“They’re not Greek sirens though. They’re French. They’re half-snake, from the waist down.”

Pouncy frowned. “So like a gorgon.”

“No. Gorgons have snakes for hair. Except anyway, I don’t think gorgons are real.”

“A half-snake woman,” Julia said, “would be a lamia.”

“She would be,” Asmodeus snapped, “if she were in Greece. But we’re in France, so she’s a siren.”

“All right, but maybe she knows a lamia,” Pouncy said. “Maybe they’re related. Like cousins. You gotta think all the snake-bodied women have a network—”

“She doesn’t know a lamia.” Asmodeus put her head down on the table. “God, you have no idea what you’re asking.”

“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you, you’ve got to widen your search. I’m so sick of this cutesy Frenchy-French shit. Ever wonder why Clash of the Lutins was never a movie? The power levels around here are nothing! We can fly you to Greece, the money isn’t a problem. We can all go to Greece. But you’ve hit a wall here and you’re too stubborn to admit it.”

“You don’t know!” Asmodeus sat up, her red eyes flaming. “You don’t understand what I’m doing! You can’t just go knocking on doors like you’re taking a census. You have to build up trust. I’m running a network of agents here now. Some of these things haven’t talked to a human for centuries. The Golden Goat—”

“God!” He stuck a finger in Asmodeus’s face. “No more with the Goat!”

“Asmo’s right, Pouncy.”

All eyes turned to Julia. She could see that Pouncy had expected her to back him up. Well, she wasn’t here to play power games. If there’s one thing magic had taught her it was that power wasn’t a game.

“You’re thinking about this the wrong way. The answer isn’t wider, it’s deeper. If we start hopping around the globe cherry-picking myths and legends we’re going to burn through all our time and money and end up with nothing.”

“Well, so far we’ve got Golden fucking Goat cheese.”

“Hey now,” Failstaff said. “That stuff was perfectly edible.”

“You’re missing the point. If we go out there looking for something specific we’ll never find anything. But if we focus on someplace rich and really deep-dive it, work our way down through what’s there, we’re bound to hit something solid eventually. If there’s anything solid to hit.”

“Someplace rich. Like Greece. It’s like I was saying—”