  He blinked. “Probably.”

  She rubbed her chin and thought. Some creatures were sensitive to ley lines, the invisible strings of power that were said to circle the earth, and some could use the lines to enhance their abilities. Anyone who wanted to summon a demon would be a fool not to seek out every magical enhancement they could find.

  “If I showed you a map of ley lines, do you think you could pick it out?” When he opened his mouth, she held up a hand. “Think about it first. Your life doesn’t depend on just one question.”

  He dipped his chin. “Well…I think I’d have to feel it to be sure, but it was powerful. Ley lines pass through multiple planes of existence, and I’m sure I’ve felt this one before. It’s powerful.”

  Those running near the equator would certainly qualify. Chloe put her head back and sighed. “There’s a whole lot of world near the equator. And a lot of it is hot and humid. What about this spell they cast to send you to Houston? Could you tell how far you traveled?”

  Again, he seemed to want to leap to an answer. Again, she urged him to shut his yap and think for a minute. That feeling of schooling a little brother came rushing back to her, and she hoped like hell that he wasn’t a trap. Both for her own sake and because, against her better judgment, she liked him. She didn’t want to keep him around forever—certain Ramses would peel his skin off eventually—but she could stand working with him for a little longer.

  “I got the feeling that it was around the same time of day.”

  “How do you know?” Chloe asked before Ramses could. “You were summoned in a dark room and never left it.”

  He shrugged. “I sensed it.”

  Some innate power? A demon instinct? There was too much they just didn’t know.

  Damian said that he’d reappeared in some back room of the museum in the middle of the night, and that he’d been camping back there for a week and a half, using glamour to hide and haunting the exhibits enough to start internet rumors about ghosts.

  It seemed like a long shot, but it had worked in the end. Chloe’s mom’s friends had confirmed that these sorts of traps were popping up all over, some sounding as personal as the attack on Chloe and Ramses. She wondered if there were other traps out there waiting for them that hadn’t gone off yet, contingencies in case the Houston one failed. That plan did seem sloppier than some of the others.

  Unless it had been designed to be.

  And Damian was a plant.

  “Ugh.” Chloe stood and put a hand to her forehead. She could talk herself in circles all day. “I need to think about this, need to talk to the others.” She stretched her neck. “Need to get some sleep.” Eyes closed, she put a hand up in Damian’s direction. “If you offer to give me a massage, so help me God—”

  “I won’t,” he said quickly. “I wasn’t.” But when she looked, he seemed sheepish and shrugged again. “What can I say? I gotta be me.”

  She snorted. “Maybe one of the others will take you up on that.”

  He brightened ridiculously. “Really? You think so? Ask them. I promise, they won’t regret it,” he called as she left and shut the door behind her.

  Ramses passed through it to stand beside her in the hall. She tilted her head toward the guest bedroom, wanting to talk with him before she filled in everyone else. “You don’t believe him,” he said when they were alone.

  “Not entirely. But you saw the same display as me. Think he could act that well before the pentacle and your power?”

  He sighed. “I’ve only ever fought a handful of demons, and not one of his kind.” He worried his lip. “And the pentacle may have helped, but the real power comes from you. From us. Don’t forget that.”

  She squinted. “You mean, stuff like that works better when we’re using it?”

  “Perhaps. But it’s the bloodline that counts. The tools are mostly”—he waved vaguely—“window dressing.”

  Her world tilted slightly off its axis. “I’m sorry, what?” All the drills her mother had made her go through, all the pages of memorization, the crash course she’d taken in herbs and lore and various pharmacopeia. “What are you saying? The rowan branches, the pentacle, the salt and cayenne, the nails?”

  “Helpful, most of them. And some regular humans have used them quite successfully. Salt and cayenne against ghosts, cold iron against fey and demons, but a regular human couldn’t manage the feats you can.”

  Disbelief warred with anger and a deep dread, all of it magnified by the lead ass of fatigue. She couldn’t decide whether to feel proud or like a giant fraud. “I could have been doing banishing and all this shit with no tools at all? What the fuck, Ramses?”

  He looked a little sheepish as he shrugged. “What? I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “Oh, sure, turn my world upside down and be pleased.” She rubbed her hands down her face. “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “I was hoping to give you a boost of confidence, but…” His smile was full-on embarrassed. “That was obviously my bad. You can still use the tools,” he said, desperately cheerful. “They do help with focus. You can question Damian again with the pentacle showing. That might work better. Who knows?”

  If the contents of her magic bag were a fat lot of window dressing, she could question him while holding a goddamned spatula, and it would do the same amount of good. But Ramses looked contrite enough, and she couldn’t say any of that out loud. Instead, she snorted. “You really want to watch him bawl again?”

  “No, that was too pitiful. Even after what he did.” He fell backward to hover just over the bed and laced his hands over his bare stomach. The striped nemes on his head gave way to his hair, a sure sign of the king giving way to the more human side. “And I know you’ve been having the same thoughts as me about whether he’s bluffing and if he suspects that we know and what we can do if we know he suspects that we know…”

  She chuckled tiredly and sat on the quilt-covered hope chest at the foot of the bed. “Yeah.” God, she really just wanted a few hours sleep, but the others were out there waiting for her and—

  No, they weren’t waiting for her as much as they were waiting for something to do.

