He closed the book and willed it back whence it came.

I waited. No, he wasn’t being dramatic. He was done. “That’s it?”

“Graeson was specific. He wanted a location, not motivation and not identification.” He picked at a thread sprung from a seam in his pants. “You’re fortunate Enzo keeps such meticulous records. Had I been entranced alone, all I would have remembered speaking would have been the answer to his question.”

“Meemaw did say not to accept his first offer,” Dell whispered.

I glowered at her. “Not helping.”

“Sorry.” She winced.

I rubbed the tense spot between my eyes with my pointer finger. “The apocalyptic nature of the divination didn’t, I don’t know, concern you?”

“Not particularly.” Tired of the loose end, he snapped his finger, and the thread knotted. “All divinations have bleak aspects, and most possible futures bear grim tidings. I can’t drop everything to run off to save the day every time a world-ending forecast is made.”

“How is the world possibly ending not your problem?” I challenged.

“For some of us…” his gaze drifted toward the ceiling, “…it’s not a possibility but a certainty.”

How accurate were his divinations that he could afford to ignore such dire warnings? Was he truly content to let the world run out of time since his wife’s was so limited? Or did he place his materialistic faith in people like me, who, to borrow from Mai, must have a savior complex?

“Now, the mermaid.” The bracelet dangled from his fingers, an incentive. “What will you give me for her?”

A growl rose up the back of my throat that was echoed by Dell and the wolf at my feet. “I agreed to pay you a vial of blood for your help.”

“The blood was for the divination.” He worried the beads through his fingers like a rosary. “This is a separate price for a separate act.”

I didn’t bother making an offer. I didn’t see the point in it. “What did you have in mind?”

“Be our guest. Three days should do it.” A slight smile. “I might need more blood or—”

“—a fresh guinea pig,” I finished for him, rising to my feet. “The answer is no. You’re not the only one running out of time.”

The witch would draw out each nugget of information at a cost that would climb higher and higher. I had wasted my time coming here. What scraps I’d learned through the divination shored up Ayer’s rantings, but neither told me what had drawn Charybdis to Butler, Tennessee.

The only way to find those answers was to fly up there myself and take a look around.

“What about me?” Dell scrambled up behind me. “Is there anything I can do?”

Miguel was shaking his head before she finished. “Enzo bargained with me to spare you from my agreement with the pack.”