Chapter 16 #3
Newt doesn't argue with him. He's quiet for a moment, and then he says, "The mortal.
The one Penny bonded with." He's circling back.
Erath can see it happening, the way Newt is connecting things, fitting pieces together with the intelligence of someone who has always been better at reading people than people have been at reading him.
"If Penny rebuilt the triangle, then he can enter the underworld alive. The way my mother could."
"Yes."
"Which means Angelica doesn't necessarily need Penny.
" Newt's voice has gone flat, the careful steadiness of someone following a thought to its conclusion and not liking where it leads.
"If this mortal is bonded the same way my mother was, then he's a conduit too.
He bridges the same gap. Angelica could use him instead of Penny, if she found out about him. "
The room goes cold again. Not the slow, incremental drop from before.
This is sharp and sudden and Erath feels it happen and doesn't try to stop it.
The thought hadn't occurred to him. It should have.
It's obvious, in retrospect, the kind of obvious that is only invisible when you're standing too close to it, and Erath has been standing very, very close to Sidney.
Sidney is a conduit. Sidney bridges life and death the same way Penny does, the same way Angelica once did.
If Angelica discovers this, if the Coven discovers this, then Sidney becomes the target.
Not as collateral, not as leverage, but as the instrument itself.
They could use his body to open the rift.
They could use him instead of Penny, and the outcome would be the same, the door would open and the door would burn, except the door would be Sidney.
"Does she know about him?" Newt asks.
"I don't know." Erath's voice is very controlled.
Very level. The kind of controlled and level that comes from expending significant effort to keep the alternative from happening, and the alternative involves the temperature dropping another thirty degrees and every plant in Newt's apartment dying.
"The Coven has encountered him. Twice. They attacked him in an alley.
But whether they know what he is, what Penny has made him—" He stops. Starts again. "I don't know."
Newt looks at him for a long moment. Then he says, gently, with the care of someone who understands exactly how much the next sentence is going to cost, "You need to tell him."
"I know."
"If he doesn't know what he is, if he doesn't understand that the bond makes him a target in his own right, then he can't protect himself. He needs to know, Erath."
"I know." The repetition is harder the second time.
Erath thinks about Sidney's face, about the calm that Erath has only just learned to read on it, the calm that replaced the tension and the wariness and the reflexive assessment of exits.
He thinks about telling Sidney that the bond Penny forged doesn't just link them.
It makes him a target. It makes his body a potential doorway.
It makes him the thing the Coven will come for next, and the coming will not involve a giant and a backhand in an alley.
The coming will involve blood circles and chanting and the sensation of being pulled apart at the seams. He thinks about what that information will do to the calm on Sidney's face and the thought is physically painful.
"He's strong," Newt says, reading Erath's expression. "If Penny chose him, he's strong. She doesn't choose wrong."
Erath looks at Newt. Newt looks back. And there's a moment between them that holds the full weight of their history, the stepfather who couldn't protect the boy and the boy who forgave him anyway and the girl they both love who is at the center of everything, always, pulling people into her orbit with the uncomplicated conviction that they belong there.
Erath turns to Malik. "Who can we trust to help us with this?"
Malik hums, uncrossing his arms and drumming his fingers against the counter.
The pensive expression shifts into something more calculating.
"Dimitri has a soft spot for Newt," he says, in a tone that suggests he finds this mildly annoying but ultimately useful.
"He and his human would be good allies. Knox has dealt with the Coven before. "
Newt nods, looking marginally more steady now that there's a practical conversation happening instead of an emotional one.
"Knox would be more than willing to help.
He already has experience dealing with Jayson Voss.
And from what I've heard from him, the Templar, Vale, is trustworthy and not afraid of circumventing the rules of Haven or the Order to ensure the right thing is done. "
"If we're looking for experience with Voss," Erath says, "then we need to consult the one who killed him in the first place. August. He'll come as a packaged deal with Vale regardless."
"I don't know August personally, but everything Knox has told me lines up. They're solid."
Erath turns back to Malik. "Get in touch with Dimitri."
Malik raises an eyebrow. "You want me to ask him? You could just command him."
"As much as I enjoy telling Dimitri what to do," Erath says, and there's a dry edge to it that makes Newt's mouth twitch despite everything, "I have other things on my plate than dealing with a rebellious demon.
Get Dimitri and his human on board. Meet us back here with Annabeth to discuss the plan of action. "
Malik inclines his head, which is the closest thing to a salute Erath is going to get from an incubus, and it's enough.
"What about August?" Newt asks.
"I will see to August."
Newt thanks him. Erath tells him not to. He holds Newt's gaze and says, "If you need me, call me."
Newt nods, eyes bright, and something passes between them that is older than this conversation and bigger than this room.
It's the promise Erath should have been able to keep years ago and couldn't, reissued now with everything he has behind it.
Newt seems to understand. He's always understood.
He's always been better at understanding than the people around him deserved.
Erath turns toward the portal Newt opens for him. The stairs descend into the familiar gray-green dark. He pauses at the top.
"Newt."
"Yeah?"
"His name is Sidney." He says it without turning around, says it to the dark below him rather than the room behind him, because it's easier that way. "If something happens. If the Coven moves before we're ready. His name is Sidney and he's breathtakingly stubborn. He'll die before he helps them."
There's a pause. Then Newt's voice, quiet and firm: "I'll look out for him."
Erath descends the stairs. Behind him, the portal seals.
The underworld receives him back the way it always does.
The cold, the dark, the endless hum of the dead going about the business of being dead.
He walks through it, past the river where the fissure has sealed itself in his absence, past the tunnel, past the structures that house the things that cannot be allowed to roam freely.
He has work to do. He has allies to assemble and plans to make and a woman to stop who once shared his bed and now wants to burn his daughter alive.
He has a man to find and a truth to tell that is going to put fear back into a face he's only just learned to read without it.
He has all of that ahead of him, and it's heavy, and it's cold, and it's the kind of fight that will require everything he has.
But first he has to go home. And the fact that the word home arrives without qualification, without the hesitation that has accompanied it for years, tells him something he already knew and has been avoiding saying out loud.