  “Hell,” she said, laughing, her mood lifting a bit. “We don’t have to think this through by ourselves for once.” She stood but paused. “Do they know about the whole window dressing thing?”

  “Your mom does. I don’t know if she told the others.” He rose to his feet in the middle of the bed. “I’m sorry I blurted it out like that, Chlo.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to drop Hulu or anything.” But she smiled so he’d know she’d never really stay mad at him.

  For long, anyway. She couldn’t help seeing all her powerful tools as junk now. Still, she wouldn’t be leaving them behind anytime soon. No matter what else they did, they helped her focus.

  As Chloe delivered the rundown in the living room, her mom’s friends migrated back to the table and the maps and books. She tried to pool all the confidence that Ramses insisted she had somewhere inside, and childhood insecurities felt easier to ignore in the face of fatigue. That, and she felt a lot more take-charge and kick-ass as they flipped through books or took to the internet at her request.

  That gleam of pride was still in her mother’s eye, too, and Chloe nearly leapt over the table and hugged her when she said, “Good work, Chlo. Go get some rest.”

  Earlier, she might have taken that as a dismissal to “let the grown-ups talk,” but now it sounded more like she wanted their best fighter to get enough sleep before the big tournament.

  She paused before leaving. “Oh, and Damian said that if anyone wants any, uh, company, he’d welcome the chance to, you know, show you what he can do.” God, her exhaustion was overriding any sense that life ever gave her. But she’d told him she’d ask. Embarrassment threatened to override her other feelings, and she had to stare at the wall, cheeks burning. “You’d have to protect yourselves, but ah…”

  Nope, that sounded too much like she was about to start handing out contraceptives to people her mother’s age.

  She donned her glove again, pulled the pentacle out and laid both on the glass cabinet that housed her mom’s Cats of the World collection. “I’m just gonna leave these here in case…yeah.” She fled to the guest bedroom, nearly slamming the door behind her. She ignored Ramses’s amused look as she flopped on the bed this time and tried to hurry herself to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  Helen took a cup of coffee and a pastry into the solarium in the morning and tried not to yawn her head off. A text from the Sphinx said it had been sent at six in the damned morning. No matter how late Helen went to bed, the Sphinx always managed to get up before her. She hoped it was some ingrained habit to rise with the dawn and not a sign that the Sphinx’s arthritis was worse in the morning.

  The Lamia said to tell you, “I accept,” the text said. What the hell did you offer her?

  Helen drummed her fingers on the arm of the sofa before she replied. That I would set her free if she swore an oath to protect the sanctuary.

  A moment later, three little dots appeared as the Sphinx was responding. They vanished, only to reappear a second later before vanishing again.

  Helen rolled her eyes. You don’t have to delete all your bad language, she typed.

  Fuck.

  That’s better.

  What the actual fucking fuck are you thinking, Hel?

  She started to respond, then slipped the phone in her pocket, wanting to gather her thoughts before responding to every worry she’d already had. She messaged Maera to gather five nereids—not Psamathe—and meet her at the solarium at ten. She sent a similar message to Ligeia and Maurice, inviting them on the little adventure to Remora Island, a supposed gathering place of the humans who seemed to be taking a sudden interest in the sanctuary.

  By the time she switched back over to the Sphinx’s texts, seven were waiting for her:

  That is a bad idea on so many goddamned levels. Do I have to spell them out for you?

  Number one, she’ll betray you. Two, she’ll betray you. And three, she will fucking betray you!!!

  Are you not texting back because you know I’m right?

  She’s the Lamia, Helen. Betrayal is in her bones.

  You better answer, or I’m coming over there.

  Hello? Did you go hang out with your new best friend, and she fucking betrayed you and ate you?

  I swear by Osiris, if I get there and you haven’t been eaten…

  Helen sighed and was halfway through texting back when there was a loud knock on the solarium door. A large shadow stood outside, one paw raised. The Sphinx only knocked with one claw, but it was more than enough to make every pane of glass rattle.

  Helen gripped her phone and thought about pretending she’d already left, but she would have to face this music sooner or later. She hit the switch, and the section of wall began to retract, revealing the Sphinx’s scowling face.

  “I was writing Maera and the others and didn’t see your new texts,” Helen said before the Sphinx could start. “I haven’t been eaten, and the Lamia is not my new best friend.”

  The Sphinx raised her brows.

  “And yes, I fully expect her to betray me.”

  The Sphinx sat on her hind legs, her tail wrapped around her front paws like a housecat awaiting—no, demanding—a treat.

  “Any agreement between us will be looked over by a priest of Thoth.”

  The Sphinx tilted her head back, frowning and regarding Helen as she might a particularly troublesome problem. But at least she wasn’t yelling. “And where will you find one?”

  “I hoped you’d know one.”

  “So you did plan on telling me about this?”