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accomplished. When I finally die, the only one who’ll remember me and all this will be Morrigan.”
“She’s not the sentimental sort?” I guessed.
He shook his head. “It was a fool’s bargain we made. I saved her bird, and she told me to choose my reward.”
“What did you ask for?”
“Some would’ve asked for long life, strong sons. I asked to be a hero. To always have plenty to drink, plenty to fight, plenty of women.”
The skulls glared at us with empty sockets in eerie silence.
“If you asked for strong sons, she would’ve arranged for them to eventually kill you,” I said. “You can’t win.”
“Small solace.”
“Yeah.
I touched the Roman helmet. The metal felt ice-cold under my fingers. “The magic wasn’t in the world when they were around.”
“It was dying,” he said. “There was just a trickle left. I slept through its death. When I awoke and fell through the mist, the world was on fire.”
The first flare…So many people had died during that week.
“The little girl, Mouse, you called her…I’m trying to protect her and to find her mother. The witches said they would help me but their Oracle needs your blood to heal one of them. It would be a very good thing for her to survive. She means much to many people.”
He took the skull away from me and brought it to his face, eyes to eye sockets, teeth to teeth. “What do I care?”
“The Witch Oracle lives through the ages, its members reborn, again and again. If you were to give them your blood, the covens would cherish your memory. Always. You would endure. You would be a hero and you would be known.”
He turned to me, his eyes bottomless.
“It would cost you nothing. It would mean everything.”
CHAPTER 22
THE MIST VANISHED AND BRAN AND I POPPEDout onto the stone floor of the Oracle’s dome.
Teleportation was overrated. Sure it got you where you needed to go fast, but hanging weightless in the mist gave me a nasty case of vertigo. On top of that, I had to cling tenaciously to Bran to be teleported, and he had trouble keeping his hands to himself.