craziness, all the secrets and manipulation and deal-making. Maybe he wasn’t so used it after all. That must mean there was hope for him yet.
“No more games,” he said. “You’re going to help me or I’ll take you back to Simon’s lab myself and melt you down in that giant furnace.”
The statue lay on its side on top of a Star Wars T-shirt, blinking his eyes. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“I don’t know,” Navin said, leaning back against his pillows and forcing his voice to sound casual. “It looked like it could use all the scrap metal it could get.”
“Even if you did manage to melt me, it wouldn’t actually harm me. This lump of useless metal is just a shell. My essence would survive.”
“But in what form? Like … as a ghost?” Navin took a guess. “I bet you can’t just leap into another body on your own, otherwise you’d have done it a long time ago. You could be stuck forever, in a sort of limbo. Right?”
“Put me upright on the desk and we’ll talk. I’ll help you.”
Navin raised an eyebrow. He didn’t believe the demon for a minute, but what choice did he have? This was what Donna needed to make the Philosopher’s Stone—and if she couldn’t do it, who the hell knew what would happen. Not just to her, but to the whole of Ironbridge. To Nisha and his dad.
He wondered where Donna was right now. He hoped she was okay.
“I said,” Newton repeated, “that I will help you.” The demon said it with a flourish, if that was even possible.
“How? I won’t let you hurt anyone.”
“There’s a ritual you might be able to do, with my guidance. It will give me a temporary body—”
“I said I’m not doing anything that hurts another person,” Navin declared. “Just because I’m not letting you use my body doesn’t mean we can just use someone else’s. Being human doesn’t work that way, Newton.”
Newton sighed. Loudly. “If you would actually hear me out rather than rudely interrupting me, you would realize that I don’t intend to harm a single living being.”
Navin frowned. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, dear boy, we’ll try putting my consciousness into a dead body. Take me to the nearest cemetery—stat!”
Navin stared at the demon. “Will that even work?”
“Who knows? Let’s give it the old college try, eh?”
Could things get any weirder? Navin suspected that he was about to find out.
Sixteen
Isolde was smiling as she watched Donna chase off the faeries.
“Enough,” she said. “We have had our fun with our unwelcome guest. Now let us find out why she has invaded our lands in the first place.”
Taran shook his dark hair away from his pale face and drew his sword. “The court of Faerie demands to know why you are here.” His words were formal, as would be expected considering his role as the queen’s chief advisor.
Donna swallowed, fear warring with frustration. Frustration won. “Taran, you know very well why I’m here. You were at that so-called ‘negotiation’ in the Halfway realm.”
Isolde raised an eyebrow. “Insolent girl. You will answer the question.”
“Your Highness,” Donna said, ignoring the queen’s knight and representative, “I apologize for arriving unannounced. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could even do it. I tried, because I had to, and it worked. And yes, now I’m here and I wasn’t invited. But I need the Ouroboros Blade, and I’m not leaving without it.”
Cold silence filled the beautiful meadow. Every faery present was watching Donna as though she were a tasty meal served up especially for them. She felt the weight of their hunger and fear, their curiosity and their hatred. But she forced herself to stand tall and withstand the terrible weight of their regard.
“You did not come alone,” Isolde said. It was a statement rather than a question, so Donna didn’t bother to answer. She didn’t want to incriminate Cathal.
Taran took another step toward her. Bright white sunlight flashed from the blade of his sword. “Who aided you in this quest?”
Cathal stared straight ahead. His face was a golden mask.
Queen Isolde narrowed her eyes. They looked like chips of emerald. “Oh, we know who aided her, don’t we, Cathal?”
“Your Highness,” the golden knight said. He stepped before her and went down on one knee. “I wish to help my son survive in the human world.”
The queen tilted her head and stared at him as though she could see inside his soul. Perhaps she can, Donna thought.
Taran’s grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. “You have betrayed us,