But she was alive, even if hurt, and the relief that swept through me was so great that if I hadn't already been on my knees, I soon would have been. I closed my eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. At least one thing had gone right. It might not have been the most important thing – at least in terms of what was at stake for both this world and the other – but on a personal level, this was the only thing that really mattered. I'd done a lot of things wrong, but at least I hadn't killed Ilianna's heart.
Ilianna walked over, knelt in front of me, and wrapped her arms around me. She didn't say anything, and neither did I. Not for the longest time.
"Tell me," she said eventually.
I drew in a deep, shuddering breath and pulled away from her embrace. "My father said he'd killed her. I had no reason to believe he lied but —"
"You came here to check anyway." Ilianna smiled, but there was a fierce light in her eyes. "We didn't break the collar, but we did beat the bastard at his own game."
I frowned. "Meaning what?"
"It was you who gave us the idea, actually." She rose, dusted off her knees, then offered me a hand.
I accepted it, and climbed wearily to my feet. Azriel touched my elbow, not holding me up, but there in case I needed him.
"Or rather," Ilianna continued, "our discussion about creating personal wards and using the wearer's life force or aura to power the devices."
"I'm not seeing the connection."
Ilianna smiled. "Neither did we, not at first. But once we realized the cord hadn't tapped into Mirri's aural shield, it was then a matter of where else could it be getting its energy from."
"The source was its creator," Azriel commented.
Ilianna glanced past me and nodded. "Yes. And as Risa had pointed out, I'd learned enough of the magic to subvert her father's wards to our own use, so it was simply a matter of unpicking the appropriate threads in the collar and rerouting those."
She made it all sound so easy when it was obvious from the haggard appearance and tired stance of all three women that it had been anything but.
"So when my father tried to kill her —"