One white, caterpillar-like brow rose. “What I want, if you succeed, is for you to bring the Fallen to me.”

My grip on the vial tightened. “What do you want from him?”

Her dark eyes sharpened into shards of obsidian. “I want just one feather.”

“Just one feather?” Unease festered. “What can you do with just one feather from a Fallen?”

“Endless things, child.” A smile came to her then, a dreamy, wistful one as her eyes closed. “Great and impossible things.”

“Terrible things?” I asked, hating how my conscience was tapping itself on my shoulder.

“All magic can be used for the great and for the terrible.” The Crone opened her eyes. “The outcome is always in the hands of those who wield it, and I have never used it in the way you fear on anyone who wasn’t deserving of it.”

I stared at her, knowing that wasn’t an exact confirmation that Zayne’s feather wouldn’t be used for something incredibly evil, but I either had to take her word on it or hand the vial back to her, find another way to even the playing field with Zayne. The latter could take too long. I may never find it.

“Okay,” I said. This was probably something I was going to have to account for once I received judgment, but I would do anything for Zayne. Just like he’d done anything for me. “I will bring Zayne to you.”

“Good.” She reached for the wineglass.

“But just so you know,” I said, waiting until her attention returned to me. “If you harm him in any way, I will kill you. You won’t even have a chance to use your magic against me. It will happen before you even realize it.”

The Crone took a slow drink. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

“So am I,” Tony said. “Because this was getting superawkward.”

“As most adult conversations do,” the Crone replied. “One day you will understand that.”

“Seriously?” The tiny seer looked offended.

The Crone laughed softly. “Don’t you still have a bedtime?”

The child’s eyes narrowed.

“He does,” the Crone told me, and I really had no idea what to say to that. “One last thing before we part ways, which we must do very shortly. I have to get this one back to his mother before she thinks I stole him.”

“Oh my God,” Tony muttered under his breath. “The things I could tell you...”

“But you won’t.” She leaned over, and for a moment, I feared she might topple right out of her chair and, like, break a hip. She kissed the seer on the cheek.

Tony rolled his eyes and wrinkled his nose in a way I imagined a normal kid of his age would. There was a smudge of bright pink lipstick on his cheek.