“I think he thought there was a chance it might not work, and he wanted to get to know me. The legends seemed to have gotten that much right—he likes knowledge. Something we could use a little more of, right now.”

I glanced at the head again and shivered. I’d already known that mingling souls could transfer abilities; it was one possible outcome when demons had sex, for example, that a skill or talent could pass over. And it was essentially what Pritkin, Mircea and I had been doing through the Lover’s Knot spell, which created a soul bond.

Except that we were borrowing each other’s powers, not carving them out of a bloody corpse!

Jonathan, on the other hand, had stripped Jo’s soul of her ability to channel the Pythian power, and somehow grafted it onto his own. I’d seen what was left when he finished with her: a screaming lump on his side with what looked like a small, vaguely human face trapped under the skin. I thought he’d been able to do that because of his necromancy, and maybe he had.

But where did he get the idea?

Gertie’s shrewd brown eyes captured mine.

“You think he attacked you to gain power over time?”

“It’s not exactly a new concept. Jonathan intended the same thing, since Jo was only an acolyte. I would have been an upgrade.”

“It is one ability that he lacks,” Gertie agreed. “But we are talking about Zeus, not the king. You believe he is somehow lending Aeslinn this power?”

“I don’t know. But I need to. Jonathan could do freaky things with souls because he was a nine-hundred-year-old necromancer. We thought he was one of a kind, but if Zeus is allowing Aeslinn to do the same… he could have all kinds of abilities by now.”

“Like transforming into a dragon.”

I nodded. “It would explain how he was able to manage it when he has no dark fey blood.”

Gertie sighed, looking frustrated. “That doesn’t explain why he went after you, instead of me or Agnes—or Rhea, for that matter. Any of us could have given him what he needs, we all have access to the Pythian power. Yet he focused on you.”

“That’s why I need to do this. I need to know what he’s up to.”

“And you think that… thing… is going to tell you? Something like this, dumped in the wild, weathered for who knows how long—”

“Gertie! We have no idea what Aeslinn is planning, and now that he has Zeus working with him… I have to try.”

“Try quickly,” she said, finally giving in, with the air of someone going against her better judgement.