I opened my mouth and then closed it.
One side of the Crone’s mouth curled upward. “Ah, yes, so very obvious.”
All of that sounded somewhat obvious now, but... Shaking my head, I refocused on the Crone. “I came to see if there was any way that you could help me. I need to lure Zayne to me and somehow...” God, I hated even saying this. “I need to incapacitate him without hurting him so that I can try...try to bring him back to the way he was. He can sense when I’m about to use my grace, and he’s very powerful and...well, he’s unpredictable. I need to gain the upper hand.”
“And what if you cannot bring him back to the way he was?” the Crone asked. “What if he is lost to you?”
My breath caught as my chest seized with pain. For a moment, I couldn’t vocalize what I’d already acknowledged I had to do. “I will do what is necessary to make sure Zayne doesn’t become a monster he would’ve hunted, but I don’t believe he’s lost to me. I know he’s not. I know.”
“So, you have faith?” Toby asked.
I looked at him. “I have...” I trailed off. Why was it so hard to say? Faith was...it was a slippery thing, staying with you and then slipping through your fingers before you knew it. If I had time to psychoanalyze myself, I was sure it would have something to do with my absentee father, the loss I had experienced throughout the years and the general unfairness of life, but I didn’t have time for all of that. The important part was that I did. I knew that as I stared at the kid. There were moments when I didn’t. Hell, there were entire days when I didn’t, but even when I had doubts, and Lord, did I have a lot of them, I had faith that there was a purpose.
I drew in a deep breath. “I have faith. Maybe not always. Maybe tomorrow I won’t, but I...I refuse to believe that I would be put in this position with everything else going on, only to lose him all over again. I have faith in our love. He had enough faith in our love that he Fell for me. I have faith that what I feel for him will be enough to bring him back.”
Tony stared at me through eyes that seemed decades, if not more, older. He nodded, and I wanted to ask if the honest answer had been the right one.
“I can help you,” the Crone announced.
My head snapped back in her direction, and I almost couldn’t breathe. “You can?”
She nodded as she took another sip of the pink, fruity-scented wine. “You need a spell that brings him to you and also traps him.”
Traps him? Suddenly an image of Dean and Sam Winchester formed in my heads. “Like an Angel Trap? That sounds like some Supernatural-esque stuff.”
“Heh,” giggled Tony. “I’m a Castiel fan. You?”
I almost pointed out he seemed too young to be watching that show but refrained. He’d probably seen some crazy stuff. “I’m a Dean fan.”
“Of course you are.” His eyes rolled.
“I have no idea what you two are talking about,” the Crone said. “But yes, like an Angel Trap, I suppose. Well, more like a person trap, but that’s neither here nor there.”
My brows lifted as I saw an encircled pentagram in my head. I really needed to stop watching TV. “How do I create this spell—trap, whatever?”
“You will need a few things.” She lifted a hand, motioning with her fingers.
From wherever Tony had roamed out from, a male came forward, looking more like an accountant than an actual witch. He was fair-skinned and middle-aged, dressed in a black suit. He carried something in his hand. He placed it on the table beside the Crone, bowing in her direction before turning and heading back to wherever he came from.
The Crone picked up what I now realized was a small glass decanter, no bigger than the length of her hand. “I had this cooked up for you today, you know, just in case today was the day,” she said with a wink, and I shivered. “So, it’s still fresh, but it must be used tonight.” She handed it to me.
I carefully took it, turning the narrow, oval-shaped glass in my hand. There was deep gold liquid inside and...and smoke? Golden smoke? “What is in this?”
“This and that and probably a whole lot of what you wouldn’t want to know,” she answered, and the look she gave me warned I would be wise to not pursue her comment. “All you need to know is that it won’t harm him. You need to take that to where you first saw him as a Fallen.”
“Rock Creek Park,” I told her, and of course it would have to be somewhere superpublic.