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"I don’t need to justify myself to you," Mona told him, smoothly "You are but a tool to be used in my plan You do what I ask and then youto be that easy? Is anything ever that easy Mona?"

"Are you atte an intervention? Is that what this is?" Mona er between the hed "Oh, believe me, I am well aware of just how un-savable you are, but you don’t have to take us all to hell with you"

"Too late"

Cypher watched as she closed her eyes and waved her hands in front of a group of trees The wind picked up and the sky grew darker as black clouds rolled in A shimmer in the air between the trees formed and Cypher could feel the evil trapped behind the veil

"You’ve been hiding it?" He asked her

"I didn’t want just any old idiot co another to write a book on how to open it"

Cypher’s brow rose "You know about the book that ritten?" He didn’t name the book for fear that she would realize that he had it, and because he didn’t want to draw attention to hihed, dryly "You do relared at her, but held his tongue He and Peri had decided that he needed to appear as cooperative as possible for as long as possible

"Enough chit chat," shethat since you are here then you knohat you are doing?"

Cyphersheath

"You knohat they say about assuht?" He asked her as he ran the knife across his arm

Desdemona rolled her eyes "We all know that I’m an ass Cypher, that’s not news to anyone"

Cypher cut another slash across his ar to bleed out before you’ve opened it right?"

"Do you want rowled

"Touchy, touchy," Mona ainst a tree She watched as Cypher slashed his other arm the same number of times as the first Rivers of blood snaked down his arround around his feet Mona watched in fascination as the blood, alan to join and flow as one towards the shian to ht him His mind was drawn back to the look on Peri’s face as she explained the requireic could never be acco some form of price and it was usually a life or blood Peri’s face has taken on an ashen hue as she read the words of the book She had looked up at him and he could see the answer to his unasked question

"It will take your blood," she told him

"Come now Peri, we are both too old to skirt around the truth," he had teased

Peri’s eyes had shimmered with unshed tears