A satisfied smile crossed her face. “That’s good to know. I’m sorry I lost a bit of control. I’m excellent with healing and bodily magics.”
“It felt more like battle magic,” Dean said with a wince. He put a hand to his head. “Still feels like battle magic.”
The worry hit her face again. “Perhaps you should let me thoroughly examine you. I have a spell that will let me survey your mind.”
Oh, I could not have that happening. “Give it some time, Dean. I assure you I felt the same way.”
Dean’s brow furrowed. “Well, you handled it way better. You picked up the Green Man, and I could barely walk in here on my own legs. I think you’re right and I need an enormous amount of training. I thought I was stronger than this.”
Erna stared at him for a moment and then her mouth went flat. “I think I should examine you, Dean. I would hate it if I missed something and you got hurt.”
I couldn’t overplay my hand, but I did have one last card to play. “How long will that take? I need to move out soon. I was going to take Dean with us since he knows the way to the door, but I suppose we can make our way there with a map of some kind. Or perhaps you could do a guiding spell.”
If there was one thing Dean didn’t want to miss, it was saving Summer.
He sat up straighter and I saw the stubborn light in his eyes. “I’m fine. I’ve got a headache, but Kelsey is right. It’s already getting better. I should be fine by the time we head for the door. We need to move soon or we’ll miss the second time it opens.”
The kettle started whistling and Erna turned her attention that way. “We can’t miss that. Summer must be brought back home as quickly as possible. We cannot allow the witches to take her into custody. It will be infinitely easier to break her out of the Vampire plane than Arete.”
“I talked to my parents last night,” Dean said. “They’re going to send us everything they can about the building Taggart would hold her in.”
“Excellent.” While we were on that mission I would convince Dean that his mentor wasn’t the cool chick he thought she was. I had to wonder if there was one of these suckers in Summer’s head. Marcus should be able to tell. I discounted his earlier dealing with Dean. He’d been overly emotional and not thinking. He hadn’t been looking for anything out of the ordinary. He’d been totally focused on getting Dean to gut himself. Luckily, Dean didn’t seem to know anything was different about himself, but the quicker I got him out of here the better. If he started to behave in a way that let Erna know he was free, we could be fucked. The witch had power and Daniel was vulnerable.
There was something about Erna…something I didn’t like. My wolf senses were tingling but I didn’t have time to figure out what was off. I wished I had Liv, or that Zoey had brought Sarah Day with her. I liked having a witch on the team.
Something moved right outside my peripheral vision and I turned and saw Arwyna fluttering into the room.
“Hello, pixie,” Dean said, managing a smile.
Arwyna had spent the majority of the night clinging to her priest’s hair. According to the queen, the pixie had a bad reaction to a spell the wizard had used on her, and that was what had caused her near-death experience. She was humming with life today, her ruby wings vibrant in the morning light.
Arwyna fluttered around him for a moment and then moved right on to Erna, who brought up a hand to wave the pixie off, but then seemed to think better of it. “The pixie won’t leave me alone. I thought she was with the Green Man.”
“She won’t hurt you.” I found it odd that a woman who’d spent so much time on Faery planes seemed disturbed by one pixie. She should have been used to the suckers by now. I always thought it was cool when they landed on my hair and hung out for a while. It doesn’t happen often, and they scatter if either of my husbands show up. I apparently had proven that I wasn’t going to make a snack out of them, so I was an approved resting place.