Ezekiel’s wary features receded, the gold flecks in his black gaze blazing with knowledge. A curse passed through his lips, followed by a shake of his head, sending his unwashed dark hair sprawling across his lean shoulders.
If hell had a “look,” it was Ezekiel.
“Go shower,” Sethios said again. “We’re going to analyze Osiris’s compulsion and see what can be done.”
“Nothing can be done.” Ezekiel’s haggard tone revealed a part of him others rarely glimpsed—the part of him that cared for someone other than himself.
“We’re going to try anyway.” Sethios owed it to his best friend after everything he’d sacrificed for him and Astasiya and Caro. “Let us try.”
Ezekiel appeared ready to tell them all to fuck off, and if he did, Sethios would listen. But he suspected his old friend needed this break. And if Ezekiel was going to trust anyone to guard Skye, it was Sethios.
“Your daughter already tried.”
“Then let me try,” Sethios rephrased.
“You’ve tried before, too,” Ezekiel muttered.
Yeah, and it hadn’t gone well. “Do you have a better idea?” Sethios countered, knowing full well his best friend had no alternatives other than to allow her to remain in this magically induced coma.
The assassin’s jaw ticked, then he took a step back. “Fine.” He started toward the door.
“Steal some clothes from Gabriel,” Sethios called after him. He’d already raided the Seraphim’s closet himself, which was where his current outfit of jeans and a T-shirt had come from.
Ezekiel didn’t reply, disappearing from the room with a trace.
Issac lifted a dark brow. It was the only reaction he provided before shifting his sapphire gaze to Skye. He grimaced at whatever vision he found lurking inside her mind.
His ability to control mental imagery proved useful in this instance, as he could not only force the prophetess into a dream state but was also able to warp her nightmares into something less violent.
However, the strain of having kept her in that state for over seven days showed on his features. It required him to remain awake and alert at all times, something he could do as an immortal, but even one as powerful as Issac required some rest eventually.
Sethios also suspected the male was using a great deal of energy to monitor Astasiya’s mind, which was how he’d managed to pull her out of her latest dream of Caro.
Astasiya cleared her throat, her brow furrowing. “So I’ve tried compelling her on my own, just with verbal commands for her to dream a certain way. But each one always returns to a suicide attempt.”
Issac nodded. “Yes, the persuasion is harsh and wrapped around her mind in every feasible way.”
Not her mind, but her spirit. However, Astasiya spoke before Sethios could clarify.
“I can see it. Well, not see it physically, but I can sense it. Like a dark strand of barbwire wrapping around her psyche. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“I understand what you’re feeling,” Sethios murmured, his own senses picking up on the compulsion woven around Skye’s spirit. “We need to pull it apart. I just don’t know how.” If he did, he would have applied that knowledge years ago. “How did you break Osiris’s control over me?”
If she thought it weird that he referred to his father by name, she didn’t react. Probably because she called him Osiris, too. Not “Grandfather.”
“I… I don’t know. I was out of it. You didn’t recognize me, which hurt, and then I started thinking about you and Mom. My memories. How you made me run that day.” She swallowed, then cleared her throat. “And then I thought about where Mom is now. That’s when your compulsion seemed to fracture.”
Sethios considered that for a moment, his heart skipping a beat in his chest. He’d been enraged by the cement encasing him, suffocating him, killing him over and over, and then he’d been freed. It’d taken too long for him to understand why because his mind had refused to recognize the female standing before him.
When it’d finally registered, he’d thought it was his Caro, only the eyes were all wrong. They were his eyes.
He sighed.
That method wasn’t going to work on Skye. Neither Sethios nor Astasiya had that kind of history with the prophetess, making it impossible to unweave this compulsion through a familial bond—which was what he suspected Astasiya had done. She’d used his paternal tie to her to infiltrate his soul, thereby snapping Osiris’s hold.
Skye needed something else. She required them to unravel the mental strings, not cut through them.