If...

"If I kill her will it end this?"

"You can't." She didn't mean to snap at him. They were all tired and the tension in the room strung out between them.

Midir glared at her.

"Your father's decree still binds you."

"That was as a sentence. This is a..." He glanced at Fergus for help with the modern word.

"Pre-emptive strike," Fergus supplied, grateful for once for the reading he'd done on military tactics.

"Yes, exactly. Pre-emptive strike."

"Or simple defense. She attacks, we defend. If she happens to get killed in the battle she started, even the Dagda can't disapprove."

He knew he'd hired Fergus for a reason, and looked back at Keelia, smug.

"You can't kill her."

"Why not?"

Keelia sighed, rubbing her temples. "Because if it was that simple, you would have ended this eons ago and we wouldn't be here having this discussion now."

"I haven't killed her before," he pointed out with careful logic. "It's something new."

"It won't..." She shook her head. "It won't stop anything. Not what she's set in motion. It's too...easy."

"Sometimes things are easy."

"And sometimes they're not." She watched him steadily. "Do you think she crafted something this complex and then just bound it to her life to rest on your uncertain temper?"

He thought about that for a long moment. "She might have gotten careless."

Keelia gave him an exasperated look. "For all we know, she has a backup plan that would trigger something catastrophic should anything happen to her. Far all we know, she's bound us together and if you kill her, you kill me. The simple truth is, we don't know enough and any move we make that drastic, we had better be very sure about."

Fergus nodded his agreement. Midir looked back as the seconds on the clock ticked and then finally sighed and slumped back into his chair.

"Then what are we sure of?"

Neither of them had an answer for him.