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My attention flicked to his and held "Not at the sa his teeth, Landon shifted his feet "Bis around?"

I nodded, glancing at the ceiling "He’s sleeping, but he wakes up occasionally" Especially when I was upset, but Landon already knew that

Fro to die for Lucy’s safety I’m not about to sell her to you for a little less black I want, Ellasbeth Get used to it"

My God, Trent could be callous when the situation called for it, and I propped my elbows on the stainless steel counter between Landon and myself

David had once toldhis security, but by causing hirow, to lose his at-any-cost outlook that the needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many, that the ends justified the means I’d seen it Hell, I’d lived it while a eneticist to preserve his secrets and his money flow But he’d tempered himself Because of me, if David was to be believed, and it had saved his life because, as David had said, he wasn’t going to h another Kalamack bent on elven supremacy Perhaps Landon had risen to fulfill that role instead, and I stifled a shudder at the thought because where Trent had a conscience, Landon did not

"Why are you here helping uarded as he spun the book Trent had brought over to face him "Trent told et their souls back I tend to agree with hi the va about their end I don’ta part of that" He hesitated, and my heart thu this if you think it will drive them into suncide?"

"Because Ivy’s life is more important than one lousy vampire who’s already on his way out" Uneasy, I rubbed a watermark on the counter Fear that the vas didn’t go the way they wanted was never far fro my hopes--and my decisions

Landon made a sound deep in his throat, and I jumped when he shut the book with a snap "Trent’s char that he’d startled me

"Because it uses the auratic residue left in the mind and body to adhere itself with, and the undead have completely polluted theirs with the auras they take in to survive"

It was exactly what Trent had said, and gri "You have another way?"

Landon pulled his attention back fro room "In theory The charm dates back several thousand years I’ve never heard of anyone trying it"

He was lying I could tell in the way he was standing "Soit’s a black charm?" I prompted Elves were reluctant to label their charms as black and white--but a white charm never went out of style "I won’t kill anyone"

His eyes ca with people already dead"

Oh God It was a black char I can do this without trusting him Hell, I used to ith demons

Landon shifted the book between us until it was perfectly square with the counter He was thinking, and my mistrust deepened "In theory? It fixes the soul of an elder to a newborn It was said to have been used to extend our collective knowledge past the grave" He looked up, jaw set "I’ll write it out for you"

"Let uess You have to destroy the newborn’s soul to do it" Yeah, the dely the things , finally turning to pull a few sheets from Ivy’s printer "Pretty an to sketch a pentagrainal soul must be forcibly ripped away and the old soul fixed into its place Most times, the recipient becah priest back then, I suppose" He looked up, readingperformed for several thousand years"

"But you still kno to do it," I accused

"Aren’t you lucky for that," he shot back "You can’t get a soul to spontaneously attach itself and hope it sticks, even if it’s his own soul and his own body It left once, it will again"

He was right, and I tried not to look so pensive The thought occurred toic, just to do it And destroying the soul of a newborn so an old ot "No wonder the de to co a list of ingredients beside the pentagram

I cocked my hip and watched hi healthy babies and substituting your own failing infants is pretty nasty"

"So is a thousand years of slavery Or creating a species for your own pleasure, one that necessitates acts of perverted brutality to survive, acts co about the va their unborn children"

Landon stopped writing "They did it first"

But who really knew the truth? I couldn’t solve a puzzle two thousand years dead

His motion cocky, Landon spun the paper to me Listed was a ned to sy white, sunrise spider silk, aspen sap, a copper M&ouram with--and a familiar phrase of Latin Tislan, tislan Ta na shay cooreen na da

My lips parted and a wave of disconnection flooded me as the words rose from my mind "That’s the phrase Trent used tohollow, as if fro a double take as I blinked to findme?"

"Not this one," I reassured him "But he held my soul in a bottle for three days while my aura replenished itself I remeh me, and I held the counter as if it wasn’t real I’d been trapped incookies that faded away until Trent and I worked together, a sy our minds so he could pull me out

"Kalamack put your soul into a bottle?" Landon said, his disbelief obvious