Page 36 of Bright Soul

With our new reinforcements, we attempted to kill the rest of the greater unnatural creatures still held in the library. The blue-skinned dimensional—the teleporting, unnatural one—beat us to two of them, but we caught him by surprise the next time and killed him. The remaining monsters died before evening’s fall.

There was little time to rest, though. We started setting traps on the ground floor of the library, knocking over stacks and scattering books and broken glass as part of our efforts to slow down the dozens of monsters and “zombified” supernaturals that would be coming for us the moment we triggered Myuna’s greed.

According to Grant’s intel, we were racing the clock more than ever. The more supernaturals Myuna turned to her side by making them white-eyed zombies, as he described them, the faster she’d be able to gather stragglers and animals to further bolster her army.

As we worked, some of my friends helped me turn over Hana’s instructions.

“Perhaps he is in a deep trance. Since it’s magical in nature, there has to be a trigger to snap him out of it,” Áine said quietly. She and I were on book scattering duty with Wren and Willow, while Geo and Roe distributed freshly smashed glass and arranged the stacks. Roe, of course, wore her crystal armor and cracked a few smiles by getting to be the one punching the windows and walls.

Ashbough Protective Services worked around us with snares and different traps, hiding them under the layers of junk we set down.

All the while, there were screeches nearby as Bianca, Ben, and Grace killed the warped birds that were staring at us from the nearest rooftops. It made for a disconcerting background chorus, so I tried to focus on the problem at hand.

“Why can’t augurs just say what they mean?” I muttered.

“Don’t be such a whiner,” Wren said, rolling her eyes. “At least you have a warning.”

I had to agree and check myself. Of course Hana could’ve just left me to my own devices with no help. It just wouldn’t hurt her to be a smidge more explicit in her instructions.

“How do you think we should go about waking Phaeron from Myuna’s trance?” I asked the irritable blonde.

A frown tugged at Wren’s mouth. “You know, it’s almost funny. Most spells or tonics we have access to would be for inducing sleep, not waking someone up. Since we’d never guess what trigger phrase or spell Myuna has used…” she pondered,biting her lip. “We could lock him in a containment room until her magic runs its course.”

I was already shaking my head. “If he’s not placed into stasis, he’ll be able to escape without much trouble.”

“Well, that’s an option. Her influence should fade if we manage to kill her.”

Áine spoke up. “Maybe if we teamed up and beat him soundly?”

I stifled a sigh. That sounded like a great way to get several people killed, Phaeron included. But it seemed the only options we had were the not-so-good ones.

“Well, there is something else I could try,” Áine said when we didn’t jump immediately at her first idea. “Remember after we fought the Hunger the first time…Phaeron swore an admission of debt to me?”

My brow furrowed. Fuck, that first near-deadly fight seemed like it’d happened ages ago, not months. “Did he?”

“Yeah. More specifically, it was a debt of gratitude for healing him, which is the most benign-seeming debt you can swear to a fae.” She had an impish little smile. If it weren’t for her deer legs and poofy tail, I could forget Áine was one of the fair folk. But with an expression like that…she was clearly versed in the kind of trickery that had formed legends about her kind.

“Can you call in a debt while he’s entranced?” Willow asked, her own face pursed in deep thought while we spoke.

“I can always try,” the faun answered. “If the trance is not tied with a soul debt, he should immediately respond.”

Willow seemed in, at least. “What can you ask for?”

“That’s where it’s tricky. I could hit him with the direct one we want. ‘To show your gratitude to me, wake up and say my name.’ But he could fall back under Myuna’s sway immediately afterward if he needs longer than a split second to fight her control.” Áine tapped her lips thoughtfully, standing aside whilewe finished up scattering the last few books for this corner of the library.

“To show your gratitude to me, release yourself from Myuna’s control?” I suggested.

“It has to be something he can reasonably do on his own on the spot,” she said, shaking her head and scattering a few flower petals from the sad-looking blooms tied within her long curls. “Mother Tree, I don’t want to do this, but…I could hit him with one of the banes of the long-lived. Before you all ask, those are experience, memory, and wisdom.”

I was glad I wasn’t the only one looking at her in bafflement. Willow and I exchanged a glance. “Can you explain more than that?” asked our soft-spoken friend.

“All right, fine. Most people think swearing a debt of gratitude is formally promising a fae a favor. Honorable fae would never ask for something that would actively harm another when the origins of the debt is, well, athank you. But when you’re immortal, like a fae, vampire, demigod, or dimensional, certain things are made more unpleasant by the passage of long stretches of time. It would not hurt Phaeron if I asked for him to recount every time and place he’s ever taken a sip of water, but he would be really fucking angry with me when he was compelled to speak continuously for however long it took to do it,” she explained.

“Could you actually do that?” I asked out of sheer curiosity.

She adjusted one of the flowers woven into her hair, causing it to bloom vibrantly again from a tiny touch of magic. “I mean, yeah. But I like him, so I think I will use the much shorter but just as baneful ‘remember yourself.’ There’s an old fae story about a villainous king who was defeated by those very words. He stood in place, paralyzed by years and years of things he’d forgotten all crushing his head at once. Ripe for the deposingand such. All the Crystal Court fae are going to roll their eyes, but if I have to, that’s the gratitude I’d ask of Phaeron.”

“Okay, that’s cliché as hell, but it just might work,” I said. We’d probably try some variation of all three; holding him in stasis, beating the hell out of him, and paralyzing him with memories. Though we continued to mull over possibilities as we worked, nothing else jumped out as a better solution.

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