I took a seat at the little kitchen table, getting my weight off of my injured leg. "Today's going to be pretty intense," I said.

Thomas flipped a pancake. "Because of the heirs of Kemmler?"

"Yeah," I said. "If Mab is right about what they're trying to do, someone has to stop them before tonight."

"Why?"

"Because after that I'm not sure anyone will be able to stop them," I said.

My brother nodded. "Think you can take them?"

"They're fighting among themselves," I said. "They're all going to be more worried about their fellow necromancers than they are about me."

"Uh-huh," Thomas said. "But do you think you can take them?"

"No."

"Then what you're talking about isn't heroism, man. It's suicide."

I shook my head. "I don't need to kill them. I only need to stop them. If I play this right, I won't need to fight anybody."

Thomas flipped another pancake. The cooked side was a uniform shade of perfect light brown. "How are you going to manage that?"

"They need two things to make this godhood thing go," I said. "The Erlking and the knowledge in The Word of Kemmler. If I can deny them either, the whole shebang is canceled."

"You figure out those numbers yet?" Thomas asked.

"No."

"So… what? You going to put a hit on the Erlking to keep him from showing up?"

I shook my head. "Mab gave me the impression that the Erlking was in the same weight class as her."

"She tough?" Thomas asked.

"Beyond the pale," I said.

"So you can't kill the Erlking. What, then?"

"I summon him myself."

He arched an eyebrow.

"Look, no matter how mighty he is, he can't be in two places at once. If I call him up and keep him busy, then the heirs can't summon him to their ceremony."

He nodded. "How are you going to call him?"

"The book," I said. "It's almost got to be one of those poems or songs. One of them must be an incantation to attract the Erlking's attention."

"But you don't have the book," Thomas said.

"Yeah," I said. "That's the kink I haven't worked out yet."

Thomas nodded, scraping the last of the batter out of a bowl and onto the griddle. "Even if you do figure out how to call the Erlking, it sounds like he might be kinda dangerous."

"Probably. But impersonal. That means not as dangerous as one of the heirs going godly and showing up to give me some payback for annoying them." I shrugged. "And the only one in danger will be me."

"Wrong," Thomas said. "I'll be with you."

I had been sure he would say something like that, but hearing it still felt pretty good. Thomas had a truckload of baggage, and he wasn't always the most pleasant person in the world—but he was my brother. Family. He'd stand with me.

Which made what came next hard to say.

"You can't," I said.