Grace and Glory (The Harbinger #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,59

I would do anything for Zayne. Just like he’d done anything for me. “I will bring Zayne to you.”

“Good.” She reached for the wineglass.

“But just so you know,” I said, waiting until her attention returned to me. “If you harm him in any way, I will kill you. You won’t even have a chance to use your magic against me. It will happen before you even realize it.”

The Crone took a slow drink. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

“So am I,” Tony said. “Because this was getting superawkward.”

“As most adult conversations do,” the Crone replied. “One day you will understand that.”

“Seriously?” The tiny seer looked offended.

The Crone laughed softly. “Don’t you still have a bedtime?”

The child’s eyes narrowed.

“He does,” the Crone told me, and I really had no idea what to say to that. “One last thing before we part ways, which we must do very shortly. I have to get this one back to his mother before she thinks I stole him.”

“Oh my God,” Tony muttered under his breath. “The things I could tell you...”

“But you won’t.” She leaned over, and for a moment, I feared she might topple right out of her chair and, like, break a hip. She kissed the seer on the cheek.

Tony rolled his eyes and wrinkled his nose in a way I imagined a normal kid of his age would. There was a smudge of bright pink lipstick on his cheek.

Sitting upright once more, the Crone refocused on me. “You must do this alone tonight. No friends, demonic or Warden. Their energies will interfere with the spell.”

I guessed I better hope this worked, because if it didn’t keep Zayne contained long enough, he was going to be very angry.

Rising from my chair, I hesitated as I looked over at the kid. “Will I see you again?”

Those eerie eyes lifted to mine. “I can’t answer that.”

The why occurred to me. Because if he did, it would tell me too much. It could possibly tell me that there was an after to all of this. Or that there wasn’t. A chill skated down my spine as I nodded and turned.

“Tell Roth I said hi,” Tony added, and my gaze swept back to him. He smiled, and my heart rate kicked up. “Tell him that my mom would love one of those chickens he brought me. He’ll understand.”

“Okay,” I heard myself say, and then I left, a small smile tugging at my lips.

Tony had just shared that I would see Roth again, and unless Roth returned from Hell between now and tonight, which was unlikely, it meant I survived tonight.

So at least there was that.

* * *

Updating Dez on everything that had gone down went just as I had expected it to.

Dez wasn’t remotely on board with the idea of me using something a witch had given me to draw Zayne out, nor was he happy that I was doing this alone. It took a while to convince him that this was something I had to try, and finally he relented after I told him he could help by making sure the park was cleared of all people by seven. I promised that I would let him know what happened as soon as I could.

At least that conversation was far less awkward than the one before.

Cayman, on the other hand, was just not about that kind of life, anyway. He promised to remain back at the apartment.

“Call me if the spell somehow doesn’t contain him and you need to run for your life,” he’d told me. “I’ll run with you.”

That wasn’t the most inspiring of all comments, but he did tell me that I probably didn’t need to worry about drawing any demons to me. He had a feeling that after Zayne’s show-and-tell from Saturday night, most had hightailed their butts back to Hell or out of the city, but that didn’t include the demons who were working with Gabriel, obviously.

So, yeah, thoughts and prayers on that front.

Finding a personal item of Zayne’s wasn’t exactly easy since he didn’t have a lot of personal items outside of the bare necessities. I didn’t want to take his toothbrush or comb since I had to bleed all over it and dump only God knew what on top of it, so I opted for one of his unwashed gray shirts I’d been planning to sleep in again. It still smelled like him, and I stood there holding it to my face for a probably disturbing amount