Chapter 245 - Let No One Have It

Well, vampires really were afraid of sun, silver, and sharp objects stuck in their hearts. There were much more things they weren't afraid of, though… Too bad I didn't have a fey to ask about this.

And I checked in the next few days that I spent researching everything even remotely related to the subjects. I asked Avarice, as someone who seemed to have the most weird connections, but even she didn't have friends amongst fey.

"The very idea is laughable," she told me. "Fey are essentially spirits of their lands, and like most spirits, they find vampires unnatural abomination that goes against everything they hold dear. There are always exceptions, but spirits as a rule so rigid in their nature that they are extremely rare."

Then, there was a matter Eve had an idea about. After asking Ghost and looking for information in Nightingale's library, I found very little about anything like Eve described… but the bit about fey's fear of cold iron appeared to be a truth. Every source I've read about fey agreed that they were afraid of iron, though what iron exactly and how much was up to debate.

Whether this was or wasn't true, I decided it was better to over-prepare than to under-prepare.. I bought a crate of raw iron ore and used magic to shape it into small disks that I could place around my house and my pockets. I also made an iron box for the jade seal.

As for something that could absorb Staghead's power… saying was really easier than doing. It came from the nature of power, any power.

Only witches, thanks to their wells, were free to move it around as they wanted, no matter who it belonged it. Others could only control their own auras and power. That also meant that pulling aspects out of someone was harder than pushing them into them, since that someone would resist.

And power that Staghead expelled was still his, the same way a vampire's glamour was still his, even though the power to use it was outside his body.

"But," I muttered to myself, chewing on a pencil, "silver diminished vampires' power when it comes in contact… Could there be an analogy?"

A sound of a tea mug being put on my table almost made me jump, so deep I was in my thoughts. I've been holed in my room, trying to come with a solution to this particular problem, for how many hours? It felt like half of the day.

"Will you listen to me if I ask you to take a tea break, ma chèrie? Your head will work better afterwards."

I turned to JJ, who leaned on the table and was studying me with slightly narrowed eyes. The sight of him, so concerned and so handsome, did more than any tea could in refreshing my mind. It was better than any energy drink.

"I don't think I need any tea anymore…" I reached for the mug, anyway. It was of the perfect temperature and sweet. I smiled. "Thanks, JJ."

He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement. Then his eyes shifted to the notebook full of scribbled notes in front of me. The gears in my head turned.

"But silver weakens you because it enters a reaction with your blood and negates its connection with you, isn't it? Now what an interesting question—does silver negate the power of vampires because it makes them lose blood, or does it make them lose blood because it negates their power?"

JJ blinked. I could see the gears shift in his head, too, now. "This is certainly something beyond my area of knowledge, ma chèrie… But silver doesn't negate vampires' supernatural abilities or has any effect on us unless it enters the bloodstream. I can only assume that it means that your first hypothesis is the correct one."

I hummed, nodding, and put that down in notes. "But then, what it is in vampire blood that makes silver react to it so much? Silver… Silver is a purifying metal. It couldn't be just that, could it? What if I added the corresponding aspects to something else?.."

"Let's say I pretend that this line of thinking doesn't alarm me at all…" JJ chuckled. "Whether or not you reach any conclusion, how can you know it would work in the similar manner on fey? They are absolutely different creatures."

"That's true. But!" I made another gulp of tea and raised a finger in the air. "The idea itself makes me think. What could counteract Staghead's fey power? What aspect counteracts the ones his aura is made of? Oh, I wish I could take a look at it again. The last time I was so busy with other things that I didn't remember all that much."

JJ hummed in agreement. "I would like to see his face again as well. The less is heard about him, the more I worried about what he schemes in this very moment. I can only hope that this lull in his activity comes not from a nefarious plan he prepares, but from his need to lick his wounds or from the careless way fey are known to treat time."

"They are immortal, or at least able to live for thousands of years. I suppose that would give them a tendency to procrastinate." I snorted. "You know, this guy must've lived when the Seal of Absolute Knowledge was still whole. Most probably he didn't need it back then, but it's funny to imagine that he was putting off his plans to get it ever since back then and until now."

JJ laughed. "Oh, to be born without ever feeling shackles of time! I wonder if he acts with a belief that he has unlimited time to achieve what he wants."

"It would be a wrong one." I grinned. "Worse comes to worst, as much as I don't want to do it, there nothing stopping me from breaking my part of the seal…"