"We?"
"Me, Cael, and Fang." She gestured toward the bed. "If you lie down, Fang and I can pull your essence out and you'll be able to go with Dev."
"You can do that?"
"We think so."
"Think" was not a power word, especially the hesitant way Amaranda had said it. A chill washed over her. "What aren't you telling me?"
"There's a chance that you might not be able to come back...intact."
Oh yeah, that was bad. "Care to elaborate?"
Amaranda's eyes echoed her uncertainty. "I'm going to have to take you into a deep unconscious state--not something I've ever tried to do before. I might screw this up and it could leave you outside your body forever. Or you could be left in a perpetual coma."
Sam glanced back to the wall where Dev was writing down Thorn's riddle so that he could decipher it. He was risking his own freedom and his life for her.
Could she do anything less for him?
"I'll do it."
Amaranda bit her lip. "Do you understand the risks?"
Sam nodded. "Thank you for at least trying. I really appreciate what you're doing, and if you screw this up, I promise I won't hold much of a grudge."
She made a sound that basically said she thought Sam was an idiot for agreeing to do this. "I hope you still feel that way in the event I can't put you back together again."
"Believe me, I will."
Amaranda gestured toward the bed. "All right, then, lie down and let's attempt the impossible."
Sam obeyed her. Flat on her back, she met Amaranda's nervous gaze and smiled before she repeated the Amazon battle motto. "Who wants to live forever?"
Especially if she couldn't live it with Dev.
Dev sat at his desk with his head in his hands. He let out a long frustrated breath as he studied words that made no sense to him whatsoever. "In plain sight on the banks of the Champs-Elysees, the girdle lies hidden away. At the brink of the darkest night, the location fills your sight. To see what can never be found, look for the circle round. To reclaim that which the gods rescind, you must face mightiest Whirlwind."
The Champs-Elysees was a road in Paris and there was a circle at the end of it. While it was near the water, it wasn't on the water. So how could it have a bank?
And never mind that whole whirlwind nonsense. He'd never known something like that to strike Paris.
"This is hopeless," he muttered as he reached for his iPhone to Google info on Paris. Even with all of this being a long, long shot, he wasn't going to give up.
Not on Sam.
A knock sounded on his door. "I'm busy," he called, assuming it was Aimee wanting to annoy him with something petty like he forgot to put the seat down on the toilet or left a sock in the bathroom. She was forever yelling at him over bullshit.
"Dev?"
He paused at Fang's muffled voice. "Yeah?"
Fang pushed the door open. "We know where you need to go."
"The mental ward?"
Fang laughed. "Yeah, but I was talking about your current matter, not your long-standing reservation." He slid a meaningful glare at the paper Dev was studying.
A whisper of hope ignited inside him. "You know where the girdle is?"